Stairway to Heaven

It was around four thirty in the afternoon and I was just about templed out.

Sitting in an ’83 Toyota Camry, watching the forest trees wiz by in a blur of dark green interspersed with glimpses of light, I mentally recalled my checklist of things done during our whirlwind visit to the Angkor of the ancient Khmer empire.

Watch the sun slowly inch its way above the Angkor Wat complex from the Central Sanctuary of Phnom Bakheng.... Check.

Ride a hot-air balloon to get an aerial shot of Angkor Wat emerging from the forest …… Check.

Pay homage to the Creator at the Gallery of a Thousand Buddhas...... Check.

Thump chest and hear the resonance in the Hall of Echoes… Check.

Strike a graceful pose in the Hall of Dancers at Preah Khan ….. Check.

Pass through the Gate of the Dead where a jumble of gods and demons stick out of the soil like victims of a horrific cosmic pile-up.…Check.

Visit Ta Prohm, home of the twisted and convoluted Tomb Raider tree… Check.

We had taken enough pictures to fill 2 memory chips, eavesdropped on numerous guided tours, and logged enough miles to get to Batangas City and back.

Two days later and I felt like a day-old birthday balloon slowly losing air. Something was missing. Maybe it was over anticipation. The mythical image that I had sketched of Angkor in my sepia-colored dreams was such that the reality fell far short of my expectations. Silly me….I had not taken into consideration the busloads of retirees from Europe, Japan and America. It was Disneyland without the walking mascots. Everybody and his mother wanted a picture of the most prominent apsara (celestial nymph) and/or most impressive garouda (symbolic protector of the air and water). It was hard to find a spare moment to contemplate and absorb the majesty of the ancient, intricately carved temples when every 15 minutes, a new bus would disgorge another gaggle of noisy, camera toting tourists from hell. It was with a great sigh of relief that we escaped to the tranquil Angkor Café. There we reveled in melt-in-your-mouth Blue Pumpkin gelatos while browsing through the outstanding (and expensive) wood and stone masterpieces of the Artisans d’Angkor.

All in all, a wonderful experience but still, something was missing. I was still unfulfilled.

Our patient driver must have noted our slow, inevitable descent into catatonia.

“It is dripping with green and crowned with trees, but is still supreme over the forest. It..shows the development of a new spirit in the people, the growth of good taste.”

Ta Keo is one of the great temple-mountains at Angkor dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, the Destroyer of Evil. It is an earthly replica of Mount Meru, the sacred dwelling place of the gods. Built between the end of the 10^th century and early 11^th century, Ta Keo rises 72 feet to the sky. Composed of enormous interlocking blocks of greenish-grey sandstone, work on the majestic temple was abandoned just after the start of its ornamentation. Archeologists have not yet confirmed why it was uncompleted, although many point to the death of King Jayavarman V as the root cause. Had it been finished, it would have been one of the finest temples in Angkor, one of the first to have been built of sandstone. The sheer simplicity of the structures that remain leaves an indelible impression of stoic strength and power. Centuries have passed, kingdoms have risen and fallen and Ta Keo remains… a silent link between man and the heavens.

I grunted and groaned my way to the top. Ta Keo is a structured pyramid conforming to the usual rule of proportional reduction. As I got closer to the peak, the steps grew exceptionally narrow and muscle-punishingly steep. At one point, I was inching my way up on my hands and knees like a supplicant on pilgrimage. I reached the central tower, gingerly turned around and gasped. The sun was just beginning its descent into night - its brilliant red, orange and yellow hues setting the giant treetops before me afire.

I spent another 20 minutes in quiet contemplation, soaking up the grandeur of the panoramic view. I do not recall the exact thoughts running through my head during that time. I do know that I rediscovered my inner center there, listening to the distinctive song of the cicadas and reflecting on the faith which inspires ordinary people to create extraordinary pieces of work as an expression of their devotion to a higher being. The memory of my laborious ascent up this great, unfinished temple-mountain now serves to remind me that my life is a work in progress, constantly striving for self-knowledge and unity of being.

- posted by J-O-H @ 3/22/2006 02:02:00 AM 0 comments

 
Confessions of a Reluctant Pilgrim
All my travels have reflected an inner itch to escape whatever present physical or mental confinements I am in. Always on the search for the literal and figurative "peak experiences" as the psychologist Abraham Maslow would put it, I lived for the next mountain adventure or the sea escape. Without them I felt like a fish stranded in land or a restless caged panther. Perhaps I wanted so much to be freed of my external surroundings in as much as I wanted to escape myself. Travelling gave me leeway to assume different personas. From the wild hippie chick, to the solitary philosopher to the playful adolescent. I could always justify that if most people had their religion, I had my itinerary for my morphine. Travel as my drug of choice for my next "high".

But what was I really trying to run away from? Now there is a realization that my pressing need to leave or go straight for the nearest exit door was my way of coping . I did not have a name for my clinical depression then. The vivid greens , the turquoise waters and the pink sunsets somehow relieved the persistent blackness hovering over me. I was a dried-out nautilus. A balloon waiting to breathed in to life. My desolateness and emptiness was filled in with the myriad of sensations of travel. Seeing, feeling and taking it all in what was outside was my relief. I lived vicariously through peoples' smiles;their songs, and their stories.

If things do have a way of catching up on us, then my two-day climb to Mount Pinatubo was my confrontaton with myself. The setting; a vast lahar wasteland in the province of Capas Tarlac. The presently standing five thousand foot volcano in Central Luzon is still nature's work in progress with its intermittent eruptions for more than 35,000 years. Its most recent in June1991 was recorded to be the 2nd world's largest eruption in the 20th century. Albeit considered by volcanologist a minor eruption compared to other more catalclysmic ones of its history , it's catastrophic magnitude can not be underestimated with all the 80,000 locals of surrounding provinces of Tarlac, Zambales and Pampanga displaced. 1/8 of this belonged the Aetas, an indigenous tribe living on the foot of the mountain. This also sealed the fate the US Military Base leaving their barracks and nuclear playground for good. With its desolate terrain, I knew right then that this was not going to be my usual pleasure trip.

It could have been the perfect backdrop for a sand dune fight scene in Star Wars ,with its endless stretch of lahar (volcanic debris composed of mostly Silica and other minerals lending its ashen gray color). This perhaps would be the closest experience I can get to walking in the moon. I was soon jolted out of my reveries of a "Sahara crossing" riding on a camel's back in this sand terrain with the screeching sound of our pick-up truck's wheels mired in heaps of lahar. We initially planned to cut the distance of our walk by driving through a third of the way. It took us a two hour delay to dig our tires out of their quicksand-stuck state.The original 3 hour trek turned into a six hour pre-holy week penance.

Surpisingly, one soon grows into the land's permeating silence like comfortable companions. Me and my fellow hikers lost in our own private ruminations, our walk surprisingly turned out to be an enforced meditation. Tuning us out in whatever chaotic selves we brought here to a state of "tabula rasa", a blank slate. Transporting us into the uninhabited planet in us. Or perhaps in our minds, we were cursing ourselves for going to this trip in the first place.

As I slung my backpack and prodded on a step at a time, I could not help but wonder how nature does not always show its nurturing and magnanimous face. This now barren land is covered by layers of sulfuric ash covering almost 4 million square kilomemters of once lush vegetation. The archetypal human drama of man's helplessness to nature's destruction. This was no walk in the park with its eerie gothic aura of twisted gray mounds of earth and huge boulders of dark basalt rocks strewn all over. A once raging river now is but a trace of a thin strip of water slithering through it.

Reaching the end of the trail and counting aside the blisters on my feet, beholding the lake sitting like an emerald eye on the volcano's crater was all worth it. Technically an acid lake, formed by rain water and volcanic gases (sulfur and carbon dioxide) released by small slits of vent underneath. With the sun's rays reflecting on its green glass surface, it was nature's cathedral window.In search for my next thrill, I found this grotto of stillness after what seemed to be an endless bleak terrain. One of the rare instances when one stops running to get a taste of peace and a glimpse of home.
- posted by happy bingo @ 3/21/2006 04:18:00 PM 0 comments

 
The Road to Baclaran Church: Penance & Promise
THE ROAD TO BACLARAN CHURCH: PENANCE & PROMISE


The road to Baclaran Church is a road filled with penance and promise. Penance, for the devotees who walk the dusty, potholed, traffic-strewn road is long, and the trek ends at the church, where promises are said and petitions said to be granted.

I have been going with my mother to Baclaran Church every First Wednesday of the month for more than 8 years now. It is part of a promise I made to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for a petition granted. The Church, run by Redemptorist fathers houses the Shrine of the Byzantine-like icon of the Virgin Mary who is the object of profound devotion for Filipinos from all walks of life.

This particular first Wednesday in March is Ash Wednesday and nothing could have prepared us for the massive traffic jam, biting heat and humongous crowd that gathered on that mid-morning. It was impossible to park the car near the church as cars stood still from as far as EDSA and Roxas Boulevard. Thus my mother and I decided to walk the half-kilometer trek perhaps to feel the sacrifice more on this day that signalled the official start of Lent.

We found ourselves getting off at the corner where the newly refurbished Greek-inspired façade of the Casino Filipino at the Heritage Hotel was unveiled recently as the streamer announced, another proud paean to the local authorities and the country’s leading gambling agency, the irony of which never fails to amuse me, of how even in this modern age, gambling and a church are always found close by. However, the casino looked empty as the entrance was bare save for a lone security guard. As we passed its parking lot there were no cars to be found. No gamblers today, I thought. Not on Ash Wednesday, when fasting and abstinence are the norm to us Catholics. But then again it is only 10:00 a.m.

Jeepneys and buses faced off a few meters ahead, tricycles backed up, barkers and drivers shouting in an attempt to unsnarl the mess. This was no ordinary Wednesday, I thought and our penance was just about to begin.

We were swallowed by the crowd on foot and slowly trudged along the dirty side street. It was free of moving traffic now as the jam had produced a wide stretch of car-less pedestrian space before it. We inched and snaked our way through the crowd, mindful of the vendors that had set up by the road as we headed towards Redemptorist Road.

My mother stopped to buy colorful handwoven fans to cover and cool us from the heat. A blind musician crooned love songs on a small karaoke and we stopped to drop a few coins in his tin cup. Up ahead various vendors traded their wares while grown men act as lookouts for cops who raid these “illegal” vendors. It is difficult not to think of the irony of life on this road, how devotees or so-called penitents walk through this way, thinking of how they can reach the church, where they lift their prayers and petitions to be answered, walking with this single thought in mind while the citizens of the streets eke out their day’s wages through any method possible. Watch-your-car-boys, jeepney barkers, children offering to carry packages and bags, name it they are all over.

As we see the vendors smiling and chatting, their small children laughing and playing, my mother comes up with her oft-repeated line, “Look at how they are, so poor yet so happy. Makes you realize how lucky you are.” I remind myself to be happy at being lucky but I still can’t erase the thoughts from my mind.

We turn left to a narrower road to avoid the intense heat of the sun. Bad decision. Unusually the crowd is even more dense in this side street. Our “suki” or usual vendor of dried fish smiles at us. Manang, as we call her, is a heavy set, old woman, with dark complexion, small twinkling eyes squatted infront of “bilaos” (round native flat woven baskets) of dried “tuyo” and “tinapa” (salted and smoked herring) and “daing na bangus” (smoked milkfish). The special of the day is her “tinapang tilapia” (smoked St. Peter’s fish) and we buy half a kilo of this. She gives us the usual “dagdag” (or extra) with her trademark wink to her staff, careful that the other buyers do not hear of our largesse. Manang knows that Lent is a time for brisk business, with the start of abstinence and not eating meat on Fridays happening on this day, Ash Wednesday.

We walk further down this small road and notice that the layout is different from last month’s. The plant and flower vendors are now on both sides of the street so the walkways are narrower. It does not help that the ambulant vendors selling everything from fancy jewelry to fruits to manicure implements to bags, peanuts, shirts, pots and pans set themselves in the center, acting as divider for those going to and from the road to the church. I feel a bump from behind and in turn nudge my mother, who is walking in front of me. There is a trigger effect as she hits the elderly woman before her. Stares ensue and my mother shouts to the crowd to watch it. This doesn’t surprise me as my mother, who at 67 is all of 24 years, is used to crowds. I fondly call her the original “Batang Quiapo” (kid from Quiapo) as she was used to walking fast through crowds with my late maternal grandmother, the original Marian devotee who would take her along to Quiapo church as a toddler with my aunt.

Tense grumbling is heard as people walk counterflow with bags of clothing, food and flowers hanging from their raised hands. Somebody remarks that this is the worst of times, that the crowd rushing forth to the Church coincides with those coming out from the Mass. In my 8 years I have never seen a crowd this thick here at Baclaran. Not even on the side streets. From atop a platform an elderly man asks that everyone be careful, and not to push. lest this become another “Wowowee” stampede situation. Nervous laughter ensues and I think of how the Filipino can think of comedy, that of the dark kind, in a situation like this. Just as the situation becomes so tight and packed, my mother pauses in front of a vendor selling houseclothes or dusters. She wants to buy a few for my aunt in Toronto, who is looking for a particular batik design. I shake my head and ask her why she has to buy at this particular time, but more so why my svelte, elderly aunt would want a sleeveless, flimsy piece of dress to wear in snowy, frigid Toronto? Its because they don’t sell them there, my mom explains. I just tell her to pay for it quick as I get the looks from those behind me who want to get past us.

As sweat trickles down in clumps on my back I pray to Our Lady to help us get out of this swell. My mother again converses with another lady to stop pushing and I feel the heat and perspiration of bodies packed side by side, front and back against my skin. I hope I don’t pass out here but I realize that if I do I will not even fall and remain standing. Walking slowly inch by inch, seconds seem like hours as the road is even thicker at the corner where it turns right to Redemptorist Road.

Just as all hell seemed to be trapped in that one road, the elderly man on the platform shouts to us that we can go up the stairs on the right and make a short cut through the Berma Shopping Mall. The ladies in front follow suit and through the shoving we float our way up to the stairs. The cool air from the mall blows the sweat from us but provides only temporary relief as we follow the crowd out to the entrance which leads to Redemptorist Road. Back to the heat, cars lined up bumper-to-bumper with nary a space left in sight to maneuver. The crowd spills onto the spaces between cars like ants down a hill. We head on to walk by the vendors’ stalls that do a thriving trade selling clothes, shoes, bags, belts, underwear, curtains, what-have-yous. The heat is unbearable and I wish we had brought umbrellas. Closer to the gates of the church compound are the stalls selling religious icons, statues, novenas, rosaries and candles alongside older women selling herbs, pills, potions and roots for abortion purposes from makeshift stands. Another irony in Baclaran.

The normal ten-minute walk has stretched to a twenty-minute sojourn. Walking past the gates my mother decides to buy flower garlands from a little girl. Always buy from the little children she says, keeps them off the streets. Another rule which again makes me wonder if I should be happy to be lucky.

From the church, devotees walk out with smiles and black ash crosses on their foreheads. Speakers blare away loudly the novena as people are packed shoulder-to-shoulder 5-feet wide outside the church doors. The site of the church reminds me that redemption is near. However its another ordeal to get inside. We sneak our way slowly inside sideways through rows of devotees clutching at novenas reciting out loud. We only manage to stand a few feet from the confessional box which is full and crowded outside with would-be penitents all lined up.

I make sure that from where I stand I see Our Lady’s icon, the image that for the past 90 years has served as promise for people to lift up their hopes, dreams, prayers and wishes to. As I open my old, dog-eared novena I can’t help but marvel at the faith of these people, faith so thick you can cut it with a knife. Faith or devotion to the promise of an answered petition, whichever it is, to me, is the reason that they are drawn to coming to Baclaran on a Wednesday and not only on a Wednesday. As I finish reading my novena and my thanksgiving prayers and proceed to leave the Church, I recall the trek we went through and how it was for me. That the promise of an answered petition is the value of the penance paid for it.
- posted by belle gourmand @ 3/14/2006 06:31:00 PM 0 comments