to the womb and back

We can cast pretty long shadows...

I've been thinking a lot about the conflict between most children and parents: the endless struggle, which appears to get more complex as time wears on, from infancy to adulthood, and yet seems quite the same as it ever always was.

I've been told that we actually choose the parents to whom we are born to. That this is somehow part of our--sick and twisted as it sometimes seems--karma. This choice, and the lessons embedded in the relationship we have with our family, is crucial to our education, to truly learning who we are.

That this choice was made by me is, kind of, well...comforting. I am, it turns out, a willing participant in what sometimes feels like totally random luck of the draw.

Here's the but: I've stopped believing in dumb luck. Over the last couple of years, my faith in the way the universe works has been greatly buoyed. I believe there is a reason for everything. Yes, even the tough stuff.

And it's great to feel that there is a point to it all, that there is some great purpose to what at times feels like madness. This is yet another gift, one beloved friend would most definitely say, that comes in unusual wrapping.

Recently, in an attempt to "unwrap" this present, this gift of a complex relationship I have with my mother (this is not to say my relationship with my father is much less complicated--but he seems to have figured greatly in last year's grueling discoveries and is thus less prominent now), I traveled to my most unusual destination yet on this trip. I went back to the womb with the help of my friend Kumar, from Mumuksha in Mysore, who is here now in England to do some healing work via transomatic dialogue therapy.

Ok, at this point, some of you reading this might be tempted to roll the eyes, sigh in thinly veiled bemusement at me going all new-age-y. In truth, even I want to sometimes react like this towards myself, give myself a side-glance and an "Ohhhh, really?" 

In a recent conversation, one of my best college friends, who also knows my mother well, suggested I see a therapist to talk out my mommy issues. This too elicits a similar response from me. I can't help it. It's a bit of a reflex. I guess I am from a similar stock as my mother. If you can't grin and bear it in the end, then go figure it out quietly by yourself. Hmmm, perhaps the root of my problems?

Whatever the root, I do recognize that there is only one real problem, one that takes lifetimes to figure out, it takes many births, many parents and a whole lot of varied experiences, some good and some bad. It takes discernment of mind, openness of heart, strength and determination to dig, to uncover layers, to excavate all the blockages that keeps us from the true treasure. We need all the help that we can find, from friends, from loved ones, from therapists and healers, conventional or otherwise. And as for the challenges that arise to test us, they are here to help us too. These presents-in-disguise are obstacles in the darkness. But they are also clues. And as I fumble around the dark room of my soul, these objects give me some idea of my true shape and form, who I am and who I am not.

So here I am, unrooting, unwrapping, traveling unknown distances, pushing boundaries, bumping my knees on obstructions that seem so haphazardly strewn before me--though they are really guiding me down this dimly lit path, where I continue to feel for that magic light switch, so that I might shine, so that I might see.

uphill battle

A good fit: a prayer for the journey on-going.
Unfortunately, don't have any pics of the magnificent ride.

Pickering, Yorkshire, Great Britain


I like a good bike ride. And by "good" I mean slow and easy, on relatively flat surfaces. A friend back in Boracay would always overtake me on his bike and marvel out loud that it was a miracle I didn't just fall over sideways, I was going so slow.

That's usually how I roll. Smooth. Easy. With turtle-like-stealth.

But not yesterday, as I followed my friend into the forest trails in Yorkshire. We were steadily going uphill. He on the biggest cog. Me, trying to keep up, vacillating between the three, always ending up on 1st each time the heat started to burn at my thighs, which was pretty often.

It seemed an eternity going uphill (mmm, closer to 15 minutes) when I started to think that consenting to this bike ride was a bad idea. I should have stayed indoors. Where it was warm, where I would be sitting, legs happily static. And did I really agree to going off-road into the forest on a road bicycle? What in the world was I thinking!

At some point--as I was huffing and puffing quite undignified-like--I thought, I can still turn back. It was one long stretch back to my friend's house. I was sure I could easily find my way. But this would require some serious pedal power to actually overtake my friend whose legs appeared--at least from my vantage point, with dust and distance between us--to be made of steal. So, instead, I followed on.

Off the road, up we went into the woods, which was, at the super slow motion speed that I was going, sublimely serene. I was struck with this external peacefulness, which felt wild and foreign but also very calm, mostly because it was a stark contrast with what felt like a raging battle within.

My heart was thumping wildly, each beat reverberating in my head. Each sharp slope upwards seemed to push me to some unknown limit. The struggle up the hill seemed to have given rise to loud, mutinous demons within. My demons. Old nemeses. Old so-called friends, pulling me down from all sorts of heights. "What was I doing?" they shouted in my inner-ear. "What was I trying to prove?" "I'm so obviously not good enough."

At some point, it got so bad I had to stop, pull-over, and have a good whimper. By then, I was in the middle of nowhere, my friend's dust had ceased to be visible. It was already late in the afternoon. And it was not a good time to have a total emotional breakdown.

So I inhaled and exhaled and pedaled. Albeit slowly, up the mountain. My friend came back down to meet me, by then quite close to the top. And we made our descent together. From there it was downhill. Also not smooth, on such rocky terrain, but downhill nonetheless. In fact, the entire way back--the same road we came up--was downhill, which made me realize that the entire first half was an uphill battle.

Life is a journey. There are ups and there are downs. The heights we have to sometimes climb seem insurmountable, impossible even. We are challenged. We are often pulled down by these challenges. But if we keep on, we find that it does get easier.

My body, heart, mind moaned and groaned up the forest trail. There was a riot in my head. And yet, slowly, inch by painful inch, I did manage. Though most of the pain, I realize now, was in my head. I got to the top of that blasted--and stunningly beautiful-- mountain. And the freedom of the descent, the exhilaration that came as I sped swiftly down the rocky pathway quieted the din of internal doubts and demons.

It was just me, the bike, and the winding road down.

And, actually, I am looking forward to going back. It won't be much easier, but at least I know I can do it. I can manage the tough ascent. And I'll enjoy the ride, the entire ride, both the up as well as the down. 

england calling

Written a week ago...

Foxgloves and the warm English sunshine...

It’s been five years since I was last in England and sixteen years since I landed in the British Isles, a fresh-faced twenty year-old university student, for a yearlong study abroad program.

Even as a freshman at UC Berkeley, I knew that studying abroad would be a crucial element to my education. I felt the call. At first, I had my eyes set on Spain. I was taking Spanish. But my interest in English Literature, which became my major, took precedent. I dropped Spanish by the second semester of my sophomore year and Spain turned into the University of Warwick in the UK, with its progressive creative writing program and its campus located a quick train ride from Stratford-Upon-Avon. I wanted to be in the land of Shakespeare. In truth, I loved all things English, excepting the dull gray weather, which eventually inspired me to seek out the tropical sunshine of the Philippines.

Still, as a whole, my time in England was formative. I learned a lot that year, more from the experience of going to a foreign country than in the classroom, which was also good. But it’s when we take ourselves out of our comfort zones and venture into new things that we make new discoveries.  

Only hours from landing, I am filled with the excitement of meeting an old friend. I can’t wait to see the green of the English countryside, so different from the lushness of the tropics or the expansiveness of North America. I look forward to meeting with new friends and old friends and to partake in a way of life, which I found so charming my first trip to the country. I am thrilled to explore a part of England that I’ve never previously ventured before.

Every time I return to the UK it always brings the opportunity to check in with myself. When I came to study, I was a blank page. I’d barely lived. And that year felt like the start of me. On my own, in a foreign country, I started to discover how certain things really resonated. Watching theater. Traveling. Dancing. Alternative music.

And since then, every return is a gauge of how much I have grown. I continue to be a work in progress. Now, I’m several drafts-old, an ever-thickening, ever-evolving manuscript. I wonder how England will develop into this new chapter of the story of me?

on the road again, destination little matters

Written a week ago, whist in transit... 

On one of York's historic streets...

Passport, check. Ticket, check. Cash and cards, check. Yoga mat, check. Clothing good for layering, check. UK/Europe adapter, swim suit and rain gear, reading material, check, check, check!

Packing went so smoothly this time that I couldn’t help but feel I'd forgotten something. Everything fit--and this time with room to spare!

Or maybe, just maybe, I am getting more skillful at this. In the last year, I've not been in one place longer than 3 months, most of the time less. When I uprooted myself, I didn’t think it would go on for more than a year. I had no timeline in mind. What I did have was an intention: I wanted to live fully, I wanted to wake up in the morning knowing that I was where I wanted to be, I wanted to love myself enough to answer my heart’s call.  I wanted to be happy.

As for the journey that started the day I left Boracay June 2011, it is not over. That feeling that I had as I crossed between the tiny island--which had been a safe harbor for me for 5 years--and the mainland, that awesome sense of the great unknown before me, the vast creative potential that existed in a leap of faith—most of all in myself—continues to this day. I feel it now as I fly to London. Just as this great big Boeing is conveying me to another land, this feeling is lifting me up, it is transporting me, it is helping me transcend.

I think, to an outsider, it may look like I am wandering around aimlessly. There have been many phases of my life where I was firmly rooted to one place, with all the “stable” fixings: a job, a home, a partner, but I recognize that I was actually drifting.

And yet, now, often with no clear destination, I feel like I am finally getting somewhere. Life’s journey—and I don’t think you have to be traveling to be on it, it depends on who you are and the path that works for you—is spontaneous and surprising. At other times, it feels winding and treacherous. It’s not always easy, but its rewards are incalculable.

For me the process itself is as important as the final destination because everyday I am learning about myself. And the end goal of this odyssey isn’t about landing in any one particular place, it is really about meeting the most important person in my life, me.

next level, yoga and video games

Art imitates life. Video game: Space Invaders.

I don't know if it's my own perception of things or not, but it seems that since I started to reap the calming benefits of yoga I've noticed two things:

One: That my responses to stress have undoubtedly gotten better. I'm more cool under pressure. I'm not so easily thrown off my A-game. Though, admittedly, Manila traffic still gets the better of me from time to time.

This in itself is a huge deal. My father once gave me a book called "Who Moved My Cheese?" in response to my inability to cope successfully when things did not go my way, a trait I think he really knows he passed down from his own genetic code.

Two: That the issues and various crisis that arise alongside my growing bright new attitude seem to be increasing in intensity. So, as my ability to maintain calm seems to increase, so does the intensity of stresses that arise, which, ironically, threatens that newly established calm.

This confounds me somewhat. It feels as if I barely have time to enjoy peace of mind before something entirely new and rather weighty--compared to the last crisis--threatens to throw me off balance in fresh new ways. Just when I think I have a handle on things...things go in a direction that once again test me.

It's a little like playing video games, a past-time I never developed much of a liking for. On top of the my poor hand-eye coordination and generally slow response time, I never enjoyed how there was never an end to the drama of it. Always another level, another abyss to vault over, another treasure to find, another monster to wrestle, another ship to gun down, another dot to eat through. Endlessly frustrating way to waste time.

I guess what I am starting to see, though, is what video gamers live on. This "leveling up" is about ascension. You can only go to the next level once you have passed new, more difficult challenges, because that's what helps make us grow. And I guess what I've suspected for some time is true: I am still growing.

Through practicing yoga, not only has my hand-eye coordination has improved, but my entire awareness of my body has definitely deepened. I used to feel a huge disconnect between my mind and my body. Used to! And now, my ability to respond to stress has also progressed. Not lightning-speed, mind you. But I'm definitely sharper than ever before. As for each mounting challenge, though each continue to shake me, I can't help but feel that the force of it seems less and less. I am responding to the issues and problems quicker and more pro-actively. Recovery time is faster than ever.

What amazes my is how the universe knows when you're ready for the next challenge. I've been studying quite a bit of yoga philosophy recently with my dear dear friend James Boag, who has been teaching here in Manila these last 3 weeks (lucky us!) and he's said more than once that we are never given a challenge/lesson that we are not ready for. And this amazes me. Comforts me. Awes me. It makes me feel that we are supposed to grow and learn and ascend. It makes me feel that there is great purpose to living and to meeting life's challenges head on--because, hell, they just keep on coming!

So true. Wall paper from Retroist.com. 

be true

As children, we are told not to lie, that honesty is the best policy. But I wonder how many of us grew up seeing the adults around us embody this rule. When I was growing up, what was considered "true" seemed relative. At an early age, I saw that everyone appeared to have their own version of the truth, which sometimes didn't match my own experience of it.

I think that as we mature, while most of us uphold certain virtues of truth, at the same time we might also dodge certain truths about ourselves. It's not entirely our faults, we live in a world that at once tells us to be honest but also insists on instructing us what to buy, what to wear, what to eat, what to look like, how to be.

Sometimes the truth just plain old hurts. And it's easier to just deny it.

Generally, I consider myself an honest person. I am a law-abiding citizen. Barring some minimal acts of piracy, I don't steal or cheat. I'm a good friend. I try to give sincere advice when my input is sought after.

But these days, I am seeing that being honest about deep down things continues to be tricky for me. And to address this, I guess, I am trying to be honest about it.

I definitely attribute this spark of self-awareness to my yoga practice, which seems designed to excavate just about every secret passage and unanswered mystery inhabiting this human body of mine. Even when I think I'd rather leave things alone. There's no embracing the status quo here, not if you're really practicing yoga, which doesn't only help you accept change but is also an agent of change itself. And, of course, yoga teaches --no surprise here!--"satya," or truthfulness.

Recently, I've been asking myself, am I acting in a way that is in accordance with my true nature? Because sometimes my own truth is buried so deeply underneath a pile of old expectations, misidentifications, of misplaced desires, of fears of non-acceptance that I barely recognize what's really me.

And so tonight, as I dig into the recesses of my own heart, trying to figure out how I actually feel, I pray for truth-full-ness. I ask to be brimming with it.

system crash

System crashed. More than one it seems.

The first, my laptop's hard drive--which resulted in the loss of all of my work files, all music, all of my personal photos from the last two and a half years, and a piteously small amount of half-refined poems all gone--seems quite small in comparison to the second, which is infinitely more complicated because it doesn't have to do with machines but with people.

And human beings have a range of feelings, volumes of stories, some true and some fabricated, which don't simply stop. There is no shutting it down. Hurt feelings. Stories of separation. They continue to run on and on. There is no simple way to halt this process. It is a complex unending program.

So, I will use my laptop's crashing as a means of making sense to the other system failure. (This is me, the control freak, also trying to make sense of it myself).

According to the lovely IT technician who tried her best to revive my laptop and recover all the treasures locked within it, my hard drive was under stress. I had pushed it to its limits. I didn't let it rest by shutting it down properly. I was traveling with it, and as it moved from place to place, it could not process the tasks at hand, it was burdened. Finally, at one crucial moment, after repeatedly being put into the same situation, the hard drive was corrupted.

Everything and everyone has limits. When we continue to interact in a way that is unhealthy, it will eventually result in some kind of meltdown. In our relationships, especially with family, I think, we get used to operating in a certain way. Many times we know what doesn't work but we do it anyway, sometimes out of habit, sometimes out of ignorance, other times just because we are too afraid to really deal with it. We think: no, it's okay, things are not at their best but at least they are manageable.

Just as I myself knew that really I should have backed up my data, or that I should have taken better care of managing my interaction with my laptop, I also know--really really know--that certain things are not as they should be. If we really examine ourselves and our actions, most of us know the way of truth, of authenticity, but we take the other route anyway.

Prolonged wrong actions, incorrect processes, will ultimately result in a break in the system because it is not sustainable. Some issues never go away, not when you just keep trying to sweep them under a rug somewhere. They pile up, grow heavy. And all that unnecessary weight will make one fall over one day. Crash. Man down. Emotional carnage everywhere.

However, in most cases, a system failure, though it may bring immediate troubles, can also invite the reassessment and revamping of the system to bring it into proper working order -- that is in keeping with the current, broader operating system/reality.

Now my hard drive has been replaced. My laptop is once again revived. Lighter than before. I lost a lot of data, much of which is irreplaceable. But I lost a lot of untold garbage too. Things I'd been meaning to clean out but never got the chance to. Gone. Poof. Into the ether.

And while I do feel the loss, I am also thrilled at the opportunity for a fresh start. An opportunity to operate in a better way, in a healthier way, in a way where all things are integrated properly under one working system. I hope to bring the same optimism to my recent human collisions. Because we all want this, in the machines that have become the expression of our lives and in our actual lives as well.