How I Survive as a Highly Sensitive Person in Chaotic Manila

I am a very introverted Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Note the caps. I'm not talking about merely being touchy or over-emotional, I'm talking about certain people who are actually biologically rigged to feel and react more strongly to sensory stimuli than the average population. A leisurely Googling brought me to discover about this fairly new physiological study, and it was very comforting to know that there's finally something to describe this "condition". I hope knowledge about HSP's would spread farther and wider so that family, friends, and bosses would understand that people like us aren't simply overacting. Among the quirks of being an HSP is that crowds make us very uncomfortable. All that depression, anxiety, anger and...

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Om Sweet Om

February 2013. It was a very hectic Friday at work just like the days and weeks before. I was taking an afternoon walk during my break to shake off the stress when I remembered a friend's suggestion to try yoga. I've always been interested in it but I was always coming up with a thousand excuses to put off actually going to a yoga class: I'm not flexible, it's expensive, there's no yoga studio nearby, I'd rather play Starcraft, etc. But then I was getting fed up of the monotony of my daily routine that I was quite ready to jump into something new. After some quick Googling on my phone, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there's a new studio that's just opened near my office (Bliss Yoga). Incidentally the place was just a...

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Murti Shopping in Manila Markets

Golden Tara. I made a visit to the Saturday Market at Escolta, a monthly bazaar set up by a collaboration of artists who call themselves 98B. It was held at the beautiful yet deteriorating Perez-Samanillo building and is part of an effort to revive this historical corner of Manila. Used to be a high street shopping district in the 60's, now totally rotting, run-down, and teeming with beggars and seedy, ugly people. The market was filled with the weird and wonderful: 80's vintage, bamboo amplifiers, home-made robots, 50-peso watercolor portraits, bone pipes, and lots of affordable art works. There was one bardic chap who was selling stories for 20 pesos. It was quite hip and bohemian, and for some reason I am reminded of Neil Gaiman's...

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As Above, So Below

My first peak and my first dive. The town of Anilao in Batangas is just a two-hour drive away from Manila but it brought me to entirely different worlds. In just one weekend, I did two amazing things which I have only just dreamed of doing: climbing a mountain peak and scuba diving. What's even more fun is doing it with fellow, earth-loving pagan friends.  Local mountaineers rate Mt. Gulugod-Baboy (aka the "Swine Spine") as one of the easiest peaks to climb but we still ended up with Bikram-yoga sweat after just a few minutes uphill. After about an hour and a half of huffing and puffing and taking short breaks to catch our breath, we finally emerged from high grass and were surprised by how different and beautiful the mountain-top...

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Making Magic Ink for Paper Talismans

I ran into this wikiHow about making ink out of teabags, and I thought how nice it would be to make some for writing symbols on paper talismans. Of course I'm not happy with just making normal tea ink. So I added some bay leaf and star anise and lemon peel and rose petals into the brew. Those sort of happy, positive, love-and-light magic herbs. It ended up smelling so sweet I could imagine rainbows and stars coming out of the tea. Using it as ink is quite a bitch though. It's not very "clingy" on the material I used, which is the back part of a document suited for my spell, and the stupid "ink" keeps feathering out on the paper. Using a nib pen is also another matter. I didn't realize those things need some mad skills to write with. My...

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Sweet Concoction

The cider vinegar and honey mixture is an age-old concoction used as a medicinal base, called oxymel, as well as a refreshing drink when mixed with water. I always use Bragg's Cider Vinegar and some cheap, locally-made honey sold in Tanduay bottles because the imported ones are so expensive. I found that there is actually a ready-made mixture from Wescobee being sold at some posh grocery stores, which I intend to try some day. It's well-known for it's numerous benefits from curing arthritis to increasing the immune system (by helping the body's alkaline/acid balance). Personally I use it as a remedy for moderate cough and cold and sometimes as a ritual drink. I like the taste by itself but occasionally I have fun with it by mixing it...

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Decluttering

"The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die.  The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal."  - Aleister Crowley During the past three months I have thrown and given away enough stuff that could fill a mini-van. Stuff that I used to own: exercise equipments, furniture, catholic statues, magical tools, old clothes, bags, four pairs of shoes, tons of books, dozens of CDs/DVDs, a desktop computer set, and other knick-knacks from inside my room. I have also cancelled club memberships and credit cards and I'm not even done yet. The past few years have all been same-ish to me and every...

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I Can Finally Swim!

Our P.E. class in second year college was swimming, which I never attended at all. I was afraid of the water - I did not know how to swim - and I was very uncomfortable with the idea of having to wear skimpy trunks in a public pool. My non-attendance cost me a slot in the dean's list, but meh, I thought, better that than die of drowning or humiliation. Every time my friends or co-workers go out on a swimming excursion I end up wading in the shallow parts of the pool while being totally envious of those who were frolicking freely in the water. I got sick of it. Almost spontaneously, I dragged my ass one weekend to enroll in Bert Lozada Swimming School.  My first challenge was actually wearing a pair of tight-fitting Speedos....

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Boracay - The Paradise Next Door

I was more curious than excited when my friend and I booked a flight to Boracay. Growing up in the Philippines - where everyone is just two hours away from a beach umbrella as they say - I believed I've seen enough beaches in my lifetime. I thought Boracay was just like any other white beach I've been to, only with cooler parties. Thankfully I was wrong. The island may be tiny but it's packed with long stretches of Nat Geo cover-worthy scenery. At early mornings when the tide is lower, the scenery is even more surreal. My camera just couldn't handle it. It's more than just a feast for the eyes: the powdery white sand is so soft and just lovely to step on. Despite the tourist crowd that somehow takes away the idyllic-ness (idyllicity?) of...

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