Neon Dreamcatcher

I love how this looks. Something so weirdly earthy and techno about it. Taken from last month's full moon party at Jungle Bar. A-hooo!

Two kinds of anger

I was thinking that there appears to be two types of anger.

One is rational, directed, intentional, with reason.

The other is a tsunami, huge, coming out of nowhere, tugging at all those within grasp, pulling them into it's depths. Does it have reason too? If so, it is not apparent. Perhaps somewhere, hundreds and thousands of miles away, the land shakes. The anger is thus a ripple in the tide, the source not even within sight.

One beat at a time

Dum, tak, dum, tak. Like many things I have taken up over the last two and half years, I never dared to take up drumming. I always looked on with curiosity, awe, and even a little envy at how deftly fingers could move over skin, making it howl and hoot and groan and grumble. But not I, I thought. Until this evening when my renewed willingness to experience new things brought me into a circle of women so full of energy and whose beats were electric that I still feel electric from our hour of shakti drumming.

Again, I'm grateful to live here, where there are so many energetic and creative circles, happy that I have the opportunity to learn new things and feel new sensations. Every new thing is a new lesson. Today, I learned not only new African beats. I also learned that you never know yourself as you think, so never under rate yourself. I would not have ever thought that I could remotely keep time, let alone learn a beat. It is not natural for me. It is not easy. Still, I enjoyed it immensely. I got as much as I gave. And I can't wait till next Wednesday!

Quantum Breath

I was told that I hadn't ever really taken a breath. This was perhaps true. I'm what you might call a holder. I hold my breath, in anticipation, in nervousness. I am also a shallow breather. I wheeze, I panic when I can't catch my breath quick and easy. Over the last couple of years, the often forgotten activity of breathing has become more apparent to me, through yoga, practice of pranayama, through diving. Thoughtful, deliberate breathing, breath that takes its time, fills the lungs and empties it out completely. Its not easy. So, Quantum Breath was a new experience for me. So was celebrating the New Moon. Though I didn't know what to expect I never thought that breathing could feel as such. Quickly inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, charged me, collected energy, fingers tightened, feet numbed, gained momentum, so much so I could feel tiny bolts of electricity shooting through my fingers. The room was thus charged I could feel it tickling my nose as I inhaled each breath, eleven of us, our feet pointing towards the make shift altar where we put down personal effects, our backs pressed firmly at the floor of Mandala's sala. And after 25 minutes of oxidizing my body, release. I felt a relief and a lightening that was so complete, so genuine, so utterly like a homecoming that it brought me to tears. The things that I clung to became immaterial and all that remained was me, my body surging with prana, positive light; I accepted myself and my troubles, which were not a part of me, I released with that final breath. I felt joy. I loved myself. I was free.

Obama Wins and So Do We!

First and foremost, I am relieved of any guilt attached to my own negligence with my absentee ballot which I did not send on time. For the last couple of weeks, it has been haunting me, that I had wasted a vote, all because I'm basically useless with time managing items that I have not written on a gazillion strategically-placed post-its. So, phew, non-voter remorse averted, though I wish I were a more active in not miniscule participant of this gargantuan historical moment. This goes on the timeline of earth-shaking events. For some, I imagine it's like seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, staring into tubes of black and white, man all space-suited defying gravity. Barack Obama, an African American, is President of the United States of America. Holy cow! (I'd curse like a sailor if the moment didn't require total and absolute reverence) Holy Herd! In my lifetime, I will always remember the day Kurt Cobain shot himself; the day my mom picked me up early from school, whisked me home, then locked out the LA Riots, the evening (in the Philippines) I sat in my 14th floor studio aghast as I watched the disappearing Twin Towers. Today is one of those days, I heard it after lunchtime, between classes. And honestly, it took hours to sink in, to get the full breadth of what was happening, how the world was changing, that somehow in a battle between good and evil, something righteous and good and true had persevered. Yes, they are all right: there is hope, anything is possible, and we can change the world.

Spontaneous and Surprising Saturday

Sometimes, I'm unfair. Critical. Bitchy. Quick to judge this city, Manila. I've moaned and groaned about hating it, it's sameness, it's routine, it's rut-like lifestyle that keeps you running around like a hamster on a wheel, in circles, going nowhere. How going out is a be-seen chore, where sightseers and self-professed hipsters ramp about aimlessly creating their own wind. While it is true many a times, there are those occasional exceptions, when a night turns golden, surprising, creative and down-right unabashedly fun and pure. No fakeys, no drama, no drunks, no pimps, no posers.

It always starts simply too. Dinner with my best girl chowing on Sentro's delish corned beef sinigang. Wandering into Classic Confections, only to have happenstance and of course good friends and family introduce us to Nona's Oblivion, a chocolate cake without comparison. I will always remember Tuna saying with conviction, "I want this cake."

Then hopping over to a friend's apartment only to walk into the most unexpected reunions with friends who I haven't taken a gander at, let alone talked to, for years. Chin, Robson, Paul, Q! (Thanks, Mackie)! And finding them, as one so aptly put it, "awesome." And getting to give my godchild a small guilt-laden token of her godmother's blatant negligence. (Sorry, Brynn). Without any awkward silences, getting right into the "so where in the world have you been hiding yourself" catch up summary conversations. Once formalities set aside, it was business as usual. A quick drink that turns into hours.

And suddenly as if a well-greased machine, we were moving, from the comfy couch to a convoy of rather conspicuous SUV's with parents we'd picked up along the way in tow. We drove out to my old hood and one of my favorite neighborhood haunts, music and art dive Penguin in Malate, which was in full swing with Bembol Rockers and Romina Diaz' farewell do. Then bumping into other Venusians like Jenni, Wawi, and Anna (Romancing Venus Poets). Then dancing to some good-old fashioned swing. Then enjoying a late night snack at whatitsname on Mabini before finally driving home, trying to beat the sun, which was peeking out ever so slightly in the horizon. Yes, this was one of those magical moments that reminded me of the place I'd fallen in love with so long ago when I called Manila "home."

Sucking on the TIT

It was on a laminated poster on the toilet wall, standing out among the pentel-penned idioms and sayings by the dozen, which characterize Chiang Mai Saloon, by far the best burger joint in all of South East Asia. "This Is Thailand" so don't flush paper goods down the toilet it warned to those with western mind sets. Meaning, things don't go down easy in the country, accept it. "This is Thailand," a saying well known and often repeated by Thailand's resident ferangs. Something they have come to simply understand about their adopted country, it is used to explain the unexplainable, to forgive the strange, to accept that which defies the laws of nature.

Coming from the Philippines, it is easy to understand the incongruity of things. We are country made up of our own unique quirks: movie star politicians, text-operated-coups, messed up driving sensibilities (what lines?! a three lane highway is transformed into 6 in rush hour traffic, that includes the shoulder, of course).

However, Thailand has it's own brand of eccentricity. It took me two and a half weeks to pronounce the new international airport's name, whose 5-syllables, as you can see, slides so easily off the tongue. It turns out that the "v" and the "i" are silent in "Suvarnabhumi." A good choice for a name that many scores of foreigners massacre on a daily basis.

By far, the best of my TIT experiences is with the Thais' unwavering reverence to the King, who left the hospital in a stylishly tailored pink suit. The poster of him donning his new threads can be found everywhere, stores, noodle houses, bars, tuk-tuks. The Pink is that of the essence of pink, bubble gum, cotton candy. Very snazzy, a cool throwback to the 80s. I tell you, it takes a real monarch to wear this kind of pink. And everywhere we went, people wore pink. Pink polos, pink shirts, pink plastic bracelets could be purchased in McDonalds, saying, "Do good for our King." Pink, Pink, Pink.

In most places in the west, you have to be an idol like Madonna to start a trend. In Thailand, you have to be the King. Gotta love it. TIT.