The power of flowers

"Daisy" by Kelly Ramos

BAGUIO CITY—Merci Javier Dulawan and Kelly Ramos, writers and painters both, had always talked about someday doing a joint project that would involve words and paint. It was a thought they put out there for the universe to pick up.

What happened instead was they found themselves for much of this summer working on unfurled sheets of watercolor paper to meet their target of 10 paintings for their current “The Watercolor Flower Show” at Café by the Ruins Dua, Upper Session Road, Baguio. The exhibit runs until July 10.

Although Ramos is the more formally trained one in fine arts at the University of the Philippines between the two painters, the self-taught Dulawan has had watercolor as her preferred medium of expression since the mid- to late 2000s. Ramos recalled doing just one watercolor plate as a school requirement and hadn’t touched the medium for more than 20 years.

Still they managed to work separately and confidently meet their deadline, even as the younger Ramos practiced on small scraps of paper.

Detail from Merci Dulawan's "Red Gumamela"

Choosing flowers as their subject was the easy part. Dulawan said, “Baguio means flowers, and ever since they’ve been my subject. New learning says that the edible protein found in flowers helps humans reflect, meditate, ruminate about our connection with the Divine. I feel connected. In this series, I honor the contribution of flowers to human.”

Uncannily enough, when it was time for the two to bring their finished works to the framers, they saw that they painted a variety of common flowers and not once did they have duplicates of a certain species of flora.

"Fifi's Pitcher Plant" by Dulawan

The experience revived Ramos’ interest in watercolor and the surprising effects that could be achieved with a medium that she once forsook for oil on canvas. She found the images right outside her home in Tawang, La Trinidad. And when the wildflowers weren’t enough for her, she went around the parks in Baguio and visited the ICM House of Prayer which has a sprawling garden enjoyed by those taking their spiritual retreats.

Dulawan quoted the children’s book author Hans Christian Andersen who wrote, “Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” -- Elizabeth Lolarga

This story earlier appeared in the July 6, 2016, issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Northen Luzon Supplement.

"Prickly Pear Cactus" by Ramos

Baboo is home now

While revisiting Baboo Mondoñedo book Stepping Stones, I was struck by her own sense of urgency as she lived out her days wearing the different hats she was comfortable with: "mother and grandmother, a writer, a bridge, a creator, a midwife, a comic, a child, an artist, and an activist. At any turn, I may be asked to do what is called for at the moment."

She earlier asked, "Why is it that I feel a sense of urgency? Why do I feel like time is coming and going too quickly?" What later follows is a closing sentence that can make one's skin crawl at her foresight of what is to come: "I will know what it is I need to do when the time comes."

Two days after her death that has sent people reeling from shock, Baboo has become bigger than life, still a bridge and midwife, now an intercessor, too, for requests and petitions to the Almighty Source. Her friend Perla Macapinlac, ICM, said at yesterday's rites before the body's cremation that now that Baboo has crossed over, those who she left behind can still be assured, if they have faith, that she will always be at their side.

At the wake for Baguio Writers Group founding member Napoleon Javier this summer, Merci Javier Dulawan, Baboo and I shared a long bench with the new widow Linda in front of us. I'm glad I told Baboo what my favorite piece in her book was (sometimes among our regrets when someone dies is if we don't tell him/her something we should have, especially if it is something good): her recollection of her marriage, the breakup, decades of living apart and how she returned to take care of her husband Eduardo Echauz when he suffered a stroke. They became friends anew, went out for dimsum or pasta, visited places that were friendly to the disabled. When he died, she realized that "there is truth to the marriage vow of 'Till death do us part.'"

Only death separates us from you, Baboo. And, as Rudi Tabora quoted you as saying recently and portentously, "You only die once. So live well." Indeed we will until we meet again some sunny day and in full color.


Photo self-timed by EV Espiritu

What else will we play next?

These served as my welcome remarks at the opening of "Sampayan Blues," my ninth solo exhibition at the Sanctuary Gallery inside the Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary on North Santo Tomas Road, Campo Sioco, Baguio. The show of paintings and installation ends on Nov. 24. Come visit!

Kept it place by clothespins are the paintings "The Laughing Matryoshkas" and "Be Salt, Be Light, Be Seamstress, Be Doll."

The untitled installation in the middle of the gallery and surrounded by 18 paintings

Portrait of the artist by EV Espiritu and floating above an old wash basin and borne aloft by chipboard "bubbles"

EV Espiritu should have another solo show after his "Soul Catcher" photo exhibit from several years back. He's got one wild mind. Here he poses with the mobile that he had conceived and helped execute.

My collaborations with grandchild Kai who, when she entered the gallery, recognized her figures and announced, "That's my work!" From top: "BFFs in Flower Field" and "Oval and Round"

Good afternoon. Let me thank Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary, its genial and caring staff led by Olive Gregorio, curator Erlyn Ruth Alcantara for allowing us to turn this gallery space into our playground for a month.

Thank you, old comrade in arts and media EV Espiritu, my collaborating artist alongside Maryknoll’s Clem Delim, who is a quiet joy to work with. Yasmin Almonte, the Sarabia sisters Anna Leah and Wawie I thank for gifts of space so I can paint with no other concern except to breathe and paint.

Thank you Baboo Mondoñedo, Merci Javier Dulawan and Ben Tapang for choosing either the most barbed or kindest words for me. All of you who came today despite gray clouds, threatening rain and a bout of sampayan blues, thank you.

What else will we play next? This is the question my four-year-old friend and grandchild Kai asks when we’re done with an activity. It’s a question adults like us must also reinstate in our lives to put the element of play in things we do.

When I was painting “Storm Surge” in the aftermath of super-typhoon Yolanda, I couldn’t paint continuously and with joyous abandon. There was toxic anger in my heart at the way a national crisis/calamity was being handled. I put away my brushes, rolled up the canvas and as for the tiny tubes of acrylic, they dried up.

Until one day I found myself stuck up while writing another hanapbuhay article. Restless, I had to channel my fretfulness into something constructive lest I harm myself from frustration. That’s how I found myself returning to “Storm Surge” after it lay idle for a year. I recaptured the elusive lightheartedness that used to accompany a brushstroke.

Each visit to Baguio had me bearing witness to the ease with which Kai applied herself in her painting, coloring and drawing. Absolutely no self-consciousness about what others would think or say. I like to think I am now apprentice to this master.

Enjoy the show, and thanks again for coming and banishing the blues from my sampayan. May your own clotheslines be often visited by playful birds and butterflies, the scent of flowers, blasts of wind, rays of sunshine and just the occasional rain. Bless you!

Belated pats on everyone's back

With less than a month to plan, plot, market, rehearse, look for sponsor/s, the Baguio Writers Group under Jennifer Patricia A. Cariño, my hijada, I always like to boast, produced in cooperation with Hill Station Restaurant "Fever: An Evening of Love Songs and Poetry" early this love month. Before the Panagbenga, the Philippine Military Academy alumni reunion, before other Arts Month activities took off.

Being writers, the group must have the good or bad habit (depending on how you look at it) of getting last-minute dopamine-cum-adrenaline shots that enable us to converge and put together our energies, whether we're composing commissioned handwritten love letters, baking heart-shaped rum cakes or singing and reading our hearts out to keep The Word alive.

To all who were there for us, family, friends, lovers and other strangers, a big thank you for making Feb. 6 a night that continues to sparkle in our memories. Onwards to the next project!

Guitarist Ian Paolo Acosta and singer Lissa Romero de Guia testing the Hill Station's sound system before the evening performance Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Merci Javier Dulawan and Padma Perez "womanning" our "Love (Letters) for Sale" table at the Hill Station Bar. On the piano is one of the pre-ordered rum cakes baked by Toottee Chanco Pacis. We had, if my count is correct while it was my turn to watch the table, five commissions that evening. More came in through our online campaign.

Jenny Cariño reads her lovely poems from the cell phone's screen.

Kervin Calabias recites from memory Joi Barrios's poem honoring the disappeared (desaparecidos).

BWG vice president and literature Prof. Junley Lorenzana Lazaga reads an Iluko poem by Leona Florentino, a cultural and literary heroine.

Lissa enchants, enthralls and engages us with her wonderful voice. To this day, her encore piece "Lullaby of Birdland" is stuck as my last song syndrome.

Lissa, queen of the night, with her bouquet and some members and officers of BWG. Thank you, whoever took this shot. I was in Cloud 9 then.

Here's to the kitchen and the color purple

I met another purple lady at the recent Love Food Love Words cooking and writing workshop of the Baguio Writers Group (BWG) at Iggy's Inn.

Dr. Kristin Bagasin of Cavite earlier confessed that all she could do in the kitchen was toss a salad, but our resource persons in cooking, sisters-in-law Auring and Leonie Bautista, showed that anybody can if filled with the desire to learn how to feed oneself well. Lessons on so much on so little.

It was around the second day of the workshop when we noticed how Kristin always came outfitted in different shades of purple (scarf, blouse, pants, wristband) and wrote her compositions using a fountain pen with purple ink. She had heard about the workshop from the Foundation Pen Network. (Thank you, Joseph Uy, for plugging the BWG activity to your fellow fountain pen enthusiasts.)

Before we knew it, during breaks between cooking and writing, Kristin was holding an impromptu calligraphy sub-workshop and emailing us free PDFs of beginners' guide to calligraphy.

It did feel good to write with one's hand, to feel the words gushing out or sputtering when holding on to an elusive memory, all these amid a well-lit setting with orchids around us to pleasantly distract the eyes.

Here's to you, Kristin and the color purple.

Kristin recalls how peeling a chico while alone in a kitchen left her marked for life.

Air-dependent beauty hanging by a window

This first workshop on food and words proved how the kitchen is the home's heart and soul once early memories are stirred. Hope it gives rise to a series of similar workshops that will be possible with future sponsorships. First row, from left: Baboo Mondoñedo, Auring Bautista, Babeth. Standing: Regina Newport, Ben Tapang, Mark Manalang, Doc Kristin, Chris Flores, Jenny Cariño, Merci Javier Dulawan and Leilani Chavez.

"For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."- Luke 12:23, 25, 26, 29, 31 NIV

Love Food, Love Words

Julia Child it was who wrote, "No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing."

Whether it's cooking (for which I confess to be a 1.9 on a scale or 10) or writing (for which I would still rate myself that same 1.9--beginner's mind always--got you there!), one must keep doing it. No, I'm not plugging Nike but even that brand got it right.

That is why Baguio Writers Group enjoys doing workshops. Fun and learning fall in love while working with our hands, including taking down notes and doing exercises alone or together, whether chopping onions or chopping lines into stanzas.

So here we go. This e-vite is designed by BWG's VP Jenny Cariño.

Begin again

“We can always begin again. No matter what happens, no matter how long it's been, no matter how far from our aspirations we may have strayed, we can always always begin again.”—Sharon Salzberg, meditation teacher

The kid with the cute-as-a-button nose and eyes larger than buttons was worried that I was lagging behind during the climb out of a forest. I had paused to pull out the trusty digicam to record her solo, unassisted climb up with Merci Javier Dulawan leading the way. I caught her clutching her little bag of spare clothes at that moment when she was calculating how far forward her Tita Merci was, how far behind I was.

The Salzberg quote is more a reminder to myself not to lose heart in heartfelt undertakings when there are setbacks, delays or signs of uncooperative inner weather. The reminder says: pause, catch your breath, then carry on.

They say the soul's trajectory is ever upward. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Observing ourselves and others

The creative journal team of Merci Dulawan Javier, Baboo Mondoñedo, myself and hopefully Jenny Cariño, too, is preparing for our second workshop, when it will be, the winds will tell us. Fore sure it will be a sisterhood (all-women) venture/adventure. It comes after the productive first leg, "Journey to Self: A Creative Journal Workshop," conducted with some help from the Baguio Writers Group, in November last year.

I'm re-posting some photos taken by our secretariat head Sacha Weygan who documented a workshop that combined explorations in art and writing. The activities were geared towards a greater understanding of the self, issues in life, work and personal relationships.

I can't wait for the next workshop to happen. Meanwhile, patience and study. Thank you, newly wed Sacha, for these memories.

I had to post these after reading a paragraph from the book An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris by Stephanie LaCava (Harper Perennial Edition, 2013).

She wrote in this collection of illustrated essays: "...challenge sadness with words and a belief that what you experience isn't what is simply handed to you. Maturity means allowing for change and ephemeral feelings. It took a study of objects for me to see that if we are patient and gentle in observing ourselves and others, we will find connection. This has been the greatest comfort of all."

Baboo shares how her writing and art journey has healed her and altered her view of the world.

Merci narrates how painting eventually got incorporated in her life of writing, teaching and translation work while junior facilitator Jenny listens.

Full circle for blogger: from doodles and cray pas drawings in grade and high school to lingering in journalism and the world of words, then onward to a second BA in fine arts

Jenny on growing up in the Aguilar-Cariño household where art, music and writing were everyday activities

Grandmother Roxanne dela Cuesta and grand-daughter Natalya Tantuico work on their respective watercolors.

Journalist Avie Olarte in deep concentration

Baguio's Tita Auring (Bautista) at work and looking like she's having fun.

Al Vicente, retired ambassador, realizes that yes, he can!

Ichay Bulaong turns her scarf or paper round and round as she creates texture with oil pastel, a dry media technique known as frottage.

Ka Willie Villarama creates whirls.

Miyen Versoza moves to her second or third painting.

Watercolors laid out to dry

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

3 grannies and a journal writing workshop in Baguio

Journal writing workshop in Baguio

Merci Javier Dulawan and her grandchildren

 Baboo Mondoñedo and Ines

Babeth and her Kai/Butones

'Stepping Stones' off the press, to be launched in Baguio

Baboo Mondoñedo's new "baby", Stepping Stones, a collection of personal essays published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, will be launched March 3 at the Cafe by the Ruins on Chuntug street, Baguio City. Below this is the foreword the blogger wrote for the book. 

      The author           Photo courtesy of Philippine Daily Inquirer

 Baboo sent a copy over at my mom's house yesterday, and even if I wasn't its author, I was bowled over as though I was. She signed it with this message: "A million thanks for the encouragement to see a dream come true. This project has brought joy in remembering." After I read that, I went inside the empty girls' room I share with my sister and did a brief dance with the book in my hands. Women are that way.

My own remembering of the title is it was the name of the workshop that Baguio's Merci Javier Dulawan and Grace Subido had thought of for a Baguio Writers Group project that took in people in midlife or those who've retired and were wanting to leave something for their children and grandchildren. It didn't necessarily had to be a book, it could just be an essay, to explain to a younger generation that the golden person before them, who they may find eccentric or old-fashioned, had a life, had a childhood, had a youth, knew love and its complications, went through losses and somehow emerged intact from the grinder of life. Ooops! Too much (I can see the eyebrows of the pedagogue in Grace going up). 

The initial Stepping Stones workshop had that purpose. Little did we know that inside Baboo, who was one of the participants, was a nascent author. Speaking for myself who sat in the secretariat of that workshop and went though the exercises in a "just for fun" spirit, I am so gladdened by the "product" from that small gathering. And I'm sure all of Baguio is, a Baguio that Baboo, the writer, painter and cafe part-owner, has adopted and called home and helped shape into one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Walking with Baboo Through the Edge

What makes this long stroll with Baboo that stretched over two years and meandered through real and imaginary forests worth one's time and attention is the certainty in that this woman will lead her companions to a clearing filled with sunlight.

Those who've known her from her early years as a sheltered girl up to the point when she was an epitome of glamour as a Pitoy Moreno fashion model may think hers has been a privileged life befitting her class, with creature comforts handed over without a struggle. Her development after those years puts a lie to that first impression of ritzy gloss.

Although the pieces in Baboo's first book are deceptively short and may seem "easy reading", the readable prose comes with an early warning. The telling of her story and the decision to share it with others, given other writers' self-protective instinct to draw the line where private life ends and public persona begins, came with much wrestling within. There were times when she almost buckled when her inner critic sensed this piece would hurt, that piece may displease. Those were the times she was tempted to withdraw troubling pieces and just store them in her files.

She, however, is aware that for her voice to be heard, she has to put the God or the Devil in the details. She has excavated deeply like a seasoned archeologist buried memories of heartbreak, pain, hurt, recovery, starting life afresh. This awareness that comes with years of meditative practice has enabled her to see that disclosure will connect her with readers. And so her voice here is bolder compared to the one she uses in her popular column in a community paper in Baguio.

This is Baboo's book of her life lessons learned. She may, at certain self-mocking moments, think of that life as insignificant, a proverbial drop in a bigger ocean. It is not; it is in fact unique and familiar at the same time. To use a popular term, "it resonates" with the reader who has traipsed on stepping stones like hers that move from dark and doubt to shafts of enlightenment, from innocent girl effaced by experience to grandmother enjoying her years of grace. Would that all women and men enjoy a harvest time in life's cycle as full and fulfilled as hers.

--Elizabeth Lolarga

Baguio City

March 9, 2012

Women in black plus white

Group photo in lieu of curtain call

The blogger gives the thumbs up in praise of the performance of members of the Baguio Writers Group last night at the ghost story-telling hour at the Hill Station bar in Baguio where the werewolves, vampires, even the Star Wars characters were out in full force. From left are Baboo Mondoñedo, Desiree Caluza, Merci Javier Dulawan, Nonnette Bennett whom we couldn't figure out if she came as the Virgin Mary or the White Lady of Loakan and BWG president Luchie B. Maranan.Photos by Laarni Ilagan