Quizzical Quasi-Quotation

One of my childhood memories surrounds over the stripping and plaiting of palaspas or fronds freshly taken from coconut or buri palm, intricately woven into thousand an one designs, and brought to church for blessing during Palm Sundays to commemorate the entry of Christ in Jerusalem. These were then made as decks, as religious reminders, as talismanic symbols in almost every Catholic Filipino home, business establishment and vehicle. The ubiquity of these palm fronds reminds Philippines, the only Christian nation in Asia, of its being second in the most number of Catholic followers in the world. Funny to note that these drying, browning sacred things are burned during Ash Wednesday and use to remind Catholics of their evanescent humanity with a cross from the soot marked on their foreheads.

At one time, routine Catholicism bored me. And it crazed me over “I believe in God.” statement; weather I really affirm it or simply quote it. This made me miss one of those Palm Sundays I yearly await and left me writing over my bed the following:

You lie supine on the upper board of your wooden bed, jackfruit double deck to be exact. You eye up the fluorescent bulb drop hanging from the sky of your twelve-year old room but you shape out the quad-centennial dome of Magellan's shrine. Who was Magellan? Whine back your first Cebu stopover to this sailor who planted the cross on your country. Through him, you then and now make the forehead, bosom, left and right shoulder tapping gesture with your right middle and index fingers. As you believed.

Later in your shirt jack years you were taught that he was an enemy of the locals, the first boss of intruders from the far west. His daring venture to the unknown, though tainted in the battle of Mactan, is still idolatric even you abhor what drove him to. Certainly he never took those wealth and power, but he posthumously homed prestige after the remains of his fleet proved that the world is round. An idea you believe.

Now you are on another voyage. This time with a one-spirit army to a place that none of your specie or the Internet could conclude exists. Not one proof could quake the earth and the universalize faith. If there was, then it had been. You made an unscientific step of jumping into conclusion that the people learned to doubt because of the absence of the backings to the basics of all, such as the A-Z of the cosmos, the inert velocity of the starting material, the sub-quantum precision of things, the perfect superlative. You wet up and down your cracked lips, el ninod by the absence of answer. But you still believe.

You shook head to the industry of past people in weaving their respective hold that completely influence their living. Some debated: nature is the origin, the means and the ends. Others find contemplation as benefactors of altruism. But you? You just don't know why you kneel head down, or you stood up arms wide and open your mouth for an Alleluia, to dinagyang your own stand. You simply pull yourself and enjoy the early to rise for nine rooster masses, the hand scalding candles in the Lenten and Easter processions and the vomiting-wheel ride above the lake of balloons and pop corn vendors during town fiestas. You even once took a role in those plays at the end of May – the Santacruzan, the search for the Holy Cross.

And you seek a goal in your voyage greater than this prose: To seek for the Cross again. What's that? Where's that? When is that? You don't know. But you believe.

That was when I was about 18. That was when my writing was still immature. That was a Palm Sunday – a day for reaffirmation of faith. Today is another Palm Sunday. Today is March 16 – the alleged date the first Europeans headed by Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines. To all those who believe in God, Who ever He is to you – rediscover your faith in him today.

Come What May

On Charred and Colored Spirits

“Hala Bira!” and “Viva Senor Sto. Nino!” stuffs the aria and vibrato of dancers charcoaled to the last brown of the skin and costumed in color from headdress to anklets jigging to the beat of bamboo clacks and drum booms. Cheerful watchers local and foreign annually gather to spec this Fourth-Sunday-of-January revelry in Iloilo City, Philippines.
Dinagyang, as the revelry is called, refers to the noun of the Hiligaynon verb “dagyang” or “to make merry.” Somehow it has pagan derivation as it reenacts how the mountain Atis entertains lowland Malays of Panay in exchange for food and goods. Somehow it is Christian in foundation as it salutes how the image of the Child Jesus or Sto. Nino saved Panay Isalnd from the Islamic archipelago sprawl. Somehow it is traditional by principle as it tries to re-integrate the dispersing, unclarified history of Ilonggo People. Somehow it is modern by purpose as it spoils the young hearts crave for nightings, flesh trade, drugs, gambling and bankruptcy.

Dinagyang – an unverified revelry of chaotic, charcoaled and colored spirits.

Watch a video below:

Planting the Culture of Peace

PEACE EVERYONE!

Do not argue with me. I am sure you wished for it now and then. Blockage of noise. Rejection of violence. Prevention of conflict. PEACE! The infant in tranquile sleep, the child curious play, the adolescent in soul experiment, the young adult in job search, the mid-lifer in family dissonance, the geriatric in insane anxiety needs it too and have the capacity to share it like you do. You just received a seed of it so start planting peace in every heart you meet even beyond this season of birth of the One who started it two millennia ago. Through time it will grow in every age and gender and bear fruits and spread seeds around farming a pay-it-forward garden. And Joy will be His and yours. MERRY CHRISTMAS to every age and gender!

Verify Your Kindness

You observed the production of a virus naturally sneezed by people inflicted with altruistic disease and spread indiscriminately through four winds trespassing all seasons. It transmits with those who feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the homeless, secure the threatened, love the abandoned… add more what you can ... even those who die for an enemy. Whether in its generic form called 'kindness' or in thousand other identities such as love, empathy, understanding, generosity, to mention some, once inhaled it classically induces the body to sneeze it out to be forwarded to other individuals. You kept on supposing.

You reviewed the distribution of kindness. Though it is swiftly communicable, highly exchangeable, and strongly preserved beyond onset time, there are still individuals who remain spared. There is continuous output yet the percentage of those absorbing its blessings is unjustified. Perhaps due to its standard property called reciprocity which stomachs kindness to be passed back to those who can provide one and not to those who are actually in need of one. You kept on analyzing.

You summarized the consumption of kindness. You thought of the lack of opportunity you can fill it until you recalled where you are going. You choose to be a physician here in the Philippines amid the national invitation of easier and financial lucrative job as a nurse, a physical therapist, or a medical technologist abroad. You plan not to leave the nation and as much as possible work in the far flung country sides before ever gaining your own. You have chosen a stethoscope as your weapon to reorganize the economics of love, empathy, understanding, generosity just to list down a few. You keep on being kind.

To all those who can not eye on the kindness in yourselves, observe, review and summarized where you are and notice the helping muscle your hand has lend and continue lending.

What...

There is no universal vision, there are just motivating issues.

I can't stand this! For whatever phrase that follows “what” I noticed some of my reactions do fluctuate in the course of time. I just traced my consistent inconsistency lately:

What main candidate quality to vote for in my own barangay (village) council elections?
Answer 1: Word of honor, to bleak variety among the traditional pledge flankers.
Answer 2: Meter-greeter, to escort local folks to cohesive objectives.
Answer 3: Don't vote as it is also perpetually done by individuals in localities where regular political rivals are their close kin. But I won't vote at all as I am not familiar with which one can keep promises or has good public relations or what nature they are made of.
Final Answer: Ask my father's suggestion! (Hopeless choice)

What to eat for a family lunch in a typical bamboo make-shift talaba (oysters) and seafood resto?
Answer 1: Pork chop! The first to catch my eyes. Just don't give me talaba.
Answer 2: Grilled tangigue. It needs less cardiac apology. Besides, nomenclaturly I was then in a seafood resto.
Answer 3: Sinigang, of fish of sorts. Cook it fast. Soup is good and I'm by then starving.
Final Answer: Shrimp – but after the food was served I ate mostly rice.

What blogs to link from hulag?
Answer 1: Self-Motivation blogs, if my readers need more motivation strategies, they will just click at my blog roll.
Answer 2: Meta Blogging blogs and Pinoy Blogs I hovered my mouse on in the past two months.
Answer 3. Blogs of not long established friends in the social media communities.
Final Answer: Random Thoughts – a combination of them all. And still adding.

I shift decisions every shifting situations. The verity of which is waiting for another 2 days to publish this post to allow adjustments as to what what.. topic to write. (no typographical error there). The original theme was “what to write during a writer’s block and a writer’s procrastination” which I repelled as it is overused by meta-bloggers. This post is a remote amendment.
Do I sound like a 6-year-old? Is this the manifestation of a regressing brat? Thinking through I always have the need to accomplishing things right away in my younger years. Failing from which sunk me. All the way after I befriend procrastination. This dreadful evil that still pests in me. But with learning to flex decisions, I start being OK. Without regrets! I think that’s one reason I become comfortable with valuing different things at different period of time lately. No worries after not drinking what I romantically roasted, brewed and ground. I’ll let them evaporate as the angel’s share of earthly options. I won't anymore question my tendency to change answers as that tends to make me move freer. Faster like a banana peel (good bye procrastination). Happier. A new suffering reduction technology. Life is all about moving towards happiness anyway. Striving to be happy is the motivation deadliest to compel. Desiderata? Call me hedonistic egoist, whatever you'll say; I'm still proud to be happy. And always struggles to be before I get horizontal and able to choose no more. My current preoccupation is what to place in my epitaph. Haha. But I found it suitable to “where…” - my next post.

Small Activity
Predict your unpredictability to decide. Here is a longer method. On a piece of paper, write the date and List down 5 things you value in life today. Fold it and droop in in a slit of a closed box. Do this each day. Ignore your previous answers. Just answer what you exactly value in life for that day. After a month or two, open the box. Check the seasonality of your thoughts. Were your thoughts the same? I did this for 3 months 8 years ago. Only the two were constantly present. It placed me in a foreplay of surrendering and resisting desires. It’s fun knowing my self. For a shorter method, try experimenting on this one. Check your visual DNA at Imagini. Perform the same task each hour and see if your current choice is still of 100% matched to your original choice. I think this gini allows more than just three wishes. Well, are you as ever change freak as I am?

This post is second of a 7-part ellipsis series.