“या देवी सर्वभूतेषु शक्तिरूपेण संस्थिता ।
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः ॥१२॥
Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu, Shakti Rupena Samsthita
Namastasyai Namastesyai Namastasyai Namo Namaha”
ૐ Om muni muni mahamuni shakyamuniye svaha ૐ
The Land: Trinidad comes from a lineage of fisherfolk from the Visayan island of Samar and the district of Tondo, Manila, on the island of Luzon. Since the late 1700s, her family members have repeatedly been displaced due to natural disasters, war, imperialism, and poverty. She was born outside in Balanga, Bataan, during Super Typhoon Gading, to Trining Tijones, a folk seer and sirena, and Roberto Dorognan, a fisherman from the Catubig, Oras, and Dolores river families in Eastern Samar. She was adopted and raised by the Diaz-Escobar clan, descendants of the Katipunero revolutionary Valentin Diaz. Her aunt and uncle founded the first Filipino medical practice in the Bay Area, California, and together they later created the Filipino American Development Foundation. Her adoptive parents raised her on occupied Tamien land. Trinidad renounced the Catholic Church when she was in elementary school. As a nonverbal, Autistic child she communicated directly with the Land and learned that she was a seer. Everything she learned from her visions contradicted the religion in which she was raised.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
After years of disciplined study and practice Trinidad pieced together the savant aspects of her disabilities with her relationship to the spirit world. Her efforts to de-colonize her life naturally included a healthy examination of the spiritual practices that she grew up with and practices that better suited Trinidad’s goals of collective liberation via individual self-realization. Tantric science and philosophy, Southeast Asian folk practices, and witchcraft helped her solve the puzzle of her savant traits— traits that are rarely studied in children and people of color.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Trinidad is a mermaid and therefore lives with chronic pain. She was a nonverbal child who later developed hyperlexia and situational mutism. She also experienced periodic catatonia. As a disabled adult she still deals with these traits and other physical limitations. She hopes to dismantle misconceptions about disabilities, especially modern, materialist re-tellings of the ancient Autistic experience.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
As a young child Trinidad endured visions of animals, women and children, the earth suffering at the hands of men whose only interest was ever-lasting power. She witnessed abuse in her families and communities. Separated from her homeland and culture due to colonization, imperialism, martial law, poverty, adoption, she decided to explore the spiritual realm on her own, to find answers about life and suffering, following in the footsteps of ancient Tantric practitioners of the 6th-18th centuries.
“Dáyaw kenka, ápo Laün! Lak-amek haan-maungpot a panawen. ”
Life As A Sirena
In childhood Trinidad had a guru on the other side, also called an abyan amongst other names in the Philippines. The guru guided her on intuition, mindfulness, breathing techniques for meditation, and rules for astral projection and spirit communication. When she was in elementary school, the guru showed her how to make an animist altar and guided her to the Buddha, all to the horror of her Catholic family who believed she was possessed. She experienced visions of two past lives by the time she was sixteen years old. She learned that she was a yogini and Buddhist in these other lives. Trinidad endured years of discrimination and painful alienation from her Catholic adoptive family and former friends who simply did not believe her. She was only affirmed later when she found her gurus and fellow yoginis. She began collecting books on a wide array of occult and sorcery subjects in childhood and by the end of her thirties amassed over 3,000 books in a personal library. She was searching for evidence that validated her experiences and found that evidence in the teachings of meditation masters. Read on to learn about her gurus and lineage.
The bulk of her early knowledge comes from sitting meditation, syncretic Catholicism in the Philippines, light-sound meditation from the broader Southeast Asia, Nada Yoga from South Asia, and Turtle Island animist witchcraft. She later studied Shakti Tantra and folk sorcery. Over the course of thirty long years she developed a syncretic Tantric practice called Water Serpent Dharma.
Some of the concepts of Water Serpent Dharma have roots in Shri Vidya from the Tamil Nadu people by way of the Chola Dynasty and thalassocratic South and Southeast Asian empires that flourished in the Philippines; ancient Agama Tirtha in Java, Sumatra, Brunei, Bali; Tantric teachings of Tibet, Sri Lanka; forest teachings of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam; and Turtle Island animist beliefs of the Tamien and Coahuiltecan people. Some of the concepts can be partially explained with the language of physics.
Trinidad’s family converted part of their small home into three living shrines called Cavern House. The first Cavern House shrine houses Adi Shakti as AUM or the light-sound vibration of the cosmos, Akasha or æther, Laün; Inanna and Isis; Ma Kali, Ma Tārā and the other Tantric Mahavidyas, including their yoginis; Matrikas; gurus and poets; alien diwata and Earth diwata who are bound to the land and sea in the Philippines; and other diwata near Trinidad’s home. The second shrine honors the spirits of the dead, hungry ghosts and spirits in the hell realms, spirit guides and deified ancestors. The final shrine is a small, open-air, elevated platform that houses Vajrayogini, other yoginis, dakinis, nagas, asuras (aswang), warrior-saints and sorcerers. She spends her days in a near-constant state of samadhi, drawing, writing, meditating, and performing rituals on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Mahavidya Tara, Indian Museum, Kolkata, India.
1837-1911, the Bengali Saint Vamakyapa
or Bamakhepa, was the ardent devotee of Ma Tārā who lived on the cremation grounds of her Siddhi Pithe called Tarapith in West Bengal.
Trinidad is a bhakta of goddess Ma Tārā.
Trinidad began worshipping Ma Tārā, one of the Mahavidyas, after interacting with an emanation of her as a child in the Philippines and after receiving transmissions, visions, dreams, permission. Trinidad worships Ma Tārā in multiple forms: the forest diwata named Khadiravani who introduced herself to Trinidad in a grove of trees by the ocean, the enchantress Kurukullā who magnetized Trinidad to the dharma, the artist Nila Sarasvati who gave Trinidad the gift of speech when she was a nonverbal child, and finally in wrathful Ugra form as Ekajati.
This image to the right is a murti of Tārā at the 13th century Tarapith Temple in West Bengal.
Trinidad started meditating in early childhood.
Her teachers over the years were elder kitchen witches, bone-setters and diviners, curanderas and root workers in Texas, Filipino hilots and herbalists, and Hindu-Buddhist laypeople. As a budding witch, she studied spirit boards, cartomancy using playing cards, and other kinds of divination using an array of tools. Then she moved on to more advanced studies as more diwata and anitos showed up in her life. Trinidad sought out gurus who could guide her. Her gurus are of the ancient Nyingmapa lineage that begins with Samantabhadra, Vajrasattva, Garab Dorje, Manjushrimitra, Guru Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, Longchenpa. She gives her gratitude to the great nameless Rishis of ancient Indus Valley people, Vedic laypeople, and Tantric cultures throughout Southeast Asia.
8th century, The Matrika Chamunda at the Odisha State Museum in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
Hindu-Buddhist Tantric Studies
When Trinidad was a teenager she spent a lot of time retreating into nature and cemeteries to meditate alone. As a young adult, over 20 years ago, she attended several long Vipassana retreats as her formal introduction to the renunciate life. She studied with Lama Gyaltsen at a Buddhist contemplative arts school, Naropa Institute. She took her Buddhist Refuge, upāsikā Bodhisattva vows at Orgyen Dorje Den with her guru, the Venerable Dhomang Gyatrul Rinpoche, holder of the Dudjom Tersar Lineage, and a great master of the Dzogpa Chenpo Lineage. She continued to study Nyingma Buddhism under Lama Drimed Lodro Rinpoche and Lama Jigme at ODD.
9th century Ekapada-Bhairava, an important deity on Trinidad’s karmic path, Chausath Yogini Temple, Hirapur, India.
9th–10th century CE granite Chola statue of Matrika Maheshvari, Guimet Museum, Paris, France
Trinidad continued her Tantric studies focusing on the academic aspects of Dzogchen, Chöd, and the application of Kum Nye at the Nyingma Institute under teachers like Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek. She briefly studied indigenous energy systems and weapons combat, Didya Mudgara, with Ka Virgil Mayor Apostol at his Kailukuan School of Indigenous Science. She currently learns from other Visayan culture bearers like Khokhoi at Kalami Spirit Arts as well as gurus at her local mandir. Trinidad gives deep gratitude and expresses tremendous reverence for the saints who illuminate her path though she is from another land: The Sages Vasistha, Patanjali, Ashtavakra Prajñātārā, Bodhidharma, Acarya Brahmananda Giri, Bisheykyapa, Kaulacarya Anandanatha, Raja Ramakrishna, Acarya Moksadananda, Kailasapati Baba, Bamakhepa, Anandamayi Ma and her disciples, Sri Swami Kanakananda Brighu, Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri, Saint Agastya, Siddhar Bhagya and his disciples, and many more.
The Chausath Yogini Temple in Hirapur, India, the temple is believed to have been built by the Bhouma dynasty queen of Lonabhadra alias Santikaradeva II, Hiradevi during 864 CE.
1861, Bhairavi Brahmani, an orange-robed, middle-aged female ascetic initiates Ramakrishna to Tantra.
Trinidad’s life as a devout layperson is modeled after the Mahasiddhas, Yoginis, Upasikas, Rishikis like Vak Ambhrini; mystic bhakti poets like Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Andal, Mirabai, Lalleshwari, Anandamayi Ma; and a Thai laywoman, the honorable Upāsikā Kee Nanayon. Some of Trinidad’s most valued spiritual teachers were nonverbal disabled people that she worked with as an independent skills coach and supported living aid.
Trinidad is not
a healer or indigenous shaman.
She is a renunciate seer. She does not teach people outside of her family the secret practices of Water Serpent Dharma. She does not seek to commercialize or commodify her family’s sacred knowledge for the sake of being cool or for money. She only strengthened her skills and gained siddhis with guidance from gurus and years of meditation. She hopes to help revitalize the precolonial Tamil-Indo-Malay roots of her home back in the Philippines so that her family in Bataan and on the island of Samar have access to Tantra.
Ang Babaylan, painted by Roy Aguilar. This painting depicts one kind of diviner and healer in the Philippines. These leaders have sacred knowledge and are still living today. Their practices should not be appropriated, commodified, and their knowledge should not be shared with unworthy people. Trinidad is not a healer or indigenous shaman though some of her tacit knowledge overlaps.
“Tayo gumagawang himala, Tayo gumagawa ng mga sumpa, at ng mga Diyos!
(We make miracles, we make curses, we make Gods)
”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡ Examples of syncretism in the Philippines °‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡
Nuestra Señora de Barangay
Everything from the Virgen’s clothing to the frame reflect a mixture of indigenous and colonial cultural influences deliberately depicted to influence other indigenous Filipinos in their faiths in the 1940s.
Praising, touching, cleaning, and making offerings to statues or murtis like the Birhen sang Barangay reflects precolonial animist practices and diwata worship before Catholicism.
Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag
Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag, also known as Ina’n Birhen na Manaoag or Apo Baket Manaoag in the Province of Pangasina.
A painting that depicts the apparition in Manaoag.
Trinidad likens the Apo Baket of Manaoag, and many other “Apo Baket” figures in the Philippines, as depictions of local diwata in Catholic regalia. Many of these diwata are emanations of Tārā; Tārā is evoked for the same traits and powers that the Virgen, or Mother Mary, offers the people. This local diwata is also similar to Tārā because she appeared amongst trees which is how the goddess has appeared to others in India, China, Indonesia. The local deity protects from fires and other disasters, war. She especially looks over the vulnerable like women and children. She existed before the image was created and attributed to the Catholic Mary. Apo Baket is still venerated today through Catholic rites and other local traditions. Trinidad’s birth family venerates this deity back home in Bataan, Luzon and also on the island of Samar. Trinidad cares for an identical statue to her birth family’s on one of her Cavern House shrines.
Our Lady of the Pilar de Morong
The Marian vision that occurred in Trinidad’s family’s town over 400 years ago is known as Our Lady of the Pilar de Morong, also a local diwata before the statue was attributed to the Catholic Mary. She is associated with the traits of Tārā and warrior aspects of Adi Shakti.
Our Lady of Guidance
Made in 1571, this is the oldest documented Marian image in the Philippines. The Ermita Church was constructed around an animist shrine where Spanish missionaries saw local native people making flower and pandan offerings to her. She was originally a local diwata, also called Apo Baket, possibly an emanation of Magwayen, a great Visayan goddess of death and the underworld, since Our Lady of Guidance is associated with travel over water and spiritual guidance, similar to Our Lady of Peace and Good Travel in Antipolo. Her veneration would have traveled up from the Visayas to Luzon through trade and labor. She is the patron saint of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW).
Study for the Figurehead of the Galleon Angel de la Guardia (a.k.a. Magwayen) 2024, by Agnes Arellano.
There are other syncretic Mary and Jesus idols throughout the Philippines like the Black Nazareno who is also the indigenous Tagalog god Bathala or the Santo Nino of Cebu who is the animist Visayan child-god Santonilyo (likely a local deity similar to baby Krishna due to his association with rain). Both of these deities are incredibly important to Trinidad’s family back home, akin to their worship of Jesus and Mary.
Our Lady of Piat
Close-up of Apo Baket of Cagayan or Our Lady of Piat.
This is another local diwata or emanation of Tārā for she protects from the same great dangers: fire, floods and storms, evil spirits (sickness), and is known to respond quickly like Green Tārā.
Sharrie Villaver as Naginid (Nagini).
Many of the syncretic Catholic-animist saints and statues in the Philippines represent the peaceful forms of precolonial deities whereas many of the Hindu-Buddhist related ‘mythological beings’ depict the wrathful forms of precolonial deities. The traits that these wrathful forms encouraged in Filipino people were the exact traits that the Catholic Church attempted to suppress in them via genocides and other systemic methods of erasure in an effort to prevent rebellion and independence. Beyond worship, through Tantra, we can find many truths about ourselves in these wrathful forms. Trinidad pays homage to the revolutionary Babaylans like Tamblot and Papa Isio who fought against Spanish and American colonizers and missionaries to preserve what they could of our spiritual roots in the Visayas.
6th Century, sand stone carving depicting Shachi, Bihar Museum.
Trinidad used to share her knowledge of death and communication with spirits at her art workshops. Now her life includes privately assisting her friends, family, and community with difficult life transitions like illness and death, and with difficult emotions like grief. She meets with artists and art students regularly, by word of mouth, to discuss matters of art, ritual, pain, spirituality, and social justice. She uses her siddhis on behalf of adoptees, young mothers, neurodivergent disabled people, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, Autistic adults and children, homeless and working-class LGBTQ people.
Her thoughts, actions, art, relationships, music, poems, and comics are her karmic duties and devotional offerings to Ma Tara and Vajrayogini (Chhinnamasta).
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Close-up of Tsem Rinpoche’s Vajrayogini murti.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Trinidad’s favorite artists who were accidental mediums include Walt Whitman, Harriet Tubman, Nikola Tesla, Octavia Butler, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Frida Kahlo, and more. Her favorite energy workers and teachers include grandmothers and mothers like her own Nanay and Aisenia de la Cruz, many overseas Filipina workers who work as maids and nannies including her sisters and nieces, local witches and Tantric yoginis who practice baneful magick and demon work, her Tita Lucy who was an Autistic seer and Carmelite nun, and others like Angela Angel, Yeshuani, Lolo Lavish, La’Arni Ayuma, Ka Virgil Mayor Apostle, Kumare Khokhoi de La Vida at Kalami Spirit Arts, and Credo Mutwa.
“When you are a sangoma (a South African traditional healer),
your life ceases to be your own.
When you are a sangoma, you stop becoming an ordinary human being,
Instead you become a lonely pilgrim traveling that strange grey road
between the known and the little known,
between the visible and the invisible,
between the mysterious and the crushingly ordinary.
When you are a sangoma you do not look for trouble.
No self-respecting sangoma does.
But trouble finds you, people come to your doorstep bringing ordinary complaints
of which you can deal, but sometimes can bring strange mysteries to the doorstep
Of your life, mysteries that change your life forever.”
-Credo Mutwa on seeing interdimensional and extraterrestrial beings throughout the continent of Africa.
Yamantaka, Fear-Striking Vajra, Destroyer of Death (Tibetan: Gshin-rje-gshed), Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, Art Institute, Chicago.