SO_Journals_underworld memories

The maiden and the wife

 

The story of medicine refill day

Today is a good day.

Today is Sunday and it is time for family, for resting longer than usual, time to sleep more soundly, time for faith rituals, time for self-care and time for writing.

Also, this time of the year is the time for personal medicine container refill.

I try to take stock and refill my medicine container cyclically so I can check whether the contents are still usable or whether I need to get new supplies or just let it stay inside my small medicine can.

This is my personal medicine container

Well, the contents are really simple:

paracetamol

vitamin c

cough remedy

antihistamine

chili porous capsicum

adhesive bandage

Potions

You see, it is so simple.

But what I really want to talk about is that I am inspired by this:

So, yes, I am in search of more antidotes because the dark is here again.

Also, the past weeks were full of revelation about health crises, I found myself in the position of bringing a patient to the ER, visiting a patient in a hospital ward, bringing a patient to a dentist, receiving news of death, receiving news of big health crisis and I myself had been under the weather for two full weeks.

The last weeks were full of bodies needing rest, bodies needing remedy, soul needing rest, soul needing healing, mind body and soul needing restoration and cure and rejuvenation.

We are all poisoned and we are living in a badly polluted and poisoned environment.

Our mother earth is really sick right now. She cries. She weeps. She needs help. She is asking us to heal her. We are her children, we need to help her. We need to find healing within us so we can heal her too.

She is waiting for us to heal her.

In this other half of the year, the start of collective going under begins as we welcome the new moon eclipse. I hope we find the light of healing as we go through the following months. 

Moods #45

'daig pa ang telenobela kung ako ay magdrama'

damang-dama kita Ebe

From my hiding place - catalog 5

Hawkmoon 269 | U2

When the night has no end
And the day yet to begin
As the room spins around
I need your love

I need your love
Like a Phoenix rising needs a holy tree

Weekend, I drowned

My weekend was a roller coaster of emotions.

Barely survived the weekend, but I held on tight to the promise of redemption that ice cream could offer. The fruity bits of mango and avocado flavors got me out of dark mood a little, though I can say that the dairy didn't really sit well with my stomach. So, it was a bloat-y, brooding, dark weekend. 

I slept throughout the day. It was punctuated by my visits to the kitchen to get a spoon and bowl for my serving of ice cream. Then to counter the bloating, I made some green tea. 

I couldn't help but just melt into my bed.

I wrote some emotional lines in my analog diary, my real notebook, the paper one.

Then reflected on my life.

Then talked with my best friend.

Elfster.

What is the difference between a girl and a woman?

Why is it hard to maintain relationships?

Why is life difficult?

Those kinds of topics.

Then I slept and slept and slept.

Dreamt of so many weird stuff.

Occasionally checking my phone.

Listened to Cooky Chua a lot, on repeat. 

She is the embodiment of a woman for me.

Just listen to her sing, she will reveal what a woman is.

Then I had some Regina Spektor songs in the background while I reflect about my relationships.

Then I think about moleskin.

And my pens.

And about my life, about my plans, about my emotions.

Then all of a sudden it is Monday.

A repost from an old blog

A blessed full moon everyone.

As we approach the end of January, I took it upon myself to clean my spaces: physical, mental and of course online spaces too. I would like to welcome the new moon in February with a cleaner and emptier space because the old must give way to new. I have been feeling ungrounded lately, maybe because I have been clearing up spaces around me, that the center of gravity in my life is a bit skewed. Of course this unstable feeling will only be temporary as I am trying to adjust everything down to the 'last small screw' then I am good to go. 

While going through the hard task of inspecting and discriminating every single thing that must stay in my life and in my sphere, I got to read this very moving post that I have written during a tumultuous time in my life. It was a time when I was doing my masteral studies in Asian Studies, while doing work in a Buddhist foundation and feeling my way into leaving QC for a while, to go somewhere far. Relationships in all levels were disintegrating or perhaps transforming, it was really a difficult time for me. 

It was a time when I started to realize that Asian Studies was not for me, in a way that in all honesty, I truly like to study the culture and the politics of Asian nations, especially East Asia, but not for a stable career that will provide bread and butter on my table. Also, I had just broken up with someone who at that time I was involved with in a long distance relationship, and the other long-term on again, off again relationship was really hitting an undeniable dead end. These were what I meant when I wrote personal disasters. 

I was really a wreck at that time, and it kept on getting worse and worse each day. The only way was to escape the hot kitchen and go somewhere really far, that was what I thought would save me from total breakdown at that time. 

The escape came from a call from a German international organization, it was an offer of 6-month stay in Cebu with very minimum allowance. The organization will only provide the flight ticket expenses but not the lodging or food, but I was desperate at that time, I said yes without even thinking about the consequences or even how to make both ends meet. 

Anyways, what happened in Cebu deserves a totally different post.

But here, I am sharing and reposting this post that I wrote when I was about to lose the little sanity I was keeping at that time in me. Miraculously, I wrote something so positive in such dark period of my life. Interesting, interesting.

Shift happens every single minute (or Saved by Yoko Ono)

posted on 20130702

Last night, I read this very moving piece by Yoko Ono:

“After Andy Warhol visited Japan he said ‘Japan is the country of the future. It’s amazing!”. At the time I thought to myself ‘Yes, but it has many old scars.’ I think this earthquake is our moment of destiny to create a country of the future. The time has come for us to work together to make Japan an even more wonderful country than it has been so far.”

She is talking about the fatal disaster that shook and flooded Japan two years ago. I saw video footages. I was in awe.

I remember, the first time we heard about it, I was in our office (a Buddhist Foundation). Moments later, all the officers, staff, members of the foundation were on their knees, singing a prayer for peace and sincerely wishing for the country’s recovery.

I witnessed how a disaster of a great country had affected the people, from our office, throughout the Asian Region and the whole world. We conducted a lot of talks about climate change, about recycling, about praying for the victims and about how we can extend our loving arms to survivors and heroes of Japan.

I saw how compassion can erase borders. How it turns tiredness into fulfillment when we see little smiles from people who accept(ed) our help. How it miraculously heal all of us when we reach out to each other. Saying the same prayer, encouraging each other to move forward. Hoping that one day we can look back and tell ourselves, ‘Look, we made it. We overcame the tragedy. We even made good progress from what was before.’

Those were dreams and wishes touched by Yoko’s words as I read her blog. As I read it, I feel I understand her more.

I am currently having major breakdowns and if you may, personal disasters  in my life. Hopelessly clinging to something familiar that I would not like to let go of. Perhaps, this character of mine defines me. Perhaps, this habit is cemented permanently in my life. Perhaps, this is integral part of me that if you take this little piece of me, I will helplessly crumble down to the very fiber of my being and I would not be able to get the pieces back together. These are thoughts that seep into me when I am face(d) with change, transition, which is by now I feel, happens every single minute of my life. Yes, these are monsters I created in the shadow of my consciousness. They are very potent, they scare me to death. They sometimes steal sleep from me. They sometimes pin me down to bed, depressed and down. They are in charge of visions of worst possible scenario ruthlessly pushing their agenda right down my throat. They are like the clowns living in my shadow who collected all my dark secrets, my insecurities, my fears in a single box, ready to open the lid anytime they get the chance, they exist to torment me with my inadequacies, my lies, my denials, my weaknesses and my foolishness. Sometimes when they get too strong, I cannot help but just escape ~ those are lucky days. But if they get me down, they really do some serious work in disorienting and haunting me ~ bad hair days. They are dark and threatening and isolating. Creepy.

It seems like these ‘shadows’ will torment me forever that I am resigned to just run away from them with all my strength or pray/meditate until they all go/vanish. And then I read Yoko’s words. I had an epiphany.

Yoko made perfect sense. That the disaster is a painful process we have to go through to make space for a new beginning. That the disaster is actually a healing process that can erase the wounds we carry with us. Yes, painful, yes it requires hard work, yes it will make us sad and tired and scared, but if we laboriously put up with it, and if we trust the process then it will point us to a space where we can create a stronger foundation and a cleaner, brighter beginning.

The wounds we carry with us need powerful scrubbing to erase it, right from its roots. This  ‘box’ containing our weaknesses, denials, dark secrets are our wounds ~ we need to scrub them to erase them. But some wounds inside our ‘box’ needed tending, tender care for them to heal. We have to put them under the light, so that we can understand them well and thus integrate them in our personality. A healed wound is like a jewel. A hard won victory after adversity.

The wounds we carry with us, we should make peace with them by believing that it is the best possible thing we could do/say or behaviour/reaction that we can come up with given our circumstances at that moment. Now that we have grown up and we know better and we are blessed to be in an even ground, we must let go, not dwell and just forgive ourselves.

As above, so below, they say. The shake, the tragedy is the painful process of erasing the wound. Then a clear space will emerge. We are aided by this wisdom we have not been aware of. Now is the time to wake up to it. This will point to us the good fertile ground, a clean slate where we will build sustainable future. A place where we will create a peaceful community, all of us together, hand in hand. A vision of love and compassion rooting from our humanity. It is time to reach out.

So, I pray that we all remain strong during this times of terrible shake. That we open our eyes to the space created for us to start planting good seeds for the future. Let us use our emotions to see and let us tap our soul for creativity.

~

It is still a wonder how I could write something like this, but after some reflection, maybe the inner turmoil releases something from deep within that we can use to light our path in the physical world. I never dreamed of having some sort of deep wisdom in me during that turbulent time, but in hindsight, maybe I needed to go through those storms for these words/ideas to finally come up. 

Life is indeed really interesting.

Learn to carry love

Aquarius performed by Regina Spektor

I'm not a skillful water carrier
But I've learned to carry love, learned to carry love

Akap and some tears

My sleeping pattern has been irretrievably wrecked since the Pandemic started, but actually it has been seeing the beginning of intermittent decline since last year. When I say decline, I mean it in the sense that I no longer sleep soundly at night. Sometimes I slept for 30 minutes at midnight, then I would wake up with energy so I would do some reading, writing or journaling, usually until dawn and then the day would begin to unfold with all the routines/duties I had to do so I didn’t sleep anymore. There were nights when I would sleep from midnight to dawn, with hourly interruptions, what’s good about it was that I could still go back to sleep after the momentary spark of energy. There were nights when I would sleep from midnight to dawn without interruption, those were considered good nights. But there were nights of no sleep at all, so I would carry on the duties of the next day without any shut-eye. I wonder how I had the energy to fulfill all my morning tasks?

Anyways, in one of those sleepless nights I had this OPM playlist keeping me company while I work the night away. I am a huge fan of Imago, so definitely their songs are part of the playlist for the evening. As I was typing, the beginning chords of this familiar song made me stop. I couldn’t explain it, but after a few seconds into the intro, I started to tear up until I completely lost it, so I just abandoned what I was typing and just focused on listening to the song. The song was Akap, of course I love this song, but now it seemed I love it even more. It resonated with me more. Like there were facets of it that I didn’t completely comprehend before but now it jumped at me strongly. How could something familiar before became even more meaningful to the point of being intimate? The more I listened to it, the more it revealed itself. Have you guys ever felt that before about a song? I was totally taken aback at what I have realized while listening to this song, more than that, I surprised myself because I was crying. Tears were just rolling down my face, I didn’t know what prevented me from walling, but it didn’t come to that point fortunately.

It took a while to gather myself together, but I was able to. What really struck me was that for me songs are expressions of love, happiness, sadness, pain, bitterness but this reaction was more than my usual surface reactions, must I have finally found a way to get deeper than what I measure myself capable of? Am I getting deeper moreover, am I getting more mature and more comfortable of strong feelings that I’m still scared of feeling? I mean I pride myself for being a rational being all the time. Honestly, I respect emotions, my emotions but I’d rather be rational than emotional because emotions are difficult to control and it can be a bit messy sometimes, please read this line without judging me. I do have a lot of emotional friends and I love them for being themselves. I have nothing but pure respect for opening themselves up to me about their emotions, I love that they are showing their emotions to me, seriously. I love it, and I am sensitive to it, to the different colors and shapes of their emotions. They even tell me I am sensitive enough so they reveal their most cherished emotions to me, but I am always accused of not sharing my emotions to them at all. Maybe because I have a very weird emotional range. I feel truly, I feel deeply even madly yes, but I don’t know how to express it. I keep it to myself because I fear I might get mis-interpreted. And I think more than I feel sometimes. That’s how I process things around me, I feel then I think and rationalize. But I sometimes want to feel and emotionalize(?) but it is really hard for me to do that. I don’t have the language for that, unlike with what I have established with rational thinking, I have every kind of pattern that I can come up with. When it comes to emotion, I have none. It might be really intuitive, but it takes a strong person to emotionally navigate and not get lost.  

That’s why I was shocked that I cried uncontrollably while listening to Akap. I feel like I am going through a transition phase, I must be getting prepped up for a lesson on emotions. Then I must dig more music at the break of dawn.

Akap by Imago

Nagtatanong
Bakit mahirap sumabay sa agos
Ng iyong mundo?

Nagtataka
Simple lang naman sana ang buhay
Kung ika'y matino

Sabihin sa akin lahat ng lihim mo
Iingatan ko
Ibaling sa akin ang problema mo
Kakayanin ko

Pikit-mata
Kong iaalay ang buwan at araw
Pati pa sapatos kong suot

Nagtatanong
Simple lang naman sana ang buhay
Kung ika'y lumayo

Sabihin sa akin lahat ng lihim mo
Iingatan ko
Ibaling sa akin ang problema mo
Kakayanin ko

Sasamahan ka sa tamis
Sasamahan ka sa dilim
Sasamahan ka hanggang langit
Sasamahan ka sa tamis
Sasamahan ka sa pait
Sasamahan ka sa dilim
Sasamahan ka hanggang langit
Sasamahan ka…

Sabihin sa akin lahat ng lihim mo
Iingatan ko
Ibaling sa akin ang problema mo
Kakayanin ko

Choose your own adventure: Pensive

Imagine you are walking along your own path, in your own pace, knowing full well that you are following your own trail, fully and wholly committed to being alone in that kind of peaceful journey. You have a clear road that you can see from your own vantage point. Whatever the weather, be it sunny, rainy, windy, stormy the path is clear and it stretches far and wide but it doesn’t scare you because you know that you are just on the right road. You say to yourself, however long the distance is, you are secured of it until the bitter end because you know that deep in yourself you have found the required stability and determination to cover the distance, whatever it takes. You have it in yourself to surmount the challenges, you have it in yourself to conquer the demons of those belonging to yourself, of those belonging to others, of those belonging to the world. You know you have it. You are so sure you have it in yourself, you have reserves of those inner strengths, you know which ones are those that you have to grow, those to develop or those to master, you are so complete unto yourself. Being full of wisdom, you don’t keep your weaknesses from yourself, instead you are painfully aware of them and you are utilizing time and experiences to at least turn these weaknesses into a receptacle for transformation, not only for yourself but for others. You have found how to use the power of weaknesses to heal, to connect and to observe. That is a kind of power you know you have. You heal people whatever it takes. There are no rules on how to heal another soul, all you know is that you have to heal them and you have healed them, no matter what it takes. Healing may come from light, healing may come from dark, whatever the source, you know where it will lead to. Magical, mysterious but it does the work. Healing becomes you. You wield it responsibly by your own system, by your own dictates, own creed, because you were chosen and given that power. And of course, you have more, you know more, you feel more and you see more. That is who you are. And you know it. You go on with life, following the road with this full knowledge of who you are. So secure of your way.

You belong to yourself. And you are so sure that nobody can take that resolve away from you.

Then along the way, you will find another kind of fellow traveler, you thought you were alone in this path, but somehow there’s someone there all along. The fellow is someone you intuitively know you share some traits with. You were alone for so long, so curiously you were drawn to that traveler. You crossed paths with someone you aren’t expecting at all. And then you learned a little from each other, you started to talk, to exchange ideas, to know more of each other. But you are not sure about this pleasant surprise. Definitely, it is something new, when you talk, some curiosities are satisfied, some are validated, but somehow you want to know more. But the fellow of course has own set of rules, set of ways, own system. You grow more and more curious and perhaps fond of the fellow. And the fellow curiously enough, found a door along the path and opened it and shut the door from the inside.

Question, will you open the door and follow the fellow or just continue with your own journey, set on your own ways, secured in your own path, alone?

But of course, you are curious. You try to quietly inspect the door. Listened intently through the handle. Peering from the small crack at the bottom. You try to intuit. You try to use your powers, selfishly this time to find out more. Did you find out more?

Now, you have to think. If you open the door, there are infinite scenarios waiting. One would be, it can be a closed room with four walls, empty room, devoid of anything. The usual physical expectations, the safest one. The next one would be, a door that opens to watery surface, enough to drown your knees. The waters here can be calming but you only see the surface. Or the weird one is that you can open the door and find yourself at the seabed, under the sea, the ocean has eventually swallowed you whole. Fortunately, you know how to swim.

So, what would you do next?

Oh, and about 33 things/phrases

As a way to close the past year, let me try to write a list of some of the memorable, exciting, unexpected, weird, fateful, incomprehensible, magical, illogical, happy, terrifying and wonderful things that happened in my small yet excitement filled life.

01 ~  reluctant packing up

02 ~  moving out 

03 ~  endless ride shares

04 ~  lalamove and moving in

05 ~  two blue suitcases

06 ~  honorary dismissal

07 ~  evening classes

08 ~  reflective portfolio on Education

09 ~  practice teaching

10 ~  fliptop battle

11 ~  Lapu-Lapu, Panday Pira, Urduja, St. Cecilia, St. Therese, St. Joseph and St. Monica

12 ~  grand demo

13 ~  the BIG day after grand demo

14 ~  visiting and staying in UMC with dad and mom

15 ~  Bambang and stethoscope 

16 ~  Soler St, Binondo

17 ~  GSIS Manila Building

18 ~  Yoga in Silang

19 ~  Bukid Kabataan

20 ~  two bookmarks and coffee GCs

21 ~  Christmas and New Year cards from China, Japan and Manila

22 ~  Breakfast at Antonio's

23 ~  explosion of Taal volcano

24 ~  Senior Citizen booklets

25 ~  fixing government documents

26 ~  BIR RDO

27 ~  Trasierra

28 ~  huge stationery hauls from Shopee and Lazada :)

29 ~  Gourmet Farm, yum

30 ~  online classes with my students

31 ~  pandemic and ECQ and lockdown

32 ~  blogging again 

33 ~  learning to cook more vegetarian dishes

As always, I am grateful for the year that was. It was filled with endings, beginnings, uncertainties and fateful encounters. Magical and absolutely unfamiliar. Definitely some of what happened last year will continue to spill into this year, but I still have to filter and define most of them. What I am really sure of now is that I am growing to be more accepting of myself. I am more connected to my core. Maybe adulting is not that bad after all but it takes a lot of effort and willingness to go through this journey.

To close this, let me bid 33 goodbye and hello 34.

General Cleaning

Today, I had this very intense desire to clean my room. So intense that upon waking up, I put out all of the beddings in the laundry area to soap and wash. Then, I prepared all the cleaning materials that I needed to clean each nook and cranny in my tiny room. I prepared cleaning towels, my very own cleaning spray: 10% distilled vinegar, lemon essence from lemon peels and slices with 80% water in my spray cleaner, rolling dirt remover and room cologne spray (I usually spray room cologne to make it smell fresher after cleaning.)

Of course, I regularly clean my room however it is just that today, I really feel the intense need to clean each wall, each corner, each little dent in my room. With careful planning, I started to rub each wall after spraying them with my own home-made cleaning spray. The layer of dust is not that bad, though I can see some webs stretching from the corner so I cleaned them off. As for the floor, each square of the rough tile must be rolled on first with the dirt remover then I rubbed it with wet towel. I spent the whole morning doing this, and after some time I could see the improvement that I am making step by step.

When there are far corners that I couldn’t reach, I normally use the cleaning stick of my mom. I put the towel on the other edge and then I wipe the ceiling and the corners of it, there is really some inexplicable satisfaction when the target clump of dirt come off neatly from the surface after careful nudging. Of course, after the area is cleaned, I spray another generous amount of my home-made cleaner to make sure that it is disinfected and that it will stay dirt-free for long.

There are many stocks of paper, books, file cardboard boxes and storage containers in my room that I neatly arrange in the small space I am provided, I usually wipe them all clean too when doing general cleaning. Most of the things have labels with dates or general names so I can easily identify them and group them effectively, yes, I know, some of you will say that I have this weird urge to label things around me. That’s right. Tagging and labeling stuff around me is truly important because it means that I really put a lot importance on that object and that it is part of something greater, maybe a month-long project or a year-long endeavor. But I want to make it clear that not everything can reach that part of labeling and tagging, I filter a lot of things first by deciding whether it is important or not, then if it passed the intense scrutiny, that’s the only time that I will honor the object with the label. I am ruthless when it comes to deciding what is deserving to get a space in my room, what will be included in the system, what will stay in my personal space, if in the end the object gets to be inducted in the system, then it means it has proven its worth. And if otherwise, then it will be put to a recycling box where it will be sorted, which is another system on its own, so I will discuss it next time.

After cleaning my whole room, my favorite part is to spray the room cologne. I usually combine scents, it can be the usual bottle of cologne that we can buy from the stores or it can be an essence from flowers, leaves or oils that I usually purchase from eco-stores or organic shops. It depends on my mood.

Today I am feeling a bit intense so I used the usual store colognes usually the bottle of cologne with colors: blue and green, because they smell nicely pungent for a long time.

I finished cleaning by the time my parents invited me to eat lunch. It took a long time but I am happy with the result. Happy Sunday to all.

Hello Blogging, I missed you

Why have I been absent for the longest time?

Life had been really busy for the past few months and I think this trend is going to continue for quite a while. Tight daily schedules are getting tighter, responsibilities are getting deeper and heavier, and if I am fortunate enough to have a few minutes gap or break, I try to utilize it to update my different life lists (really I have a lot) ~ more and more I realise that time is really unforgiving, it will never wait for anyone, even for just one second! Hence, writing was pushed to the back seat, until finally (thank goodness) I had the time to pull it out from the pile of stuff that covered it for months!

Lately, most of my students are complaining about being so tired. I suspect it has something to do with the weather, it was reported that March 2015 was the hottest March since record keeping began in 1880. Ugh, I really hate to think that it will get hotter but common sense suggests that it will be the trend as it is just the beginning of summer season, so I have to bring more water every single day to rehydrate! Most importantly I have to recycle and conserve water and be more active in doing recycling.

Busy April

Right after Holy Week my brother and my sister-in-law had a thanksgiving buffet for their coming baby! So here are some pictures from the event.

My big family

Dad, me, mom, Tita Beth and Tito Ding

Mom, kuya, me and dad

Mom, me, dad, kuya and Ashley

As for volunteering ~

I have been spending my Sundays in Helping Land Tondo, Manila to teach kids in Project Pearls' summer program. I have cute kids here and they are very sweet.

Meet my students:

Kids at work

John-John, Dannyboy and Angelica

Lovely

Creating characters with clay

Kids and teachers

I am planning to spend my Sundays with them until the end of May :)

And yes, we were warned that life changes every single moment and nothing is permanent. But sometimes these warnings were just a bunch of words until we stop and really think about the changes we've been going through in our journey in life. Personally, I never know that teaching will really make a big impact in my life. And a very positive impact. I used to think that I will spend my life video editing and writing articles or making digital presentations but now I believe I found another trail that opens to more possibilities of serving and helping people. Must love teaching!

Preparing for (breathing deeply) SpEd. 

Mga repleksyon habang hinahabi ang panibagong kabanata

Anim na araw na ang nakakaraan nung magbigay ako ng Graduation Speech sa mga elementary graduates ng aking Elem Alma Mater. Nung una kinabahan ako kasi maliban sa maraming bata ang makikinig, iba ang pakiramdam na ang mga dati kong guro na dun ko lang ulit nakita ay makikinig din sa aking speech, yaiks. Mas lalong tumindi ang kaba ko nung pagdating ko sa school ay isa-isa silang lumapit sa akin at nagpa-selfie pa. Maraming nagsabi na parang walang nagbago, ganun pa rin ang hitsura ko (big grin). Meron ding nangumusta, nagtanong at ngumiti. Iba pala talaga kapag bumalik sa mga taong nakilala natin during childhood - dati ang tatangkad nila, dati sila ang may di nababaling otoridad, dati sila ang mga nakakatakot magalit kasi maraming mga misadventures at curiosities nung childhood days na mabilis nilang sinusuway o nabibisto.

Sila rin ang unang mga mentors ko.

Alam kong napakalakas ng kaba ko nung nag-speech ako. Madaming bulol moments, patigil-tigil at minsan ako lang ang natatawa sa jokes ko pero mukhang naappreciate naman nila.

Isa sa mga napansin ko, kailangan pala ng seamless na pag-co-combine ng sensibilidad ng mga bata (na gagraduate) at sensibilidad ng mga adults (teachers, parents, guests). Kasi di naman pwedeng magsalita ako sa harap nila ng hindi naiiintindihan ng mga bata - dapat pinapagana ko pa rin ang mga imaginations nila habang binibitawan ang mga salita ng aking naratibo/speech.

So ayun, mukha naman naitawid ko ng maluwalhati ang obligasyong ibinigay nila sa akin.

Masaya at nagpapasalamat ako sa oportunidad na makasama ko ulit ang aking mga dating guro pati na rin ang mga bagong graduates ng aking paaralan.

Deep beautiful melancholy

I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened.

- Elizabethtown
Cameron Crowe

Manigong bagong taon

Overflowing faith

Of transition

click here

Back to school everyone!

Last weekend before the scramble for enrolment!
Freshmen orientation is left and right ^^ I do want to be part of this big stuff for young adults who are experiencing their crossroads.

My thoughts focus on disaster management.
How can I work in a disaster reduction or disaster management company if in my own life I don't know how to do damage control. No wonder I got pieces of advice like awareness and just let go.

Maybe disaster management is not for me.
Oh well.

I think people who are fit to do disaster management work are those
>who work and give extra mile
>who diligently work to conquer their fears
>not afraid of transition
>compassionate beings who can see rough patches ahead but still find courage in their hearts to move on and stay committed
>who are brave enough to touch rock bottom and flexible enough to spring back to surface

These are hard qualities to sustain during these difficult times. And I am still work in progress.
I wish that someday I will be strong enough to do this.

Shift is coming

Celebrate the malleable reality
~ Jason Mraz

I read from a wise person that "In the depths of trouble we find the deepest resources we have"
I know that this is true. I believe it. But sometimes we just have a certain false idea of what is enough trouble. Sometimes fear just steps in and then we forget about faith. Now my birthday wish is that all of us will find that deepest resources within our hearts because it is just inside us all along. It will show us the path to solution, to abundance and to peace.

I have seriously considered shifting to another MA course. I do believe it is more in alignment to what I really want. If the road to greatness is full of suffering and isolation and loneliness, then I might as well follow the road that I truly want, the road worth all these pains. Greatness that resonates service and equality and harmony.

Before I end this entry, I would like to share this poem as my special gift to everyone, please find courage in these lines. I got this poem from here

Love came and emptied me of self by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir English version by Vraje Abramian

Love came and emptied me of self,
every vein and every pore,
made into a container to be filled by the Beloved.
Of me, only a name is left,
the rest is You my Friend, my Beloved.

Just about time

Waking up from dream to dream as I nursed my high fever all day in bed. Dreams containing the people I love, the people I long to be with, people revealing what connection we have -- the magic thread that connects us to this life cycle. Dreams revealing truths, however it hurts. Sometimes messy dreams. Sometimes incomprehensible dream as how the dew feels when leaving the tip of a grass at dawn.

Must be the full moon again. Feeling deeply about my failed loves, failed dreams, failed relationships. Sighing from one minute to the next. Waiting for your email. Receiving calls from a worried lover. Reading blogs, trying desperately to connect to something that might give life meaning. What I feel is pain, dull pain in particular. Dull that I don't know how to release it. So dull that I cannot even contain it inside me anymore. Pains and frustrations, here are the bitter dishes that will keep me company to cold and empty dinner tonight. Sometimes there are moments when I have to resist the call of melancholy, but it is as we all know persistent, just like the cycle of the moon -- full, quarter, balsamic, new. Again and again this will continue, again and again this cycle will unfold whether we like it or not. It will conquer us and  its waters will destroy our sandcastles -- oh well pain I am so used to you now.

What's the point of building when it is meant to be destroyed? What's the point of connection when we cannot really maintain it, after just days, we become strangers again. It is like a helpless pattern.

As the light of the sun fill the light-less moon, I want to reveal my pains and sufferings. I want the world to know that I am just human, that I can bear just the minimum of it. Because pain as much as truth, dehumanizes. I want to reveal the pain of longing, the pain of hoping, the pain of believing. But I guess the world is just too fragile for my hurts. Above all the noise of the city and the muzak of the neighboring street, it was just stale air -- nothing above that will take this pain to a higher being for immediate healing. No, I grew too bitter to believe that.

That it depends on us to redeem ourselves. Sariling kain, sariling busog. How religion make life so dry and brittle, how I feel so alone. How relationships can bring me to the top and topple me down unaware to the deep pit.

But I know deep inside, as I rescue myself from myself -- from utter pain to a place of hope and resurrection, that we are capable of that spark of hope to guide us through the dark. It is when faced with difficult questions that we remember our divine heritage. That we are capable of dragging ourselves out of misery, melancholy, pain and loneliness, it has to happen from deep within. That spark is the other part of us that we forget as we pay all our attention to mundane life. It must be time to wake up to that sparkling side of us. We are complete from the beginning, we just have to be painfully aware of it, every single second of our lives. The pain and melancholy make the soil of sparkling side of us rich, that we are ready for its eventual fruition. That it is calling us to wake up to a bigger part of us. The better part of us.

Maybe it's not too late. As I nurse my fever and as I watch the full moon from my window, I offer a silent prayer that we will reveal to ourselves that sparkling side of us. It is just about time.

Lovely morning

Mornings couldn't be better

Waking up to a romantic sky makes all my troubles melt away. Today is rather nearing bed weather, a reason to stay in bed, all day ^^

But people call and woke me up, that's the next best thing in the world: to be needed by friends!

So I got my mug and heat up water for tea. Sipping tea while talking to special people in my life, couldn't be better than this.

Today I welcome the sweet smell of Holiday Season in the air. The overcast sky helps to make the mood more home-y and romantic. I love this day. Hope everyone is having a good day too.

Listening to: Hotel Song by Regina Spektor