Click here to donate to NAFCON to assist families affected by the typhoons and earthquakes in the Philippines.
Our Santonilyo and Mary of Manaoag murtis. Our family made offerings to protect our homes.
Like I have stated before, I am the only member of my immediate birth family who lives in the USA. I used to be limited to sending remittances home, donating to the community, and making ritual offerings to the diwata and anitos for protection. Slowly, with very little resources, I am also building more opportunities for my family and family’s neighbors back home. This is one thing I can slowly create from afar: a spark ignited in my nieces that leads to opportunities for land protection for others and opportunities to get an education (spiritual and academic).
Immigrants and children of immigrants in the USA, Canada, England, and elsewhere in the West have a responsibility to rebuild and show deep reverence to the Philippines, our motherland. We are privileged but not better than our country people; we are not upgraded, more advanced versions of our country people because of our access to Western education, salaries, status, vacations. We are bastards, ripped from our roots and our Lands, brutalized and brainwashed by the worker-colonies of the West. My magick does not come from indigenous knowledge but from the karmic pain and torment of surviving in the West.
I submit to the Philippines as she is my great grandmother. I venerate her, how she uplifts and feeds my family despite the corruption of the Land’s only corruptible creations, mankind. I look, with eyes wide open, when she is battered by the sea gods. Can we, together, recognize when man-made climate change causes such imbalance in our seas that the gods start morphing the land itself (new fault lines, fractures in the deep sea, volcanic eruptions, mudslides from typhoons)? I say all this hoping that whoever reads this knows that it is bare minimum to donate money to the link above. Donating funds is simply a redistribution of wealth, of energy. Our power is in our creation.
What can we create, alongside our country people, from the debris of corruption (the pocketing of flood-prevention infrastructure money, for example)? The next steps in helping our motherland is talking about the news of protests and disasters to others in our families and circles, extending to them opportunities to help. And then, we can’t stop there, we must keep going—returning to the needs of our Great Grandmother even when typhoon season is done and the earthquakes stop.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
My family lives near several bodies of water including the ocean. They are always at risk of injury, death, or damage to their homes when a strong storm passes through. Typhoon Uwan was expected to turn into a super typhoon that would travel just above my family’s region, the winds reaching 115 mph (gusts reaching 165 mph elsewhere), ripping through their small town. To prepare for Typhoon Uwan, my family members packed their flashlights, batteries, blankets, baby supplies. People cut tree limbs and tied down their roofs, they placed their few belongings in plastic bags. The shelters were serving rice porridge and instant noodles only, so families cooked food to share before leaving their homes.
Our Cavern House shrine cares for these two murtis that are identical to the murtis back at our family’s homes in Bataan and Samar.
Santonilyo is a Cebuano child deity responsible for bringing rain during droughts and minimizing the intensity of storms for fisher people, among many other powers.
Nuestra Senora de Manaoag, or Mary of Manaoag, Our Lady of Manaoag, was a vision of a robed-Queenly woman, later attributed to Mother Mary by the local friars. She remains a local deity, diwata, who is responsible for healing, quick responses during emergencies and times of need, miracles, spiritual guidance.
The high school that my family’s Barangay used as one of the shelters during the typhoon.
I made offerings to local deities: light, incense, bell, water, flowers, rice, mango and pandan leaves, bones of fish and other sea creatures, mantra, and song. Then, I asked one of my nieces to follow instructions to protect our homes.
My niece took this photo of our family members taking shelter in the high school classroom.
In my meditation, I saw a woman similar to Nuestra Señora de Guia (a different name from Manaoag but the same entity; remember that goddesses are called many names). I went outside in our garden and saw another confirmation that the offerings were accepted. I had dreams throughout the night right before the storm arrived.
Nuestra Señora de Guia is murti of a local goddess.
My Nanay and my other family members eating a simple adobo meal at the shelter. My niece cooked for everyone just before they made their way to the shelter at night.
My family trying to settle in for sleep during the super typhoon.
One of my eldest sisters recorded this in the middle of the night at the shelter. We call this a typhoon, yes, but this is the sound of an ocean god.
My Nanay, resting on a chair inside of the shelter. She has weathered thousands of storms, including giving birth to me during Typhoon Gading.
We were very fortunate that no one was hurt in our family and none of our homes were damaged. Some of the nearby homes were damaged by the wind and flooding. I give thanks to the goddess and the spirits protecting our family.
Many people died because of typhoon Kalmaegi and the earthquakes in Cebu. The government underreports these deaths because the deaths are their fault. Mistreatment of the land (which leads to mudslides, flooding, etc) and deliberate mismanagement of infrastructure money, housing money, are all terrible government sins against its own people. It is up to people in the diaspora, people with privilege and access to change-making opportunities, to wake ourselves and get our loved ones to respond. I am not saying everyone is rich; most of us are broke! I say that with hilarity and familiarity, and love and sadness. However, I do assert with that anyone who works in the West is better off financially and socially (to fundraise) than those currently affected by corruption, disasters, catastrophes back home. Bayanihan is not just a fun word, a theme for our events and art. It is a whole-hearted response to our people. Bayanihan is a way of living, it is the dharma—the cosmic way of being in the universe.
Click here to donate to NAFCON to assist families affected by these many typhoons and earthquakes.