The Peace of I: Zero as Circle

 The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men." - Black Elk                                                                        

Since this will be the first of a series of eartheart reflections called The Peace of I,  I started with a quote that talks about the first peace. I love this Native American wisdom and the cosmology of all indigenous belief systems around the world that sees the circle that connects all life to the self and the self to all of life. I feel so blessed having met a lot of mentors and guides from around the world who are guided by indigenous wisdom and practice. Words are not enough.

I walked around town today in a beautiful skirt with blemishes all over my legs from mosquitos and sandflies in Palawan and fresh break outs from emotional and partial raw food detox and PMS. And no matter how everything is chaotic outside, inside me is this lush of green plants sprouting from my heart. Just today, I couldn't wait to leap out of the jeepney and run home to dance under the rain when the sky broke loose this afternoon.

My room is still a mess and I have finally accepted that it will never be clean anymore until the last box is packed and shipped to Maia next week. Being with a lot of discomfort and emotional purging these last month in Manila was an invitation to mindfully discern what cleaning really truly means.

Palawan : As Above, So Below

On my plane on way back to Manila from 2 months in Mindanao and Palawan, I leafed through the first few pages of the book Zero Limits by Joe Vitale and Hew Len. It's interesting thinking that with all these years hearing about this book and the Ho'oponopono philosophy and practice, this book will find me or I, it at Maia's library. Unlike in my early twenties wherein I would scout for rare finds at used book stores, nowadays, I let a book find me. I'd love to believe that finding a perfect book is like a destined relationship between seeker and message bearer in alignment of perfect timing, just like opening a book randomly to read on a powerful message divinated just for you to read at that particular moment.

Had I read it before, I wouldn't have taken it with this much resonance.

I could swear that I was ready to die while reading it. My body was in a state of lightness that I could just merge with the clouds and surrender to heaven as if it was these cloud formations artists and seers have rendered as the eternal place after death. 

But that didn't prepare me for the deep cleanse that would take place next. 

Fast forward to a month of deep questioning and peeling of layers, the chaos inside me prompted me to look into how I show up as a peacemaker in my life. A friend of 10 years challenged me about my work in peacebuilding for the last 4 years. All ancient teachings, religious and spiritual traditions teach the essence of peace.  I should know this from my work in interfaith dialogue and sacred practices.

Yet, I still don't know. In the sense that knowing is wisdom in practice. 

I am in mindful awareness of the need to heal my wounds so I can fully forgive someone and this keeps me vulnerable to woundology, a state of being stuck in victim mentality as medical intuitive Carolyn Myss would put it. This paradox is an ongoing journey of embodying this beautiful Peace of I. The true knowing lies in the Wu-Wei, the practice of doing yet not doing in all conditions good or bad. 

A month later since, I feel I am now about to dock port from a ship that sailed me through the eye of the storm of purging experience of letting go and forgiveness work. At least, I'd love to believe, I am in my next destination or trailmarker after dancing with Venus as she transited around the sun yesterday.

I dug through my box of journals (God knows how I'm going to transfer this big box to Maia) to find my journal from June of 2004 when the last transit took place.

I found a small notebook that I wrapped with black cloth and hand painted with a moon and a flower. By the cover alone anyone could tell that this was one of my dark periods. I was 21 about to turn 22 by this time and I was working at a prestigious museum about to open its new building at the business district. I was still in love with this artist whom I chose to stop seeing the year before and weeks later he would invite me to his exhibit opening which I will end up not going to.@ I was writing down ideas for new paintings. I tried yoga asanas practice for the first time and I was going to turn a year old as vegetarian the next month. 

I found this in one of my entries and honestly felt this was the lightest writing so far. I don't even know if I wrote it anymore. It could be a quote that I copied from a book. But I remember the days I would climb up the roofdeck of the apartment building I lived alone in and stand up on the ledge to feel the breeze and write. Almost all of my entries in this journal wrote about the wind. 

The winds howl like the sea. I woke up as if I lived right next to the ocean. The leaves dance as the wind tickles them. They make such beautiful noise. I feel like I'm on a ship and I'm sitting on my balcony - above deck. Perhaps time travels faster when the clouds run- as if the earth spun at a faster rate - dancing. I want to dance with the wind. I'm beginning to think that where I live is not too bad after all. I stood up for around ten minutes and saw an almost perfect picture of the sunset with a block of square in the middle. But it was 11 minutes of God. I'm going to try my best to fight sadness - instead, I will make each day extra ordinary. 

On June 8, 2004 on the day of the first transit in our present generation,  I pasted a print out of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's well loved poem called "The Invitation." My friend Reena gave it to me. When I saw this the other day 8 years later to Venus' twin transit, it warmed my heart because I realized I was really this fragile and hopeless romantic person back then (I really hope no one gets to read these journals someday!). I read this poem as if I were speaking to a forever absent lover. 

It's beautiful how the video above accompanies the poem with the Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum that bows to the higher self.

On the eve of the recent Venus transit, I read this out loud and dedicated it to myself as a way of coming full circle from the first one and allowed myself to flow tears of liberation. On the morning of the transit, I found myself waking up from a dream of being with an abuser with my higher self intervening showing me my book of life about the spiral dance. I got up and lit a candle and let this float with a flower on a bowl of water in the middle of our stone mandala sacred space, cleaned the toilet mindfully, and took a loving beautiful shower. I dedicated these water blessings to the Lighting the Lights Ceremony by the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers who made a call for wisdom bearers around the world to hold a ceremony for water and Mother Earth through their WaterSongLine project. In the evening, I joined a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony with a visiting Karmapa and had my hair cut by him as part of my symbolic refuge to my own awakening. 

Walked around 3x around this stupa - like Mandala after the 17th Karmapa's lecture on the eve of the transit.

These rituals are just external things that helped remind me of the significance of my turning points within just like any other ritual that I have partaken in. Nothing about it is outside of myself. The symbols, the chants, the ecstatic experiences - they're there to help one connect my heart to the realm of all things. 

The other day, I looked at the mirror and for the first time, I stared deeply into my eyes and went inside the circle within the circle. I asked myself: "What do I really know about alchemy?"And hours after, a wise elder who was also a peaceworker from another part of the world whom I have never conversed with privately before messages me and asks me, "What is alchemy?" That same day, I had several synchronicities about shamanic plant medicine that connects one to other states and planes. It's interesting that I find these uncanny revelations very new every time it happens even if this has happened several times over the course of my life so far. 

The Peace of I, a state of Zero brings all these synchronicities about that bring one in alignment to one's sacred purpose or birth vision. I believe anyone can access this. We all have this beautiful capacity and potential to create magic and miracles in our lives. Conscious transformation is a process of clearing that takes place before this state can be reached. To the Ho'oponopono practice, its clearing with apology, gratitude, forgiveness, and love (I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank you, I Love You) to everyone and everything that takes place in one's awareness. These words are really the essence of all religions and sacred practices - love, compassion, forgiveness, transcendence, awakening, enlightenment, ascension. 

Most of the time we are focused on the envisioned state of bliss and enlightenment that we shun away all the negative experiences that take place on the road to this. It's how our society has created pill popping to muffle out illness, or strange behavior. We are so afraid of revealing our woundedness afraid of being judged that we forget to realize that illness is part of our body and spirit's way of clearing. Our body is so wonderfully perfect in all its functions that no quantum science can still fathom its extreme capacities and potentials. To encounter illness or states of dis-ease is part of the body's way of saying this is not really who you are so I will clean it out for you. To many medical intuitives, physical illnesses are a result of unaddressed emotional issues which they can see clearly in the parts of the body that need healing. Even beyond that is an astral or spiritual misalignment but that's an entirely different topic. The important thing is that awareness and acceptance that there is something that needs to be cleared and in the process honoring its dark, painful journey just as one would in a state of bliss. 

All shamans know this.

The shamanic processes bridge the seen and the unseen realms. To access this, all shamans undergo transformation, at least all the shamans and healers that I know of who really undergo death and rebirth (even the actual physical death). Their participation in the relationship between the seen and unseen and what they have control of and what they do not is true alchemy. I'm no shaman but all of us who consciously go through our own transformation and the bridging of what has been to what is yet to be are shamans in some way or another. 

Right now my process is this mindful moment to moment state of clearing of emotional baggages as I segreggate possessions to give away and to asses what is truly essential to keep. It's waking up everyday in a pile of boxes and old things or see another acne pop up with the inner knowing this is a beautiful part of my own alchemic transformation. I needed this affirmation to come from my own self saying, "I am in a perfect state right now." Seeing it as it is in deep observation helps prepare the way for clearing. At this point, this is where the alchemic process truly begins.

I want to end with sharing that I finally was able to finish the learning guide manual I was designing for Save the Children and Kids for Peace Foundation for Typhoon Sendong survivors a day before the transit. It was only fitting to wrap it up with the very first module I designed on children's coping and reactions based on the story of metamorphosis. Back then it was so impromptu as an interactive storytelling process that helped children identify feelings so I was not able to write it down. As a child I was always inspired by the book "Hope for the Flowers" by Tina Paulus and it was the first inspiration for this story. At the core, it is my own experience that brought it forth (Yes I am Yellow!). I have entitled it "The Magical Cocoon" and it tells the story of a caterpillar (whose name will be up to the children listening) who went to the unknown trusting the light s/he has within. The cocoon is that state of mixed emotions and disempowerment that take place after being displaced from a disaster. It can also be the evacuation center itself and uncertainty of how one's life can go back to normal. I still feel that it needs more tweaking but for now, its perfect as it is. Perhaps when I find the time, or when time finds me, I will really make an illustrated storybook out of it.

A small mandala I found by the Cagayan river during one of our site visits. This is the same river that swelled up and overflowed displacing hundreds of thousands and killing more than a thousand people along the Cagayan and Iligan Rivers last December 2011. 

I dedicate this to Bane Agbon and the ChildHeal Facilitators of Kids for Peace Foundation who invited me to share my learnings and ideas about integral well-being, expressive and transformative arts to their project with Save the Children. Up to now, I still cary this guilt that I could have done better or I could have just forced myself.  It was a long process of self forgiveness after I wrapped up my contract early as consultant and battled with my deadlines that I so often missed. I realized, I couldn't work in a large INGO system with fast paced demands requiring the delivery of many key messages in a very short time in a mass produced scale. I have deep respect and appreciation for the staff for their dedication because they still did what was needed to be done with thousands of children in immediate need. I realized I was knee deep in my inner work process too be healthy enough to dive in to the heavy demands of their work and this caused my burn out. Was I too idealistic to integrate whole systems approach in a process that just needed one aspect addressed immediately? I still wonder. But right now, I am just so grateful for all the learnings that I realized about my idealism and about simplicity. Tailor fitting my crazy art ideas that were adapted from my work with small communities into a limited time table, materials, manpower, and energy - not to mention more than two thousand children was not easy for a first timer in a major post emergency situation. It was totally different from our arts relief work with Typhoon Ondoy as I was merely working as volunteer artist. This time, the task to oversee the entire design of the modules and its implementation with an integral well-being framework became overwhelming with the intensive requirements of the funders. I sincerely appreciate all the patience and trust this organization has given me. I still hope I can learn from this further and maybe prepare much better in the future for this kind of work. 

Kids for Peace Foundation is a non-profit founded by Rosan Aliya Agbon who was 12 years old during an all out war in 2000 by the Philippine Government against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It was her dedication to bring children's voices in times of conflict that continue to inspire me and many leaders in our work for peace. I was introduced to their organization after the Lights for Peace ritual I co-created with artist friends and 400 interfaith public school children for the resumption of the Peace Talks between the Philippine Government and the MILF last year.