end of a decade & the start of 2020

The final solar eclipse of the decade occurred on Thursday, December 26. When the new moon passed in front of the sun it produced a stunning and photogenic ring of fire around the moon.

This new moon not only brings to an end things we have been going through for the last ten years, the energy of this highly charged, intense lunar pull brings major change.

Giving us the opportunity to release, cleanse, refresh, and renew our energy just in time for 2020 and the start of an exciting new decade.

sacred solstice season

I found this interesting article in the Smithsonian magazine on How the Sun Illuminates Spanish Missions in the Winter Solstice.

We have a Catholic tradition back in the Philippines called visita iglesia where during Holy Week we trek to churches - new and old - reciting the Stations of the Cross. All these church visits bring on fond memories.

As folks in the Northern Hemisphere mark the longest night and shortest day of the year this winter solstice, I cannot help but contemplate on the effects of colonization - then and now, here and there.

ART | fiery women & their tor/men/tors

Today's Google doodle commemorating Camille Claudel on her 155th birthday is yet another bitter sweet reminder of a fierce forgotten female lost to us.

La Vague ("The Wave") (1897), exhibited in the Claudel room of the Musée Rodin

This is not just some disgruntled feminist grudge. That would be too petty a label to place on a much larger issue.

from here to home

The NYTimes Op-Docs piece "From Here to Home" highlights five films on immigration and belonging.

Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, herself an immigrant, introduces the works with these heart piercing words:

[T]hings happened not necessarily because we were refugees or Southeast Asian, but because we were human and did some of the same things that other Americans did. Our failures — and our successes — were due to our complicated humanity, not because of our ethnic or national origins.

100 years commemorating veterans all over the world

Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day and commemorated the end of World War I. Unlike Memorial Day, when we remember those who gave their lives for our country.

Veterans Day NYC Parade

On 11 November 1918 the Allies and Germany put into effect an armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Several wars later and many date and some name changes after, we share this day's commemorations with several other countries.

FORCE conversations

October marks a year since the ran away wreck of Harvey Weinstein led to the fall of many a foul sexual harassers which culminated in the #MeToo movement.

So what do we have to show for all that media hoopla? What has the United States of America done for its female population? Where do our women stand today?

FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture

decolonizing & deconstructing

October reminded us of our past colonized histories. Starting with the October 12 celebration of 65 years of Philippine-German diplomatic ties. When Martina and Issa had fun dressing up in our national attires and taking photos in our New Jersey neighborhood. 

Followed on October 13 by International Day for Disaster Reduction. Started in 1989 by the United Nations General Assembly as a day to promote the global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction.

The JCAST 2019

This year the 29th annual Jersey City Art and Studio Tour is happening on October 3 to 6.

Check them out on IG

This annual curated tour covers some 21-square miles of art exhibits, performances, installations, curated tours, special events, children’s experiences with much of it free and open to the public.

let's go Greta!

Climate activist Greta Thunberg was in New York City tirelessly inspiring us all to go on strike and demonstrate actively for climate change.

In events leading leading up to her appearance at the UN Summit, we all watched as she called on our world leaders to do something now.

"We are not just some young people skipping school," she told thousands of school strikers in Manhattan, on a day when millions around the world demonstrated for action. "We are a wave of change. Together, we are unstoppable."

manifest dismantling

Listening in on the sound healing global summit for a few days now has been a mellowing experience. Today it is made more so by the soft light rain that has cooled off the bite of yesterday's aggravated heat. Dismantling the tension and rush of the past days.

This isn’t the only world that’s possible.

YES! illustration by Fran Murphy

This reminds me of an article I read - "Can we work less and save the planet too?" Its byline states, "Building a new world will require first reexamining - and dismantling - the cultural ethos of productivity that creeps into our lives every day."

Manifest Dismantling would purposefully undo the damage of Manifest Destiny by reckoning with productivity’s assault on the living world. Tearing down a dam would be an example of a creative act of Manifest Dismantling because it would facilitate the return of an ecological landscape.

The same could be said about the 70 border walls, or the nearly 700 miles of walls and barriers along the U.S.–Mexico border. Dismantling these would allow people to move without fear.

The saguaros and mesquite in the Sonoran Desert would grow back, and pronghorns, jaguars, and gray wolves could travel freely across borders.

It would also open space for a new vision to emerge, of a more equitable way to relate with each other and the living planet.

YOUer than you

To honor Mahala and her new decade, I steal the staggeringly beautiful words of David Whyte.

Detail of Unicorn Hunt from Geinhausen, Germany

Altar Antependium "Marienteppich" [late 15th century]

SEEING YOU

I want you 

to see

yourself

the way

I sometimes 

see you.

Hawaii | then & now

This all started with a conversation between Nainoa Langer and Sam Potter as they sat above a waterfall overlooking a childhood swimming hole.

Nai said, “We should start a travel-based series that gives people an in-depth look at cultures around the world,” in hopes that we could create something that encourages greater appreciation, understanding, and respect between cultures.

Sam's response was “Let’s start with home.” So, here we are. 

The first thought when it came to explaining a place as complex as Hawaii was people need to understand that there are two parts to the culture - the traditional side and the modern day side.

Our modern-day life represented by Kimi Werner, demonstrates our values, the way we care for each other, for our community, and for our environment.

The traditional side represented by Micah Kamohoalii, shares a little about the history of Hawaii, the practices of the Hawaiian people.

Most importantly, Aloha, what it means and how that too can be practiced.

pen & ink

Unpacking my art supplies after so long is like being reunited with long lost friends. Which is exactly what these instruments of delight are.

my final pen & ink colored sketch

Although I am unused to using them and have to reacquaint myself with each one. As my hand grasps and gropes awkwardly. Tiring all too soon.

For practice I return to my Entangled coloring book by Angela Porter. As I did when I first got this I work on inking in more lines.

worship of the woman

"La Loba sings over the bones she has gathered. To sing means to use the soul-voice. It means to say on the breath the truth of one’s power and one’s need, to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing or in need of restoration." ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes ~ 

Georgia O'Keefe

Bone by bone, hair by hair, Wild Woman comes back.

Through night dreams, through events half understood and half remembered.

Wild Woman comes back. Singing over the bones.

This is called "Mater Dolorosa," the Unruined Heart. It is a blessing on you.

You can have pain. You can have tragedy. You can have devastation. And still, still a heart will remain unruined.

"It has to be in you, it is in your dreams. Dreams are the center of your psyche. So at the center of your psyche is all this wholeness, all this fullness, all this unruined heart."

This work, Untie the Strong Woman, is a continuation of all other works of Dr. Estes. She looks at the largest archetype of the holy, integral woman from many different angles.

Wild Woman, Wise Woman, Holy Woman - we share the same heartbeat.

In Women Who Run with the Wolves she writes -

"Wild Woman archetype is not savage or out of control but is a natural, instinctual set of longings and knowings that are embedded in our psyches."

Wisdom is not a condition, it is a holy endeavor. 

feeling like a don - Trump | unloved & unloving

Every citizen of the United States of America is affected by Donald Trump. Whether we voted for him or not we are stuck with him for now.

This recent rally of his in North Carolina  was yet another powder keg. Setting off fireworks in many camps and dividing an already fractured country even more.

“Send her back” echoed Trump’s widely criticized tweets from over the weekend, when he said Ilhan Omar and three other congresswomen of color should “go back” to their home counties, where the “governments are a complete and total catastrophe.”

It was just so wrong on so many counts. 😭 We need to be better than opting to chant derogatory insults like #SendHerBack. 

#damnTrumpism 
#shameonTheDonald 
#pretendpresident
#foreverlyingfool
#STOPthisbully
#endhisWHITEsupremacy

Typical of the Donald to ignore that fact that these same women are not just American citizens but that they are elected officials of this country too. 

It is hateful behavior and demeaning to all human beings when our country's leader is such a petty puny tyrant. Picking away at so many with utmost impunity is an absolute abuse of authority. 

Whatever this buffoon expects to achieve by such dastardly behavior stumps us all. Even his own party's most expert spin artists have failed miserably to cover his fat ass and potty mouth. 

Every waking day in office he poisons our well. Long after he is dead and gone we will have all his horrors to recount. Whether we can outlive them or heal the rifts of this nation will really be up to us. 

Not him. Never the likes of him. 

patriarchy | kill or be killed

Is your God male? Have you ever even posed this question to yourself? For those who may wish to here's a recommended read. 

Co-authors of Why Does Patriarchy Persist? (Polity, 2018) Carol Gillian and Naomi Snider are asked, "What is patriarchy?" 

Read their full interview here. 

According to Gillian, patriarchy is an age-old structure that has been near universal, and yet there is an incoherence at its core because in reality men can’t have selves without relationships and women can’t have relationships without a self. 

According to Snider, breaking this gender binary continues to have real consequences: sensitive men are ridiculed as weak or passive, not “real men”, while woman who assert their own needs and desires—or refuse to serve as objects for the needs and desires of others—are labeled aggressive or selfish, so-called “nasty women". 

Given its toxicity, how then do we smash the patriarchy? 

As a culture, patriarchy exists as a set of rules and values, codes and scripts that specify how men and women should act and be in the world. However, patriarchy does not simply exist out there as something concrete and external, to be smashed and destroyed. Patriarchy also exists internally, shaping how we think and feel, how we perceive and judge ourselves, our desires, our relationships and the world we live in. 

Patriarchy persists because it shames this resistance, rendering it unfeminine in its expression of anger, or unmanly in its expression of tenderness and care. In order to move out of patriarchy, we can join and provide resonance for these voices of healthy resistance. We can challenge the frameworks and scripts that make selflessness a requisite of femininity. We can challenge the idea that emotional stoicism is what it takes to be a real man. 

We agree with them that the move out of patriarchy is a path of cultivation rather than destruction—the forging of healthy democratic relationships in which all voices are responded to, not necessarily with agreement, but with respect. 

NYC Pride Fest

June marks Pride Month which celebrates everyone in the LGBTQ community. The month also honors the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Otherwise known as the Stonewall Uprising, which saw members of the LGBTQ community fight back against harassment from the police in Greenwich Village in June 1969. 

Stonewall is still unfolding today. The year leading up to its 50th anniversary has served a constant flow of corrections, retellings, and contradictions amid a general fumbling toward the many truths of what happened in 1969 and what it signifies to us now. 

PRIDE image by Golden Cosmos

In New York City we come together in this spirit, remembering to fight for liberation, dignity, self, and communal determination.

We remember and we resist!

*We have chosen to use the phrase Queer as an umbrella category to represent the wide span of sexual and gender minorities and outlaws who have historically and currently been oppressed.

“Queer” signals for us a political stance of rebellion and a demand for liberation more-so than simply an identity category. We are trans, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, intersex, asexual, two-spirit, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals and communities.

There There by Tommy Orange

Reading Tommy Orange's award winning literary debut There There is a heart warming paean - an opus to the deep longing for forgotten ways of being.

Orange sublimely recounts the plight of the urban Native American growing up away from any Native community in contemporary Oakland, California. 

Available on Amazon

Grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice, and heroism amidst disappointment and neglect.

Tommy Orange is a master storyteller - interweaving each character's story in a wild read that is poignant with heart felt humor - utterly contemporary and forever unforgettable.

Reaching back in time through bloodlines and ties with the land, each one's story opens up new territory in the heart of its readers. This book is such a beautiful gift.

Not surprisingly it has garnered many prestigious awards. Kudos to the author for opening up his world to us in this humane epic set in a generally unrepresented sector of Oakland.

The way Orange brings such an eclectic, nuanced ensemble of a historically marginalized population to life aptly elicits comments like “groundbreaking” and “essential.”

Read more in this author interview by David Canfield for Entertainment Weekly. 

adventurers, pioneers, colonizers

It takes an adventurous spirit to head off into the unknown. To risk it all to pioneer a new life in a new world. Proud conquerors of much trial and tribulation.

No wonder colonizers often ignore, forget and intentionally bury their original sin. Invaders of a paradise who dispossessed its original inhabitants. Settlers in denial of how much they unsettled in staking their claims.

Violators of nature and its wilderness. Resorting to violence to tame their new home. Aggressively wiping off all other contenders. With no consideration for its original inhabitants - plant, mineral, animal or human.

Recorded or remembered the Philippines predates many of today's nations. Yet too many of its masses are kept ignorant and primitive. Byt the few who continue to rape and dishonor our country and its folks out of greed and power.

In the Philippines June 12 is designated as the birth of a nation and its independence day. Proud of its claim as the oldest democratic nation in Asia. The country's independence has remained on shaky ground from birth until today.

Long before the first colonizers invaded its verdant shores much of its primordial life and indigenous history had already been lost to winds of change and territorial warring.

The victorious rewriting history blinded by ahistorical visions of idealism and grandeur. Blanketing the past and hiding its truths in shaded stories and fraudulent claims.

How do we untangle this miasma when we can only guess at what may have been? How can we hold our ground when it too easily blows up or away when we need to hold on to it the most?

Paradise lost indeed. Persevere and preserve what is here now. All can still be revived and restored.

make peace not war

Today we remember and honor those who have died in service of the United States of America, our nation and its values.

We recently read that the US has only had twenty one years of peace throughout its brief history. Here is a list of America's major wars from 1776 to the present.

Having only recently celebrated Mother's Day, our attention goes to the mothers, wives and daughters who mourn the loss of their loved ones this Memorial Day.

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.

The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I.

When the holiday changed from honoring those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

Today we ask our readers to voluntarily observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect. Take a brief break from whatever you are doing for a moment of silence or prayer.

Wherever or however you spend your Memorial Day weekend, choose to move forward and may peace be with you.

around the block & a world of difference

After months of agonizing, I have finally moved into my very own Casa Azul.

For the past ten years I have lived in Hudson County. Moving from Hoboken to Union City. Then to Weehawken and now back to Union City once more. My favorite barrio!

casa azul

“Never in life will I forget your presence. You found me torn apart and you took me back full and complete”. ~ Frida Kahlo

The creative universe of Frida Kahlo is to be found in the Blue House, the place where she was born, where she painted as she convalesced, and where she died. 

Ina Gunid | goddess of war & poisons

Ina Gunid was invoked for success in war and mangayaw raids. She was also associated with another trinity of deities when working with and concocting poisonous oils and charms. 

Courtesy of Anituo

Also known as Ynaguinid, Inagunid and Naguinid, she was one of the three deities according to whom the tribe offered prayers to for success in the battlefield.