Rituals for everyday enchantment and earth healing

The exchange of letters between friends, who may be siblings from lifetimes ago or maybe just fellow travelers in this life, has been most intense, interesting and educational (for this newbie in all things my child's mind cannot fully grasp).

While I struggled with some issues, some dealing with personal health, some with a fleeting sense of helplessness over how one can be of use and of help in the relief and rehab efforts after ST Yolanda's massive destruction, I received by serendity this ancient prayer-ritual researched by the poet Auggusta de Almeidda, always Chikki to me.

This prayer-ritual was formulated from decades of search/research into ancient, pre-Hispanic spirituality, paralleling Chikki's own spiritual path-seeking. I had asked her permission, and she had given it, if I could use this prayer ritual for the recent Baguio Writers Group's "Journey to Self: A Creative Journal Workshop" at the ICM House of Prayer. This workshop, co-facilitated by Merci Javier Dulawan, Baboo Mondoñedo and this typist, will be echoed elsewhere in the next year.

It closed a busy Saturday, post-Yolanda, when the survivors/orphans of Yolanda, and we all count ourselves among them, needed to pause, to ask forgiveness from Gaia the Mother who has been acting up in ways that continue to befuddle "head" persons (scientists, civil society, especially climate change activists, jaded media people alongside spin doctors, politicians, political analysts, believers in the materialist philosophy discourse).

But many spiritual seekers, even Chikki in her sick bed, remain calm and aren't surprised anymore by what is unfolding for and in this country that sits right smack on the Ring of Fire.

I will stop here before I get into a spirited argument on why the universe, the Source, the One allows for strong quakes, tsunamis, super typhoons that have the intensity of atomic and hydrogen bombs whose explosions in the past really pierced the heavens as though manmade (stress on "man") power taunted who or what is up there.

Here are the instructions for begging forgiveness and at the same time requesting for more strength "to walk the good" from the Triune God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and Inang Kalikasan:

Hold on to the Divine Mother. You can keep calling Archangel Raphael. Or keep invoking like a mantra the names of the Triune God: MABUHAY PATNUBAY PAGIBIG PAGPAPALA. OR MABUHAY APO REYNA YOLANDA.

Repetitions of the Holy Names will up your frequency and get you out of the low-frequency emotional depression.

Also cover yourself up well. Go to a big tree, narra, pine, sampaloc if you can find one, but NEVER acacia or rubber tree. Stay away from memorial parks or cemeteries. Face the tree and ask the Universe, the Mother, Mother Nature for a healing from what you suffer. Now close your eyes still facing but not touching the tree. Now breathe deeply the good positive vibes of the universe. Then proceed to the tree with open palms pointing upwards, and exhale slowly or drastically, up to you, the pent-up sadness, negative emotions in yourself. Bring them all out.

Now remove your hands from the tree. Breathe in again and exhale again. You can do this any number of times and any number of frequency but only well before dusk or 6 p.m.

Please remember that death is an illusion. Those who died are now better cared for in the spirit world where their physical sufferings are only of the past.

"What is said in the garden stays in the garden."

Among the calming foliage she sits and reflects.

Touching

Reading the instructions closely to understand the intentions to be uttered and the gesture to accompany them.

Shielded by shrubbery, she sends up her prayers.

Palms up, a grandmother pleads.

"When two or three are gathered in His/Her name..."

Miyen renders in watercolor her healing tree and God's gifts to her.

Detail of Miyen's tree


All photos of workshop participants by Sacha Weygan; those of Miyen's watercolors by the blogger