HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KD!

I can't make this photo any bigger, but I would magnify it a thousand times if I could. Well, maybe not. It's not his best photo, but I like it anyway because I can imagine the million ways he would make fun of it. Today is his birthday and I'm busy remembering all the laughing (hindi na makahinga) fits we had years and years ago--over a decade na yata, when we worked together. I had the best times with him. In this day of fair-weather friends, it is good to remember those who manage to stay true, even just through text. Happy Birthday, KD!

HAY BUHAY!!

This is my hallway. I moved to my (hopefully) forever house last Monday and am neck, no, brain deep in boxes and belongings and furniture and dust and memories and hopes and frustrations and disappointments and forced self-assurances.  Today I am deciding to sit and write so that I can breathe.  It has been non-stop chaos and craziness all week. I'm gaining weight (gasp!)from the stress and inability to cook my meals (too much fixing up to do, gas tank not yet connected and incredible junk from the past cluttering my little kitchen), so I am eating out a lot which means I am not eating the healthiest food. Hay buhay talaga. How to maintain equanimity? The spontaneous and gut-truthful answer right now is: EWAN. Everyday I struggle to be the change with contractors, suppliers, etc., who seem to want me to be unpleasant before they do the work they are supposed to do anyway.  But everyday it is a struggle. It's difficult for an organized person to be in the midst of constant, unrelenting disorganized energy. I'm not picking up calls because I know that my anger will most likely flare up in ways I will regret, so I simply text back that I need to breathe and manufacture calmness.  I struggle with my simple meditation exercises because most days, the seething wins. It's difficult to build a home when no one else feels the urgency with you--to get things right and get them done. Building and moving into a new home is like shedding your skin and growing a new sheath. If you don't have the tools to energize the process, you mostly feel like your dangling by a fraying sliver of thread with the full weight of the world teetering on your fractured shoulder.  If only architects, contractors and anyone involved in building homes could put that into the equation, perhaps they would treat the process with a lot more care, concern and consistency. There should be no room for casual and unprofessional behavior. This life-changing event is already too painful as it is.

JOY! JOY! JOY!

This is my son, Andres, at 6 months old.  When I am consumed with life's burdens and find myself short of breath and overwhelmed, I look at the baby pictures of my boys and giggle. In that space, I am able to exhale. I remember how he smelled that day, fresh from a soak in his little tub. I love the way the sunlight touches the back of his head and slides down the slope of his tiny back. I'm hoping this will have the same effect on you. I am moving to a largely unfinished house today and have to face everything that means, full force. So I start the task by taking deep breaths and cashing in on a few giggles.  This photo guarantees it.

PINOY, STOP THE MEDIOCRITY

OK, so my home doesn't look like this--not exactly-- but weeks after I was supposed to move in, it's still unfinished. So the photo really shows my present inner condition.  I know, I know, everyone says that's what construction is like here, but my question is: why do we always have to settle? Most of the delays in the construction of my home have to do with poor planning. Make that no planning. They put the lights in, make a mess then repair and paint.  Next comes the exhaust fan, which goes through the same process.  Why can't it be planned so that everything that needs to go in the ceiling can be purchased and ready so that there's only one schedule for making holes, making a mess, etc., etc?  If you already have your work planned for the next two weeks, you should see that all necessary materials are complete, ready and accounted for. You can't be scrambling to line up your tools on the day of the job, only to find out that you're missing important supplies! Horrors. That's so pre-school! A lot of time is wasted when suppliers come with the wrong tools or no tools! And I am so sick and tired of empty apologies, head-scratching and worse, blank looks and zero sense of urgency. What's heartbreaking is the attitude of  "pwede na". My contractors seemed content to offer me a bathroom with chipped tiles, which they probably hoped I wouldn't notice, coupled with wrong color,  sub-standard grouting. The problem is, I'm very organized, so I seethe and burn at the cost of this  inefficiency and sloth. I have been told that I should have hired a professional project manager and an architect with a very stable back office, but that's all water under the bridge now and I just have to live with work ethics that I cannot begin to fathom. Whatever happened to excellence and pride in our work? Why do we have to be unpleasant to get things done? I'm actually getting to the point where I just take a million deep breaths before I go to the site because I know that there will be one disappointment after another and that people are quite comfortable apologizing, apologizing, apologizing, but not getting the job done properly.Excellence. That's what we need to manifest. In everything we do, we must strive for excellence.  Tama na ang puwede na.  Let's do the job and do it right. Ohhhmmmmmmmm!

ANOTHER THOUGHT ON THE BLOG

What if...all the people sending in their comments and contributing to the energy of THAT BLOG called for, say, the ouster of GMA? Hhhhmmmm....ok, if that's a bit negative, what if they called for truth-telling, truth-living, zero corruption and zero permissible zones? Can you imagine what a country we would be? Words create worlds. No doubt about that. I imagine each word and deed embedding itself in the ether, creating a rainbow or sheath around us. There are days I feel this to be true, especially when I've been operating from my lowest realms and unleashing words or feelings that break, rather than build connections. Those are the days I want to take a giant eraser or a powerful hose and aim it everywhere. Those are the days I know the only way to take it back is to think and do positively. That is the human struggle. But it's worth pondering. Half a million or more people -- that is enough power to change this country for the better and soon. Just think about it.

THAT BLOG

My first experience of THAT BLOG was when a friend sent me the link, asking what I thought of it.  It was a good few days before it exploded into mainstream media. I could not read through it; one can only take so much hatred and malice. I told my friend it gave me a headache. I will not comment on the lurid details because everyone can make an intelligent guess about what's true and what isn't, but mainly because it really is none of my business.  The only phenomenon that is worth noting is the number of hits it's getting--most of them negative. As my partner, Dale, rightfully expressed: "Ang dami-daming problema ng bayan na mas matindi diyan!"Can you imagine if those bloggers -- half a million or more by now -- instead directed their energies towards creative and positive blogs? Wow. That's the kind of energy that could truly turn this country around. Blogging is a way to be heard. I resisted it because it's also a lot of work to keep it fresh and updated, but now I am thankful for the possibility. Here, I need not worry about being edited by people with their own agenda. But, when there is freedom there is much more responsibility. Every blogger should hold his space sacred and not let it be a medium for malice, hatred and contempt. Be the change, diba?  I know paulit-ulit na but if that's what it takes, di ulit-ulitin! We have to behave and live by the changes we want to see in the world. If we don't want to see lying and cheating, we have to live that. If we don't want people to behave abhorrently towards each other, we have to treat everyone with kindness and respect. I know it's difficult, especially in our country. I've been terrible this week. I've vented my anger at suppliers because of their inefficiency and I really attracted more like them. Though they are all still inefficient and so totally frustrating, I decided not to be in the same place so that I am not caught in such a web of anger  and frustration that I lash out and make people feel inadequate and small--even if they have behaved so terribly. Until that part of me has been totally transformed (hay, good luck nalang sa akin), I just have to keep away first. Luckily, my partner has taken the cudgels for me and is dealing with all the suppliers and laborers from hell who have to realize how valuable a good work ethic is. The internet is a place for information. We are seeing that there's a lot of junk and trash out there so bloggers have to be part of a higher order of information. There is a lot of work to do in the Philippines, for it to become the country we all dream of, but like I always say, the work begins with us and we have to make the changes manifest wherever we are. If we are on the net in any form, we have to behave responsibly. If we are outside, we have to do the same. If we know that people look up to us, we have to really think about what we are putting out there in word and deed and strive to be both positive and authentic. Blog away, but use your space to help build a positive world.

THRESHOLD

A portion of my Philippine Star article was edited in the paper. I still believe in freedom of the press, so I choose to print my piece here in its entirety.

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It is Easter Sunday, the day when the Christ rose from death and entered the earth and humanity in a new and profound way.  This is the day I make sure the children and I are together, celebrating in the simplest but most meaningful manner.   We light a candle and start with a story about the hare, whose task it is to deliver the eggs to every home, caring for each one so that the light of the Christ--the sun--that is in each one remains intact.   Then off the children go with their little baskets, hunting for real (never candy-filled plastic!!) eggs.

I am unable to do for them today what I normally do, as I am in the process of moving to what I hope will be our forever home at last, but I am fortunate that there is an Easter Festival in their school that is celebrated with as much simplicity and meaning.  I find it fitting that I am again at a personal threshold at Easter time, the same way our country is right at the threshold of true spiritual-cultural change. 

Before sitting down to write this, I took stock of events in society today, from the ZTE hearings to Jun Lozada,  the strong and vibrant indications of an emergent and new power of the people,   the incredible shift I experience in our PAGASA workshops, clearly showing how people are already changing for our country with great zest and determination, and even the response to a rather angry, vicious, though probably truthful blog that has caught the attention of Filipinos everywhere.  It does seem as though we are being peeled from the outside, cleansed, forced to look at who we really are individually and as a people, so that we may finally make a conscious decision to be either part of the change that will take this country forward, or part of the dying energy of destruction and decadence that has kept this country in darkness.

It’s a good time to reflect on where we are in our history and to view this time as one of true potential.  It is the season to celebrate transformation and renewal; we can really ask ourselves how we can make manifest the deed of the Christ that was born this very day, two thousand or so years ago.   What in us can be renewed and harnessed towards true service of our country?

Many people claim they are tired of the drama and toxic politicking that have dotted our history for decades, possibly centuries.  I know this is a sentiment shared by many.  I was there, too, before I decided to be part of the change.  I have not looked back since.  I don’t feel tired or burned-out about the country anymore because I see so much change happening around me.  People who are on the same journey of inner change towards societal transformation are just raring to go and doing great things so quickly, that I am actually more excited and revved up now about the possibilities for our country than I have ever been before.  You can choose to just be tired or you can choose to let that feeling propel you into positive action.

A few years ago, when I first got a call from Nicanor Perlas to join the newly founded PAGASA (Peoples Assembly For Genuine Alternatives to Social Apathy), I was going through a personal death; I felt I wasn’t ready to participate in anything.  Then he said, “You will heal faster if you engage in the world.”  He could not have been more right.  That personal death led me to the many births I have experienced since, each one more profound than the last, in several areas of my life.  I have since learned that a human life is meant to serve the greater whole.  It is not meant for itself alone.  It was self-indulgent of me to think I needed to get to that place of wholeness first before I could serve others.  In fact, it was my very wound that allowed me to plunge deeply into the outer world to create something new and vibrant in the true service of something larger.  I became active outside myself because I got tired of pointing a finger at others, complaining, and feeling helpless and overwhelmed.  I wanted to be part of the solution, no matter what it was, no matter what it took.

The theme of Easter comes into one’s biography several times—tragedy, death, resurrection, and renewal, but it is only at Easter time when one feels (if we truly sense and listen) this impulse deeply because it seems to come to us as a collective energy -- if we are open and sensitive to its call.  Our country stands at the threshold of true change.  It is important to take a closer look at everything that is going on around us and to try to read the messages behind them, fully cognizant of the significance of the season.  Perhaps, if we come from this quiet space of connection to the essence of the deed we remember today, answers we never dreamed possible will finally surface.

A good Easter to all.