Of Cracking Eggs and Evolutionary Relationships

This Is A Diamond

It is clear that This
is a Diamond.
Multifaceted. Faces of God.

Each time I see you now
I have only two choices:
break open
or
openly break.

How can I explain This?
It might be easier
if we
leave the castle
climb the walls
enter the city
and let Our Love be made
in

All of God's streets.

‘This Is A Diamond’ – Em Claire ©2007 – All Rights Reserved

People usually think I'm this ultra wise person because of my spiritual practices and contemplative creative life-work. The truth is, I'm also this simple girl who has real issues to deal with. Like, I don't know, say maybe, Love? 

Particularly a romantic relationship between man and woman.

As a mandala artist, being in a romantic relationship with someone has been a great process of union, separation, and integration.

First, because the mandala helped heal my PTSD from a former partner who had his own wounding issues. 

Second, the mandala helped revive in me a deep relationship I have always had with the dream world and my own birth vision manifested through this sacred art form in relationship with someone two years ago. 

I am not expecting you to figure these two out as its something I'm not confident to share about in public. I can't really explain the details of these awakening affinities but the deep process of letting go of deep patterns of co-dependence and attracting men who clearly wanted something else (or most of the time someone else) these last two years is turning out to be one of the healthiest things I have done in my entire life. 

Joseph Campbell said, "Destruction before creation."

It's the egg's breaking before the yolk is brought out that brings about creation (but yes, it is also a hearty breakfast my love). After all, the entire universe required that friction and the chaos brought about by the collision of energy that formed matter. This human being, 80% galactic dust, is a product of the dance of form and flow of opposing forces.

But that doesn't mean creation's dance to give birth to itself and these wonderful creatures we call ourselves is not painful. 

It's Osho meets Buddha. Tantra meets Yoga kind of thing. Until it spirals out of the marriage and separation of flow and form, its what humans call a "break-up."

A big BANG.

The other night, I was in one of those late night taxi rides with old love songs are on full blast and I just  wanted to break into a musical to laugh at myself because its painful to realize how much I do still miss someone. 

Packing my stuff in boxes again. It's officially a regular ritual for me every two years ever since I was probably born. 

But in the spirit of growing up and turning 30 in a few months, something just needs to be unfurled, unwired, unfolded, untangled.

To dance like the spiraling of a galaxy.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I was afraid of commitment myself that's why I was attracting partners who were just the same. Despite the opposing forces of yin and yang, there is that magnetic factor of sameness. 

…I had just come back from my walk yesterday and I was glancing through one of your books when out fluttered a picture of you. You looked maybe 15-gaunt and haunted. Realizing how much I loved you, I burst into tears. I have not told you a hundredth of what I hold in my heart for you. I know that your journey has reached a turning point and I want to give you strength. I have loved you since I was 13, when I first saw your hand move across that sheet of paper. I have loved you in every manner my imagination could contrive. I have wanted you so deeply that my body sang with pain and pleasure. You have become my obsession, my passion, my philosopher’s stone of fantasy. You are my desire, my longing, my spirit. I love you unconditionally. Do you hear me, Griffin? Do you see that I cherish you beyond question, that you have nothing to prove to me? You are making your journey to secure yourself. I am already tethered to your side. If you can love yourself as I love you there will be no dislocation- you will be whole. Bring yourself home to me and I will immerse you in every ounce of tenderness I possess. 

Sabine. 

When I was 14, I had a dream of someone whom I cannot describe here. And he remains to be a mystery up until now. God I hope he's not an alien. This person's mysterious presence appears over and over again in my dreams and in the love stories I'm drawn to. Like this cult classic story of Griffin and Sabine which I read as a 21 year old. 

When I was 21, I met this wonderful artist and so the story goes.

Today he's married and he has a kid.

Suddenly it came rushing one by one: I loved movies of revival after long separations, affairs, and even a supposed happy ending yet the lover has terminal illness. All these years I have been idealizing Sartre and de Beauvoir; Gibran and Haskell; and yeah, Griffin and Sabine. All these years, I would turn down friendships by men who seemed to have no issues or problems and were likely to be committed and loyal.

Is it really a star-crossed pattern for all creative relationships? Is creation an eternal process of union and separation?

Was I dooming myself with all this drama?

Warning: this musing might sound like a postmodern American comedy in a TV series but it's not. Come to think of it, we Filipinos talk like this in our heads (If you got that, you shouldn't be surprised why I used "eggs" instead of "balls" for this blog's title)

I'm not writing this because most of friends my age are already married and with children. When my mom was my age now, I was 4 and she just gave birth to her 3rd child. Things are perfect the way it was as it brought me to life this way. But I can't imagine myself as a parent right now. Not primarily because of the uncertainty of nuclear warheads ready to strike or the peak oil doom but because I want to be ready and clear. I want to be this wonderful mother who had her true adventure and self discovery  on her own eventually to meet someone who has also done his inner work himself.

Which brings me to this: I am writing this because all this packing up is asking me to no longer carry what is not helping grow and evolve.

And because its part of my creative process.

This used to be a romantic memory but sometimes, I'd like to pretend this is me stomping on his feet with force. 

My co-creative journey with my former partner was a beautiful and profound one. When that went away because I chose to leave the relationship: I wasn't ready and he was still working on his own commitment issues - I was afraid to co-create again. 

Not even with just a man but even with everybody. 

I was afraid to teach mandalas again. Afraid that people will use my ideas. Just like a former partner is using my ideas through an art project with this new girl.

But what does it mean when I say MY ideas?

That's an ongoing existential process for me... for my work with the sacred arts involves my surrender to be a channel of the Source of true creativity. 

Isn't this the eternal question of every artist who lives his/her entire life in the service of Creation?

But yes, I am human too. (I say that with a non - E.T. crop-circle fanatic tone)

I'd love to be with someone I can truly co-create with. Someone I am healthy with. Someone I am wise with. Someone I can journey the world with to explore mandalas further. Sure, someone who would love to send me letters too (but just to me not like someone I dated who writes all the girls he has the hots with); and yes, someone who would understand and love my run-on sentences.

I'm just kidding.

Well, yeah it's true. 

Nowadays, its ok to be jaded. It's ok to sing goofy love songs out loud to release some unresolved sarcasm. It's ok to wish that any guy I meet will not be attracted to me for now (or the other way around). It's ok not to look good for a man and have break outs while my body releases all the toxins because of raw food. If he doesn't get that, then he's not the one.

But who is THE ONE?

A Jungian would interpret Griffin and Sabine as the union of the Anima and the Animus... the integration of polarities, archetypes : East - West; Light - Dark; and yes, Man-Woman.

One is a pretty big number if you think of it in the language of Oneness.

I used to be in a Oneness campaign with this guy. But when this died out, I started doubting about Oneness. Referring to it like a greenwashing campaign. It's as if it was easy to be one with everybody. Sometimes you have no money, sometimes you can't express yourself, sometimes nobody understands you, sometimes the man you think you still love is just with someone great right now.

Yet here I am packing up to move into an intentional community that has Oneness as its vision.

Between that point of disillusionment about Oneness to the point of readily letting go of prestigious opportunities (even to announce that I am truly single and available), to go to a Oneness community was this:

the mandorla experiment

This liminal almond space between two circles: a Vesica Piscis, or popularly known as a Mandorla. This point between two circles, the point between humanity and divinity, the point between what is inner and outer. The transcendent space between happiness and sadness. This is the point of meditating what is true or not.

Which brings me to this question: What is True love?

Perhaps my thousands of years - old soul is still learning that. Which is why I'm still here, right?

But you know, one thing I am learning about the quest for true love:

It is the story of God and humanity. 

Eve must be the entire earth this Man is sitting on. Ah yes she's everywhere around God the Father :-)

It's the story of separation from what originally was, and the evolution towards what it is becoming... which is the pure essence of what it was in the first place.

My teachers have taught this over and over again: When you realize that God is within you, you will no longer need to find that outside of you.

I'd like to believe that my journey to Oneness, hell, perhaps my journey to meet the One, requires this Oneness with my Self.

I'm just honoring my space of self love and self forgiveness. I'd love to do this first before I can truly be happy for him and start telling him why it went wrong even if I scream at him so he can no longer do this mistake with this person he's with if this person is really truly making him happy. Because that's what love is right? And that also means, I deserve that kind of love too from someone who really wants to be with me.

But yes, I'd love to believe he was a beautiful and wonderful person on the inside out. He taught me ultimate courage and adventure, qualities my fear - oriented self who grew up with a wounded childhood has been trying to learn all these years.  He taught me to be my authentic self as he has always been deeply honest with his weaknesses and foolishness. I didn't realize there was great wisdom with that until now when I am revealing myself naked this way. Because of my constant fear of him always flirting with someone else, I came to realize how much I didn't love myself to be confident enough to be secure with my own beauty. Most importantly, to love myself enough to feel deserving of someone who didn't need to desire someone else. This at the same time respecting the kind of journey to love he finds self actualization from no matter how different it is from mine. For we are all, yes that includes you, just needing to experience love the way we want to.

This is probably going to take time. Much longer than it took you to reach this part of my public monologue. Maybe I am not that evolved yet as much as I wish I could be like how he can manage being subscribed to my facebook updates because I deleted him. Maybe 10 years from now, my children will find this facebook reference as old school as Khalil Gibran's and Mary Haskell's letters. What's next could be something as complicated as rocket science or my growing obsession on how one can be a hippie yet a hipster at the same time. If you don't get that, that's basically the point if I speak from the state of projection and sarcasm.

The truth is, if I speak from clarity and wisdom, the point is this:

A mandala is born from a point that danced to become a circle. From that point on, that mighty dot that started it all became the heart of things and the core of integration. And the heart, is where all things boil down to.

He was my complete opposite and that broke us apart but led us to a deepening of what really truly makes us whole (at least I hope it has led him to that). We are mandala artists after all.

Maybe this point of clarity in authentic happiness for my freedom with equal regard for his newfound joy with someone else will reveal itself soon or not. But this is the point wherein miracles happen, when I learn to let go of expectations (including that obsession with that dream years ago or even the idea of being with someone again) and just truly work from the yolk within - one sunny side up at a time (or in my case once I settle at  Maia where I am abstaining from this amazing comfort food and maybe any romantic relationship: magical healing from buko juice from one hacked coconut at a time).

This will be my true love story : My Dearest Sarah... Love, Sarah

So for now... just as it has been before and will always and forever be...
THIS IS LOVE: 

" to fly toward a secret sky,  

to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. 

First to let go of life.                                                                                                        

Finally, to take a step without feet." 

This "my Beloved," Rumi reminds me, is to really be TRUE LOVE. 

It's time to let go and fly.

Sagada

In loving gratitude to R, with whom I've shared love, shadow work, crazy dreams, heartaches, deep seated anger, mandalas, and important evolutionary wisdom with:

May we never forget the relational and co-transformative nature of human expansion. Although the ultimate romance is with your own soul, it is our experiences together that give birth to the essential lessons. We are each here to participate in this dance of sacred imagination, stepping on each other’s toes and turning each other toward God one clumsy step after another. We trip, and then we get back up with greater awareness. With this in heart, I am hopeful that we can learn to accept one another in our humanness. We are going to continue to make mistakes, but there is grace in that if we see our errors through to the lessons they contain. - Jeff Brown (from Apologies to the Sacred Masculine)

Art + Advocacy Projects Aug 2011-March 2012

I have been to focused on inner work that I haven't had the chance to share a lot of my art activities since I arrived from Switzerland in August. Here is a documentation of my beautiful co-created art actions for peace and emergency recovery over the last 8 months :-)

Open publication - Free publishing - More arts relief

A Co-Creative Mandala for EARTHDANCE

Hi friends! I would like to invite you to a co-creative mandala making activity on Sunday, 25 September for this year's EarthDance. This mandala to be is inspired by the seed, flower, egg, and the tree of life.

After this, I've got 3 more mandala projects until December. One is with orphan children, another for puja/fire rituals, and a mandala workshop using the ancient Filipino script Baybayin with my Diwata friend Mini Gavino. There's also a possible mural project using Islamic and Christian mandalas. Reflecting on these schedules, this time, I asked for a name for the mandalic co-creations that I can use instead of just solely using my own. What was revealed was the word Diwa-Ta Mandala Co-Creations. This came because I asked about how one can represent and channel sacred and co-creative work. It is not primarily my work or creation. So with this new name, I continue to honor the co-creative process with the sacred, with fellow artists, people, and the earth that take place in creating beautiful sacred circles for ritual spaces, workshops, and expressive arts. There is deep meaning in the name and will blog more about it soon.

Donations to seedling exchange at P100 and P300 for reforestation seedlings help support the work of Earth Dance artists and performers in promoting eco-peace and cultural values in communities.

Here's the link to the facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/?ref=hp#!/event.php?eid=150141005079692 

War

I've been contemplating about this word a lot for the last 3 months.


And because of too much contemplation, I am at a loss for words.
I cannot move on to my intentions or dreams because I am stuck in this mode.

One very heavy reason for my silence is because I could not pretend I am ok with this word because I am a peace worker.

Wait, I'm tempted to rephrase that. That sounded right in my head but as a sentence it doesn't make sense.

But war doesn't make sense at all, right? This is why it is a source of so much loss and pain.

I just came from two wonderful experiences that are preparing me to form my life path as an artist and peace worker. I had my summer class in Switzerland for my Masters in Expressive Arts for Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding and a recent trainors training in Sri Lanka on using a manual interfaith/intercultural ethics education for children.

I have so much plans, ideas, projects, modules, artworks to create! So many doors are open!

If you can imagine how prestigious and unique these experiences are, then you would assume I would be in so much bliss right now.

Sadly, I am stumped. Like I was stumped days after I arrived from Switzerland.

Nothing to say.
All I can think of is war.

So I will talk about war and why war has silenced me for awhile.
Maybe writing about it will help.

I am at a point in my life wherein I feel the extremes of the duality between male and female, east and west, colonizer and colonized, etc.

I broke up with a foreign partner last April because the relationship was so unhealthy it was sucking the life out of me. I told this person that I admitted that I was not ready for a relationship and that I was co-dependent to jump into another relationship after an abusive one before.

Even though this person broke my trust (oh he said Neale Donald Walsch said we shouldn't ask people to trust us because that means we expect something), I admitted to my own part of the problem.

That's co-creation right?

We are adults and we can admit our own mistakes in a situation. But the painful thing about it is that to him I had the freedom and choice to be in or leave the relationship and that he had no part of it. At least it was how it came out. It was as if the person had no role in the break up.

I really hated that. I was really angry at that. I was in rage inside me. I was experiencing war. I could destroy this person's image if I could, even file a police report if I could. And I could. I could do that. And that fact scares me. This fact made me feel what war was about. Revenge, anger. HATE.

What confuses and angers me more is that I am a peace worker who meditates, does yoga, tai-chi, teaches peace and dialogue... and I am capable of so much anger.

And this anger triggered so much anger from the past - at an ex for the physical abuse, angry at a foreigner who got a young friend pregnant and encouraged abortion...anger at my father for his lack of emotional connection... heck even anger at the entire colonial history of my country. I am angry at this person because to him nothing went wrong and that it was only me. I remember telling him that by denying he has no part in what happened, he just said just told the millions of women who suffered war, abuse, and violence that they were entirely responsible for what happened to them.



Exhale.

Truth is, I couldn't blog at all because I've been trying to be careful about what to write because I know people look up to me so much. I am on a spiritual path and I try to be integral in all that I do - my thoughts, words, and actions must be aligned.

But being human and being on a spiritual path isn't about repression and denial. During the training on ethics education for children, one of the bridging modules asked question, " What happens if we fail to respect one another?" This module helps children understand that this is part of the realities of the world which is why conflict happens. For me it means that it is important to be aware of all sides of our humanity. Including the parts that are not peaceful and that the journey to peace includes this part of the experience - understanding the divide.

Lately, I've been reflecting on why I am working with children and peace. Maybe it is the lost part of my childhood I am also healing. That part of me that was lost when my parents screamed at each other and broke up. Expressing how conflict is part of reality to children is very challenging. My heart tightened as I was explaining to the children in my street that they will no longer see my former partner whom they were asking about and were looking forward to seeing.

To live authentically and to embody this life path of peace worker and healer asks me to embrace my shadow and my pain and anger. After all, I believe we cannot hold a child's hand and walk towards peace if we do not know what we are talking about - if we have no experiences of transformation to draw from.

To tell you the truth, I've never been so stressed my entire life as I go through all this anger, loss. I've never had acne flare ups like this since high school. I've never been lost for words this way before nor lose touch with my inner compass.

I know I eventually have to let go of all this anger. I mean, there's so much in store for me that is a hundred times better than this numbing and life force leeching state.


One of the activities we did during the arts for peacebuilding class was to use a mask for expressive arts. The role assigned to me was to be WAR. Reaching out from this fresh experience of wounding, to be war to me was to be cold and to be blank. It definitely made me imagine what it was to be war. And the coldness helped me cry deep inside. Nobody could see me cry behind the mask. I cried because war can silence us and numb us.

I cried while watching a documentary about theater for peace with a clip on a Buddhist monk who suffered the khmer rouge genocide saying, " The mighty never apologize."

But as one probes deeper, there is the other side of this war too.

While in Switzerland, the Norway shootings took place and it got me deeply questioning about every human's capacity to become an Anders Breivik. This brought me back to a a peace camp sharing last year when Bosnian Imam Vahidin shared his experience of divide first hand during the genocides between Serbs and Croats. After his sharing, it struck me how vulnerable we all are - both oppressor and oppressed to be able to experience such horror. 


One of the artistic outputs I participated  in was a lullaby for a  soldier - to convey that soldiers were once children too and that the cycle of war repeats in children affected by war. After the performance, the class was in tears. After all, we have all experienced different kinds of war before.


Whether political, economic, cultural, or personal, war can really take so much out of you.

But as  it takes so much out of you, you empty a lot and offer up more space for new things to happen.


I know I need to let go of this anger But before I let go I realized I need to honor its place in my life. I need to because I believe it is important to heal before we realize oneness. Oneness movements sometimes fail to recognize that. Its so tempting to say its so easy for the westerners have everything and are finding meaning in developing countries to say we are all one. For many of the global south and the minorities (women, indigenous peoples, etc), we cannot be one if we are hungry, uneducated. We cannot be one if we still have the history of colonization,abuse, manipulation, dis-empowerment, and of being used. Besides, the reason we strive for oneness is because we have lost it or forgotten it.



I remember how healing it was to watch this video ago. It is so healing to know that it is possible for men to apologize and to admit their part in the healing journey to oneness.

It helped me recognize that men were also children once, and that their historical DNA for thousands of years was gear-cut for survival which has led them to make co-creation and oneness impossible in the past.

I may not be ready to face him or forgive him soon but I'd like to learn to respect my former partner for being who he is, for standing for what he believes in for we are all free to be who we are. All I can do is to choose for myself and for my well-being.

I feel a lot better after sharing this. Maybe someday I can embody the beautiful letters of apology to the Sacred Masculine and apology to the Divine Feminine by Jeff Brown.

So it is. It is time to start letting go of this anger for I am no longer growing by keeping it inside. Tomorrow will be a new day. Or at least, I will take it one day at a time.

I remember during a very extreme situation with an ex before, I screamed so loud that the power went out. Electricity would run through my veins when I'm extremely angry. I realized that if I could do something with negative energy, how much more with positive energy, right?

Last week, I was in Sri Lanka, the place where Sita, the wife of Rama in Hindu mythology, was kidnapped by the evil king Ravana. To reclaim his wife Sita, he waged war against Ravana and killed him.

I like to remember this story because it marked this important trailmarker in my life of waging war to reclaim what is precious to me, to reclaim who I really am. This blog is also about waging war with my silence, with my fear of being judged for my authenticity.

I am not ashamed of being angry or being hurt and this gives me courage to go through the fire just as Sita did to prove she was pure to Rama after being captive of Ravana. Fire in many rituals is used for purification as it is the element that can do that.

I am so excited about how my life is shifting now and I know I need to cross over from this and to rise from the ashes like the phoenix. Talking about it has now given me release and I am grateful for the safe space for sharing.

Mandalas in Nature with the Muslim-Christian Youth Groups in Manila

Mandalas weave communities together!

Last March 12, I was invited to facilitate a community mandala making for the Muslim-Christian youth groups from Tala and Culiat communities in Quezon City. The group was undergoing a grassroots leadership training under the United Religions Initiative Bowes Award grant through the Peacemakers' Circle organized by Orlan de Guzman. Russell Maier of the 1Mandala project co-facilitated with me with his co-creative energy and mandala making expertise.

 

The whole day activity was the first time the youth groups met each other after undergoing trainings in their own communities since October 2010. We celebrated the gathering through learning about mandala making and interconnectedness with nature at the La Mesa Dam Eco Park.

The workshop started with mandalas in creation through a dyad sharing with "divinated" images - they pick out a card that's upside down and discuss what the image is telling them. The images were of mandalas in nature (galaxies, plants, spiderwebs, a mother's womb, etc). Afterwards, they learned about patterns in nature and the elements of mandalas in art making (lines, shapes, color, patterns). Russell guided them in a symmetry exercise connecting them to their mirroring dialogue experience. In the afternoon, I shared about mandalas in sacred symbols from different faith traditions and led them to symbol making by connecting themselves in nature. We didn't have enough time to do a geometric pattern exercise with Islamic stars and arabesques and Christian Rosette windows but I hope to do that some other time. We closed the day with co-creation through a community mandala making with chalk, their personal symbols in nature, and natural found objects. 

That's Alan Berguia, Community Coordinator for Tala and Culiat communities. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

photos of mandalas in creation upside down waiting to send a message across :-) Photo by Orlan de Guzman

Drawing Patterns observed in Nature after a nature walk. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

Russ facilitating a body mirroring symmetry exercise. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

co-creating a mandala in groups

After creating a mandala in groups, the challenge was for them to go back in a wider circle and see how to connect the mandalas into one bigger mandala as one community

We closed the activity with a ritual prayer for the healing of the earth. I asked them to touch the earth and connect their heart beat to its heartbeat and to send good energies to Japan (the workshop was held the day after the quake)
photo by Wilma Busadre

co-creating with russ (sometimes drives me crazy! but all works out in the end)

Here's a video of the mandala making in action:

 

P.S. I had no sleep preparing for the workshop so I made sure I loaded with alkaline water and green smoothies after channeling reiki on them for the whole day adventure of working with 70 young people! I can now attest to the power of live food and energized water!

Shining Out Our Lights for Peace

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Spirit, Love, and Art that Feed the Soul

This morning, I woke up with the bright and lucid laughter from children outside my window.

Tonight as I was walking home, I comforted a little boy from my street crying his heart out as he got locked out of the gate and everyone forgot about him.

Happiness. Sadness. Laughter. Tears. They're all part of the simple innocent world of children. They remind us of the most basic feelings and the wisdom behind growth and evolution.

One of my first B&W film photos of the wonderful and warm streetchildren of Katipunan Avenue while I was in university. This was for a visual anthropology class which led me to work as a volunteer art teacher at a local streetchildren literacy center. (The red ball was photoshopped. Oh! I also self studied Adobe design programs at this time as I helped them design a poster and coin box for restaurants encouraging people to give to the center that would facilitate nutrition, literacy and support to parents instead of giving the money directly to the children)

It's tough to see a lot of them on the streets. Generation after generation, the cycle continues. I have been working with streetchildren since I was 18 as a volunteer storyteller and art teacher and always always when I interact with them, I feel there's something lacking in what I'm doing. My 8 years of development advocacy work began with streetchildren. So I believe I owe a lot of my life-work experience from them. Despite what little I have done and the work of all social workers and children's welfare supporters I know, a lot of them are still in the streets. It has never been a simple problem. So many factors are behind its continued existence.

Slowly as I deepen in my spiritual path, my life work with advocacy and art, I am always reminded that all change starts from within and in interaction with other beings, the best gift is the gift of presence.

"Speak a blessing to each child," as the arts relief workers from a transformative arts training I undertook would say. Spiritual teachers remind, "Change yourself and you will change others and the world."

So these have inspired my life-work philosophy for a long time now. The important act of self transformation and the power of intention and presence can be more nourishing than food and shelter. Of course this could be debatable by old school social workers  and those who do not see value in the invisible affective power of art and spiritual "interaction" in the life of a child. While I choose to support causes that help them in a holistic way, I can also look into their eyes and smile with them even if I have no food to give.


There are so many ways people have been doing to bring children back to their homes or to shelters and off the streets. Some require working closely with parents and helping them find livelihood since this is one of the main roots of the problem; others work in shelters where they are given their basic rights to food, shelter and literacy; some do soup kitchens in public; and some give them whatever food they have in their bags instead of money. There are really simple acts we can all do with our simple ways of being. We will never know how far our actions reach and how it will help shape the life of each child. But know this, every presence that touches a life is a gift for both the giver and receiver. 


Back in university, I arranged to bring some streetkids to watch a meteor shower at the UP Observatory.  It was the look in their eyes and the awe in their voices as they saw meteors rain from the sky that was priceless. They don't usually see these things in the city as they walk in between the bright headlights of SUVs and bumper to bumper cars of Manila.

Last Christmas, my friends and I made parol mandalas with 100 of them who are already based in shelters. Again, that nagging feeling of I wish I can do more arose from time to time. Eventually I affirmed to myself that it was the simple act of helping them believe in the power of their dream through visioning and half-manifesting it through drawing and art could even be more powerful - for thought and images help shift a person's destiny. It was our collective energies of intending and believing their dreams for them that made the art activity very special. It was a beautiful complimenting action to what the shelters are already providing for them.

I was inspired to write this blog because just tonight, I was in a jeepney with 6 streetkids who hitchhiked on their way to the wet market (perhaps where they will be sleeping next). I gave each one a dalandan (local orange) and told them to compost the peelings on soil and plant every seed they collect from the fruit. Jericho, the curious one asked: "what is lupa (soil)"? It was so heartbreaking to hear that they don't even know what soil is.So I took time to point out trees out on the road and the soil beneath them. If I had more time and if this was during the day, we would be getting off the jeepney, playing barefoot on the soil, and planting the seeds with our hands!

Walking home, I thought of sharing this beautiful video Russell made out of our Christmas art action when we made healthy whole wheat banana pancakes for streetchildren we meet on the streets. Lots of charities were giving out styrofoam packaged junk that we felt it would be nice to share something that would nourish them and the earth. We used banana leaves to wrap the pancakes and asked the kids from my street to design the shape of the pancake on the front of the banana leaf packaging (I forgot to push for them to make mandalas instead for we have made mandalas before! But I was also too excited to care too much.)

Even if I moved on from working with children to other fields of development (art education, environmental management and peace work), children are still stakeholders I want to work with. I am happy to share this beautiful experience of sharing and giving through the power of presence with every child we meet whether through art, smiles, nutritious food or the love between co-creators that can share so much blessing from level of the heart and spirit. 

Mandalas and the Magic of Co-Creation

 

This is a beautiful image of co-creation. 

It is a beautiful symbol of healing and loving - for oneself and the other 

and the magic that flows through

 Two Mandalas. Two Beings. East and West

that form a Mandorla in the middle that unites as One.

(May 2010)

I have so many year end reflections to share most especially from this international peace camp I am at right now. But I don't want to end this beautiful year without sharing this co-creative experience with my beautiful artist colleague, friend, and love Russell. I just spent a beautiful Christmas with him and feel so inspired to share this.

You see,  I am still on a journey as a wounded healer and artist. After ending a life changing experience with a traumatic relationship last year, I thought to myself, maybe I should really be a monk this year and not see anyone. I have never intended to open myself up with somebody again. 

But some glitch in the fabric of time placed a unique gem as a gift across my path. This Jedi was thrown off course from his journey to this island where I have been trying to live peacefully on my own and lo he happens to be an admirably beautiful person bringing the world to oneness, someone working with mandalas just like I do, and someone learning the process of loving oneself and loving another like I do too.

We met mandalically through the 1Mandala Project when I responded to his open invitation to the world to co-create. It was uncanny to meet him personally while he was on vacation here with his previous lover as he has never planned to come all this way from Europe while on his cycling journey. Personally meeting him during a mandala workshop and a dance with a big interfaith community here was a nice way of crossing paths.Who knew what would happen then?

Since I was going through healing and he was still with a lover then when I met him 8 months ago, I didn't want to involve myself. But we all know we can only open up to love no matter the resistance for this is part of our nature. We are born out of love and we journey through this earth rediscovering this most beautiful word.

Yes too, perhaps as an artist, I have a natural curiosity to experience everything.  Given the serendipitous synchronicity that we share, we consciously started out as friends. We listened deeply to each other's wounds, to our healing process, to our dreams and fears. Oh my God, our dreams and fears! Opening up to him was really really scary. For the past few months, we cultivated a deep friendship that is conscious of our coping patterns - how we dealt with ourselves, with our relationships with others, and how we dealt with each other.I realized men have a lot of emotional struggles too. They are vulnerable just like women.

Sagada! (June 2010)

And then there were the cultural differences to go through - language, culture, even ways of being. (this is a long story! so maybe I can talk about this sometime in the future :-))

And yes, going back to my own healing process. Having real and honest communication with him was so important. I value that so much. I learned about being able to speak up too about my fears and needs. He says he is healing from this process too. And we give each other space when needed. We listen deeply. These are important. We are learning to respect each other's journey and to be happy to walk alone or together.

Most importantly, as a seeker on a spiritual path, I am conscious of cultivating my spirit as I grow and learn from this special affinity. I mean, I can totally choose to live in peace alone if I decide to do that. But again, we all evolve through our interaction with the people we are most intimate  with.

I am learning about how my own attunement to myself helps me in co-creating with another, especially if it involves more of my heart and my soul. . 

I believe though, healing or already healed, enlightening or enlightened - we all don't get to attune all the time. I believe that this process of aligning within requires mindful and conscious being and becoming. Many times I catch myself unconsciously interacting with my wounds and fears and I end up not communicating well and act out of attachment or fear of losing the other. And when I catch myself, I remind myself to honor this; that it is ok, and I flow until I reach a point of equanimity. It is ok to be vulnerable and afraid to love for this opens us up to the life changing experience of transformation. This opens us up to evolution. But important here is to be wise and aware when I know when it is not safe, when I know I am repeating a pattern, when I know I will not grow from it.

I then consciously pick up from the state of disconnect and connect back to the moment of being with myself. Being fully present with myself - my body, my emotions, my spirit. Having someone support that and hold your hand as you go through it is healing. In the end, we cannot heal alone. This process eventually opens me up to the joyous experience of co-creating, to the beautiful experience of now.

There's so much to say. I am learning too what I want in someone to walk with. There's really no certainty what happens next. It could be a continuous walk, it could be a parting of ways. This is a uniquely beautiful journey of the unknown. I am learning. This is life! This is the journey!

For now, just for now, I am just grateful for our beautiful co-creative artistic energies together. It has sure been a crazy beautiful year with my Oneness Jedi.

Love is a gift.

We are all love, lover, beloved.

*** Russ and I have worked on mandalas together with others these past few months.We have an upcoming project working on a Oneness Social Action for the 1Mandala project. We will be facilitating a mandala making activity and movie with teachers and students of the Guinaang Elementary School in the Mountain Province. This is supported by a globally orchestrated library development and enrichment for the school. Check it out through this link - www.1mandala.org/1Actions