Entries from sacredtrails.wordpress.com
MY VERY FIRST EVER
At the break of dawn on the 1st of January 2012, I promised myself that I would finally start writing a blog this year. |
| Samal Island, Davao (2012) |
I love to travel and I enjoy documenting my travels for myself and for others – the virtual travelers, travelers who want to explore so called roads-less-traveled, and travelers who want to see familiar destinations with new eyes. This is more than the usual travel blog though. Here, I share insights and reflections from my travels. Here, I share how my travels open up my heart and change my Being. And here, I share journeys of my heart as I continue my inner journey towards healing, integration, and fullness of life.
As a counselor-of-sorts and a co-journeyer in the healing process of people, I hope my blog entries will help others find healing and meaning wherever and whatever their aches are and discover within their hearts the journeys they need to make and the destination their hearts long for.
MEMORIES OF THE HEART
I remember today on the day of souls significant people who had passed on to THE other world but who continue to be part of my journey – Tatay from whom I learned that writing is more than just a means to get one’s job done but a way to express one’s innermost feelings and deeply held convictions; Tita Madre, a dear friend whose infectious laughter always reminds me not to take life too seriously and to learn to enjoy the here-and-now; Mommy Jean, spiritual mother and friend; and Gene, dearest friend and co-journeyer. I know there is a gold thread that continues to hold our hearts together. I remember each of you with love and gratitude.YOU CAN SHED TEARS
David Harkins
You can shed tears that she is gone
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she’s gone
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
TRAVEL TIPS FOR QUIRKIES
Traveling is one of my favorite self-care activities. Exploring new territories or visiting the nooks and crannies of places I’ve been to before or simply re-visiting favorite places gives me deep joy. Leaving the familiar and ordinary for brief periods of time nourish my spirit. Often, however, packing my bags – deciding what I can and should bring and what to let go in order to travel light – and making the necessary preparations, such as booking a place to stay and planning the itinerary, could wear me down. They still do but I’m doing better through time.Here are my top 3 travel tips for the not-so-conventional travelers.
1. Don’t rely on others’ travel tips, not even this one. We have different preferences as dictated by our unique personalities, histories, and genetic make-up. To a large extent what will give me joy will depend on how much of my preferences are met and how I will handle those that are unmet. What will make my travel fulfilling may not necessarily make yours one.
I used to read a lot of reviews and suggestions from Trip Advisor to municipality/city official websites to blogs and find myself frustrated when the expectations shaped by this information weren’t met. Lesson learned: read as much as you can but leave lots of room for surprises, both pleasant and otherwise.
As to itineraries, I think it will be best to create your own. There are tips on how to be more time and cost efficient, but what you do and when you do it depends on your goals and on how you envision your trip. Are you traveling to see all? Are you looking to slow down and savor the new experiences? Are you taking the trip because you feel you must? Your answer to this will determine your itinerary.
Similarly, in our life journey, we can only learn so much from others. The been-there-done-that admonition of some people doesn’t always work as our uniqueness contributes to how we experience life events. As in traveling, I think it’s important for us to learn from what others say but not to allow ourselves to be limited by the experiences and views of others. Your worldview should be defined by how you actually experience life rather than by what others say.
How I live my life, the choices I make, and the dreams I dream are uniquely mine. The same goes for you and for everyone else. At the end of the day, whether you arrive at your destination or not depends on you and your choices rather than on what others think and say.
2. Be prepared for the unexpected. You can only control so much of your trip. To enjoy the trip, we need to be ready for surprises – flight/travel delays, weather disturbances, annoying company, changes in route, etc. The more we are able to see the positive and the meaning in these situations the more we are able to enjoy the unexpected. The flight delay affords you time to read or even arrive at creative ideas for the everyday. The weather disturbance allows you to slow down and reflect on life or to visit some indoor destinations you would otherwise not have considered. The annoying company, well, they teach you the virtue of patience and perhaps even help you learn more about yourself. As they say, nothing that someone does can affect you so much if it doesn’t also strike you close to home. Changes in route help you discover new sceneries that those who went before you using the familiar route didn’t have the chance to discover.
Regina Brett, whose book, God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life’s Little Detours, is a must-read for all who are undergoing crises or are simply experiencing bumps in life, speaks of detours in life as unavoidable and sometimes even necessary parts of life. As traveler in this life journey, how do you perceive life’s detours? How do you handle such detours in your journey? The sooner we accept the reality of the unexpected and the unpleasant ambling with us somewhere along our journey and embrace them when they do, the more we will be able to find the meaning these detours bring and be at peace.
3. Start somewhere. If you want this trip so badly, then just do something to make it happen. Take that necessary first step, no matter how small it may be. It could mean saving up a hundred bucks from your weekly food allowance or taking the bus instead of the cab when you travel to and from work, or simply checking the net for more information about the place or the travel. Doing something brings you closer to the goal and, of course, we all know the inner boost that we get when we accomplish something to bring us closer to our goal.
So it is with the inner journey. You want to become a more joyful person, or heal a memory from a painful experience, or let go of something or someone who is not life-giving and growth-promoting? You can do this but not without pain. One lesson I learned the hard way is that genuine healing and growth never come easy. Books and healing interventions that promote a quick-fix approach to healing are sadly misleading. If you want genuine healing, growth, and integration, you have to accept that this is going to be a long (perhaps even life-long) process. This reality, however, should never discourage us from starting somewhere. One step at a time is the key. It could mean simply spending 10 minutes of alone-time everyday or listening to an inner urge to say no to someone or choosing to act differently in the face of a recurring issue. And when you fall, as most of us humans do, get up, nurse your wound, and, with kindness and gentleness to yourself, get back on track.
Have a safe, enjoyable, and meaningful journey!
SUMAGING CAVE (Sagada, Mountain Province): Where It All Began
I always say that Sagada is one place where I’d like to go back and perhaps spend my retirement years. It was in 1997 when I first came for a visit to Sagada, a place many of my friends were raving about and spoke of as one of those one-must-visit-before-one-dies places. It being among the first peace zones in the country made it even more attractive to me.
There was no Google yet at the time, or I was probably too technology-challenged to know it if it did exist. All our plans then were based on information from friends and locals and on a picture map that was a must-have for anyone visiting Sagada. (I think it still is but I can imagine it must now be colored and with more elaborate illustrations.)
I particularly enjoyed my early morning walks in the town proper and time spent just watching the morning and life in Sagada unfold before my eyes as I sat outside the Church of St. Mary while eating strawberries bought from the market. Somehow, recalling the experience soothes my city fatigued spirit.
The highlight of my trip to Sagada was spelunking at Sumaging Cave. I was going through a growth spurt in my psycho-spiritual life at the time and I felt ready for a lot of new experiences, including caving, as I had a deep encounter with my Bathala in the mouth of Crystal Cave in Baguio about 10 months before. (I’ll share about my kinship with the Flintstones in another entry.)
Upon arriving at the entrance to Sumaging, which is also known in Sagada as the Big Cave, the enthusiasm and excitement were replaced with fear and anxiety. There was no way I would go to that dark, big, scary cave even if I had my friends with me and we had the ablest of guides with us. But, with the prodding of my friends, the thought of how long two hours would be if I was sitting there alone, and an inner urge to “come and see,” I decided to go.
This I say: I won’t do another Sumaging but I have not regretted doing it and would still have done a first if I were to live my life all over again. I say this not just because of the beauty I discovered inside this dark, seemingly scary cave. The beautiful stalactites and stalagmites were indeed God’s grandeur. How could I have known that there was a beautiful “King’s Curtain,” among many formations, inside that cave?
More than the beauty that the formations inside the cave had to offer, it was the beauty of the psycho-spiritual journey that made this caving experience in Sumaging a spiritual milestone for me. I still remember vividly the heading of my journal entry at the end of the day: “Such a deep spiritual experience.”
The most important lesson I learned in the Sumaging experience is that darkness, while anxiety- provoking, is not to be dreaded. Rather, darkness has to be befriended and embraced for it carries with it deep meaning that we won’t discover in the light. More than the light of happy days, darkness allows us to shine in ways we can never imagine. Darkness comes in different shapes and sizes for different people. For me, the dark is that which is uncertain and unfamiliar. Darkness constitutes parts of myself that I find difficult to accept or initially resist, or what Jungian psychologists call the Shadow. More than 40 years of life had taught me that it was in my darkest of moments that I also discovered and harnessed strengths I didn’t know I have, just like the strength and will to survive the physically strenuous caving experience in Sumaging.
Loss of dear friends, loss of a “child,” ending a marriage, having to live life in a radically different way as a consequence of choices made, facing health challenges – these are dark moments that can initially turn our world upside down. I doubt it though that anyone who had gone through any of these and allowed themselves to dive into the depths of their inner self would say that the womb of darkness is an empty one. The opportunities for self-discovery, self-transformation, and strengthening one’s relationship with God make the journey into the dark all but empty.
Each time I am faced with the dark, I go back to my Sumaging Cave experience and draw strength and inspiration from it. “Come and see” for in the dark is a deep beauty that can only come from my participation in God’s ongoing work of creation in and through Me.
It is the Sumaging Cave journey that taught me that all journeys in our outer world also have the potential to launch our journey to the inner Self where the darkest as well as most beautiful and precious parts of the Self reside.
(I am sorry, there are no pictures to show. I have lost the pictures taken from my analogue camera. That is of course aside from the fact that I have yet to master the art of uploading pictures to Word Press. You can turn to real travel blogs for pictures.)
40s AND THE MIDLIFE JOURNEY
The midlife passage is a deeply mysterious stage in our life journey. Many consider it a life-changing experience while others simply brush it aside as an overrated developmental process. Let your experience be your judge.At 40
(Musings of a woman turning 41)
I think and think and think
Ask myself, think more, and ponder on it deeper still
Wanting to know how and why
they say that “life begins at 40!”
Is it the physical changes –
the hormonal rollercoaster or
the lumps and cysts growing
where we would rather be sucked or licked?
Or could it be the double vision reluctantly worn,
the resistance only calmed by the kind optometrist’s admonition
that “it’s part of developmental stage” rather than a disease?
Or could it be in this longing-for-something-more
that we seem to know not of,
the unsettling feeling of not being at home
even if we are inside the privacy of our bedroom?
What life is it they’re talking about
when our moods swing from north to south and east to west
and when we start behaving like someone we don’t know?
And the quiet answer from the deep well within
comes like a gentle wind and a silent ray of the sun.
“Yes, there’s life in all these. Yes life is born in all these.”
For is it not through our body’s upheavals
that we learn to pay attention to the messages of our body?
Is it not when our body begins to act out
and grow what we would not want it to grow
that we become a friend to our body and
question how we are living our life?
Is it not then that we truly get to know our body in a deep way?
The body becomes MY body.
Is it not through our double vision that we learn
to question the way we see things
and realize it’s wisdom more than intellect and our five senses
that we need in order to make sense of life and the chaos within?
And doesn’t the double vision remind us
that some things don’t deserve our attention
while others do need to be magnified?
There is life in all these. . . even in the darkness we see in ourselves.
Some call it midlife process;
others call it existential loneliness;
still others call it angst.
Whatever one wants to call it,
at 40, I have learned this darkness and chaos is a friend.
Only a friend can teach us with such fierceness and blatancy
that in this loneliness we discover the greatest friend we have
and that this friend’s name is “I.”
In this chaos we can’t resolve nor run away from
we learn that real strength’s shining moment
is not when we can solve all life’s problems
but when we can live with questions and problems
whose answers elude us.
Isn’t it in the moments when we face our what-could-have-beens
and look in the eye the many lives we have always wanted but never had
that we stumble upon the real meaning of our life?
Don’t these moments become distilling and alchemical processes
which transform us in a deeply personal way
and which open our eyes to our heart’s deepest desires
and to the real purpose and meaning of our existence?
As frustrations mount from betrayals raised-from-the-dead
and losses both grieved and ungrieved,
don’t we realize that our true strength lies
in the friend we have within,
in the truth within we stand up for,
and in the hope we keep aflame in our hearts in the darkest of nights?
And don’t we then discover our real soul-sisters
and kindred spirits on the journey?
Don’t these quiet storms acquaint us with pillars of courage and hope
to work for something beyond and above Me and myself
and the narrow confines of one’s home?
Lessons learned at 40, lessons that 40 ushers in
And like river that flows abundantly into the vast ocean
Teachers continue to pour in everyday
both in the mundane and the extraordinary.
Yes, life begins at 40. . . if we let it,
if we are brave enough to die
and be re-born into the wonderful person and life
God has meant for each of us to be.
Carmel S. de Leon-Ligon
26 August 2009
(I wrote this poem while I was at the threshold of my midlife journey and thought about it again when my hormones started acting up recently. Peri-menopause? Whatever! I’m 44 and I’m proud.)
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