Our passion project is featured in @mixmagasia !
Still so surreal how we finally got to put this together. Our vision has morphed into so many forms in so many stages and finally our dream materialized into a gathering where rave, ritual, audience participatory performance and music video come together in a cosmic goo of dance and love. This journey has been such a dream and I am so grateful for everyone who joined us and believed in our project. We also got to raise money for Datu's School of Living Tradition!
Remember, Bantuwing! When we deprogram from the distractions and colonial influences of the material world from our beings, what is left is our spirit, there is no gender, only energy. And we peel this off through feeling music through our bodies and finding ourselves through dance. That in itself is a powerful prayer to the universe 🙏
Thank you for the feature @thirstkid ♥️
Bantuwing, it will soon be a year after we dreamt into life the Philippine chapter for @twentynineprinciples 🤍 Out of it came a movement to go back into our queer ancestry, into understanding truly what it is to be NATURE, to be BANTUWING.
We are ever changing, flowing and constantly being. There is not one state, only bravery.
It was an incredible experience to co-direct all that we made with such a brilliant team. I always carry my gratitude for everyone who was part of our ritual and journey✨
I am so grateful for the act of creation. When we make something from the heart, we enter a flow state, we summon the powers of the spirit that is best for the current job. We are possessed in that moment of creation, adrenalin is high and we do not operate robotically but all senses are heightened and there is a deep understanding of being present. We turn into the Babaylan, we turn into Bantuwing. We operate from a source of joy instead of doubt and fear. And when a group of people enter that state all together it is a great summoning of something ancestral and sacred.
Thank you to everyone for creating with us for @twentynineprinciples 🤍
This is just the beginning!
Love love love
P.s.
Last slide is the best photo of me
Thank you for the photos Rota and beautiful friends ✨
Dear Papa, it's your birthday today and as always I can't help but feel your absence. I woke up today and went straight to watching this video of you in Sagada. Your emphysema was already getting bad but it was the most fun you've had on stage in a long time. All your friends joined you on stage, from different bands. That was always the energy you brought, you wanted everyone to jam together and that's why I guess you named your band Cocojam. You wanted to be surrounded by your friends on stage, speaking in the language you know best and sharing that playfulness to the crowd. You never liked practiced songs, you wanted music to be free and intuitive with the other musicians on stage and so every song you played was never the same. It was always a new musical conversation. Just like how you dealt with life, you embraced uncertainty and felt your way through it fully, and this is something I truly got from you. ❤️ I love you so much! Thank you for this beautiful life.
This concert happened a week before the Lockdown. It was a reunion of family friends, it was just the artists, musicians and locals, it felt like we had a private festival. It was such a beautiful time before the world changed. The full video is on YouTube.
BANDS: Lolita Carbon, AmanSinaya, Weather the Roots, Indio I, Rolly Maligad Cocojam
Event: SOS- OWA: A Prayer Ritual to commemorate the "Re-Imagination of Santiago Bose's Mural"
Goa is a gift! Thank you for bringing me around @zokhuma ✨ Met and reunited with so many beautiful souls. Thank you for receiving me all so wonderfully. 💕
Oh India, I always say I met a hundred people and all of them are beautiful. ✨ Got to be part of an amazing music video production, danced in the land of afterparties and adventured alone and got adopted by the beautiful transgender priestesses from the Jogappa community in a chance encounter with a temple celebration.
Thank you for these beautiful portals.
Bombay and Lonavala ♥️
Family tenderness after being away for so long.
Mama and I with Papa the moon.
Zal sharing me his favourite songs.
Happy going with me to check the trees we planted.
Hiking with my cousins, their first "hike". Now they love nature! (There will be more when I'm around!)
Stopping by the waterfalls.
Getting wild sunflower seeds by the road.
Lola finding her old diary from when she was in school!
Stopping to say hi to the sea.
Mama and me.
Papa watching over 🤍
Still recovering from Sudden Profound Sensory Hearing Loss and deaf on my left ear with constant loud ringing, but now I love making jokes about it! 🤭 I am starting to be grateful for this experience, it has been teaching me to listen to myself more and shut out the noise and false voices around me. It is truly a journey of listening to one's true self and surrendering to what the soul yearns most.
Here I share a dream that @datu_arayan had about my ear, "She is no longer absorbing noise, she is holding resonance."
It is the Leo Full Moon and three lions visited a healing waterfall at the foot of the sacred Mt. Banahaw.
🤍
Himi, you have left us in November. I have yet to understand this deeply but I feel your freedom, a gentle breeze in our hearts. Thank you for the dreams, the clues, the signs and how you show up in our everyday as whispers of your spirits. We love you so much.
I made this song years ago when a friend passed, I found it again and I felt I had to share this with you. It is my heart understanding yours.
"Sunshine oh sometimes just falls
Darkness is a needed brawl
Nightfall wrapped around your heart
Cant sleep in the growing dark
A place fades inside you
Young hands grow old too
But you lift your head up
Cos there will always be light in the dark......"
May we be more grounded to ourselves,
Knowing that our roots is not a place
But a true recognition of the depths of our heart.
May our crowns reach the sky,
Because the dreams we create
Is what gives color to the dying
And the rising of the Sun.
I send you my love for this coming New Year. ✨
