Breath as Life

I write from Cagayan de Oro City where I will be based for the next few months as a consultant for a psycho-social support project for children survivors of Hurricane Washi/ Typhoon Sendong. Washi caused deadly flash floods in Northern Mindanao wherein thousands have died, are missing and have been displaced during the dawn of December 17, 2011.  


I am grateful to be given the invitation to help design and implement creative, transformative, healthy, and sustainable relief work in 3 barangays with about 240 to 300 children assigned to Kids for Peace Foundation through support partnership from Save the Children and SIDA. 


I'd love to share more about that but after a week-long workshop with Save the Children and other partner  NGOs in learning about psycho social support, establishment of Child Friendly Spaces, and development of modules - I just want to take a breather and take time to be present with my breath and the next steps that will be revealed.


It has been awhile since I shared my thoughts online. I still have backlog blogs about the arts based actions I shared with the Mindanao Week of Peace last November. Most of the time, my reflections have remained in my journal as transitions from 2011 to 2012 became too beautifully intense. It was just too deeply personal to share in public. Perhaps I can share some snippets of these beautiful insights sometime.

For now, I want to slow down and regroup my intentions and next steps while attuned to my breath. 
I'm happy to share a mandala design I illustrated for the album "Hininga" (Breath) by GINHAWA (Growth in Wholeness and Wellness Associates), a non-profit that promotes well-being through creativity and spirituality. It's a CD of deeply inspiring songs for meditation and rituals. One of the beautiful spirits I look up to, Leah Tolentino (who heads GINHAWA) gave the concept and the inspiration for the design of the cover. She wrote most of the songs while some were composed by Yeyette San Luis and Airene Landicho. Hininga is a beautiful musical masterpiece of the powerful voices of Yeyette and Airene. I was also given the beautiful opportunity to share my voice as harmony for a track "Hininga ay Buhay" (Breath as Life) with my friend Nota Magno. It was beautiful to have been able to channel a beautiful spirit song for this track which up to know still puts me in a trance whenever I listen to it. Here's a sampler you can listen to.

The songs in this album aim to foster well-being of the person and an affirmation of the whole of life, especially God's creation.  Just as the breath is the bridge of the spirit to our embodied self and the connective thread that links all beings (trees, animals, flowers, forests, human beings in the past, present and future), these songs express our intrinsic inter-connection.  One can listen to most of the songs for relaxation. Some of the songs   can be used for activities (workshops, retreats, rituals)   for the healing of the self, community and creation.  (text from CD jacket)

You can also check out the other samplers of songs on this album through this link:


Hining ay Buhay: http://www.podsnack.com/playlists/ab645e29b024271e29d5a283a13606

If you are interested in purchasing copies of the album (especially bulk orders), contact 0915.2952826 or ilishta@yahoo.com