IngliseraKuno

It takes only one, they say. One of the matchsticks in a box to be lit, and the whole box to be on fire. One rotten apple in a basket to infuse the rest with its decay. One domino to initiate a series of falls, one piece after another. One mosquito in the middle of the night to disturb a restful sleep. One dense person to see two people leaving a hotel together to spark rumors. One selfish being to make many others miserable. One to sow chaos.  Yet it takes only one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, too, to complete a picture. One candle lit to invade the darkness in one moonless night. One squeeze of lemon to balance out the salt and fat in butter. One kind person to see through you and your heart. One to plant the seeds for many others to harvest from which a tree grows.  Just one, to either wreck or steady a ship. Imagine the value or the waste of one.

I can still taste the water in my mouth: that which was fetched from my great grandmother's well collected in a clay jug. There was a a trace of 'lupa', or soil (yes, I know how it tastes like as at several times in my childhood, I would fall on my face while playing hide-and-seek.); and a tinge of sweetness. What struck me was that the water was moderately cold, not unlike those stored in pitchers and put in refrigerators. I did not ask my great grandma why that was, I just assumed it was the clay jug that did the trick.  Jay T. Batoon, our speaker on the 'Babaylan' as part of the Carl Jung Circle Center's Depth Psychology shared the story of his great-grandmother this morning. He used an audio-visual presentation to introduce his 'Lola Lilang', a 'Babaylan'. A search in Google would note: 'The 'babaylan' was a prominent figure in pre-colonial Philippine society, sometimes described as a priestess or shaman. Babaylans acted as healer...

Nothing changed. We all gained weight, except for Bella who is thin as a stick compared to me, but we all basically looked the same. Our faces are etched now with the lines drawn by years of struggle and overcoming, then of being at our happy places. I am certain we all have imperfect lives, but we came together one night after years of just 'seeing' each other on facebook, as arranged by the pleasantly persistent 'kabsat' Bella.  Doc Cherry slept through the appointed time before dinner, and Bella & Manang Maribel were panicking. They were supposed to fetch Manang Au along the way. Bella sent me a text saying that, and I think she read my mind because before I was to reply to her to tell her go see Cherry at their home, they were on their way. The doctor in the gang was so tired from her medical mission (she comes home from the states to do this each year). She took a nap for a few minutes, she told us, and ended up not waking up on time. So anyway, we met past din...

'When you make the decision to go an unexpected path, you take the step not only for yourself but you take that step with those closest to your heart. There is no 'only me' option on the menu, you involve all of them, not as a matter of choice. Whether they are happy about it or not. You can only see that in rewind when you take choose yet again, another road. Then you ask for forgiveness, and thank them for walking with you, not once, but everyday, to those you pulled in. Without speech. But there has to be a time for you to stop asking for that which is not given in return: forgiveness or 'you are welcome'. You let go of needing to be validated and reassured. You feed your hunger in the moment, live it: your regret, your anger, your self-pity, your gratitude, your appreciation, until sated. You will find yourself more accepting of what is. You will look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, you are one-of-a-kind. You start to love yourself once more, after ...

Compassion is that which makes up a being to be called, 'human'. And I have found that the feeling is only experienced by either those who have the capacity to understand beyond the surface, or those whose minds are boxed in by just the simple. This is not to label those who are incapable of feeling compassion. I think that those who do not recognize compassion are two kinds of extremes: one is made up of those whose thinking are so complex that they fend off 'feeling' with their arrogant intellect. The other is made up of those who do not think at all. They just react to what they see, what they hear, without the benefit of understanding what exactly is in their midst. Not that they do not want to, they cannot. Both kinds, though, have one thing in common: they thrive in the power of their intellect, and the apparent might (to them) of their stupidity.  - ok, I just made my head ache. xt@49