I Get To See You Again

I can’t help myself. I’ve got to see you again: I sing this in my head like a lover belonging to another. I sing this to the Banawe Rice Terraces after four years since that photo shoot upon the rice paddies. It’s been quite a while and I returned up North quite a changed woman; yet the reason for coming remains to be the same. I don’t think it will ever change, anyways. Even the feelings will not. I have no particular understanding why I am drawn to this place. I didn’t put much effort to do so; only the effort to take the bus for that 9-hour travel, and be among the Ifugao people each time: the weavers, wood carvers, mumbaki (medicine man), elders, earth stewards, the children with rosy cheeks who speak fluent English with a twang that never miss to take me aback. It would surely surprise you.

The weather is very cool. I am lucky to have this shot for it had been cloudy for days. I was told the sky cleared just I arrived with my friend. It sounded like good news to the Ifugao rice terrace keeper and his wife. Of course, everyone was happy having to see the rice terrace appear under the glory of sun that warms us a bit. Unlike before when I only got to talk to a (retired) Mumbaki about the terraces, this time, I get this chance to learn how to plant rice and understand its organic, down-to-earth science. This planting and pounding give me privilege to have the golden beads linger on my palms: the very grain our ancestors have planted 3000 years ago.

The Constant Regret

I sit by this world where in a matter of time memories will fade. The constant regret is seeing you to be too beautiful in this place. You sit beside me and I recoil to my corner. The regret is not having seen how your tears have fallen, since I thought laughter is the only possible thing between us. Your kite flew like that dragon in your dreams. It’s amazing how you could easily let go. It takes a minute and half of a turn, and I am gone for good.

I sat by that world where memories have faded. My constant regret is having known I have lost what is too beautiful in you.

How Far is Heaven

It was a dusky morning as we crossed Zamboanga Bay. The sky gave news of rain while waves tossed like catharting dancers on a vibrating dance floor. It took us less than an hour to reach Sta. Cruz Island where we are to see the Badjao graveyard.

The Badjao is our Muslim sea-gypsy people. The Sulu Sea, and wide ocean being their true home, is a shared universe which gracefully flows in their soul. ”Even the boat be with sail, it will not move if there is no wind,” the Badjao say. “And if the wind becomes wild, let your sail down.” (a practical yet profound teaching I attach to Bruce Lee’s “be like water”). The Badjao knows how to work with wind thus their culture participates in the great cycles of the sea. The Badjao concept that man is “but a peer of fish, bird, beast, vine, rock, and tree” justifies for “the exchange of subjugated people for grain and green.” In their culture is the premise where “common moral codes are not applicable to cultures where no clear distinction is drawn between animal, vegetable, mineral and human.”

A BOAT RIDE (AFTER) LIFE

The Badjao graveyard is a humble open territory, canopied by trees upon a stretch of beachsand and pebble. A wooden boat-shaped marker adorns a Muslim fisherfolk’s grave which is said to accompany the deceased to the afterlife. It is common to see wooden carvings rather than tombstones, and with such, I got the feel of sublime community and a boundless stream of connection to foliage, trees, ocean breeze, earth, water and sky.

How far would one go to reach heaven? I found some of the answers for myself here. It is not death that I see among the honored deceased. Nor a punctuation of life, arrested and perhaps conceived to have become meaningless upon the loss of breath. I look at the makeshift wooden boats and a look away is not a far distant moving sea. How can one fear death this way? Some wonderful underlying truth is given upon where my feet are: body offered back to organic earthen bliss; souls rowing farther off, leaving shore towards a big blue harmony.

Heaven is one but beautiful journey, it seems. Nowhere to be seen like that boat that becomes a tiny glint of sun and shimmer on the far horizon—-yet you know you want to head there. I catch wind with my breath. A bird swoops above and a cloud whispers: sail on. And so I do---sails up, sails down.

Evidence

What is winter
to a man who knows
only of summer and rain?
Snow may not have fallen
on his skin yet he
may know winter exists.

There is evidence of meeting
when there is true understanding:
when foreign is befriended
thus a stranger no more.

Respect and non desecration
Is evidence of community.

Trees bowing to wind
with days circling the sun
When rain showers the
ever thirsty roots--

There we both meet
With evidence
That we both live
For the same reason
on this earth.
:: Maria

Why Speak?

Why speak indeed.

Why should I speak to you of
the sacred things I know.
Why should I talk about
these things you already know:
A child’s laughter,
the sun rising and setting,
the morning dew on the grass.

These things all contain a lesson,
held sacred to me in my heart passed down
to me from thousands of years back.
Should I risk telling you of these things.
Will you read it and forget about it just as quickly?
like tear drops in the rain.

Will my words help you to soar higher
like wind under your wings.
Or will my words go over your head,
and under your feet.

Most of my elders are gone
Travelling their journey on the wolf trail.
They left me behind to teach
what they taught me,
the things that have been held sacred
for thousands of years.
Why speak of these things.
How can I make your hands
respect the things the Great Spirit
has created for us.

How can my words make your
eyes and ears sharp to see and hear
the Great Spirits words and visions.

Why speak indeed

I must speak of these things
I too am growing older.
It won’t be long before I follow
my elders on that wolf trail.
I tell you now my brothers and sisters
treat each other and all things
on the face of mother earth
with respect.

Have great respect for mother earth
for she lent us these bodies to use,
these shells will return to her when
our spirits are ready to move on.
My brothers and sisters we should
all work together for the
greater good of mankind,
not the benefit of the one.

Look after your mind and body
to keep them strong,
not to beat your enemies but to
help those who are too weak to
make this journey called life.
Give a share of what you make
expect nothing in return
for what you do in life
comes back to you always.

But you already knew of these things....
didn’t you?

May my message find you well
my brothers and sisters.

Richard Runs Amongst Buffalos.

HeartBeat

There is a beautiful reason behind creation. There are wonderful hands that weave a tapestry of movement. Behind every creation is a heartbeat that flows to that eternal river. Where water meets heart is a river that meets oasis, a place where no dry well exists. Loving abundance is a beautiful seed behind creation: a swelling tide that rises to the golden sun and purple moon, moving along night and day, blind and seeing. Three reasons perhaps why we live: to learn, learn more, and love eternally without fear of emptiness.

A heart without a heartbeat is not dead. A man without a heart is.

Ang alab ng puso ay ang mabuhay ka at magbigay ng kahulugan sa araw at dilim ng panahon. Pikit mata o’ mapagtanggap, ang gintong araw at buwan ay hahalik sa butil at alon ng iyong nilikha. Ang matuto, gumanap at magmahal na walang pag-aalinlangan, walang takot sa pagkawala: siyang bitaw ng pusong nararapat sa iyo na mapagmahal at mapanglikha.

Treasure of a Minority

AMBAHAN No. 234 (last 5 lines)

from the TREASURE OF A MINORITY

If united we remain

and our bond is strong and pure,

you and I, far as we are,

it's like holding hands again,

it's like sitting side by side.

No siwalo tagduman

Urog kantag saayan

Ud kawo ud ako man

No bilang dis tuwangan

No bilang dis taytayan

~collected and translated

by Antoon Postma

The Ambahan is the traditional poetry of the Hanunoo-Mangyans in Oriental Mindoro. It is usually recorded on bamboo by means of the Surat Mangayan, the centuries-old pre-Spanish script. The syllabic script and the Ambahan poetry have complemented each other, thus preventing their becoming extinct and forgotten.

Mangyan Heritage Center
http://www.mangyan.org/

True Hue

Is it beyond black and white if we keep a steady glance, lingering more than usual. The world is beyond black and white and at the core is Nothingness perhaps: a nothingness that be of anything, or everything. Do you see black in white. Do you count white among black. Or do you see a rainbow in between.

Process color. Is it real or did we just imagine everything we held on to.

:: Maria Largo

Badjao

ZAMBOANGA TO ME AS A YOUNG GIRL WAS THIS SCRATCHY MYTH: the way my father would tell me about his stories of his travels there. The Badjao and their VINTA: boats with colorful festive sails, are the things that made me hold Zamboanga in my imagination as a young Manilena.

That myth was blown to wind on the day I stood on a wooden, makeshift weather-beaten bridge in the middle of the Badjao community in Zamboanga. A boy wearing a red shirt, as school uniform, gracefully rested his chin on the school window. I was just standing beside him on the other side of the wall: me looking in, him looking into me. Slowly, color was fading in, fading out with old memory. Memory of my imagination, to be exact. I regard him as a brother regardless of a religion that separated us.

I need not really walk very far to know how they live. Being on the outside, tells a lot already. The Badjaos are the seafarers of the south: a tribe wellknown for living their culture in boats sailed at sea. Sea is their home, their life--boats only drift them through it. It's a water culture I deeply understand, since I am Tagalog, belonging to a tribe of the river, however the river more flows in the spirit in me rather than in my outer environment.

COME IN. As I stood on this footbridge, I felt I could certainly walk into that house. On my immediate right is the Badjao school hut, busy and in progress with the kids. Home seem to feel empty when the children are in school, yet I felt the comfort of real community here. You need not worry about traffic, of kids being late or lost on their way home. This narrow walkpath is uneven which made me uneasy. I took my shoes off and it felt better.