Kathang Pinay 2

2012-02-26T20:11:00.001-08:00

Thank you, Leslie Marmon Silko, for the lessons. And this.
Thank you, Gerald Vizenor. No manifest manners here.

Buaya People of the Cordillera

2012-02-23T00:05:00.000-08:00

(From Verbal Arts of Philippine Indigenous Communities by Herminia Menez-Coben)

The Buaya, crocodile people of the Northern Kalinga, have an epic heroine who was a headhunter as well as a shaman who danced on the edge of axes and tips of spears (58).

Her name is Emla in the Kalinga epic, gasumbi. In the epic, Emla and her female cousin, whose brothers Gawa and Battawa, are in the same epic cycle, the epic singer depicts the heroine as capable of heroism that is normally attributed to men only. She hesitates at first but then undertakes to lead the headhunting expeditition by: reading the omens; commands her pet crocodiles to ferry her fearful partner across the river; and as soon as she spots the victim she shouts, "I shall strike first!" As the head falls, she cries "The crocodile hit you through this woman, Emla!" She invokes her village affiliation as a member of a fearless people, Buaya, named after the fiercest animal in the Cordillera. Emla carries the severed head back to the village while the cousin brings the victim's heirlooms.

Emla's recitation of the palpaliwat/raiding boast in the epic represents transgressive performance that points to a deeper meaning of her role as shaman and warrior.

The performance of the raiding boast by heroine of the Buaya epic is anomalous since in real life only men can participate in palpaliwat. But the gasumbi singer is a woman and could have reinterpreted warrior politics as a genre of her own creation. Singers portray Emla as a true dulliyaw, a fearless warrior in the epic. Gawa, the brother, even relinquishes the center stage to Emla in the epic.

In another episode, Emla and her cousin kill two male village leaders that even their brothers never dared to attack.

Emla is not only a killer but a life-giver. Emla as shaman and warrior departs from the pattern (men-centered) as the gasumbi celebrates women's unique achievement as healer and seer, not as a child bearer.

Among the buwaya, female sexuality was not linked with reproductive ability but with shamanistic power. The most powerful magical woman, like the bravest headhunters, possessed the greatest sexual allure as depicted in the erotic embrace of the dancing warrior and shaman during the headhunting feast.

"The sacrificial efficacy of the Buaya festival to dedicate the head involves a miming of erotic excitement."

Among the Buaya and Buaya only, a female shaman accompanied the headhunters to enemy territory to cast the first spear.

The gasumbi singer portrays the epic heroine who kills and also resuscitates (life-giving). Taking a life in order to live (ref origin of the headhunt). (63)

Headhunting among Buaya declined in the 1930s and had not completely vanished in the mid 1960s while the gasumbi was still performed.

The last headhunter killed 10 in 1964.

There were still female shamans who officiated in the traditional rites.

The epic singer who is also a female shaman had a vested interest in keeping alive not only the verbal art but the practice of headhunting itself.

Buaya shaman is called dorrakit in Isneg.

Severed head = ritual payment to the spirits

Shamans as cultural brokers. Later Buaya shamans substituted human fingers, human hair mounted on carved wood, as substitute (77).

Leny's notes:
There was a time when I didn't bother to learn about our verbal arts among indigenous folks. I was a product of a colonial (mis)education, after all. Now that I am trying to learn and understand the indigenous paradigm, I could read about these practices and glean from the fragments gems that I recognize and even sense in my own body and psyche.

Emla - warrior and shaman of the Buaya in northern Kalinga. She who remains alive in the epic...she who remains potent even through the silencing of the practice that has been made illegal by the modern state.

I recall Renato Rosaldo's story about headhunting and grief as he did his research among the Ilonggots. He lost his wife in that trek as she fell to her death off a cliff. In that moment, he said, he understood what the headhunters have told him all along: 'we need a container for our grief'...

In the indigenous world view there is reciprocity and the understanding of sacrifice - taking a life to sustain life - as something that is part of what it means to sustain life on this side of the world. We give and we take to maintain balance.

How did we lose this respect for the intimacy of death? How did we come to call it violent?

Rosaldo, returning to the Iloggot village years later, asked the folks what they remembered of the old days. The folks refused to talk. "We are christian now," they said, and "we no longer practice our heathen ways." But they also said, "it pains us to remember who we used to be; please do not ask us anymore."

I read about it all the time: the pain of remembering what was been lost on the road to civilization.

When does remembering give way to the healing of those violent memories? Can we still walk on the same road? If not, what is this alternative road?

No, I wouldn't go back to the days of headhunting. That is not what re-indigenization means.

connecting the dots...

2012-01-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

manifest manners
simulations
soft imperialism
creative literature as shamanism
visual memories
silence
vizenor vizena
chances
tease
memory
haiku
tricksters
columbus
silence
survivance
no victimry
zen
winter hibernation
freud or jung?
vine of memory

A Letter to Mungan

2012-01-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

This letter to Mungan is informed by the work of Ming Menez Coben, author of Verbal Arts of Philippine Indigenous COmmunities. I thank her for this important work. I have borrowed her own words in crafting this narrative and added my own response to Mungan's story towards the end. May the power of Mungan and the epic of Ulaging of the Bukidnon people, inspire us all.

Dear Mungan,

To the Bukidnon, you are the first babaylan.
You are the true heroine of their beloved epic, Ulaging, even though the honor goes to Agyu and his brothers.

Your husband shunned you because of your leprosy but your brothers-in-law were kind to you.

They took turns carrying you on their backs on their long journeys from the sea to the top of Mt Kitanglad.

One day you told them that you didn’t want to slow them down anymore.

So they built you a hut and went on their journeys, returning on occasion to bring you food and gifts.

In truth, they returned for instructions from you because you alone knew where they should go and how they can obtain sustenance.

You taught them the virtue of sharing food.
You told them that even if the meat is no bigger than a baby’s fingernail, that they must share it.

You taught them that they can achieve immortality without first experiencing death.

You taught them that they can attain the highest state of spirituality by abstaining from material wants and sustenance.

You taught them that they will lose their fear of famine and starvation.

You taught them that, in the end, their bodies will shine like gold, carried on a magic flying ship to the world beyond the skies.

One day, just before dawn, you began to beat your gong. Slowly at first, then building up to a rhythmic trance.

It soon became light and just before the sun rose, you looked up with amazement…

The sky in the east looked like polished metal

You kept on beating your gong but never took your eyes off the Sun

Gazing at it without blinking.

You were amazed that the sound of the gong now sounds like laughter that grew loud and louder

When you took your gaze off the sun to look around you, all the weeds and wild plants around your hut have turned to gold

And the leprosy slowly left your body.

The sun is a source of magical power

The blinding light heals the leprous body of the gong-playing maiden

Your eyes became the conduit for the energy that would humanize the gong with the gift of laughter

Having conquered disease and death, now your scabs have turned into mountain rice birds and flew away.

One of the birds returned to you with a vial of coconut oil, a gold striped betel nut, and pinipig from the first harvest.

Mungan, everything that surrounds you shines with golden light.

In this state of rapture and spiritual ecstasy, your body is radiant with transcendent light.

To Lena, the first brother, you gave the first betel nut of immortality

And as he chewed, his speech became different

He speaks in the words of ancient poetry

Dear Mungan, your quest for a safe homeland for your people

In the time of war and violence

Your desire to lead them to paradise

To found a new community

To lead people in times of trouble

Is hiding in the words of the ancient epic

In these millennial dreams

At the heart of it is the desire for Oneness

All men and women of all creeds, ethnicities belong to one extended family

Who will attain immortality without passing thru death

Dear Mungan,

I beseech you now to shine your light upon us

Teach us how to gaze at the Sun without blinking

So, too, may our bodies shine like gold

So, too, may everything around us shine like gold

We are your descendants in the here and now

Flying ships carried us not quite to the world beyond the skies

But to this continent

Where we are tracing your steps

Where we are building our huts

Where we are forging Oneness

Where we are forging Wholeness

Shine your light upon us, Mungan.

Review of Eileen Tabios' Thorn Rosary

2012-01-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

Found this online and filing it here

Excerpt:

Once upon a time the eyewitness to the rituals of a Babaylan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babaylan ; http://www.babaylan.net ) told of her altered states of consciousness when she did her healing, her communing with the spirits. They didn’t understand her language but they accepted the efficacy of her relationship with the spirit world. They trusted her. They knew she had access to this world. (Why else did the Spanish friars in the 15th century embark on the project of exterminating these Babaylans?). [3]

Does a poet like Eileen also perform, symbolically, the role of a Babaylan? If the Babaylan is able to ferry a person in-between worlds, or is able to summon a wandering soul back to the body, or plead with the spirits to be kind and generous, or negotiate a propitiation—can a Babaylan-inspired poet do the same?

Sometimes reading poetry, for me, is learning how to dive for one’s own meaning. In diving one learns, senses, embodies. This I have learned from my engagement with Eileen’s body of work over the past decade. [4]

If according to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, The Rosary is “a meditation for the blind, the simple, the aged.” is it then possible that the The Thorn Rosary is that which pricks the meditation in order to return us to our own bodies? Our bodies that aren’t blind, not simple, not aged.

Isn’t this the work of babaylan poetics—to walk the angel back into its body in unborrowed light (see Eileen’s Babaylan Poetics blog at http://babaylanpoetics.blogpost.com ) . Eileen creates her own light, a luminosity that is also sorrowful, joyful, glorious…the light is unborrowed because it has already taken upon itself all that there is—the world into the poem. It doesn’t ask for a return, only an invitation to dance. The dance of the babaylan.

Isn’t this what the babaylan does? She dances. In wholeness. In ecstasy. A body out of time and space. And when she doesn’t literally dance, she writes Poems that dance. The Poem, like this one, takes your hand and leads your sensuous mind, this mind that descends into the body to become whole and sacred:

....

Interview with Nina Simons

2012-01-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

This interview echoes what most of us already know. By 'us' I mean Filipinos who live resilience everyday, who value relationships over things, who understand interconnections.
What are the manifestations of this remembered ways of reverence in our communities?
Nina speaks of being replenished by Nature because this sacred connection is medicine.
I listen to this and I think of my brothers and sisters in the homeland who must live through the floods, landslides, then displacement, hunger -- the consequences of the devastation of the ecosystems that feed off a paradigm that does not think of the earth as sacred, only as resource.
What is my role in restoring balance? What is yours? What is ours?

2012-01-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

Decolonize Together: Moving Beyond a Politics of Solidarity to a Practice of Decolonization.

glad that this word is finally getting its due.

2012-01-01T02:21:00.001-08:00

starting the year with James Hillman

Year-end reflections

2011-12-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

Finally - a quiet day of reflection...after working in the garden - harvesting the last of the tomatoes and kalamansi and amused by the sight of newly-planted lettuce eaten by the birds who didn't touch the ornamental cabbage nearby. The autumn leaves have been cleaned up; the bulbs need to be re-planted soon.

In the kitchen, am using up the leftovers from our early Christmas parties - thanks to all of you who came to celebrate with us -- faculty from SSU, the women from Bioneers, my dear SSU mentors, our Fil Am community friends (who love karaoke!).

Last night I was reviewing this blog and felt thankful for the record of 2011 events that made the year memorable and life transforming. Here goes...

In January, Lane and Virgil both published their books and I was able to write a review for each of their opus. We hear that both are now writing the sequels because, as we found out, they've amassed so much research materials over decades. It is also in January when the core group of CFBS holds their annual retreat. This year we were able to plan and then offer a retreat/symposium in August with about 40 people.

In April, Lizae and other CFBS volunteers gifted us with Spirit Breath, A Healing Concert, at her beautiful home in the Oakland hills. For the first time, I was able to offer a Kapampangan chant, thanks to Mike Pangilinan.

In June, I attended the Bioneers' Cultivating Women's Leadership Retreat held at Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma. I've been lurking around Bioneers for years and this time I felt that I needed to get my feet wet to see what the Bioneers experience is all about. With twenty women leaders together for six days, the experience was indeed transformative. But what was surprising to me were the exchanges I would later have with Nina Simons after she read A Book of Her Own and me reading her book, Moonrise, and using it as a text in one of my courses...which led to her visit to my classes in November. Prior to this, I was able to attend the Bioneers conference for the first time with the added bonus of having a booksigning and meeting several Pinays including the wonderful Gemma Bulos, as a result. I also got invited to be part of Bioneers' Education for Action Network.

Eileen Tabios' prompt to poets about the global recession resulted in this essay. Thank you, Eileen!

This Fall, it was great collaborating with Jurgen Kremer in one of my courses. Having him test-drive the workbook on Ethnoautobiography with my students is definitely an outside-the-box exercise in this setting but it was well worth it.

I also visited Napa Valley College for the first time. Thanks to the invitation of Janet Stickmon.

In November, Singgalot came to Sonoma County Museum as its last stop.

Lastly, there is the dossier for full professorship that went forward.

I look forward to giving the Virgilio Enriquez Memorial Lecture at the Kapwa 3 conference at UP Baguio next year.

On the vanity side: I have given up hair color. I am going gray. I embrace the elder in me.

It was a year of many "firsts" and perhaps this is why I feel as if I am on the cusp of something new...again.

Time is an artificial construct. As I watched Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night, I realize that this habit of painting word pictures connects me to the painter at Chauvet cave 35,000 years ago. This impulse to tell a story is the same across time and space. My story connects me to you which connects us to a larger community which connects us to everything and everyone beyond time and space.

For this a big thank you. I Loob you!

connecting the dots...

2011-12-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

typhoon Sendong pours nonstop for 11hours
sends flash floods down and washes away villages
thousands die
deforested mountains due to illegal logging
and mining perhaps?
weather authorities do not warn folks
in Japan they were warned
Mindanao has been declared the last frontier of development
mining companies and other corporate interests have set their sights on Mindanao
recent news that banana plantations were ruined by an unknown disease infecting the bananas
Mindanao didn't use to experience severe weather patterns because supposedly it was located off the typhoon belt
this is no longer true
Davao has experienced flooding
a few years ago we drove by yellowing coconut groves and i asked why
and i was told they were diseased, too.
the kadayawan festival flower growers were also worried that the growing season has been erratic
the Ampatuan massacre has not been solved and no one has been held accountable in spite of witnesses and direct evidence of who did it
on TV Patrol all i hear about is the Arroyo scandal, her supreme court justice appointee scandal
i do not hear about the anti-mining movement even tho 4M have signed the petition
the RH bill hasn't passed and population continues to explode
and Filipinos continue to be nothing more than "export" commodities
to support the nation
and yet no matter what is happening
Filipinos rally together to help their kapwa
social media offers lots of info on how to help
but am i deluded in thinking that social media is really making that big of a difference?
i know that distant objects appear bigger than they really are in the rear view mirror
and it is 6 days before christmas
and i am sipping coffee in bed
writing this on my laptop
we have been waiting for rain
this winter is too dry
on my bedside i read: the world behind the world
so i can connect the dots and hold the tension
between understanding and not
between gains and losses
between here and there
between tears and laughter
between soon and never

if you are reading this
connect the dots with me

Octopus Christmas Tree!!

2011-12-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

another Kapwa cohort

2011-12-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

these women who call themselves Kapwa cohort do these things in the world:

- environmental llineage; eco-birth
- exec director of an organization that encourages public participation in democratic processes
- medical doctor who is practicing holistic medicine through anthroposophy
- a eurhytmist healer; a teacher at the Steiner College; biodynamic farmer; Brazil's "The Game"
- exec dir of a non-profit that fights for safe cosmetics
- a corporate person transitioning to becoming a healer
- an artist that was recently featured at TEDx San Francisco
- a filmmaker who features common people doing extraordinary things
- a business consultant who is in a period of hibernation and nursing grief
- an academic who is also many things to many people...

these women are not Filipinas but they have embraced the concept of Kapwa.

our afternoon sharing was very fecund. lots of joy and hope. this is what it feels like to be with women who are awake.

A ritual of release

2011-12-07T22:43:00.000-08:00

each one brought a flower to class today. daisies, roses, hydraengea, orchids, firecracker, minidaffodils, queen anne's lace. red, yellow, orange, white. pink.
there was soft chanting and drumming
we visualized the flower receiving the thoughts, feelings that we wanted to release.
it has been a long demanding semester.
breathe in, breathe out
when the chanting ceased we gave our flowers to two students who stringed them together into a garland. beautiful.
we stood in a circle. we asked students for one word. hope, love, beauty, understanding, serene, together, gratitude...
JK taught us another chant that was given to him by a cloud of mosquitoes in chaco canyon.
then silence.
the energy in the room was calm and peaceful.
the two students drove to salmon creek to release our garland.

2011-12-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Discovering Margaret Wheatley on Leadership

how then shall i grieve?

2011-11-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

this is a question posed to me by a young woman. it is a big question. pregnant. fecund. it takes courage to ask this. approaching Grief and asking it to be a teacher requires a readiness to have your heart broken...open. and that takes courage. so i am thankful for the question. here's what i ended up writing to her in a short note:

am glad you recognize where the grief is coming from and that you could sit with it. If we open the door to Grief, what is recognized as something very specific can lead to an awareness of other kinds of "losses" we must acknowledge and mourn. If you have a sitting practice/meditation practice or a movement practice like qi gong, sometimes that can be a source of comfort and balance. Sometimes we just need to let ourselves cry, no holding back of the tears. It would be preferable to have a witness to our tears but if that is not always possible, we can also do so in solitude knowing that Spirit hears us and is with us.

A week or so ago I felt something similar -- like something was sitting on my chest and although I wasn't thinking of anything sad at that time, I realized that emotion as grief. And then I remembered having had a powerful dream a few days before telling me that the heart needs to break open even more.

If you know of a ritual that releases your grief, it might be good to do. In 2008, one of the teachers I brought to the Phil with me died of a heart attack. I went into shock and grief for a year or more. I went to the ocean as often as I could and talked to the Ocean about my fear, sadness, guilt, loss. It is amazing how the Ocean did talk back to me and I felt reassured and listened to. I also took up qi gong quite intensely for a year and went for acupuncture treatments -- all to bring my spirit back and my strength.

Traumatic events need these rituals. I hope you have a community who can do this with you.

***
what i also want to say about grief is that it is layered and it can't be rushed. in this culture where we don't have an intimate relationship with death (of any kind); we avoid grieving. instead we repress, we distract, we deny, we move on. all the wise folks i've read talk about this culture's inability to grieve well as one of the reasons why there is so much projection of what is repressed. from the personal to the cultural to the civilizational trauma we experience as modern selves, we are consciously or unconsciously looking for a way to mend our grief, our sense of what's been lost.

grief speaks to our body as well. if we listen well, it will tell us what lies just beneath our anger, our confusion, our anxiety. perhaps it will speak to us of our need to find the space, time, and willingness to build a community that will allow us to create container for the release and healing of grief.

the deeper the grief, the greater the joy -- this is what i told a friend the other day. may it be for you.

a ritual with Noah

2011-11-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

We decided to do something different this year. Sans company and just the four of us, I thought it would be good to introduce Noah to ritual. Well, he's already doing rituals everyday, we just normally don't call them that. This time, I wanted us to do something more formal around the theme of giving thanks.

I decorated the table with candle and a bouquet of lavender and sage and flowers from D's garden. Just before sitting down for the thanksgiving meal. we burnt some sage to invoke spirit and well being. I asked each of us to take turns completing the sentence "I can always count on..." and then we'd all say "Salamat Po!" Noah's first one was "I can always count on the Earth!" and his second was "I can always count on Nature!" We said in so many ways that we can always count on each other's love, we can always count on the blessings of the ancestors, we can always count on flowers to bloom, on the sun and moon to take their turns in the sky. I said that I could always count on Cal bringing me coffee in bed every morning as my daily blessing. We did this round so many times and each time a chorus of "Salamat Po!"

It was simple and elegant; we were carried in the cradle of this Beauty and Love for the rest of the day.

At one point, I asked Noah what was on his christmas wish list and he said "I'm thankful for what I already have." What a kid!

Sonoma County, CA: Singgalot, The Tie that Binds

2011-11-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

When the Sonoma County Museum notified the local Fil Am community that the exhibit will have its last stop in Sonoma County, it excited us tremendously. I have known of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit since it started making its rounds years earlier. I know some of the folks that put this project together and have had the curriculum project part of it presented at the Kapwa conference for K-12 educators at Sonoma State U in 2007. I knew it was making the rounds of the big cities -- San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, etc...I just didn't imagine that it would make it to our local museum.

Perhaps what brought the Museum's attention to focus on the Fil Am community was the 2008 Remembering Our Manongs Project of the FANHS Sonoma County chapter. This important documentary did put our local FIlipino community on the map and created much needed visibility to our history locally and nationally.

Leaders of the local Filipino community came together to plan for the supplementary events and exhibits to Singgalot. Alexis Canillo, who has kept records of his father's sojourn to the US, offered these as part of the exhibit and so did other descendants of Manongs who have kept memorabilia.

The opening ceremony to Singgalot on November 18 carried our intentions to remember, to honor, to heal. We felt guided by our ancestors that this was an occasion to bring together the past and present, our memories and stories, to make visible what is often invisible, to acknowledge what is often taken for granted, and to manifest the beauty of being Filipino. The night before we gathered at the museum and created this intention via ritual of dance, music, and chanted prayers in Pomo, Kapampangan, Bicol, and Tagalog.

For the opening reception, we created a ritual and an altar that represented our Filipino indigenous spirituality because we wanted to signal that our history does not begin and end with colonialism and empire; that our Story is much larger than history and when we are able to uncover the ways in which we still carry our wholeness in spite of the wounds of history, then we are able to heal and live with dignity and grace.

About ten descendants of the Manong generation each brought to the altar a sacred object that represented the Manongs' connections to us in the present. Items included a fragrant azucena flower that comes from a Manong's garden; seashell from a Philippine beach, photographs of Manongs, a coconut shell, ancient beads, a certificate of military service, a news article about the Asuelo family, an apple and a bunch of flowers that represented the labor of the Manongs, a hand-made memento.

Manang Betty, one of our elders, offered a prayer of thanksgiving in English and Noemi offered its translation in Pilipino.

These offerings to the altar were then followed by a poetry and dance performance reflecting on history and the healing that we need. Alexis read his poem and then Holly followed with a dance symbolizing the Manong's work that included stoop labor -- the aching body that worked hard to tend to the earth, raise a community, and build a future. As her body fell to the ground in exhaustion, the spirits of her ancestors came to her symbolized by a Kalinga dance from the northern Philippines and a Tiruray dance from the southern Philippines connecting the north to the south and creating a lineage of unity. The music faded and then there were only the rhythms of indigenous instruments -- bamboo tongatong from Kalinga and then the brass gongs from Mindanao.

We continued the celebration with kulintang music with no less than Master Danny Kalanduyan and his ensemble of master musicians and dancers. Jenny Bawer, Kalinga culture-bearer and Porling gave us the Banga dance. Lizae and Alexis gave us the Pangalay dance.

I felt my heart was full and my spirit was soaring. Alexis said it best afterwards: This is a project that needed a community. This project was supported not only by the folks who came from the Bay Area to support us (Thank you so much!), I felt the ancestral spirits moving about last night, all pleased and happy that we have come together to honor and remember them.
***
Days before this evening, I had a dream. In the dream, I was with a shaman and we were studying together. I stood up and told him that I needed to take a shower and so I stood up to go. He followed me and then he wanted to look over the shower door. I asked him what he was doing and he said: I want to see you naked. Aghast, I bonked him in the head and told him to go away. Later, as I reflected on this dream, this is the message that came to me:

I want to see your radiance, without the veil of timidity
I want to see your courage, without the mask of fear
I want to see your beauty, without the mask of vanity
I want to see you shine
Take off everything that covers

2011-11-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

Leslie Gray's talk at the 2011 Shamanic Conference online now.
Leslie is a shaman and a clinical psychologist and teaches at CIIS.

Meditating on the Global Recession

2011-11-11T08:43:00.001-08:00

This essay is also now part of the Poets on the Global Recession archive here:

Ay, Ading! How do I begin to talk about the global recession?

Ah, for starters: this is the consequence of an economic concept conjured by the neoliberal assumptions of limitless economic hypergrowth and mobilized by the unholy trinity of the IMF, WB, and WTO whose failed policies have been put on steroids through structural adjustment programs imposed on the debtor countries. A circle of debt envelopes the global economy and no one is paying up. Decades ago there was a clamor to forgive the debts of the poorest countries in the world and only a handful got a reprieve. The engines of corporate capitalism and financial magicians thought that they could create something out of nothing, and now the house of cards that the global casino economy has become is crumbling.

The global recession: what is in recess? what is an economic recession? are there other kinds of recessions? is depression the synonym of recession in psychological terms?

Recess was my favorite subject in elementary school. Wasn’t it yours, too? That’s when we got to play outside, eat our baon or buy merienda from the sari-sari store, notice the cute boys, etc. Recess is fun.

Now we take a fun word and turn it into recession and suddenly it becomes a word that stirs up fear. Well, our economic myth has always capitalized on our fears to keep the profits flowing for the stakeholders, so why not manufacture fear, yes? It sells.

And it’s all about selling and buying – this global economy. Everything is a commodity. What I eat, what I wear, where I live, what I watch to entertain myself --are all global products.

I refuse to be commodified so I defy the word global recession! This phrase that conjures the worst scenario—the bleakness that is about to engulf us if we do not turn around from the wrong course we’ve been on for five centuries—feels to me like beating a dead horse.

The drums that beat about the end of the American dream, their rhythms getting faster, induce a sense of panic.

But there is an antidote to this toxic story. Yes, I said it: the architects of the global corporate economy unleashed toxins on the planet and now we are faced with the unintended consequences of our flawed assumptions about limitless resources, about the belief in an inanimate earth, about the belief in the magic of positive thinking (thank you, Barbara Ehrenreich). If you build it they will come. Well, China has just built the largest shopping mall on the planet in Guangdong and nobody came. In fact, they built 500 of them—all of them still waiting for their middle class to arrive to shop.

Why do I always get sidetracked? Oh, as I was thinking/saying…what I mean by antidote is this: what if I were an indigenous person living in the Sierra Madre mountains of Colombia who escaped the conquistadors and managed to live undisturbed for five hundred years, and therefore, had no concepts like global recession or have never heard of the American dream? How would such persons interpret the changes that they were noticing in their environment? The mountains no longer filled with snow in the winter and so their rivers have run dry affecting their vegetation and ultimately, their very way of life? These are the Kogi people. They saw that their Mother was getting sick and they were worried that their younger brothers (the modern ones) were doing things to the earth that were causing the illness, so they came out of hiding and began to have conversations with visitors from the outside (like BBC, Wade Davis of National Geographic, and other environmental groups that have now “found” them).

What about the Amazonian elder that David Suzuki brought to Seattle? David thought that the indigenous elder would be impressed by the tall skyscrapers and marvel at the wonders of his world; instead the elder said: oh my, how can mother nature replace what’s been used up to build this?

What about the indigenous woman leader from a Mindanao tribe who exclaimed at a symposium with the Fulbright teachers I brought with me from California in 2008: Please allow us to express our beauty! We do not need your versions of development and progress!

What about the women of Ladakh who lament that their sons and daughters have gone to the city to get an education; who would till the fields and tend to the animals when they are gone? And the kids who have gone to the city and learned to speak English say now their lives are all about money. If I don’t make money, I am nothing. (in Schooling the World, a videodocumentary).

Do you see why I don’t like the word global recession? I do not buy into the theoretical construct behind the word. It’s true that what we are witnessing today are human-made consequences of overdevelopment, mis-use of resources, endless wars, not only military but also “war on drugs, war on terror, war on poverty,” etc. Don’t even get me started on the concept of war.

Did you know that there is a connection between war and food? Ask Vandana Shiva (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flpFnfK_3Yo). That fertilizers that were used to make bombs used during World War 2 were later offered to industrial farmers?

I digress again. Back to global recession. So there is a recession if your assumption is that the global economy should stay on a linear growth path, or if the assumption is that the American lifestyle should go global because it is the best. We package it as “freedom” and seduce the world with commercials. It is the “end of history” theory rearing its head. Oh, if only we know of seven planets where we can migrate to.

We already know that we are almost out of solutions. Bailouts didn’t work. International accords don’t work especially when powerful countries like the U.S. refuse to sign protocols and agreements—whether it’s curbing carbon emissions (the Kyoto protocol) or making a stand against racial apartheid (at the Durban conference on Racism). We already know that tax cuts for the wealthy have not created jobs (it did, however, make plenty of profits that are stashed away in Swiss banks and off-shore banks, for the wealthy). Inconvenient truth, as Al Gore calls it.

So yes, we are in the midst of an economic recession. But this simply means that we have exhausted the limits of the modernist story. It is time to revisit other stories that can disentangle us from the ravages of modernity.

Decolonization is not just for the post-colonial subject anymore. Decolonizing from the modern narratives of self that disassociated us from a participatory sense of place is the work of every modern self that has been colonized by the myth of the masterful bounded self that is separate from nature and non-human creatures and the spirit realms.

In a way, we are all relatives of the economic hit men of the past. Those economic hit men who have now confessed to their sins of selling the economic model and gospel of free trade to developing countries (e.g., John Perkins, David Korten) are calling for a different kind of story—The Great Turning, Revolution from the Heart of Nature, Another World is Possible, and more recently, Occupy Wall Street – these themes are the mantras of our time.

The onus is on us—those of who us in the U.S. We are the belly of the beast. China, India, Latin America and the rest of the world are all mimicking us now. They will become modern and surpass the U.S. consumption and materialism. They will buy stuff until they are sated and realize that they are still dissatisfied. We know. We’ve been there.

I’ve always intuited that the U.S. will turn to its spiritual resources when the hubris of materialism finally catches up with us. When we wake up and acknowledge the shadows of history that we have denied or repressed, we will search for ways to grieve and heal.

That is why I believe in Poets in the same way that I don’t believe in the global recession. This global recession can actually be good for the soul, you know? Maybe we will learn how to become more human. Kapwa we call it. Kagandahang Loob – our inner gem/sacred self. Maybe there is still time to get to know the Earth as our relative.

There is still time to learn how to reclaim our animist senses so that we may see each other and all our relatives through the eye of the Sacred.

There is still time to embody what we know in our heads so that when that knowledge descends into our cells, it transforms us. Our fears are transformed.

The rage and anger that we see all around us are projections of that repressed fear. Fear is nothing but unreleased grief.

I want to be a Poet of Grief. I long to learn the language that releases this grief. I long to learn how to do rituals without words…only the movement of the body. I long to learn how to slow dance into this new awareness. I long to feel more deeply the sacred embrace of the Earth on my small body until a word like global recession withdraws its fangs and is alchemized into a meditation about the beauty of a different Story that is much more ancient than the modern one. One that sits well with my body and soul.

2011-11-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

Notes from Pedagogies of Crossing

Sacred energies require embodied beings and all things to come into sentience.
There is no absolute transcendence, and if there were, there would be no intervention in and no relationship with the material, the quotidian, the very bodies thru which divinity breathes life. (293)

Cosmological systems house memory and such memory was necessary to distill the psychic traumas produced under grotesque conditions of slavery.
Recalcitrance masked an unacknowledged yearning for Spirit. (294)
To know self thru Spirit, to become open to the movement of Spirit in order to wrestle with the movement of history....

Feminisms as secularized category

Epistemic frameworks - part of analytic challenge in considering spiritual dimensions of work

Sacred as tradition - as extreme alterity, not yet modern - subsumed to European cosmos...pejoratively

To know the body is to know it is a medium of the divine, living purpose exceeding the imperatives of plantation (capitalism, modernity) 297

Body praxis requires us to remember ther source and practice. Body as site of memory.

Body as encasement of Soul, medium of spirit, repository of a consciousness that derives from a source residing elsewhere. Another ceremonial ritual making.

Spiritual expertise of a community to decode Sacred Knowledge

Sacred becomes a way of embodying the remembering of self - that is not habitually individuated nor unwittingly secularized

Book titles tell a story

2011-10-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Animate Earth, How Then Shall I live? A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness is my Original Instructions on Entering the Healing Ground: Ritual, Grief, and the Soul of the World. Indigenizing the Academy? A Global HIstory of Indigenous Peoples? Yes. Always Coming Home. Shamans and Priests knows The World Behind the Word. Because of this I am not Bright Sided. I am a Mystic Wanderer in the Land of Perpetual Departure, one of the Masses who Are Messiah Contemplating the Filipino Soul. My Pedagogies of Crossing searches my Fate and Destiny about Race and the Cosmos. They All Want Magic, you see.

As I scanned the stack of books next to my bed, I realized there's a story being told. Can you see it?

Grace Nono, 2012

2011-10-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

I hope this finds you all shining! I have good news to share.

Grace Nono's new book, BABAYLAN VOICES, will be published by the Institute of Spirituality in Asia in Spring 2012. Grace is currently preparing to defend her dissertation proposal in January and then she will be leaving New York end of January to return to the Philippines. She plans to return to the US around April 9 and will be available for about 4 weeks to share this new work via performances, book talks, or collaborative projects in the US (California, New York, and where there is interest).

Those of us who have been part of Grace's sojourn in the US know what a gift she is to our diasporic community. In her keynote lecture at the Babaylan conference and through her first book, The Shared Voice, we were introduced to primary babaylans, chanters, and oralists. Through her performances of our indigenous sacred chants, we created ceremony that brought us closer to one another and most of all, closer to the source of our indigeneity.

Would you be interested in being part of planning events with Grace Nono in the given window of time mentioned above? I also want to invite you to think of your own creativity and how you could create collaboration with Grace. Please, let's use this forum to talk amongst ourselves on how we can make beautiful things happen. We are all so resourceful, creative, and abundantly blessed by Kapwa and Loob. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sending you warm rays of the sun and the crisp air of autumn,

Leny

Ang Grupong Pendong

2011-10-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last night, I attended a Grupong Pendong concert in American Canyon with Venus, Frances, Lizae, Kriya, Ron, Alexis, Grace, Junice.
I didn't realize how much American Canyon has "grown up"...their high school theater was mah-velous!
The theater was almost full and the audience was enthusiastic and high spirited. I didn't realize that AGP had a huge following in American Canyon and Vallejo (or maybe folks drove up from the Bay Area).
It was good to be reintroduced to their folk and indigenous Filipino music fused with a bit of rock. Their songs stir the audience to appreciate their cultural roots, become aware of environmental issues, and heed the call for political awareness. They provided English sub-titles to their songs so the non-Filipino speakers in the audience understood what the songs were about.
They also introduced indigenous instruments to the audience: kulintang, kubing, gongs, faglong (two-stringed lute from B'laan tribe). A medley of folksongs was appreciated as the audience was asked to identify with the regional origins.
Frances danced to the Apo Sandawa song and it was palpable that the audience was deeply moved. A very young girl even came up to Frances after the concert to share her admiration for Frances' dance and her parents quickly took photos of both of them.
At some point, when Frances was back in the audience, she couldn't resist the temptation to dance and she pulled Lizae and Alexis to dance with her. The body just needs to dance....
What a great service AGP is doing to promote our indigenous cultures through their music!
I look forward to hearing more...

About A Book of Her Own

2011-09-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

A Book of Her Own is not only a book for Filipinas, nor is it only for women. By charting one woman’s journey through decolonization and toward reclaiming voice, indigeneity and wholeness, this book offers a map for anyone interested in personal and cultural healing, racial justice and the quest for beloved community. It is rich in resources, artistry and poetry, and unflinchingly authentic in marrying the political with the personal and spiritual.

---Nina Simons, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, BIONEERS,

and this, too, from Nina Simons:

Ms. Strobel’s A Book of Her Own offers a multi-dimensional and intriguing journey through her own process of finding her indigenous soul, connecting with her own authentic calling and sense of purpose, and reshaping her identity around her self, her roots and her community. The book’s design liberated me to consider new forms, as it weaves together many styles of poetic and political communications that collectively inform the author’s and readers’ learning. I have returned to my highlighted copy again and again, as it’s rich with references and great ideas to help inform the return to indigeneity that calls us all.

The Learning on POV

2011-09-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

The Learning is a must-see if you want to see the impact of economic globalization on the lives of four Filipina women. In my course on globalization and race, we just finished mapping the general trajectory of 500 years -- from colonialism to the developmental model which is known today as economic globalization. Economic hypergrowth, based on flawed assumptions about limits to development as imposed by the planet's ability to sustain free trade, paints the macro perspective. In this film, this economic process shows the impact on the micro level of personal experience of four women.

The film is powerful and should generate a lot of dialogue in our families and communities.

The students in my class are wondering why courses like the one they're in is not a mandatory course for all students. Yes, why not?

59 thank yous

2011-09-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

1. Noah
2. Noah's Dad
3. Noah's Lolo
4. siblings
5. garden
6. teaching
7. books
8. music
9. ocean trips
10. redwood walks
11. spring lake
12. friends
13. solitude
14. sudoku
15. world social forum
16. grace lee boggs
17. book projects
18. retreats
19. hilot therapy
20. invitations
21. birthday greetings
22. reunions
23. memories
24. surprises
25. summer by the lake
26. summer by the lake with Noah and dragonflies
27. sister surviving cancer
28, sister meeting tenor
29. sister meeting prechtel
30. Cal on bike
31. Nina and CWL
32. booksigning at Bioneers
33. Bi Kidude and Shailja Patel
34. stories as medicine
35. Haines Makes Noise
36. ethnoautobiographies
37. mentors - dead and alive
38. dreams
39. spirit of ancestors
40. scenic drive to work
41. indie films
42. popcorn
43. cooking
44. making kale chips
45. new friends
46. pile of books by the bed
47. lavender sachets i made
48. bamboo oracle
49. ghostly blog visitor
50. sister mountain climbing
51. Noah loses baby teeth
52. monarch butterfly in the garden
53. hummingbird in the garden
54. eating off blueberry bush
55. basil pesto from the garden
56. oregano pesto from the garden
57. kalamansi from the garden
58. sari
59. ultimate experience at spa

2011-09-02T19:29:00.001-07:00

Nina Simons is coming to SSU on November 9! Woot!!!

2011-08-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

subaltern planet of cultural studies

2011-08-26T01:24:00.000-07:00

the child who appears in your photographs infomercials and youtube videos
so that you can appeal to your funders' sense of do-gooding
for the poor of the world

was she born thinking she is poor?
who impoverished her?
who stole her country?

you say that the poor barrio folks are primitive
left behind by progress
so they need you and your aid

and yet you do not say why the poor makes you feel good
why their smiles and gestures of kindness
warms your heart. makes you feel human.

why do you need the poor this way?

your tears do not fool me.

Decolonization and Indigenization as a Path to the Sacred: Reflections

2011-08-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

August 5-7, Sonoma State University
Center for Babaylan Studies

How do I re-tell the stories of this weekend? The words have been elusive. They sit on the tip of my tongue, they tug on my sleeve. Pssst, you must say something, the little voice says. Our photos (scroll to the bottom of Events page; there are 3 albums to enjoy) hint at the stories that want to be told. Here I am struggling to render a narrative of our time together at this retreat/symposium.

Day 1: Decolonization: The Power of Naming our Grief
We began this day with ritual honoring our ancestors. Virgil and Lane asked permission from the ancestral spirits to hold our gathering; we invoked their blessings and guidance with offering of anglem, rice, saluyot, betel nut, and egg. Afterwards each one of us brought our two objects to the altar -- one signifying our connection to our ancestors and another signifying our power object. We brought photos of our grandparents and loved ones, rocks, crystals, and other objects that meant something special to each one of us. A bulol watched over the our objects and flowers decked the altar. The sun shining through the window cast a glow of peace and the palpable spirits of ancestors who were present with us.

We joined our small groups for the first round of talking circles in the morning. BA HA LA NA - the groups shared the same set of questions about our individual process of decolonization: what does it mean to you? when did you first become aware of the need to decolonize? what feelings surfaced through the process? In the afternoon, our small groups talked about the shadow of history: what are the narratives that have shaped us as historical subjects? how did these narratives affect indigenous peoples? how did it affect our homeland? our communities? our families?

Later in the afternoon all the groups came together to bring back their reflections to the big group. The power of naming our grief is palpable. It feels heavy and uncomfortable. This baggage needs to be unloaded. Forgiven. Let go. We had to honor this grief that is now communally shared and acknowledged. For a while it sat on the pit of our stomachs and filled us with sorrow. Tears welled up in our eyes. We held each other in silence. As we closed this day, I passed around sachets of lavender harvested from my garden -- the sweet earth comforting us, reminding us of the good work we did for the day.

In the evening we had Dreamtime session. In this circle of light, we shared dreams about our ancestors, the lessons from those dreams, the guidance from those dreams. It felt good to hear one another. Laughter has returned. There was lightness of being all around. We were fireflies in the dark night, each one with a burning flame.

Day 2: The Wisdom of our Ancestors
The Chairman of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts in the Philippines, Professor Felipe de Leon, Jr., was our key resource person this weekend. On this second morning, after a past-faced lecture on Filipino indigenous values, indigenous arts, indigenous languages, we felt full and deeply contented. This is how beautiful we are! We are Kapwa! Ka-Sinag! We are the rays of the sun, each drawing from the Core, each interconnected with one another. Prof. de Leon said that his lectures that morning were the content of a semester long class at UP -- how lucky can we get? We enjoyed his humor and his levity. But most of all, he enlarged our knowledge container of our unique cultural assets.

In the afternoon, we continued with workshops. I had told Prof. de Leon that the reason I included a workshop on indigenous rhythms and music is to awaken the fragments of memories in our cultural DNA. Surely, I told him, we can dance again and remember that the connections our ancestors had to music and rhythm also connected them to the Land which sustains them. Titania assembled her kulintangs and agungs, and we cajoled Lizae into a malong dance and we prevailed on Roque to do a warrior healing dance, the sagayan. Prof. de Leon taught us how to tap into our indigenous rhythms (ack! it's not that easy!) with our bamboo instruments from the Cordilleras. We learned to sing a version of Salidummay and a Manobo chant to the rice spirit (Ay Iding!)

Professor de Leon also expressed appreciation for the retreat's theme especially our session on Naming our Grief. At one point he said that this work should be done in the Philippines as well or at least it could be more embedded in our cultural and educational institutions.

In the evening, we played Tao, Bagyo, Bangko - similar to musical chairs. Our bodies needed to move and play; we needed to shriek, shout, laugh, run! It was refreshing! And we broke out into our small groups again with the intention of integrating our reflections from Day 1 and 2 and coming up with a five minute creative expression presentation. What a treat to see each group's talent shine and meld together to choreograph a dance, to interpret a story through movement and sounds. A bridge. A boat rowing on Pasig inspired by the Mutya of the river carrying our gifts to our communities. The breath of life animating our spirit.

Day 3: Our Kapwa, Our Service
When our grief is healed; when we have emptied ourselves of colonial projections; when we internalize the Beauty of our indigenous cultures and the world view that sustains it -- we are ready to serve our Kapwa. On this day, Perla opened the morning with her spirit-filled prayer that touched our deepest selves. And as she walked us through the many forms of her service to her Kapwa via her artistic contributions: glass fusion art, mandala, the babaylan archetypes - we felt that this body of work is the result of decades of reflection about our Loob and Kapwa.

Our Kapwa panel - Lane, Venus, Mila, Virgil -- also talked about their service. Lane has studied Filipino tattoes and their spiritual symbolism and we are the beneficiaries of the wealth of stories that he shares with us through his book and public talks. Venus chose to talk about her healing journeys -- with her father back to the homeland, a trip to Spain that broke her heart open to forgive the colonizer, and how forgiveness rounds out the circle of Kapwa for her. Mila talked about her work with across generations, of how elders can teach the youth and when given the right context for decolonization, such mutual encounters are deeply transformative. Virgil talked about his healing practice and the growing visibility of this work, via his book, Way of the Ancient Healer, in our communities and beyond. Letty, as facilitator, contributed to the panel by talking about her engagement with non-Filipino communities like the Institute of Matriarchal Studies where she was able to present on the Babaylan.

In the afternoon, we created our community mandala on the sprawling grounds of the university. We retrieved our power objects from the ancestral altar and placed them on the center of the mandala. Lane also placed the bamboo (we have now come to call them bamboo oracles) pendants he hand-carved and burnt on the center. We presented Prof. de Leon with his own Babaylan mandala poster, and a special bamboo pendant. He cried. And there were more tears as Lane presented each participant with his or her special pendant's symbol and story. We felt that we each received a gift that was only meant for us. Amazing!

And then it was time to say goodbye...

Some of us in the core group went to the ocean the next day to offer the atang/altar offerings to the ocean at Salmon Creek. In the main meeting room, we also had a secondary altar where participants were able to write down their petitions and place them inside a beautiful box; we brought these petitions to the ocean as well. We dug a hole and made a makeshift Sinag altar and burnt the papers, letting the prayers be carried by the wind.
**
If you have read this far, thank you! Now you know why our faces in our photos are glowing.

Decolonization and Indigenization as a Path to the Sacred.

Yes, it is.

2011-08-01T17:06:00.001-07:00

Asian American Adornment and the Aesthetics of Race

is added to reading list.

Popular Spirituality as Cultural Energy

2011-07-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

This essay by Paring Bert Alejo is refreshing in the way it articulates and clarifies, for me, the language of popular spirituality among the Filipinos especially of the masa/common folks. I find it interesting that the official church (Catholic) often deems this language as mere resistance against the church's dominant practices when in fact, as Fr. Alejo says, it is cultural energy that challenges our vocabularies of power.

Excerpt:

...When Our Lady of Peñafrancia is processed, the whole Naga City comes

alive in a colorful devotion. And yet, nothing of this spirit occupies a page in our religious

instruction. In the seminary, we mouth all this rationalist Cogito, I think therefore I am. But

there could be other approaches to existence: I dance, therefore I am. We dance, therefore, we collectively exist and live as Christians. We wear colorful hats, therefore, we are alive in our faith. We shake our bodies, we sweat, and we feel the hurt and we feel the healing, and that is how we experience the Divine. My mother would always tell me, when you come back here, please bring lana or oil for my aching back, yung bendisyunan mo, ( Being blessed) etc. Many of us have been healed in this kind of spirituality but we have been de-inculturated by our own convents or seminary, by our formators and formation programs.

my hand-made life

2011-07-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

today i harvested kale and then washed, chopped, dried, baked. yay!kale chips!
i harvested tomatoes and will have to harvest basil later.
yesterday i harvested blueberries and there was just a handful so they got eaten pronto.
the other day, i harvested oregano and made a sun-dried tomato and oregano pesto.

when i am out in the garden, i catch myself thinking about what isn't getting done -- the manuscripts i have to read, the program i need to write, the books i need to order, the to-do list i need to check off, the books i have to mail, the books i need to read.

it reminded me of Winona La Duke's father who told her: until you learn how to plant corn, i would not listen to your philosophizing. this has stayed with me since. how can i talk about connecting with the Land, write about the organic life, write about environmental justice, etc., if i do not even know how to tend a garden?

so yes, my other work is important but that work is being fed by this small garden.

our next revolution

2011-07-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Grace Lee Boggs' The Next American Revolution. Grace turned 96 this year!! and that means that she is an intellectual, activist, community organizer, philosopher who has been through the major historical moments of this century. She is an inspiration and role model to me of how to be a transformative leader and revolutionary.

Kapwa Conference 2012

2011-07-19T21:58:00.001-07:00

(Here's the invitation to attend Kapwa conference next year)!

HERITAGE AND ARTS ACADEMIES OF THE PHILIPPINES INC.

L’ Azotea Bldg., 108 Session Road , 2600 Baguio City, Philippines

E-mail: kapwa3@gmail.com; Phone: (+63) 74 - 446 0108, CP: (+63) 09064536108

Hello dear Babaylan friends! How are you? We hope this letter finds you well and in good spirits.

As you may know, we have already started to put KAPWA-3 into motion. Recalling how, during our Conference last year, we discussed the importance of theory building, we wonder if any of you has focused on this kind of work lately?

Theory building (and the assertion of local frameworks in the academe) will be an important aspect of KAPWA-3, slated for June 28 – 30, 2012 at VOCAS and UP Baguio. In this light, we would like to invite you to contribute papers / videos relevant to highlighting the importance of indigenous knowledge. We are looking for presentations that elaborate/explain/expand the concepts, methods and theories of Sikolohiyang Filipino and Filipino Personhood, or define Kapwa Psychology in the context of indigenous mind/decolonialization. One of our goals is for the academe to co-present with an indigenous group and/or person (like Dr. Alice Magos), or present work that they did with an indigenous group or groups and explain why they chose this kind of research. We hope that in this way, the Kapwa movement can continue to live, breathe, spread and evolve!

Aside from being some of our presenters at next year's conference, we would also like to ask for your help in helping us raise funds for the conference. We would like to invite indigenous artists and scholars from other countries, such as the head of the Mongolian Academy for Arts and Culture, Gombojavyn Mend-Ooyo and other culture bearers. Please do let us know in what way you can help or contribute in this aspect of the conference.

We are truly looking forward to experiencing the gifts of the KAPWA-3 Conference with you in June 2012! Thank you so much for your love and continued support. We hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.

With warm regards,

Katrin de Guia and

Lissa Romero de Guia

2011-07-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

connecting the dots....
A Better Life, the movie
Transformers
Star Wars
Nerf guns
Jose Vargas on being undocumented immigrant
US debt ceiling
the three gorges dam is built on an earthquake fault
the native youth make films about sacred places and elders
obesity in the US and food networks
reality tv shows
Zizek
poetry, migritude
leadership retreats
social media
health care costs and fear of death

2011-07-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

thank you, Shailja Patel for Eater of Death.

gut wrenching truth.

2011-07-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

on buddhism-ness via Jean.

summer reads

2011-07-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Leche by Zack Linmark
The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization
Indigenizing the Academy
The Masses are Messiah: Contemplating the Filipino SOul
Mystic Wanderers in the Land of Perpetual Departure
Pedagogies of Crossing
Fate and Destiny
The Water of Life
Race and the Cosmos
The Next American Revolution
Liberation and the Cosmos

manuscript about the Lolas
YES Magazine
ODE Magazine
High Country News

CWL invite

2011-07-05T16:26:00.001-07:00

CWL in Sonoma, June 2011

We've just completed two Cultivating Women's Leadership intensives, and my heart is full to overflowing from experiencing 42 women flourishing into their own expanded voice, courage and purposeful capacities.

"Cultivating Women's Leadership ushered me into a new place of certainty about the purpose of my leadership. I am a leader and I have presence, clarity, and credibility. I will no longer be shy about admitting that I have these qualities. I will no longer be timid about stepping forward. I will no longer be reticent to receive praises for the work that I do. I will no longer minimize the importance of my purpose and work."

-Leny Strobel, Ph.D., Professor of Multicultural Studies, Sonoma State University

Nina Simons, Toby Herzlich and Sarah Crowell

Guest facilitator Sarah Crowell (of Destiny Arts) joined my teaching partner Toby Herzlich and me to form a trio that was complementary, deeply experienced and real. Sarah's embodied teaching, honed through years of choreography with diverse young people to encourage their most authentic expression, was an enlivening contribution to the depth of our emotional, spiritual and intellectual inquiry. We partnered seamlessly and joyfully as a team, and will be collaborating again to facilitate the next intensive inNorthern New Mexico.

As the leader of a national network of organizations who has sought to increase my skillfulness over the past 20 years, I found exactly what I needed at CWL to take my personal power and my leadership skills to the next level.

-Stacy Malkan, Health Care Without Harm and Cofounder, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

I'm writing to offer you 3 opportunities:

· Apply, or invite a friend to apply for the final Cultivating Women's Leadership intensive of 2011, in Northern NM, Aug 29-Sept 3. Deadline for submitting applications is July 8th.

· Preview the leading-edge, abundant and diverse women's leadership-related content at this year's Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA with a 5% discount to register online using this code: Women11.

· Subscribe to our Moonrise: A Whole System Approach to Women's Leadership email list by sending an email with Subscribe in the subject towomen@bioneers.org to be notified of other events and opportunities (we won't share your email with anyone else).

Male allies are most warmly welcome to join us for the last two. Renowned leaders as disparate as Al Gore, the Dalai Lama and Wangari Maathai agree that the increased emergence of women's leadership globally is essential to addressing climate change and shifting our course toward a healthy, just and sustainable future.

Evidence keeps mounting that as the percentage of women in leadership grows in every sector and discipline - from financial management to board rooms to politics, and throughout business, the arts, media, medicine and civil society - so too improves the education, economic and social stability and ecological health of all people and their communities.

Thank you for your part in healing how we relate to our selves, each other and the Earth. And for helping to shift how we live on Earth to honor the web of life, each other and

future generations.

With love, gratitude and respect,

Nina Simons, Co-CEO and Co-Founder

Bioneers

2011-06-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

it's summertime and the livin' is easy....that's why there's so much going on that won't ever get on this page. well, truthfully, i've not had much desire to keep up with facebook or blogger. my days are filled with face-to-face encounters with family and friends. and isn't that how it is supposed to be?

but here's some good tid-bits to relish! the video highlights of the 2010 Babaylan Conference is now posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgyBMsVEkHw
thanks to the work of Venus Herbito in putting this together.

and we are getting ready for a smaller retreat/symposium in August limited to 30 participants. our primary resource person this time is Prof. Felipe de Leon Jr, Commissioner of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts.

i've also returned from a weeklong retreat with Nina Simons/Cultivating Women's Leadership at Westerbeke Ranch. met kindred souls, made new friends. and i signed up to attend the Bioneers conference finally...after years of hesitation.

i do not wish to write about this experience. i want to live it. so who knows what's next?

2011-06-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in the intersection of Filipino indigenous spirituality with christianity. Will start posting journal articles that I find on this subject on this blog. Here's one by Claudia Liebert on Filipino domestic workers in Israel and another one on Filipina workers in Saudi Arabia by Alicia Pingol. Another Liebert article here.

I'm also reading Karl Gaspar's two books on Filipino spirituality. In these two books, he writes about the need to reclaim Filipino indigenous belief systems and integrating them with the christian faith. Many Filipinos in his research work articulate this process of integration.

Liebert's The Footsteps Project, aims to change the stereotype of FIlipinos as the "servants of globalization" to that of workers able to develop inventive coping strategies as working class cosmopolitans in the global arena.

[Notes to self: I've said elsewhere that the ability of Filipina overseas workers to develop and deploy coping strategies, e.g., by framing their sojourn in spiritual/religious terms and in notions of sacrifice, doesn't belie the fact of their exploitation by the global capitalist structure. As liminal, post colonial subjects they are often unprotected by both the sending and receiving countries.]

Liebert: Our research has explored the role that Filipino religious congregations play in creating sociality, community and social networks among fellow migrants, both local and transnational; the ways these facilitate relations with their hosts; how faith may empower women negotiating status and identity within and beyond the workplace.

Above all, we have asked: what are the symbolic and experiential dimensions of belief re-discovered, practised and reinscribed in a sacred landscape? What kind of cultural capital does living in centres holy to Christianity and Islam give migrant returnees? Indeed, does religion affect their decision to work in particular countries, beyond economic considerations?

By describing their sojourns abroad in the idiom of sacrifice, suffering and sacred journeying, Filipina migrants situate their care giving work within a religious worldview of spiritual power and personal growth. Investigating these themes ethnographically, our research has aimed to challenge prevailing stereotypes of migrant Filipinas as ‘a nation of servants’, victims of an expanding capitalist labour market, and to reveal women’s agency in shaping their migration experiences.

Through their work and leisure, the project has found, Filipina migrants have forged an open if demotic working class cosmopolitanism. They engage positively with their new environment and the people they care for, inventively devising new coping and mobility strategies and building wide-ranging trust and support networks.

A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan

2011-06-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Shailja Patel - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan (Paperback)

I nodded in agreement at virtually every page. I put the book down frequently to absorb the shock of reading my own experiences, captured in a few incisive master strokes. "Silence is in the eyes of the white girl with long blonde hair searching mine for love." I laughed out loud at the skewering of entitled ignorance: "Did he buy you from a catalog? How come you know all our songs?" (Questions I've Been Asked Ever Since I Arrived in the US in 1983). I breathed deep in appreciation for the painful truths on the 100 years of US colonial history in the Philippines. I gulped "A Book Of Her Own" down in a single day, dancing from poetry to autobiography to mythology to critical essays to history to ritual. This is a book that sings, weeps, re-knits what has been torn, reclaims what has been stolen, avenges what has been violated. Above all, it breaks the toxic silence of colonization, to heal and illuminate.

A Comfort Woman

2011-06-03T12:08:00.001-07:00

Thank you, Lola Piedad, for your courage in telling your story.

Random notes not so random...

2011-05-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

while reading Pedagogies of Crossing...

immorality of empire
oxymoronic "armies of compassion"
requirements of citizenship for empire are disturbingly antithetical to these requirements of citizenship for collective self-determination
empire requires sacrifice - the sacrifice of consent
itineraries of violence that are given names such as democracy and civilization
displacing collective self-determination with corporate institutional allegiances
freedom to betray freedom through gratuitous exploitation
empire makes all innocence possible
diffusion of globalized power variously called postmodernism or late capitalism
integration of corporate academy into the practices and institutions of the state at this moment of empire
psychic products fossilized deep in the interior, forcing us to genuflect at the altar of alterity and separation
limits of secular power
personal is not only political but spiritual
power is not owned by corporate timekeepers or by the logics of hegemonic materialism
make different conversations and solidarities possible
imagine collectivities that can thrive outside of hegemony's death-grip
what is the academy's role in an age of globalization?
transgenerational memory. Memory not as a secular but rather as a Sacred dimension of self.
knowledge comes to be embodied and made manifest through flesh, an embodiment of Spirit
spiritual labor and spiritual knowing is primarily a project of self-knowing and transformation that constantly invoke community simply because it requires it.
majority of people in the world...cannot make sense of themselves without it.
need to engage the Sacred as an ever-changing, yet permanent condition of the universe
ceremonies of reconciliation that are premised within a solidarity that is fundamentally intersubjective
burning patience to choose freedom so as to bettter build archeologies of freedom

Oh, Seafood City!

2011-05-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

I was craving soul food today so we decided to drive to Seafood City. I didn't have breakfast in anticipation of Max's crispy fried chicken for lunch. Well, when we got to Max, I ended up ordering bangsilog instead because my craving for garlic fried rice, crispy bangus, achara, fried egg took over. I also ordered lumpiang shanghai because I wanted that crunchy morsel dipped in sweet and sour sauce.

When my order arrived, I got steamed rice instead; the egg was half-cooked, the bangus was cold and tasted "maumuk" -- I don't know the direct translation of this word in English but it means that the fish isn't fresh and leaves that taste in your mouth that makes you want to burn your taste buds with something sweet to mask the fish taste. The lumpiang shanghai would have been okay were it not for the watered-down sauce. There was no achara on the side.

I don't know what I was thinking. I knew that the bangus won't be fresh. I knew that the food is never as good as I make it at home. Blame nostalgia.

At Valerio's I bought hopia mongo and whole wheat pandesal. I was tempted by the kakanins but I resisted. At the supermarket, I walked each aisle looking at all the familiar stuff from childhood - Skyflakes, otap, butul pakwan, polvoron, chicharon, sardines, spam - and I caved in and bought one of each. A part of me was overwhelmed by all the packaging, the processing, the thousands of miles these items have travelled to get on the shelf.

The meat and seafood section had selections that my local supermarket doesn't have. Good price on shrimp so I bought two lbs and had them put in an ice bag (it takes an hour to get home). I bought tilapia that's been cleaned. I wish I lived nearby so I could get my fish fried there. No need to do it at home.

Because I've been trying to change our consuming and eating habits (eat local, minimize packaging, buy fresh), I felt like apologizing for today's excursion. Too much plastic. Overpackaging. Overprocessed food to make it last. Oversalted. MSG-saturated.

What to do when the craving for tastes and memories of home kick in? I know that it's better to satisfy these cravings at home but why didn't I? Well, maybe I just wanted to breathe the air of Seafood City, like a whiff of the open wet markets of my childhood treks with my mother.

Remembering NVM Gonzalez

2011-05-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today belongs to NVM Gonzalez.

Can the West 'read' us well? Can the words we offer it become an ennobling vision of life? In light of its long acquaintance with themes of alienation and despair, do the West see our books as celebrations of continuity and endurance?
As I writer I have no ready answer. But, as a reader, I keep firm my faith in language and the imagination. I am proud to be counted among the wounded.
NVM Gonzalez, The Novel of Justice, 144

******

Plus:

You can now view photos from Spirit Breath here. Note the accompanying text to the photos which are equally poetic and stunning. Thanks again, Lizae.

Congratulations!!

To Eileen and her beautiful daughter, Francine!

To Tera's newly minted Phd from U of Texas in Austin.

Post-event musings

2011-05-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

Post-event musings:

As we drove home from the event, I mused about Lizae's comment -- "it's like creating a mandala" -- and how apt it felt. Like the recent visit of Tibetan monks on my campus and the destruction of the Tara Mandala at the end of four days of creation, we "dissolved" Lizae's mandala with kapwa jamming, gift offering of flowers and poetry to the attendees, picture-taking, and long goodbyes afterwards.

The evening began with kulintang music and dance in the front garden and then we moved to the garden in the back where Maite offered a dance to the spirit of spring. As she greeted the blooming rhodies and other blooms in the garden, my little Noah was mesmerized by the dance. We all were. The sound of gongs, the color of malongs, the grace of dance, and the silent meditation ushered us into the the sacred space where we would receive the gifts that will be offered by volunteers after we had moved indoors.

Indoors, every corner of Lizae's home was beautified with flowers, water fountains, candles, art work, rock art, flowing luminous textiles. As the offerings unfolded, we savored dance, chant, poetry, song, drum, harp, cello, kora, visual images, trance dance, food, and kapwa jammin. Afterwards - beaming faces, nourished souls.

Time stood still.

As I returned to my books, theories, and to the classroom, I kept thinking of how to awaken the senses, the soul, the light within each of my students. How can I enliven the work of the mind with the work of the body and spirit? How to swim against the grain of what has become normal but stale and tepid? How do I tell my students about my experience at this event and will they get it? Will I be able to adequately articulate why this work (of CFBS) is transformative and can I connect it with the syllabus content I have laid out for them? In the white concrete walls, no- windows-classroom, how can I speak of sacred geography and of the nourishing warmth of spring's sun, the soft drizzle of petals from the cherry trees around campus, the swallows's nest in Salazar Building? But I do. I try.

With help from Wade Davis and his recent work on the importance of ancient ways in the modern age, I usher students into the importance of paying attention to the ethnosphere - the legacy of our diverse human repertoire on the planet that is now threatened by the power of domination that has been unleashed by the modern ideologies of progress and development.

We leap from the small particular stories to the Big Story. What is the story we tell ourselves and that we live by? Is there a story more compelling than the story of the free market and the American dream? Yes, there is. And it is Indigenous.

Spirit Breath, A Healing Concert

2011-04-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

As I prepared for this day's CFBS event, I noticed how the tasks of picking flowers, chopping vegetables, mixing salad dressing, and getting dressed were all imbued with a feeling of being in ceremony. I didn't put on my watch as I silently told myself that today I will be 'out of time' and will not need to look at my watch. As I tried on the banana wrap that I was going to wear with my malong, I marvelled at this plant whose fibers have now become a beautiful gift of garb. Gratitude.

I thank Lizae for organizing this event from a place of heartful intention. Lizae was thinking of a relative in Manila who is living with cancer and she wanted to offer a healing ritual in her name. She thought of the symbols of of tendrils, young shoots, new blooms of Spring as reminders of the cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. She thought of an elderly aunt who is still painting flowers and she wanted to share this gift with her friends. She thought of her sound healing cohort who were always willing to share this gift with others, like me, who are not familiar with the concept of sound healing. Thus, the seed idea for this event was conceived.

Months and weeks into the preparation for this event, I was reminded of the writings of Prechtel about ceremonies and ritual and their necessity in maintaining the heart of the village. I watched Lizae and the other volunteers for this event remind each other of the sacredness of this event. It is not merely a performance, a showcasing of talent, or putting on a show. And definitely it was not occasion for an academic to put on a lecture - this was their gentle chiding. Leny, please speak from your heart, Lizae said, when you speak from your heart it is so beautiful!

It challenged me. What then can I offer at this event if I am not going to talk in the language of the academe? In a secret corner of my heart, I've wanted to honor my indigenous Kapampangan roots, but how? So I asked Mike P if he knew of an indigenous Kapampangan invocation and he sent me Dalit Karing Nunu/Praise to the Ancestors. He said that this is chanted in the form of the pasyon, the holy week chanted reading of the life of Jesus. I told Mike that I didn't grow up Catholic so I didn't grow up with pasyon singing. Mike then said that the pasyon was borrowed by the Spanish and it "never belonged to them, it belonged to us." Ahhh! There is the answer! I will reclaim this chant and make it mine.

Place-based education

2011-04-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Good Discussion here by David Greenwood. Follow the link:
It is possible, though, that the energy around place-based education is part of something new—a new social and educational movement—and that the old way is just going to be around with us for quite some time. For example, people are now talking seriously about peak oil and a post-carbon economic system—but still, most of us are still burning a lot of gas and coal just getting through the day! I think place-based education and community-based knowledge is to high status knowledge what renewable energy is to oil and coal. People know it works and that it is important, but we are just not able to let go of what we have depended on for so long. Our entire infrastructure—both institutionally and I believe epistemologically—is just too wrapped up in high status knowledge to allow for any quick changes to new ways of knowing and doing. As Nathan Hensley says in the forthcoming book, Curriculum Studies Gone Wild, we need to de-carbonize the curriculum as well as our energy use. It is just going to take a lot of time, a lot of unlearning as we learn new ways. So I think that place-based education might be as much about unlearning or challenging old assumptions as it is about learning. Wherever place-based education is working, it needs to be supported so the movement can deepen and spread—much like the movement for renewable energy in the context of continued record profits for the oil industry! In fact, it might be best to keep the elites away from successes so that such successes are not co-opted and killed like the electric car was some years ago by the oil and auto industry!

weekend with cfbs sisters

2011-04-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

a lovely weekend with Lizae, Venus, and Junice. Lizae brought her guitar because we were going to rehearse for the upcoming event. but on second thought...nah. save the singing for another time. Venus came for the week to do video editing. Junice came to pick up the video camera i was lending her to take with her to the Philippines. she will be going home with her Dad to plant trees at their island off Cebu.

Junice didn't plan to stay overnight. Lizae planned on going home the next morning.

but we all ended up at wild flower bakery in Freestone and then at Dillon Beach and finally enjoying a seafood dinner. Junice and Lizae finally said goodbye at 7pm.

we read poetry, played music. told stories till 2:30am.

bonding. sisterhood. babaylan spirit.

wish you were here.

2011-04-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

looking forward to spring break. but not much of a break really when i have papers to check, meetings to go to, projects to finish, etc...but a week away from the classroom is a nice respite even though my thoughts are never far from my students. i think of them a lot, i feel their concerns, i sense their anxieties. just last week a student said her boyfriend tried to commit suicide so she had to be with him and so had to miss a class quiz. another student is taking care of a younger brother who needs a bit of discipline. many students are coughing and wheezing.

the presence of tibetan monks on campus last week was a gift. in their maroon and orange robes they floated around campus on the way to the library where they were making a tara mandala...on their way to the cafeteria for breakfast, or on the way to the dorms. it made me wonder what the impact of their presence was on students. one of my students said she was so frazzled one morning and was rushing to print her essay at the library when she saw the monks walking by and she instinctively slowed down and calmed down. one student said she is thinking of going to meditation classes now.

a professor died last week. he collapsed in front of his class and then was taken to the hospital. the news hit me like a ton of bricks. on our regularly scheduled meetings on Tuesday that this prof attends, there wasn't even an acknowledgement of his death that weekend. how strange. business went on as usual but this time there would be no dissent because the prof wasn't there. he was always the one with the dissenting voice.

the sand mandalas are destroyed after they are created to remind us of the impermanence of everything.

2011-04-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Paper on Merlinda Bobis' work

2011-04-05T22:00:00.001-07:00

Okay...here's an accessible take on this book!

on returning the sacred to the world...

2011-04-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

The core struggle of America will continue to revolve around issues of inclusion and exclusion. That struggle will provide the heat needed to change and grow and can generate the grieving necessary to heal. Conflicts don't end until the grief engendered has been fully felt. Meaningful conflict opens the doors of grief where the wounds of the soul wait to be washed. Oppositions heat the psyche and move obstacles, but sorrow must follow and wash the soul clean again.

Conflict ends on the ground of grief where the losses are counted and the wounds of the soul washed. The greatest conflicts occur where the felt sense of the sacred has been lost. One reason that wars don't seem to end and treaties never last is because peace is a sacred agreement. Unless something sacred enters in, agreements revert to conflicts rather easily. Some sacrifice is required to make things whole and holy again. The modern world is awash with unresolved conflicts and unconscious sacrifices that don't return the sacred to the world.

(Michael Meade, The Water of Life, 360)

a healing story

2011-03-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Her healing happened when she went to a sweat lodge and coming out of it (it was evening), saw a trail of light outside and decided to take off all her clothes and follow the trail of light. The others didn't know what was going on with her and stood to watch where she was going. But they, too saw the trail of light and saw that it led to a pond. When she got to the pond, naked, she jumped in and those who were standing to watch saw the whole pond light up in this bright glow of light. Coming out of it, she realized then that she was healed, stopped all her medication and has been well since then. Oh, before she saw the light, she saw a medicine man dancing behind her--this, no one else saw. Gloria now works to help homeless people build shelter from scraps (she ran a construction project in the past).

Who's afraid of sharia law?

2011-03-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

Today I got another chain email. This time it's an essay supposedly written by a woman Muslim convert to evangelical Christianity, warning of the coming sharia law in the US as Muslims in America begin to gain political clout.

I usually don't reply to chain emails but this time I couldn't help it. I wrote back to my friend who sent it and said:

Dear ,

I am very concerned about this kind of chain email circulating in our communities. I think it stokes our fears of the "Other" and makes us undermine our own faith in our professed democratic pluralism.

Even if the personal story of the writer is true, I doubt that the majority of American Muslims share her fear of shariah law ever taking over the U.S. I won't get into this lengthily here but I have faith that all of us who came to this country to find our personal freedom will be wary of any one fundamentalist doctrine threatening to rule our lives. (Of course, whether we find that personal freedom is another topic.)

This email could have been the story of one Filipina woman who was abused by an American man and then the word spreads that all American men are violent. Or the story can spread that a Filipina woman marries a white man to get a visa, exploit him, and then divorces him for another and then the story circulates that all Filipinas are the same.

Please let us be mindful of fear-mongering and let us not be afraid of other-ness. Let us not forget that Filipinos in the US are still also considered "other" along with other communities of color.

I just checked out the author of the piece you sent on wikipedia. She claims that she did not write the piece that is circulating. Also, her views should be considered as the views of a Muslim convert to evangelical Christianity and we know that an evangelical can espouse a dualistic world view that is just as sinister as its counterparts in the Muslim world. Is it really an either/or world with nothing in-between?

I hope you can send my remarks to the rest of your listserve. Thank you!
___
There is enough Fear circulating right now that is undermining our capacity for an ever widening and deepening appreciation for our diversity - religious views included. Our public discourse has been reduced to this "us" versus "them" or "West vs. the Rest" and we all suffer the fall-out from our lack of capacity to imagine how else we could view the world beyond dualisms.

Last week in class, we talked about jazz as life metaphor for improvisation; as the capacity to listen deeply to each other; the ability to create bridges instead of slamming doors in each other's faces; the need to learn how re-frame and reconcile rather than divide and conquer.

It is beautiful to see that when my students listen to each other's stories, they develop a profound compassion for the one who is not like them. Then we remind each other that ideologies and discourses in the dominant culture would have us mistrust and fear each other.

How can we ever find our common ground if we allow ourselves to be fearful? to be subjected to fear-mongering without critical reflection of what is at stake and who benefits when the people are afraid?

I know Fear intimately. I think about it everyday: I'm afraid of earthquakes, tsunamis, radiation. I'm afraid of oil running out; I'm afraid of soil erosion, global warming, etc. etc. The list is endless.

So I seek refuge in ancient stories about the Water of Life. I seek refuge in trickster stories. I seek refuge in the Beauty that takes my breath away. I seek refuge in the lemon, pomelo, apricot, pear trees in my small garden. I seek refuge in watching the finches feeding off the bird feeder outside my window.

I seek refuge in writing...about this Fear...and allowing it to swallow me until the alchemy transmutes it into something else that is no longer Fear but Awe in the Mystery even if this mystery is tremendum.

May all our fears become daffodils in the spring.

2011-03-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Stop!!
please do not forward those websites, newsletters, emails that warn about:
-- financial collapse in the US due to hyperinflation
-- radiation fall out from Japan reaching the west coast

i read this stuff and when i get to the end, i realize they're just out to get me to buy their stuff.
i am hit with ads on what to buy:
-- get the financial newsletter that will tell me how to make money even after everyone have lost their shirt!
-- buy gas now and evacuate, am told. where to? 30 million Californians emptying out the state headed where??
-- buy potassium iodide, spirulina, chorella, seaweed, baking soda, etc.etc.

i already know that shift is happening. it is only hubris/ego that pretends that control and security is guaranteed.

when i was young, every year we waited for the monsoon floods. we anticipated the inundation and destruction of our house. my dad waded in chest -high water to find us food. we stayed home from school. read by candlelight. in 1972 we were under water for a month and when the water receded, our house was half-buried in silt.

i recall the Mt Pinatubo eruption and how it dumped ashes on my parents' house; how lahar flowed and buried entire towns. a friend's family was rescued from the rooftop of their home after being soaked in rain for more than 24hours.

now the same things happen with severity and more dire consequences. there is 24hour unrelenting media. i am glued to it until i begin to wonder if i have become a voyeur.

i retreat into my center of calm. i remind myself not to be seduced by fear and ego.

instead i sing. i watch the birds outside. i watch the rain.

2011-03-15T16:06:00.001-07:00

Smile or Die

Barbara Ehrenreich has been hitting the right notes lately. In this video, she talks about delusional thinking in the finance world that led to the financial collapse of 2007 among other things....

2011-03-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

o dear mother
sometimes heartbreak
ruptures

your silence becomes
a roar
swallowing

all that is
made by
humans

please forgive us
humble us
help

us to become
wise, kneel
humbly

tsunami dream

2011-03-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Am looking at the earthquake and tsunami photos in Japan. The other night I saw the same scenario in my dream (tsunami). I woke myself up because I was afraid but then when I realized I was dreaming, I went into lucid dreaming and I told myself that this wasn't an apocalypse; it's the Earth dreaming. When I imagined the Earth dreaming and I allowed myself to drown and float with the waves, my fears changed into calm. Now as I look at the photos/faces of the people in Japan, I see the same calm...I imagine it comes from an understanding and respect for the Mother's dreams.

an exercise in thinking outside of empire

2011-03-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

an art history teacher from the Phil asked (via Fb - where else?) if having an MA degree will allow him to find a college teaching job in the US. i told him i've not seen it happen and that, in fact, a lot of people with phds in the US are currently underemployed or unemployed. i asked why he wants to come to the US and he tells me that he wants to pursue further studies in art history and then return and be useful to the Phil. he says that Manila universities do not have good research facilities and art theorizing is not current.

winona laduke said that when she went to harvard she was told that if she wants to study european art she should go to the fine arts department; if she wants to study indigenous art she should go to the anthropology department. so there....

she also said that it's time to start thinking outside of empire...

so i tried to tell R that if he wants to be useful to Kapampangan culture, maybe he should look to other indigenous artists or communities who are way ahead in theorizing and practicing sustainable arts and crafts -- like the Maoris in NZ or even our own Heritage and Arts Academies of the Philippines. i also mentioned the names of two Fil Am artists that he could dialogue with. i said that with the availability of online information, books, and social media networks, perhaps he could learn what he wants to learn without an academic degree.

i don't know if this was good advice or not since i'm a beneficiary of a graduate degree. how can i discourage someone else who want to pursue higher education? it may not seem fair but i also recognize that the federal program that gave me a doctoral fellowship no longer has the funding; access to educational opportunities (in all levels) has been dwindling since then (just listen to the rhetoric around or against public education in the US these days). nowadays, most students take out loans to pay for a college degree. one of my former students who recently graduated from law school ended up with a $250,000 educational loan and she told me she couldn't even land a well-paying job that will allow her to support her family and pay off her loan at the same time.

on the other hand, some students are leaving college without employment prospects and so they stay in school for an MA or Phd program thinking that they are improving their future prospects. sadly they also feel that their undergraduate program doesn't really prepare them for the current realities not just in the workplace, but in the larger context of the global economy, and the even larger context of an imploding ecosphere under the weight of manic global capitalist structure.

thus, i feel burdened by the questions of younger folks like R in the Philippines who think that going to the US to work and study is feasible and if so, how. part of me feels that i should encourage this desire and another part of me wants to challenge him to reflect more deeply about his love for Kapampangan culture and what is really necessary to nurture indigenous arts, crafts, practices to make them sustainable.
**
winona laduke tells the stories of scientists seeking the advice of indigenous elders on problems like global climate change, the disappearing salmon, etc...and the elders answer: we didn't create these problems, you did. solve them.
**

what does it mean to think outside of empire in this case of R's question? and why is it necessary to learn to think outside of empire?

***

i stop writing and i go to google: "thinking outside of empire"...

***

well, i didn't really have to google because i've been meditating on civilizational collapse for awhile now along with many others who are asking the same questions: the 20,000 at the World Social Forum 2010, for example; the Great Turning movement; Bioneers; Indigenous Environmental Network; Seventh Generation Foundation; Indigenous Science Network, Post Peak Oil, Global Climate Change, Pachamama Alliance, 350.org, etc...

i can point to so many movements (within the empire) that are thinking outside of empire. and yet those who still perceive themselves as being on the margins of empire, seem to want to move closer to the heart of empire. maybe that is the just the yin-yang of phenomena.

as for R who wants to come to the US...perhaps he should come and see for himself. but only if he finds a fellowship or a grant or a wealthy auntie who can fund his sojourn; this way he wouldn't have to sink himself into the debt pit which no one seems to get out of these days including the good ol' USA.

Who are my elders?

2011-03-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

she asked: what do you think of inviting elders ,who are not Filipinos, to guide us since we do not have elders in our community?

who are my/our elders? what is an elder?

i understand where this question is coming from. in an indigenous community that is still primarily oral, the elders/council of elders take on the mantle of guiding the younger ones. they lead, they tell stories, they live by example. they keep the life of the community coherent, stable, meaningful, purposeful. they hold up the cosmic story and the creation stories that give people their sense of belonging and identity. the shaman/medicine men and women work alongside the elders in keeping life in balance. in land-based communities and stable communities over time, knowledge and wisdom are passed on orally. knowing is embodied and lived. rituals and ceremonies are part of daily life.

but what about those of us in the diaspora? those of us who live in cities as modern subjects, as postcolonial subjects of empire? who are our elders?

when i think of my elders i start a list: my ancestors whose names i do not know. my theoretical ancestors whose works gave me the language that liberated me. some of them are not Filipinos. i think of my older friends who are my career mentors. i think of my parents and grandparents who -- by intentions and omissions -- guided my choices. i think of a lover who tutored me. i think of the IPs i met in Mindanao - many of whom i didn't get to talk to personally but i know of their lives and work and what i know teaches me and nurtures me. i think of authors i've read who confirm and validate my processes and my path and who often articulate what's still on the tip of my tongue, still searching for a language. i think of my husband whose steady hand, big heart, and clear mind provides a container for my ruminations. i think of my siblings. i think of my son and grandson -- they may be my descendants but the Indigenous Soul lives in them, too.

what then is an elder? who is an elder? in this context, in the absence of a community, i am grateful for the people, books, and experiences that became my teachers, guides...that shaped my life work, that led to this place of trust and knowing that my life is nurtured by the Indigenous Soul, that i belong to the earth, that i live in the embrace of the cosmos.

is this possible? to conjure the role of elder thru these weavings? i do not have a choice. but even if i don't have a choice, it is my responsibility to do this work of decolonization and indigenization. i am drawn to the community of like-minded seekers. but each of us have our own work to do since we each have different histories (familial, personal) that we need to unravel to shake off the dust off our larger colonial history that has shaped us.

i understand the yearning to be in the physical presence of elders who are wise and who are able to connect the past with the present and then envision a future aligned with a cosmic story that is beautiful and sacred. i long for elders who have the gift of vision.

in their physical absence, i have found this guidance elsewhere -- in conversations with others, in books, in dreams, in retreats, in meditation. could it be that the elders speak through these visitations in various forms? do we know how to hear when they are speaking? do we know how to discern their voice amidst the din of psychobabble that litter the road?

i am learning.

147M orphans minus one

2011-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

I am very moved by Eileen's post about the adoption of Michael's brother by a New York photographer. I have been following the adventures of Eileen in parenting and adoption and it is just heartwarming to know that Jose, Michael's brother, now has a family.

This news gladdened my heart today. Thank you, Eileen and Victor, Jose's new dad.

connecting the dots...

2011-02-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

it looks like the egyptian revolution is spreading around the Middle East. Bahrain. Iran. Iraq. the youth-led revolutions want democracy and the US supports people's desire for freedom, right? but the US has always backed the autocratic rulers in these countries in order to secure our supply of oil. so what will happen when the people start demanding that they take back control of their own natural resources (same demand in Nigeria re oil) and instead of shipping everything to the US and its allies, they will open the competition to China, India. they will demand that corporate profits be more equally distributed to citizens and not just the royalty. what happens if the royalty does not yield to people power? what will the US do? can we support democratic movements and support dictatorships at the same time? all the editorial pundits are already speculating on the precarious moves that the US must consider...

i smell blowback. i know i am not alone.

no wonder the elder brothers have been warning the younger brother to pay attention. the younger brother will not pay attention....

Banig Memories

2011-02-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a banig is more than a banig.

excerpt:

I remembered the last mid-January weekend retreat in Sta. Rosa, the playing like children in Sonoma, the comfort of Leny’s kitchen and couch. I remembered the warmth of bodies and hearts, all 15 of us, settled like birds in a nest, treasuring the home we found in one another. I remembered the sheer bliss of rediscovering deep friendship, the sweetness of laughter shared as a family, the passionate play of being community. We were, as Perla so aptly described it, a bowl. We contained each other, our laughter and our tears, our smiles and even our fears, our bodies, our spirits. We were a bowl yes, but at the same time, we were also a boat on the river, flowing with our dreams, rowing to the rhythm of our vision - for service to our Kapwa - rowing towards liberation, always moving towards freedom.

My Haunting Valentine x3

2011-02-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

A meditation (1) turns into a hay(na)ku (2) and a new poem (3). Thanks to Eileen and Grace!!

(1) i am haunted by words. spoken. written. whispered. over the phone. texts. emails. even words that never leave the tongue but flow with our breath. words that are remembered because they pierced our hearts once. words that someone uttered from across the table confirming an answer to a question: why won't you love me? words that tumbled over the brain like waterfall washing all the nonsense away. words that flower from the mountain of grief. words that seed themselves in the ground of being. words that birthed a new intimacy...with the body's skin. bone. hair. words that rush like wind airing out the dusty corners of psyche. words that spell a four letter word which is your name.

i am haunted by words. they have a life of their own. and because they have a life of their own, i cannot claim ownership. so i own Nothing. in the end i am back to the beginning: I am left with the Fullness of Nothing.

(2) Eileen's Hay(na)ku version

i am haunted

by words.

spoken.

written. whispered. over

the phone.

texts.

emails. even words

that never

leave

the tongue but

flow with

our

breath. words remembered

because they

pierced

our hearts. words

someone uttered

from

across the table

confirming an

answer

to an unanswered

question: why

won't

you love me?

words that

tumbled

like waterfall washing

all nonsense

away.

words flowering from

a grieving

mountain.

words seeding themselves

in the

ground

of being. words

birthing new

intimacies

with skin. bone.

hair. words

flowing

like breezes airing

out dusty

corners

of psyche. letters

spelling a

four-letter-word

which is your

name. i

haunted by words.

they have

their

own lives. i

cannot claim

ownership.

i own Nothing

in the

end.

am back to

the beginning:

left

only with the

Fullness of

Nothing.

**
(3) Grace's poem:

i am haunted by words.

words that never leave the tongue but flow with our breath.

words that remember how to pierce hearts.

words that spell a four-letter word which is your name.

once, words uttered themselves across the table

words came, confirming an unanswered question:

why

won't

you love me?

they tumbled over the brain

like waterfalls washing all the nonsense away.

out of phones. texts. emails

they seeded-tender shoots of words grounding themselves deep into the ground of being.

they sprouted- tendrils of words on top of a mountain of grief

and then, new words flowered

birthed a new intimacy...with the body's skin. bone. hair.

new words rushed like wind airing out the dusty corners of psyche.

and though, still...even then

Nothing in the end...save (y)our words

they have a life of their own.

they have a life of their own

though i know, i cannot own you

i am back to the beginning:

all that is left, planted in my mouth

are (y)our words.

sated, I am left with the Fullness of Nothing

The Ghost of Mr. White

2011-02-10T10:16:00.001-08:00

There are ghosts that haunt us...

Prof L ended up doing research on the Thomasites because as a child he grew up hearing stories about the ghost of a Mr. White. The prof became fascinated by the question of whether there was a real person behind the ghost story. So off he went to do a phd on the Thomasites and unearthed the story of Frank Russel White who built the first public school in Tarlac and later on became the overall superintendent of schools in the country.
I asked Prof L what he thinks the ghost wants or needs that it has pursued him all this time?
Is this spirit restless, wandering, lost, sad, confused, remorseful?
Is he asking or needing forgiveness?
Is he needing absolution?

I suppose I'll have to wait for an answer on the next visit.

growing Transition Movements

2011-02-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

it's good that the Transition movement is growing.
buzz words: civilizational collapse, soft transition, end of cheap oil, cutting carbon emission, localization, quality of life, less travel, etc.
this movement is initiated by mostly urban, affluent communities, mostly white folks. in this video, there are featured towns from Ireland, England, New Zealand, Australia...there's even one near me - Transition Sebastopol (not in the video, tho).
this movement is grassroots and grounded on valuing relationships including respect for elders, mindful use of resources, planting your own food, sharing -- all good!

i've been mulling for a while now how i can plug in to a transition community but then on second thought,
i do not have to transition because i am and have always been "in transition"...!
this movement is really calling for a call to return to indigenous values - love of Land/Earth, love of creation, love of each other, questioning modern values -- values that folks like me have never left behind.
my question is: is it enough to talk about transition without also talking about the need to decolonize the white/whitened mind (Eurocentric, modern)? and what would that look like exactly?
here's Jurgen Kremer with some answers.

cooking frenzy

2011-02-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

the day started slowly and late.
toast and jam; softboiled egg for breakfast.
the day before i bought shrimp and ground pork.
we had shrimp sinigang last night. i used lemons and kalamansi from the garden.
i was going to make lumpiang shanghai but ended up making torta instead. i didn't make torta the way my mom does. i used yam instead of potatoes; green pepper instead of red. added corn and peas. dried chopped apricots instead of raisins. it's almost as good as mom's.
then while the torta was cooking, i baked 3 medium-sized beets.
i chopped off the beet greens and sauteed them in butter and garlic.
then i remembered that i had kale and broccoli in the garden so i harvested some. the kale was mixed with the beet greens. i steamed the broccoli; with nothing added, it was perfect.
afterwards i noticed that i had a large butternut squash on a basket on the kitchen counter. i sliced it in half and baked half of it drizzled in olive oil. i cut the other half in chunks and cooked it in coconut milk with a touch of curry powder and ginger. well, it turned out to be coconut cream so i only needed half a can. what to do with the other half?
well, i had tapioca pearls. i also had frozen pandan leaves so i boiled it for a few minutes to infuse the pearls with pandan flavor. after the pearls were done, i added the coconut cream. ack. i forgot to add sugar. what to add for sugar? ahh, i had a can of lychees. i cut the lychees into small pieces then added it with the syrup to the tapioca pearls. delicious!!
it was a good day....
i wish you were here to eat with me.
manyaman!!

SILK EGG by Eileen Tabios: A Response

2011-02-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel I'm carrying on an illicit affair with Poetry. You know how that feels, right? Desire overwhelms and then the disciplined heart (or is it the mind?) intercepts and says: Dont! You can't possess her anyway!
And so Silk Egg sat on my coffee table as I got busy: a retreat, two book reviews, two syllabi, a walk in the woods, a romp on the beach at sunset, and traipsing here and there with friends.
But tonight I picked her up and took her to bed with me (I wouldn't be writing this otherwise, no?) And she just wouldn't let me go.
I had forgotten how sweet it is to get lost in the beauty of ....Words. These black dots on a page suddenly turning into a visual sensual orgasm of sort.
What is so special about Her birthland is replete with child soldiers? Just one sentence that would take a Nicholas Christof an entire NYT column to expound on. But say it once, say it again and ....
There's a reason why Sky is better than aspirin! because when one thinks of war, of refugees, of orphans, one thinks of the assumed amorality of maps. But for me those who draw maps succumb to manifest manners - a Rarefied pretense of empire mongers. Yes, I believe that in the rarefied air of the imperial City, radiance has absconded.
The rest of us are ushered into a Door not of our choosing; sometimes regretful but then acquiescing to the loosening of rain, rain rain.
After all, the heart is a pure animal.
When having an illicit affair, you don't allow yourself to drown in the headiness of it all.
You caress slowly to make time stand still.
Do not swallow Silk Egg in one night.
But who will stop me?
I have no remorse.

REVIEW OF VIRGIL MAYOR APOSTOL’S "WAY OF THE ANCIENT HEALER"

2011-01-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

Virgil Mayor Apostol, Way of the Ancient Healer

NORTH ATLANTIC BOOKS, 2010

Reviewed by Leny Mendoza Strobel

January 28, 2011

In a note I sent to Virgil shortly after receiving my copy of his book, I wrote: In a way, my books have been a way station for the arrival of the knowledge that you bring in this book. I said this because I’ve been writing about the need for those of us in the diaspora to have access to Filipino indigenous knowledge and practices as part of our decolonization process. For what is the point of deconstructing our colonized identities if, in the end, we didn’t have an indigenous narrative of our own? In all of my writing about decolonization and indigenization, I have described my own journey, including my desire to know more specifically about my own ancestral roots as a Kapampangan.

While I have the body memory, I didn’t have the ancestral stories to go along with it. Way of the Ancient Healer gave me those stories. Even if they are Virgil’s personal stories, he claims he speaks out of a collective voice as well…and that includes mine.

In reading Virgil’s Way of the Ancient Healer, I felt as if I finally had the empirical evidence or concrete data in the form of his own personal stories and those of others who reveal the encyclopedic knowledge of healing arts of our Filipino ancestors. He also links this knowledge to the traditions and practices of near and far neighbors in Southeast Asia and beyond. Even further, he also weaves these traditions within the realm of the cosmic and mythic. His narrative spans both ancient and contemporary times to show that the past is still alive in the present; in his Epilogue he envisions that our ancient ways of healing will survive into the future as well.

I used to read the Journal of Noetic Sciences and Parabola and there was always a part of me that felt incredulous about the attempts of western scientists to prove that certain psychic or spiritual phenomena can be proven scientifically in laboratory settings or with measuring instruments. Even then I was already skeptical of the need to validate everything through the scientific method. I muttered to myself often: why do we need science to prove that prayer works? Why do we need science to prove that meditation works?

And then I was introduced to the term “indigenous science” through the work of Apela Colorado[1] and Jurgen Kremer[2] and Jeremy Narby[3] – all of whom are writing to posit that there needs to be better dialogue between indigenous knowledge holders (shamans) and scientists. In particular, I appreciate Narby’s contention that what hinders this dialogue is not language but the arrogance of western science.

Well, we must be making some progress towards that dialogue if I take as one indicator the publication of the Way of the Ancient Healer by North Atlantic Books. Blurbed by famous names in the healing arts - Deepak Chopra, Bradford Keeney, Hank Wesselman, and Jean Houston – this book places our Filipino Sacred Teachings and Philippine Ancestral Traditions on the map. (Whether we admit it or not, the colonized mind tends to be impressed by the authority of the printed word more than the authority of the oral tradition).

But something is changing…

I heard Danny Kalanduyan, the kulintang master, tell the story that when be brought his Filipino American students to Mindanao to learn about kulintang arts, the locals were wondering why Americans are interested in their arts. I hear the same story repeated in various ways: when Filipinos in the Philippines receive the balikbayans who are interested in indigenous cultures and practices, it creates a synergy and it awakens their own consciousness to the importance and relevance of these practices. In the Philippines, I remember Fr. Alejo’s story of how the indigenous folks on Mt Apo told him: why do you still want to study us, Father, when we don’t have culture anymore? (in reference to their having agreed to allow a geothermal development on their sacred mountain).[4]

Indeed, the timing of Virgil Apostol’s book is perfect. I sense that we are ready to look back at our ancient ways of knowing and healing because when we do, it returns us to a place of belonging. It makes us feel whole. It makes us joyful to remember, re-member and make whole the fragments of stories that we have silently carried in our cultural genes.

I look at the photographs in this book and the various ways of naming among our ethnolinguistic groups and I am overcome by a soothing feeling, a very comforting feeling. More recently, my grief and sadness over the stories that were not passed on to me by my own ancestors have been assuaged: You may not know our names or our stories, but you know us. Your work honors us. And we know you. What prepared me to hear the voice of my ancestors includes the time I spent with Virgil’s book.

Let me put it another way: The spoken word is potent. In oral cultures, as in the ancient times of our ancestors, the stories were handed down in all their potency and power. David Abram[5] writes that reading can be an animist experience once we learn how to reconnect with the sensuousness of the world and the word.

The structure of Way of the Ancient Healer lends itself to the potential of reclaiming the power of the oral tradition, of the story, of the spoken word in its literate form. In this way of bridging, of finding the middle path (as Virgil calls his approach to this work), it invites the skeptical, the cynic, the doubter – for whatever reasons – to come hither and listen. Is your religious belief or scientific belief or your modern consciousness getting in the way of this invitation to imbibe in the wealth of your ancestral Filipino roots? Not to worry. Virgil’s approach in this book is gentle, humorous, compassionate, and non-judgmental. After all, that’s the only way the ancestors would have it.

-30-

[1] http://www.wisn.org/research.html

[2] http://www.sonic.net/~jkremer/Ethnoautobiography.PDF

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Serpent

[4] See Fr. Albert Alejo’s book, Creating Energies on Mt. Apo, Ateneo University Press

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nhqzxHVQm4

Original Instructions (from dream circle, 1/16/2011

2011-01-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

You are here because we summoned you.
For many decades now you have dreamt of this moment.
In your dreams, your Lola appeared telling you to plant
sampaguita, kalamansi - which are not native to his land.
But this is your Land now. We brought you here.
We sent you here.
These are the original instructions you are remembering now
because the veil of forgetting has lifted. Your memories
are alive; they live and breathe here and now tethered
to the thread that weaves the past, present, and future.
Because of moments like this weekend, we will grieve
no longer because you have welcomed us back and received our
presence into your life.
Your life now flows like song - sometimes of ecstacy and joy,
sometimes of rage and fear, sometimes of reverie --
but always full and throbbing.

White Theology intersects with indigenous spirituality

2011-01-27T21:41:00.000-08:00

This is a re-post from the old blog (kathang-pinay) dated January 29, 2005.:

What is white theology and how does it intersect with indigenous spirituality?

Jim Perkinson's answer:

The simplest answer I suppose is to say white theology is a response to black theology. Like that effort of making black experience of race explicit in relationship to Christian theology, white theology tries to do the same with whiteness.
It means making clear how racialization and racism came into being in the first place as a European theological evaluation of colonized peoples as “not saveable” and of their cultural and religious practices as dangerous at best and demonic at worst.
That theological evaluation quickly took up skin color as its shorthand for assessing who is who in the colonial theaters of contact.
White theology then makes apparent how racial perception and racist exploitation of colonized others were originally theological in motivation and continue to function as mode of “salvation” for white people.
Modern Christianity is not a neutral force in the modern world but since 1492 has functioned as a modality of spiritual supremacy that birthed white supremacy.
White supremacy is the bastard child of Christian supremacy over indigenous religions. White theology seeks to trace that history and genealogy and then make clear how white supremacy continues to operate as the hidden norm inside most of our global structures today, whether economic, political, social, cultural, or spiritual.
Recovery of indigenous practices as peer spiritualities of Christianity (or even as perhaps superior in their sensitivity to local culture and ecology) is necessary to “outing” and dismantling white supremacy.

2011-01-27T17:36:00.001-08:00

Here are the photos from the CFBS retreat.

2011-01-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to our Retreat Notes and Reflections.

Enjoy!

2011-01-15T23:46:00.001-08:00

what a beautiful day!
-- morning: framing the Big Story
-- afternoon: small stories within the Big Story
-- evening: Storytelling, power of; encounters with spirits
-- harp meditation and sound healing

Heal us....said the voices of the ancient ones
You heal us when you make beautiful music
You heal us when you exercise your intellect
You heal us when you nourish your bodies
You heal us when you listen to one another
You heal us when you serve
You heal us when you come together

Epiphany from a Spider

2011-01-11T23:23:00.000-08:00

I posted this on FB yesterday...
a spider has built a 3-tier webhouse on my kitchen window...and am supposed to be cleaning for houseguests. i think miss spider wants to stay and show off :-))
friends responded back: she is decorating; it is good feng shui; it brings good luck.
R said i should name her Charlotte and adopt her as a pet.
But her name is not Charlotte, it is Caring/Caridad! -- this is the thought that came to me from nowhere and i stuck with it.
C said that in the Yoruba - Lukumi Tradition, one of the Orisha Oshun's "messengers" is the spider. Oshun is also called Ye Ye Cari (short for Caridad); She is syncretized as La Caridad del cobre (Our Lady of Charity).
Mike said that we Kapampangans have Mangatia (the net maker) is a giant spider who created the universe (sikluban) from it's web...from which all of us and our destinies are connected.

a month or so ago, while holiday cleaning, i had swatted another spider in the same window without thinking of the above. Perhaps because i had been reading David Abram's Becoming Animal, this time i paused and watched Caring at work. i was amazed at the pattern she has woven - 3 tiers - and so i kept coming back to watch her progress as the day went on.

in the evening, amused by the responses to my post, I looked up a few more stories about spiders and what they symbolize in different cultures. I noticed that this time i was paying attention...which means the stories were making their way into my body and not just the intellect.

ruminating on the day's events and why i was cleaning house in the first place (having lots of houseguests for a 3-day retreat), my thoughts turned to the books on my bedside: Lane Wilcken's and Virgil Apostol's. both of them tell of their ancestors - great great grandmothers they knew by name, stories remembered, healing powers passed on to them and now they are telling the world.

i was gripped by sadness and felt a little surprised by this feeling. a closer look - i was sad that i do not know my great grandparents. i have no stories about them. i remembered asking my mother, when she was still alive, about my ancestors but she too, didn't know names and stories. i knew, that she, too, was frustrated that she couldn't give me any answers. grief memories... and then tears flowed. and a quiet voice said....

you may not know our names, but we know you. you honor us by the work you are doing. you know us even though you do not know our names. do not be sad. we are still here. we even visited you today and you named us...

Jennifer's journey Home....

2011-01-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

(I'm sharing J's letter to Kapampangan culture-bearers who await her homecoming and will take her on a journey of rediscovering her Kapampangan indigenous roots.)

Dearest All,

I thank you in advance for you warm welcome and your open arms. My intention for this journey is rediscovery. Rediscovery of my ancesteral history, our indigenous history, and my own story.

Here is a back story on me. As most immigrants coming to the US from a young age I have spend most of my life assimilating, trying to fit in, trying to be just like everyone else. But, as I hit my 30s I started to really do some self reflection. As this process unfolded I slowly came closer to Spirit and was able to tap into my true essence and purpose in this lifetime. As my perception shifted and how I saw the world became more clear, the more I was able to see the beauty of my ancestral roots. I was able to see the Indigenous ways of my ancestors as sacred. Their way of life was in harmony with the land and the seasons. They lived and worked as a community, knowing that if one was hurt everyone was to feel the pain as well. They lived Kapwa, the self in the other, as an everyday reality. I see such beauty in the way that they lived their lives feel that now more than ever we need to go back to their ways.

So, that's my life's journey, once a path opens up for you there is no going back. I am now and for the rest of my life committed to rediscovering the ways of our ancestors and somehow finding a way to use their wisdom in our modern life. Any words, stories, rituals, or songs, you all want to contribute to this intention is very welcomed.

Maraming salamat po.

Filipino Tattoos:Ancient to Modern

2011-01-03T23:21:00.000-08:00

REVIEW OF LANE WILCKEN’S FILIPINO TATTOOS: ANCIENT TO MODERN

SCHIFFER BOOKS, 2010

REVIEWED BY: LENY MENDOZA STROBEL

I first took notice of young undergrads at UC Berkeley sporting baybayin tattoos in the mid-90s. Elsewhere I wrote about these tattoos as signifying a desire to reconnect with one’s Filipino indigenous roots or ethnic/cultural heritage. I also wrote that perhaps some of the young folks were just riding a wave of popular culture: the modern primitive. As I perused photography books at bookstores and television spectacles about these modern primitives, I began to wonder about the meaning of such practices.

I thought that in these postmodern times when everything is in flux and identities are hybrid, fluid, cosmopolitan and even “homeless”, the body has become the last territory that a person can still have some control over or ownership. Perhaps, I thought, if our lives are so controlled and mediated by business corporations and the corporate media, the body is trying to assert its own authority. Since tattoos are still relatively marginalized in the dominant culture, those who choose to wear them are asserting their own resistance to dominating narratives. In my head, I kept on theorizing about postmodern practices of resistance to the fetishes of capitalism. But something shifted soon after.

In 1997, as I was recovering from a car accident, I asked a henna artist to draw a “tree of life” tattoo on the six-inch scar along along my right arm. A henna temporary tattoo lasts for about 4 -6 weeks. I got this tattoo the day before I enplaned to the Philippines to recover in my Mother’s arms. Naturally, when she saw my arm she squirmed and asked “what have you done?” – thinking that this was permanent.

I loved this temporary tattoo; it was my way of marking my survival. My second life commenced with this gesture of marking my body, even if only temporarily. My mother was relieved that it was temporary. But I think for the rest of her life she wondered about this strange daughter’s surprises and musings.

Thus, today I sit with Lane Wilcken’s Filipino Tattoos: Ancient to Modern and praising the book for filling in a lot of blanks for me about this ancient practice.

In this book, Lane provides in-depth and wide-ranging perspectives on the connections of Filipino tattoo designs with Polynesian/Pacific Islander myths and practices; what Filipino tattoos signified among specific tribal groups; designs or motifs derived from the animist worldviews of indigenous peoples; and how contemporary Filipino Americans are choosing to tattoo themselves with tribal symbols.

As we[1] attempt to articulate Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP), Lane adds to this body of knowledge with this book. How do we recuperate the relevance of these indigenous practices and why and what for? In this book, Lane documents the answers to all these questions. What comes through loud and clear for me is that these are living traditions. In indigenous communities where the belief that all is Sacred and animated by the spirits of our ancestors, these living traditions of marking the body with beauty is an extension of one’s relationship to the Sacred. Whether it is to signify the courage of the warrior, safe passage into the other life, or protection from malevolent spirits, or to beautify one’s body, or to signify kinship with other created beings, like the buwaya/crocodile – these living traditions are kept alive and their symbolic meanings provide the power that is invoked by the chosen tattoo.

To choose to be tattooed is a decision not to be taken lightly. In their indigenous contexts, the community had a shared understanding of the rituals, the symbolic meanings of body adornment. Today, in the diaspora and in the absence of such communities, Lane writes about the meditation that is required before one chooses to be tattooed. As with Asian and Filipino practices like qi gong, acupuncture, kali – these practices require not only the acquisition of skill but the transformation of one’s world view, values, and lifestyle. It may mean a serious reckoning with colonial history, a conscious decolonization process, a shift in lifestyle choices, a shift in the way we eat or what we eat – all of which are part of the process of connecting to the timelessness and Sacredness of Life.

In this book, Lane’s connection to his great grandmother who was a mamangkit/spirit medium, and his grandmother who was a manghilot, is evident. As the receiver of this heritage he has devoted more than two decades of his life researching and documenting this Filipino living tradition. Using the earlier works of American and European anthropologists who documented Filipino tattooing, Lane is able to recontextualize these traditions in the Filipino indigenous world view. To me, this is a critical intervention that is needed for us to fully appreciate these traditions outside of the colonial gaze and outside of the construction of “modern primitives.” In doing so, Filipino Tattoos: Ancient to Modern, returns us to our nobility, beauty, wisdom, and…a sense of magic.

Synchronistically, I have been reading about the recovery of indigenous mind (Jurgen Kremer, 1997; 2003) for white folks and for those who have been subjected to colonialism and imperialism. Kremer refers to the “original instructions” that are given to people and how these instructions need to be taken cared of through ceremony, ritual, dreams; it means to “live in the presence of the past for the future. The original instructions are from the past, we need to bring our present into them, so that creation emerges from the center of our cultures. They contain the information for sustainable living.”[2]

This is the gift of Lane Wilcken’s book; it is an offering and honoring of our Ancestors and their gifts to us. Whether you are Visayan, Ilokano, Gaddang, Kalinga, etc, male or female, modern, in the homeland or in the diaspora – you will find relevant information about your ancestors or about your Filipino history in this book. Even if you have not or will not consider getting a tattoo yourself, you can draw knowledge and wisdom about the ways of our ancestors from this book. You might learn to understand these cultural practices in terms of the validity of the indigenous worldview; for the value of honoring the past in order to honor the present; for valuing our ancestors and their legacy of Sacred Wholeness. You might learn to question the ways in which our ancestors’ practices were portrayed as primitive, barbaric, demonic, or heathen. I only say “might” because the work of doing so – of questioning, reflecting, valuing – is a process of grieving what has been lost under colonization. It is a process of painful re-membering of the stories and practices we have traded in. But if there is even a glimpse of resonance, of magic, that rises to your awareness as you read the book and look at the photographs, pay attention to that whisper. It is your indigenous soul calling you Home.

For me, I specially like this passage: “A woman’s tattooing was an affirmation of her strength and inherent spiritual power, procreative endowment, and as a form of clothing, an enhancement of beauty and a proclamation of her status. Finally, the tattoos were a form of recognition that allowed the soul of a woman to pass into the afterlife and join the glorious chain of her ancestors.” (57).

[1] “We” here refers to the Center for Babaylan Studies whose mission is to provide a container for Filipino IKSP and articulate their relevance today for Filipinos in the homeland and in the diaspora. Visit http://www.babaylan.net.

[2] Jurgen W. Kremer, “Recovering Indigenous Mind,” in Revision, Vol. 19. No. 4, p.33. 1997.

2011-01-01T14:44:00.001-08:00

Resisting Imperial Peace

from Slavoj Sizek

2010-12-31T16:03:00.000-08:00

Excerpt:
Consequently, the notion of “toxic subjects” gained ground. While toxic subjects originate from popular psychology warning us against emotional vampires, the frontier of toxic subjects is expanding. The predicate “toxic” covers a series of properties that belong to totally different levels (natural, cultural, psychological, political).
Socially, what is most toxic is the foreign Neighbor—the strange abyss of his pleasures, beliefs and customs. Consequently, the ultimate aim of all rules of interpersonal relations is to quarantine (or at least neutralize and contain) this toxic dimension, and thereby reduce the foreign Neighbor—by removing his otherness—to an unthreatening fellow man. The end result: today’s tolerant liberal multiculturalism is an experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness—the decaffeinated Other who dances fascinating dances and has an ecologically sound holistic approach to reality while features like wife beating remain out of sight.
Is this same attitude not at work in the way our governments are dealing with the “immigrant threat”? After righteously rejecting direct populist racism as “unreasonable” and unacceptable for our democratic standards, they endorse “reasonably” racist protective measures. Or, as today’s Brasillachs tell us: “We grant ourselves permission to applaud African and Eastern- European sportsmen, Asian doctors, Indian software programmers. We don’t want to kill anyone, we don’t want to organize any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable violent anti-immigrant defensive measures is to organize a reasonable anti-immigrant protection."

This vision of detoxification of the Neighbor presents a clear passage from direct barbarism to barbarism with a human face. It practices the regression from the Christian gospel (love thy neighbor) back to the Greco-Roman privileging of tribe over the barbarian Other. Cloaked as a defense of Christian values, it is itself the greatest threat to our Christian legacy.

reading list

2010-12-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

Just sent this list to PAWA when Barb asked me for my reading list.

CFBS Videos

2010-12-27T12:28:00.000-08:00

The Great ocean dance -- performed at the first Babaylan/CFBS event (Sept 2009) at Lizae's house. Composed by Lizae and dance by Frances Santiago.

Honoring our Babaylan Ancestors - in honor of Aurelia Melgar, Karen Pennrich's sister; footage from the Babaylan event at Unity Church in Berkeley, Spring 2010

Lissa Romero composed this song for the Babaylan Book and performed it during the April 2010 conference.

Healing Journey with Tatay - videodocumentary by Venus Herbito as part of her Indigenous Mind program at Wisdom University.

Enjoy and share!!

The Commonwealth Cafe

2010-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Jean shares her dissertation findings here:

From the blog:
What’s the point? In my readings of U.S. Filipino writing in pre-WW II periodicals from 1902 through WWII, many more newspapers and magazines were named which I did not have time to find, nor read. These periodicals are not just objects of sociological or historical study; they are archives of the earliest writings and literary efforts of Filipinos in the U.S. My intent is to encourage further research in this area, so that we might have a larger perspective from which to study Filipino American writing in its historical, political, and literary contexts.

feeding the soul...literally

2010-12-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

on Christmas day, the Jewish-owned supermarket remained open until 3pm. i bought meself a 1.5lb dungeness crab and a bunch of green mustard leaves. for the spouse, i bought a slice of wild salmon and marinated it in kalamansi, soy sauce, and dill and panfried it in butter while the crab was steaming in another pot.
*
i chopped the green mustard then mixed kalamansi (from the garden) juice with bagoong and added a dash of sugar. i warmed the leftover brown rice. i ate with my hands...just like my Tang used to do...just like my Apo Sinang used to do. Apo even raised her right knee on the long bench and her right elbow rested on it while scooping the rice with her long beautiful fingers. . .
*
i see her now. she is wearing her long saya and her white hair is in a tight bun. i loved how her wrinkled soft skin felt in my young hands. after supper she would sit on the stoop and we kids would sit at her feet and listen to her stories. sometimes, she asked me to help her assemble her maman. her betel nut was already chopped but she would let me wipe a little lye into the betel nut leaf before she popped it into her mouth.
*
i have written about my Apo Sinang before. my maternal grandma, Apung Dikang, lived in Manila and we didn't see her often. But when we traveled by train from San Fernando to Manila to visit her, I always knew that we would eat well for she is a very good cook (she ran a cafeteria in her own home) and we would always get a treat from one of the jars in her sari-sari store.
*
this year we could have had ham or turkey or pot roast with potatoes, yams, and green bean casserole...
*
but my craving for something familiar subverts. back home, fresh crabs, shrimp, catfish were delivered fresh to our home straight from the fish farms of Guagua or the ocean off the coast of Bataan. on some days when there is no delivery, the open market was never too far away. perhaps this is why, thankfully, i am healthy today because i grew up on fresh food. my mother taught me how to butcher a chicken, how to skin a frog, how to clean fish, how to process shrimp and make shrimp juice out of the fat from the head and shells.
*
later when they came to the U.S. and she was shopping at Safeway to make dinuguan, she asked for "blood" and she was promptly told to go to the Red Cross. likewise, it took me many years to get used to the sight of fillets - of fish, of chicken... so clean but, oh, so devoid of .... good memories.
*
it occurs to me now that my craving for fresh crab is a desire to visit those days when the old folks knew what it meant to live by the gifts of the sea. there were no mediating processing plants and packaging companies in-between. from the sea to the table. can't help but think that this intimacy fed their souls and in turn now feeds mine.

on Christmas Eve, I Think of You...

2010-12-25T00:42:00.000-08:00

It has been difficult trying to compose a Christmas letter this year.
Since Facebook, everyone's life seems to be an open book, mine included.
The public aspects of my life are accessible to Everyone so what is left to write about?
*
I do want to thank so many individuals who have shaped 2010 and turned it into an Awesome year.
But I cannot name you all here.
I can only trust that you know who you are and you know how much you mean to me.
Whether in the Philippines, in the US, or elsewhere on the planet, we have connected with each other in big and small ways. These connections are threads interwoven with other threads creating an invisible tapestry of Beauty that is timeless and boundless. I call it our Pagbabalikloob to our Sacred Wholeness.
*
This year this Beauty manifested itself through the events of the Center for Babaylan Studies and many of you have become a part of this community. Perhaps you were at the conference or at our events around the US and in the Philippines. Maybe you are a member of our Facebook page and have seen all our photos, videos, and posts. Perhaps you were a presenter, volunteer, organizer, fundraiser for the Babaylan Conference. Thank you.
*
We tell each other that we hear the call of our Ancestors in our hearts, souls, minds, bodies.
Together we are participating in feeding the Sacred so that the rivers, mountains, sky, moon, stars, birds, plants, fishes, oceans, and everyone that shares this Life with us may create the balance and harmony we need.
This earthly cosmology invites our communion.
*
As I write this, I think of Noah who is making snow angels in Chicago. He is sledding, throwing snow balls at his uncles, wrecking the snowman, and wrestling with Brutus.
The future belongs to him.
How then do I live my life so that I may, someday, be a worthy Ancestor to him?
What kind of Ancestor are you going to be? -- is a poster on my wall in my office.
It is a simple question and no complex theological discourse to reckon with.
*
For now, I think of You, all of You who have been walking this road with me. Whether we've walked together for many decades or a few years or months, I am grateful for your radical presence in my life.
*
And to the One that I call my Koan, you remain...

Babaylan book: Reader comment

2010-12-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Leny,
I thank you for the book. I read the introduction with great interest. It helped me to understand more of your personal journey and that of others who have had to deal with the tragedies of colonialism. And, rather to my surprise, it helped me to understand my own journey: first trying hard with and then abandoning Christianity, both Protestantism and Catholicism; then struggling with a vision of myself as a little burr clinging to a dying planet spinning in a mindless universe; and finally beginning to come back to life through Qigong. I have no indigenous past that is available for me to explore. But. odd though it may be, it is an ancient Chinese tradition (which goes back to shamanism) that allows me to begin with the body, and move from there to an awareness that I live in a chi filled universe. You quote from Hobgood "the gifts that the body can give to the spirit," a phrase that resonates so deeply. And I will go back to Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous again.

Finally, I love the cover. Some years ago as I was struggling through a dark period, I did mandala work. Then I put it away, and just last week decided it was time to return to that practice. A couple of days ago as I was lying in bed preparing to start the day, I began to think about doing a mandala that had the tree of life in the center. And then, yesterday, the beautiful cover of your book came into my hands. I intend to use it as a model for my next mandala, and will hope that some of that ancient energy will come through to me.

You inspire me with your work and your willingness to explore the way that is not the usual academic way. The academy needs more people like you!

Love, Ardath

2010-12-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

New post on the Babaylan Files.
One of my early essays on the Babaylan practice is included in this book. I met Prof. Fe Mangahas, Sister Mary John, Sister Datung, Grace Nono, Agnes Miclat Cacayan and others in this book at the Babaylan conference in 2005 at St Scholastica College while on a summer research project in the Philippines. To them I owe so much - Maraming Salamat Po!

And at the recent Bahay Nakpil booklaunch of the Babaylan book, here's a young writer reflecting on the event:

An Encounter with the Babaylan

By Rhea Claire E. Madarang

Warrior, teacher, healer and visionary. This was how Sr. Mary John Mananzan described the babaylan, the historical figure whom before then I only knew through my history schoolbooks as a healer and priestess in Filipino indigenous communities during the pre-colonial era.

Mananzan, a contemporary babaylan herself, spoke these words with a quiet force. I listened, together with a rapt audience of around 40. They were also attendees of the book launch of “Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous” on that warm Monday afternoon at Bahay Nakpil, Quiapo, Manila. Writers of the book, all with deep involvement with the babaylan tradition, and people significant to the creation of the book were speaking in turns.

Warrior, teacher, healer and visionary? I felt overwhelmed by the immensity of the power and significance of the babaylans in pre-Spanish Philippines.

Prof. Fe Mangahas corroborated the power of the babaylan in her sharing, saying that in indigenous communities back then, there were three significant roles - the datu, panday and the babaylan. The datu was the ruler and the panday ensured the livelihood of the people through farming for example – both roles addressed material concerns, while the babaylan was solely in charge of the spiritual realm and also had influence on the material concerns such as determination of the best time for farming.

But the power of the babaylan is not only possessed by women, as I had thought – and as many others had thought, I believe. It is also wielded by men. According to Katrin de Guia, one of the book writers, some northern provinces have men performing the roles of the babaylan. To the Ifugaos, this is the mumbaki.

With every speaker’s words, I felt my awe and respect for the babaylan grow, but I was most jolted by Mananzan’s sharing, for she shared how, in these modern times, she took on the roles of warrior, teacher, healer and visionary in her work for women’s empowerment and social transformation.

The babaylan is thus not just a powerful historical figure but a very real and present power anyone can access at any moment. As Teresita Obusan, another of the book’s authors, put it: “The spirit of the babaylan never dies.” It is always there, available to everyone.

Upon realizing this, I felt the faintest stirring in my body of – dare I say it? – the babaylan spirit. Is there not a babaylan in me – in all of us? I wrote down this realization in one of the pieces of paper given to us for reflection after the speakers’ sharings.

At the end of the book launch, professor and modern babaylan Grace Odal, performed a babaylan ritual dance, scattering rose petals, lighting incense and singing along the way. In a white flowing dress and with flowers crowning her head, her movements were both graceful – as befitting her name – and forceful.

Slowly, she led almost all of us to dance along with her and urged us to make any movement that came naturally to us. We danced moving in a circle, as though in a trance, but still conscious. The air was electric, charged with the energy of this ancient ritual performed in the present.

After that I had no doubt as to the reality and power of the babaylan spirit. And through that experience I believe I’ve glimpsed the babaylan in me too.

A Bat Taught Me To See

2010-12-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

This is from one of my students:

Learning to See

Everybody has a fascination. The next step in that fascination would be to fall in love with it. The step from fascination to love is an unusual step and I believe it happens for many people in many different ways. When you say, “I love you” for the very first time; or when you realize that what you feel for someone is too great to hold inside. I could write this essay about those whom I love, my mom, my dad, and my girlfriend. Or I could look inside myself and describe another deep love that I hold. My fascination for this has become a deep love and I know this because it has passed a point in which I could describe my feelings in words. I know that I love something or someone when the feelings inside make my literal descriptions useless, when words cannot be placed on how that person or being makes me feel.

I did not know what I wanted to write about, to be honest. I started to think about everyone that I could, as I mentioned earlier, but none of them seemed to fit. Yes I love them all but the reason I now know what to write about is because I saw them flying in the darkness the other night, in all their beauty and misunderstanding. Coming home from class I could hear them flying, I could hear them speaking and finding their way around at night, and I realized, I am in deeply in love with Bats. Before I begin, however, I must explain who I am and where I find myself as in relation to these bats that I love so sincerely.

I am twenty years old. I am white. I am in the “middle” class. I am a college student. I am, however, not a robot. Nor am I a drone to walk around and mindlessly follow our society’s system. The system that tells me I am in the middle class even though it does not exist. The system that privileges those who are white and questions those who are not. The system that does not care about anything other than what their paycheck will earn them. Before this class I would look at my life and define myself by the facts that are apparent in it. It is obvious that I am white, obvious that I am not an elite, and mostly obvious that I am around my twenties. How does this tell a person who I am, how does it tell them what history I hold? It does not do any of that. It gives you my face value, and I am not one to judge upon first sight. How can I relate to these bats that I hold so dear to me, what part of out histories cross. Will the cross be positive or negative? I must look into this to see how we are related.

The history of white people includes mass murders of humans and nonhumans, it includes over-use of resources, and it includes an overall indifference on whether or not Mother Nature is harmed in this process. This is where my path crosses with the bat; this is why, when I looked up in the night sky and saw the bats, I wanted to apologize. Bats live in forests and in caves. They are becoming extinct because humans are destroying their habitat, many bats live in the trees that we are cutting down and many of them live in caves that we are blowing up for minerals. We are disturbing their hibernation, and this can kill them before winter passes. Many people would look at this fact and not care at all, why should they? They hear the word “bat” and see those hideous, hairless, blood sucking, rabies-carrying monsters. This fills me with grief and anger for the misunderstanding between bats and humans. Bats have helped us every single second of our lives. They eat thousands of bugs every hour that could transmit disease to us; they pollinate trees that only bloom at night (such as bananas, avocados, dates, figs, peaches, mangoes, and cashews). They clean themselves quite often and rarely carry what we fear, rabies. They are endangered because all we hear is that they will get stuck in your hair and suck your blood. We are destroying the rainforests, a big food supply for them. We need to be careful because they give birth to one offspring per year since they have such a long life (about 40 years). They are dying faster than they are reproducing, this will lead to an eventual extinction.

I have found a connecting point between us. Like many other animals that humans have a connection with, it is a connection of destruction from us to them, and life from them to us. We are blind, as a nation. There are some of us who are able to see, I hope I can be a part of them soon, but there are many of us who cannot. It is funny to me that we say these bats are blind. It is funny because many of them have extremely acute vision. They not only have vision but they have something called echolocation, which humans cannot hear. This is a form of sight; to me being able to have sight is not only doing so through your eyes. Having sight is having an image of what is around you. Bats have the physical image through their eyes, but they also have an image through the sound waves that they receive from echolocation. How can a nation call these creatures “blind?” If we cannot see such a simple fact that bats are able to see, then yes, we as a nation are the true blind. We have a perception of what the world is around us, yet we cannot see it. We do not know what the real world is, we see what we want to see and we use what we want to use. America is blind, it is ironic that in this essay the bat can see and America cannot.

I can continue on with what I wanted to say. I want to explain why I fell deeply in love with a bat and it has to do with their “blindness.” The sun had set and my class had just let me out. I was walking home when I heard a screeching above my head. I looked up and to my surprise I saw three flying creatures in the night sky. At first I could not place them, I did not know what they were. I continued to watch them and to listen to them and I saw that they were bats. At the time I had thought bats were blind as well, I believed that they could get around by means of sonar and that was it. I fell in love with them because of the fact that everybody (and by everybody I mean a broad majority of people) on the ground hates them, yet they continue to treat us kindly. I fell in love with them because even though they are “blind” they listen. They listen to what is around them and if thy do not do this they will miss a meal. America needs to take on some aspects of the bat, we are blind and we do not listen, we are surely on a path to extinction. If the bat did not listen, the bat would starve. I hope America takes this into consideration; if we do not listen, we will die.

If we do not take into consideration what the bat can teach us, if we cannot look beyond the face value of objects, we are sure to end. The bat is told it is ugly, the bat is told it cannot see, and the bat is told it cannot live in the trees or caves because they are too important to us. The bat, in return, eats bugs that would kill us, gives us fruit by spreading the seeds, and is even now helping stroke victims because their saliva acts as a blood thinner. Why do they give us such great rewards? Why do they treat us so well if we are killing them? They are doing this because nature cares about its environment and it cares about those who inhabit it. America needs to understand that the bat is a marvelous creature and that we should all thank them every time we see them.

I am writing to tell this bat that I have learned all of the wrong doings of the American people. I have learned about the corrupt people who are controlling the deforestation and about the people who do not care whether you live or die. I am writing this to apologize to you for all of the people who fear you for no reason. I learned that America would do whatever it wants for whatever it wants at the cost of anybody of anything. I am telling you that I have learned that corporations have become the strongest part of our nation and that nature has been pushed back in our priority list. I learned that in order for change to happen, action must be taken. I am writing to the bat to show Americans what we are doing to you. Let us know how you feel. Perhaps Jensen was right, I hope he is not though. He says that the animals are going extinct so that they are no longer supporting our way of life. I understand, bat, if you leave our life. You treat us so well and we treat you as if you were nothing. I hope we can change how we are related to each other and live peacefully and happy. I would hate to see you leave.

I am writing this letter to apologize to, and to thank, the bat. I apologize because I do not wish to cause you harm; yet my history tells me that I have done so and that I continue to do so. I want to apologize because I fell under the majority and thought you to be a hideous beast. I want to apologize to you because as a white man did not understand what wrongs I was causing by supporting a corrupt system. I want to apologize about my white privilege; I want to apologize about everything that I have ever done that has caused you to be harmed without my knowledge. I want to apologize, lastly, for valuing money over your life. We destroy your home and your food so we can have money in our wallets and our purses. We destroy everything you need so we can have everything we do not -- luxuries. I as a white person am “entitled” to anything I want and can get it in whatever means possible, even if it comes at the exploitation of my mother, of other individuals of color, and of the animals and plants that inhabit this earth. I am sorry that that previous statement is the norm of America.

I want to thank the bat for everything it has done. I want to thank the bat for providing us with wonderful fruits that keep us healthy. I want to thank the bat for eating the bugs that carry disease and destroy crops. I want to thank the bat for not treating us the way we treat it. Most importantly of all, I want to thank the bat for making me understand. Had I not seen that bat, had I not heard it, I would not have heard its story. The screeching and the fluttering of its wings let me in, for a moment, to his or her life. I was able to see and understand the bat. I want to thank the bat for letting me understand that I need to be able to see without physically seeing. Had I not seen the bat I would not have taken time to learn more about it. This bat taught me that I need not wait until I see to learn; rather, I should learn to see. And so I leave this class with a final thought that describes all I have learned about America in this class. A bat, considered blind by our nation, taught an American how to see.

Babaylan in Kapampangan

2010-12-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mike Pangilinan for these lessons:

"katulunan" and "mamalian"...

Katulunan = seers, men to whom the spirits appear via visions (see Bergano's "vocabulario"under the entry TULON).
Mamalian = Kapampangan for Babaylan, "ding babaing luluguran/sasaniban ding nunu" (see Bergano's "vocabulario"under the entry "BALLUYAN").

katulunan are males and babaylan are females. in Kapampangan they are called "babaluyan" (passive) and "mamalian" (active)...the ceremony is called "pamalian". according to Berganio, "balluyan" is synonymous to "buri"...

Talugigi -- chants, prayers, invocations; the chant is based on the "sane", the indigenous chanting tune now used in the catholic 'pasion'. the tunes of the Kapampangan pasion are different from other lowland christian groups in that they are mostly indigenous and non-western... still retaining their native names: tagulele (laments), sane (chants), uakas (funeral chants), sambitan (another funeral chant), pasaldak (another form of lament), etc... guardians of the five directions: indung laut (mother ocean, south), ibpang banua (father sky, north), apung sinukuan (the sun, east), apung maliari (the moon, west), indung tibuan (mother earth, center). the 9 sacred directions are: Ugut (north, on the star) / Amianan (north, based on the wind), sabalasan (n.e.), aslagan (east), bagyuan (s.e.), abagatan (south), siguaran / salatan (s.w.), albugan (west), balaklautan (n.w.), Alaya (center)

2010-12-11T23:15:00.001-08:00

You Light Up My Life!!

Thank you!

2010-12-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

For a friend whose child has severe disabilities: A life beyond reason

The Masses and their Messianic Role /Karl Gaspar

2010-12-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Published Date: November 16, 2010
By Karl Gaspar

In a Third World setting such as the Philippines, social transformation cannot take place unless the ordinary people – the masses – take an active role in effecting such transformation at all levels: individual, family, community, the nation-state and even at the cosmic level, given the reality of climate change today.

Change agents used to emphasize the need to highlight agency if society is to change from injustice to equality, dysfunctionality to unity, from slavery to emancipation of oppressed sectors. A change of heart leads to justice, peace, harmony and progress.

In time, there was a realization that, for all the Church did to change people’s hearts, the structures of society remain oppressive and disenfranchise those who are marginalized in a society dominated by the rich and powerful. Landless peasants, unemployed workers, indigenous peoples, subjugated women and others are still pushed to the margins.

Using tools of analysis that pinpointed the unjust structures of society, many change agents among pastoral workers concluded that there was need for the conscientization and organization of the poor and the oppressed. Transformation of peoples and the economic, political and social structures of the nation-state will come about only if there was a mobilization of the masses for their own liberation.

Organizing urban poor settlers, landless peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples, women and even middle class citizens was the call of the moment during the tumultuous years of martial rule.

Then came People Power. New insights were gained in the course of the mobilization of the masses, some of whom were not part of the organizing work of civil society agents, including church pastoral workers. Ordinary Filipinos held on to religious icons and expressed a belief system that aspired to liberation from the evils of martial rule. With courage in their hearts mobilized from various sources, the masses were willing to risk their lives.

The book The Masses are Messiah: Contemplating the Filipino Soul is the result of two years’ research. To conduct interviews and focused group discussions, the author traveled all over the country asking two questions: Is there such a thing as Filipino spirituality? If there is, is this transformation-oriented?

The study concluded that, indeed, there is such a thing as Filipino spirituality and it is transformative at all levels: self, family, community, nation-state and cosmic. But it is at the level of the ordinary people – the masses – where this spirituality is best manifested. It is also there among those in the middle sectors especially those belonging to civil society organizations who are at the support of the struggling poor.

The roots of Filipino spirituality

The first part of the book’s title – The Masses are Messiah – is taken from a poem written by a young Filipino who was one of the first young people who resisted the Marcos dictatorship. Eman Lacaba, a poet and philosopher went to the best schools in Manila including the Ateneo de Manila University. Beyond the confines of traditional church structures, he sought the space where he could walk his talk, namely, to be on the side of the poor and the oppressed.

Hundreds of Filipinos would take the same path of resistance and martyrdom including priests, religious, Basic Ecclesial Communities, lay leaders and those at the forefront of the struggle. How did such deep commitment arise? What were the roots of their militancy that empowered them to overcome their fears and embrace a life that paralleled the one of THE Messiah?

The book traces these roots to the indigenous belief system of our ancestors in the pre-conquest era that serves as the bedrock of our spirituality as a people. It was one that linked us to the spirit world in terms of our aspirations for good health, prosperity and well-being. It highlighted the sacredness of all creation; all species on earth were part of a whole web of life. It focused on our needs of “this world”, rather than “the world out there”; it had a matriarchal angle and thus was gender-inclusive.

Thus for time immemorial, our people’s spirituality was attuned to the challenges of constant transformation. Ironically, the Hispanic Christianity that the Spanish friars introduced to the islands negated many of these elements which are now much more appreciated in the post-Vatican II Church. However, despite what the friars did, our ancestors held on to the core of their indigenous spirituality. That made possible the rise of the religious social movements in Central Luzon which Rey Ileto brought to our attention in his book – Pasyon and Revolution.

During those revolts, the masses’ spirituality helped them connect to what they could mobilize from within themselves as a messianic people and even as they linked to the Messiah manifested in various icons – the Sto. Nino, the Santo Entierro, the various angels and saints and even Mary with her various titles such as Mother of Perpetual Help.

The relevance of Filipino spirituality today

The Church in the Philippines – especially from the perspective of the institutional, hierarchical and clerical Church – today is again at the crossroads. On one hand, there are the moral issues that she traditionally considers very important including issues of the reproductive rights, abortion, divorce and the like.

However, in a society where secularization is beginning to have an impact, especially among the urban middle-class sectors and the media. The Church is painted as outdated and finds herself at loggerheads with those advocating for lesser control from such institutions. The youth also find themselves not caring about such moral injunctions.

On the other hand, many people expect the Church to take a strong moral stance on issues that have become very urgent, such as genuine land reform, workers’ rights, assistance to overseas Filipino workers, women’s subjugation, ancestral domain of indigenous peoples, militarization and human rights, mining and other ecological issues.

While there are Church people who have spoken strongly on these issues, many Catholics are disappointed that there is very little discussion of these issues. And where there is little talking the talk, there is even less walking of the talk.

At these crossroads, the Church needs to re-imagine and reconstitute the pastoral-missiological fields to identify the kind of engagements church workers should have so that they can truly witness to the Gospel and make a difference in the lives of the most abandoned who continue to be marginalized on the basis of their class, ethnicity, age, gender, culture and faith traditions.

Karl M. Gaspar CSsR is director of the Alphonsian Lay Formation Institute of the Redemptorists in the Cebu Province. He teaches at the St. Alphonsus Theological and Mission Institute in Davao City and the St. Mary’s Theologate in Ozamis City.

Romancing the Indigenous?

2010-12-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

There are many intellectuals today who feel that any respectful reference to indigenous beliefs smacks of romanticism, and a kind of backward-looking nostalgia. Oddly, these same persons often have no problem "looking backward" toward ancient Rome or ancient Greece for philosophical insight and guidance in the present day. What upsets these self-styled "defenders of civilization" is the implication that civilization might have something to learn from cultures that operate according to an entirely different set of assumptions, cultures that stand outside of historical time and the thrust of progress. Many persons steeped in Western science tend to assume that native notions are superstitious or simply negative, unaware that indigenous thought stems from a radically different view of what language is, and what thinking is for.

There is simply no way to comprehend indigenous notions without stepping aside from commercial assumptions that are broadly taken for granted today (including the basic equation of land with property -- with a commodity that can be bought, sold, or owned). Indigenous insights cannot be understood without slowing down, without taking time to notice the upward press of the ground and the earthen silence that surrounds all our worlds. Often at home in such silence, oral peoples tend toward reticence, reluctant to broadcast their experience very loudly. Hence, while indigenous traditions are vigorously unfolding today, the philosophical intensity and practical wisdom of native peoples all too often remains invisible and unheard amid the bustle and blare of contemporary commerce, conveniently ignored by those who most have need of such intelligence.

David Abram, Becoming Animal, 267

from a reader of the Babaylan book

2010-11-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

I'm only on Page 10 of your book since I got it last night... a very slow read because I can't stop myself from crying all the time... Tears are streaming down my face, tears within tears, and cries within cries, and sobs from more sobs deep within... I always knew as if someone erased my memory that someone was killed in my sleep. I know now what it is. Now I can honor it...weep for it.

To your: "I am an accident of history, I needed to leave in order to come home again."

How you echoed my innermost emotions caused a wild drumming inside me, as if I have suddenly sprung a tribe awake.

I must thank you now at page 10. I know I must remember.
***
and here's a link to the booklaunch event at Bahay Nakpil on Nov. 29

2010-11-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

Another Education is Possible
But first, undo the current system.