One night in 2001, some months after my last job in the government was terminated, I was stuck in bed gazing at the ceiling and was in deep thought on what to do then with my life. I had a job offer from a friend but the pay was way too low compared with my last paycheck that I much rather tried some other options then, like taking the bar examinations the following year. It was hard turning down that job offer especially when the offer came from someone I knew too well. What if he had needed my services that badly? But then, I had a future to take care of and so I had to inform him quite honestly that I was preparing for the bar that summer and it wouldn’t be in my best interest to have my hands full on an accounting/marketing job. I had to take some risk I had decided then and go for the farsighted plan that could offer me probable long-term benefits than be stuck with a dead-end job.

Perhaps it was too much of youthful diffidence in me that at some nights I had shivered just thinking how the realities of existence is not what many of us had supposed to be when we were much younger, that the world is at times a dog-eat-dog existence where one must claw up the ladder just about every time, even to the point of elbowing others and stepping on their shoes just in order to find a semblance of meaningful existence.

That particular night, the weather was so warm that even when the electric fan hummed at its fullest, I had perspired so monstrously that I could almost hear my sweat dripping from my skin. Drip…drip…drip…I turned on my stereo and listened to an aria of Andrea Bocelli and the coolness of his voice made me feel a little better. Conte le partira, Paesi che non ho mai…Vel dutto ver sutto conti….Conte le partira…

And then I fell into a sleep that wasn’t like sleep at all for it felt so much like I have just glided from one dimension of existence to another. Unbelievable as it may seem and yet those who believe in parallel existence may just sympathize with me on this. Perhaps you’d start to think that I have become so much of an inexhaustible dreamer that I started to live more of my life in dreams than in the real world. I won’t blame you for that for sometimes I feel that way already.

In that dream, I found myself suddenly bursting into a barren landscape where the ground was red all over and the air was smoky as yellow smog floated like grimes on the atmosphere. I gazed around and I could see a nearby hill gradually rose from the ground and I could see wide plains and gray mountains from afar. The sky was red, like a bleeding wall to my sight. I could see no bushes or any form of greeneries around and if you’d seen some photographs of Mars, then you might have the best of idea of how the place appeared to be. The air was so still that I could hear no sound whatsoever that every step I made I could clearly hear. I felt my feet a little harassed by the crackling ground below me, those plates of mud solidified by too much dryness. I decided to walk further until I reach a point where the smog cleared and in a sudden I saw a small pond just in front of me, with a leafless tree standing along its shoreline. The tree reminded me of the guava tree that I used to climb when I was a child. I could remember that guava tree only too well because I had fallen from it twice before and it was there that I saw a strange creature of the night, a huge manlike being with the head of a horse, with some burning object flickering from its mouth, perhaps a giant cigar, just like what our elders had always said about kapres.

I stared into the pond and saw that the water was a familiar blend of yellow and green, like dew, and it was so calm that its surface didn’t moved at all. That was how I reckoned that it was a very deep pond by just looking at it. Shallower waters are always fragile to the eyes.

The water in the pond looked so inviting and it seemed to have spoken to me like it had a life of its own. I went to my knees and smelled the water. The scent that it evoked gave me a mild exhilaration of emotions that it became all the more tempting for me to dive into the water. I touched the water again and a small amount of it in my hands was enough to quench the waterlessness of my body. Still, I was hesitant to go into the water as its depth intimidated me so much and I wasn’t a good swimmer. Suddenly I heard some rustling noise behind me and I immediately turned to look at the direction of the sound. As the smog cleared, a women in a white gown appeared and she initially smiled at me. It was a little unusual that I never felt any kind of fear the very moment that I saw that floating woman even though as I write this particular passage, I have goosebumps all over me. I stared at her and wondered what’s the purpose of her calling me into this dream. I wanted to ask her why she wanted to meet me but spoke nothing instead. In that dream, I did not remember uttering any words; in fact not a single word was spoken by anyone in that dream. I really had initially felt that it was the woman who had called me to that dream and that she had some important message for me.

I wanted to express so many things to the woman hovering just in front of me but I struggled to mumble even a single word. After a while, the woman stared at me so intently and it was a little strange for me to realize that she could actually speak to me by just merely looking at me. And slowly I had also realized that I could get all my thoughts across to her even without uttering any word. She told me through mind talk that there was something that I should know and some person had called me into the dream and not her. Then she moved slowly towards me but as I thought that she was coming closer to me, she actually went farther and farther from me until she disappeared from my view. It was a completely spellbinding distortion of distance and space.

Then my gaze was turned towards the nearby hill that I had mentioned earlier and there appeared another person that was also in white gown, just like the woman had worn. I thought at first that the woman and the person floating above the hill was one and the same person but as I examined more carefully, the person on the top of the hill was actually an old man with a white flowing hair that was too long; too long in fact that I had mistaken him for a woman in a glance. He had the face of a very old man and to tell you quite honestly, the old man looked like Leonardo da Vinci, the one most of us had seen in many self-portraits of the legendary Italian artist.

The old man caught my eye and without saying a word, he ordered me to dive into the water. I hesitated at first but the old man was too insistent that he kept on pointing towards the pond. Again, it was sort of a distortion of space and distance that despite of the distance of the hill from where I stood, I could see the old man quite so clearly like he was just nearby.

As if the old man had suddenly gained control of my body and mind—even from a distance—I slowly took steps towards the tree and climb it, this despite my clear wavering. My climb was swift like I was a trained scaler of trees. As a child, many of my playmates teasingly dubbed me as “Monkey!” for I had always loved climbing trees when afternoon came. On a period of the day when most kids in the neighborhood took their catnaps, I go play by my lonesome instead and climb trees. My favorite tree to climb then was the Datiles beside a small fishpond that bore so many ripe fruit that I picked and gobbled in my mouth. I have grown to like the sweet nectar coming from the Datiles fruit. The guava tree on the one hand does not bore any fruit that we kids rarely climbed it. There was also a Chico tree about five thousand feet farther from the Datiles and it is where most of us kids love to climb the most and where we play catch-me-if-you-can games atop that huge tree, would you believe. It was so dangerous to play games while hanging on branches because a simple mistake or a broken branch would surely send the unfortunate kid plummeting down to the hard ground. It was so risky but as kids, we did not realize that.

(more…)

This is a poem I’ve written five or six years ago. It’s about the unity of man, as a sublime idea. Whether or not it is achievable—in a world full of discord and disharmony—is a question that waits so ardently for an answer. And I hope it to be answered in the most positive way.

The River of Mesopotamia

In the ancient valleys of Tigris,
in the days of still molt and rock;
a river sung the serenade
of the beginnings of life,
as it moved in crystalline fluidity,
to brim with sparkles and light,
and come across upon a rock reckoned in time,
it is a moment set forth as a matter of design.

And the river became two,
the great parting of waters
in the dawning of the Earth,
to thread two different roads
and two different eras,
one found in the East,
another in the West,
to spread further and further,
until the sound they hear were
merely of their own
and nothing more.

Rushing in vigor and strength
each alone in the wilderness,
among the great wars of the world,
through the ashes of kingdoms burnt,
the mischief of kings and emperors,
through scorched earth of conquests,
of kingdoms and empires
both the fortunate and the inopportune;
as they run feverishly,
one oblivious to the other,
welcoming merely the beatings
of their own hearts
and of no other,
and every other beating of the heart they hear
was of the enemy and the enemy merely.

Amidst the rage of their marathon,
seemingly unending and without destination,
and with a ferocity so great that
even rocks of great prominence
would crumble into dust—
by the sheer strength of their pursuits,
or by the wave of their hands.

As another time was set forth,
where for once they looked heavenward
the journeys they threaded
finally found a single star,
to speak the truth in their own hearts
that in their own glorious runs,
no matter how magnificent and forceful,
still the Heavens are their own navigators,
upon the comets and constellations,
so that the rivers would find a path to travel,
a road set forth from the beginning of time
while they go nearer and nearer,
they begin to hear the same beat
that is not merely of their own separate hearts,
but of two hearts moving as one
running faster and faster,
like stallions in the hills of a desert
where in the beginning of time
there is only one river
that became two,
and then becoming one again.

Know one’s self. Know thyself. I have heard or read about this saying, principle, advise, or guiding words a myriad times before yet this afternoon, it was one main major point of discussion that I had with a friend that had came over this morning, and the conversation lasted till early afternoon that I felt like it was old days once again. Family life and work had somehow stave away extra time from our routine like for example this friend who had been camping in a tent for nearly half a year now somewhere in the mountains, about 400 miles away from here, supervising over a harvesting of Gemilina trees that his olds had planted several years ago.

Tony is pretty sharp on these things, ruminations about facts of life—just as I am perhaps when my mind is clear.

The way to unravel the secret and happiness and contentment he said is through “knowing oneself fully” and then being comfortable with it. The others become a mirror of the self that in every moment that one speaks or interact with another individual, there lies the reflection of the true identity of the converser and thereon—through this mirror effect—is the means to find the true self.

If one carries a lively disposition when one speaks, the other communicator becomes lively as well—most of the time at least. If the first speaker interacts in a lonesome manner, the other person becomes forlorn as well. This is the mirror of the self, according to him. The individual becomes the reflection of the other, and by this means, one would be able to find the true self.

When you are happy, I am happy as well. If you are down, I am down as well. So therefore, he says that if we find ourselves in the other people that we speak to, they become a reflection of our selves and therefore lies the path towards “fully knowing ourselves”, a one good step or means to unravel the mystery of our own being. For in fact, even in high school we have been inculcated with the “four windows” principle of the self, where one window is the “self” as the individual himself/herself knows it, the second one as the “self” that others know about, the third window being the “self” that everybody knows about, including the individual himself or herself, and the fourth window being the “self” that no one really knows, not even the individual himself or herself.

I for one had conformed to this idea—to know our true selves wholly in order to gain happiness—even when I believe that the pursuit of happiness is never-ending because for one, how would contentment persist if one does not know one’s real self in the first place. Who am I? What do I desire? What do I intend to attain? Where am I going?

Yet, I digress for a while and have forwarded a countering thought to this idea of “knowing oneself” in other to gain happiness because in the first place, happiness is a very relative fact. Rich people are happy but they can be unhappy also, perhaps for reason not of lack of things, but by lack of meaningful activities.

Poor people are often thought to be full of discontent but they could be happy and contented as well even if they have lack of things, for they might have more meaningful activities. And happiness I said to Tony is a force or fact of life that could not be put under the control of man, that not even the brightest scientist would be able to get a full grasp of it, and state empirically and powerfully that “Voila! Eureka! Omigosh! I finally found the formula for instant happiness!”

Unlike instant noodles, happiness could not really be had by just adding hot water into a small plastic contraption and stir it gently until the noodles are soft and tender.

Sometimes I said, to know our true selves even becomes the instigator of discontent. If I know myself, myself wants this and that. My real self wants to drive a Jaguar in the stony streets of Zamboanga. If you ask me really what I want, I want to have a huge dollar account and be sipping piñacola in Bahamas all day, all night—all year round. Of course, this is superfluous and I am just half jesting when I say this. But if you survey the population, perhaps 90% would respond that their idea of happiness is to have great fortune and then have great meaningful activities—like sipping fruit juices in a Caribbean shore.

So it’s better that I readjust my knowledge of my real self so that I could readjust my aim for happiness. At times, we need to shove our real selves under the carpet or kept inside a cupboard, to be taken out when needed.

But hey, if I’ve got to readjust the level of aims I need to have, I need first to find my “true self”.

So therefore, Tony is right. To know oneself is the way to contentment and then have happiness. Not exactly. To know one true self is “one” way to unravel the secret of happiness. There might some other way, you know.

I have not minded yesterday’s SONA by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo although I was aware of it as early as Friday last week. This is somehow very unexpected of me since in years past, I have always been mindful of every SONA speech given, even as early as the Aquino administration. In fact, I had made it a point often in the past to be at home near the time when the speech is about to begin. But this year, I just woke up this morning and as I logged in to surf for the news, I was a bit surprised at myself upon realizing that in fact, yesterday afternoon, when President Arroyo had given her SONA, I wasn’t mindful about it. I could not easily explain why upon such realization, I felt some weight taken out of me, like a thorn snatched from my inside, just like perhaps how one alcoholic feels on the very day he or she had finally kicked out excessive drinking (a bad habit), or any drinking of any alcoholic beverage for that matter. That is, I felt lighter upon realizing that for this year, I haven’t got already the inclination to watch a speech that many says is merely full of promises, but empty in action.

So this year, I felt like I kicked a bad habit and did not watch the SONA live for the first time in more than a decade. It used to be that SONA watching had even became some kind of a ritual for me, like bird-watching or whale watching, making sure every time that I’d be home early in the afternoon and cancel whatever itineraries I have, those that weren’t ultimately urgent, and I would fix myself a sit in front of the television, and the boiling water always constantly heated and reheated for an afternoon tv watching marathon with mugs after mugs of hot black coffee, anticipating how the whole nation would be glued for an annual speech many says is merely full of words but empty in action, and seeing in my mind’s eye the costly gowns the ladies would be wearing, like it was Oscar awarding night, and how the men would be clapping at every pause or slow respite in the president’s oral masturbation, or how they would pretend to be clapping.

In every SONA event, I always have that feeling that if someone—perhaps, the sergeant-at-arm on duty for that day or the head security—would take a sack (or sacks) and carry it around the SONA audience—around senators and congressmen and congresswomen, governors, mayors, generals, heads of offices, colonels, tycoons, media bigwigs, pharmaceutical company executives, political advisers, political minions, exporters, importers, university professors, franchise holders, athletes, world boxing champs, actors and actresses, holymen…no…not holymen—and collect all Gucci bags, Rolex watches, Bangkok jewelries, diamonds, Italian leather shoes, Italian leather women’s shoes, Armanis and any other thing that glitters and worn for that day—I have a great feeling that we could pay up about 5% of our international debt right on, at that very moment, or perhaps build-up a huge housing project for ten thousand families, or feed all the hungry children living in the streets—right here, right now….RIGHT ON THE SPOT.

BUT RIGHT NOW—just allow me to enjoy this newfound feeling of being able to escape a bad habit; of listening to a speech many says merely full of words but empty in action.

Tonight I felt very tired. My body is in a state of general malaise. Maybe I was exerting too much effort in the past days—driving the kids to and fro from school and then blogging vehemently when nighttime falls, staying so late in the process, and then attending to other family concerns. Yesterday, an uncle died and I was in the funeral along with my mom. The weather was scorching at that time and so while we laid our uncle to the ground–to where he would be bound—I was sweating profusely that a cousin could not help but notice how sweat had embodied me so well that afternoon. May his (my uncle’s) soul rest in eternal peace.

So instead of watching television till past midnight tonight, I just put on some music and tried to relax. I put on Sting’s The Soul Cages and felt so relaxed and my mood was efficiently smoothened by the sublimity of the music, especially the melancholy of this particular record—allegedly made as a requiem for his dead father and judging from all The Police and Sting records I have acquired over the years, it is to me the best ever recording made by Sting; either as a member of a band or as a solo artist; and could be one of rock music’s all-time best.

In one song (When The Angels Fall), Sting was singing about dreams that he said “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”. I was wondering if actually a dream could ever dream by its own–dreaming a dream while it is a dream in the first place. Could that be possible and logical? Does it make sense at all? Yet I know that in lyrical songwriting and as well as in poetry, there is no rule to language, there is no restriction to language or composition. One poet or songwriter can say what he want and write what he intends. He could even say, “perhaps the dream was dreaming us” and no one could complain and say that it is of no cause or propriety. That’s why every poet is a free spirit and this is possibly be the freedom of language that we wish to be similar with human conduct; freedom from limitations and from every inhibitions.

I am a guy who always dream of dreams. Some of them I have narrated here—quite starkly. Some believe that dreams foretell of the future. Some said they explain what had happened in the past. But there is just no telling.

I do believe in dreams. In dreams, we live another life, living within another elemental existence and despite the complications and surrealism they present, dreams could mean so much to us. It is a manner of communicating into our inner self, and even towards another level or dimension of existence. Dreams alone are supernatural by themselves. To this day, not even the brightest scientist could explain fully the nature of dreams and what they all mean to us. But we—as ordinary individuals—know that they do happen and occur, and recognizes it’s existence as a way of life.

In dreams, we are introduced to another form of existence and another world and in dreams we become not merely ordinary occurrences but also supernatural beings. And therefore dreams are so significant to our lives that Sting should be excused and was probably right when he wrote that “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”.

So dream a little and do not complain.

I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.

I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well—no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie—than we humans.

Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest—like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood—I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.

Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.

I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.

But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.

In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.

And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.

And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”—frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.

Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?

Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.

It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.