Temple Run in Angkor

Just posting some oldish vacation photos to fill the vast void of my blog.

Angkor Wat was a dream. I've been curious about it since I saw its photos in the encyclopedia. I went to Siem Reap on May 2012 with my good pagan friend Aldrin of the House of Two Trees. It was my first non-solo trip out of the country. Cebu Pacific just opened a direct flight to Cambodia and we were lucky to book tickets at the promo price. Being both francophiles we chose to stay in a hotel called "Terrasse des Élephants", which was absolutely gorgeous.

All in all, we visited nine architectural sites in the Angkor area. I was hoping to visit ten but the last one on the itinerary, Banteay Srei, was too far from and there wasn't enough time to get there according to our tuktuk driver/guide Adam. It didn't matter since we were all too templed-out anyway on our last day. We didn't do just temples though. Between temple running (more like temple-crawling actually), we managed to explore the quaint village of Siem Reap where we had a foot massage and fish massage, ate insects, haggled with shop owners, watched a cultural show, got touted at by ugly lady boys, got spooked by an old drunken lady, and had a fight with a waitress who didn't want to accept my dollar bill (okay, that was just me).

Angkor Thom
The capital city of the ancient Khmer empire. I had eyegasm as soon as I saw the looming gate from the tuk-tuk. The complex was actually too huge, we just explored the area in and around the royal enclosure (Phimeanakas) and the pyramid temple Baphuon.

Baphûon

The moat to the sacred city

Bayon
A large temple located inside Angkor Thom. It's defining feature is the large, creepy, smiling faces of Jayavarman VII scattered around the walls. It must have been so beautiful on its heyday.

 

Angkor Wat

After having lunch at KFC, we had the entire afternoon to explore the large complex. There were plenty of tourists but it was so huge sometimes we found ourselves walking through empty halls. My gods, this whole structure is unbelievable.

Vishnu

In the inner cloister

Prasat Kravan
First stop on the second day of temple running. A small temple older than Angkor Wat (built in the 10th century) consisting of five reddish brick towers. It seems to be dedicated to the god Vishnu.

Vishnu riding on the garuda.

Banteay Kdei
In front of the artificial lake called Srah Srang (the royal bath) is Banteay Kdei (the citadel of monks). I think this was the temple I had most fun exploring. There was actually a Buddhist monk inside guiding those who wish to make offerings and prayers to the Buddha. Here is also where I bought a water color painting of Angkor Wat made by a young artist. I also bought a ganesh murti from a vendor just outside the complex.

A nun putting a red thread on my wrist after puja.

Ta Prohm
The so-called "Tomb Raider" temple. Giant trees with their roots destroying parts of the temple like snakes coiling on their prey. It would have been more impressive it weren't for the large mass of tourists here.

Ta Keo
An huge temple mountain and a challenge for my fear of heights. It felt like an eternity to climb to the top. We were the only tourists when we reached the top of the temple. A strong rain suddenly began to pour and Aldrin and I had to go separate ways to find cover. Each of us found ourselves in a small crypt-like chamber where we had to wait out the rain alone for several minutes. It was a pretty calming experience actually. How often do you get stuck in the rain in a thousand-year old temple? As soon as we made our way back to our tuk-tuk, our guide told us that the temple was actually dedicated to Shiva and is also called the Temple of Lightning. Hmm, looks like Shiva was trying to impress a couple of pagans.

As you can see, the top of the temple is higher than the canopy of trees.

Preah Khan

Also called The Temple of Sword. What I liked most about it is the serenity. There were quite a few tourists coming here so there were a couple of times when it seems like we had the place all to ourselves.

Around Siem Reap

Watching a Khmer cultural show over buffet.

Exploring Wat Bo, one of the still active Buddhist temples in the city.

Spicy fried crickets, anyone? I was really hoping to find deep-fried tarantulas. They say they taste like crab.

The hotel
Our lodging in the city, "Terrasse des Eléphants". Would have been perfect if it weren't for the door-less, wall-less shower "room".

Pool at the rooftop.

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Enochian Alphabet Made Easy

I'm a language junkie. I learned how to read and write in Japanese kana, Cyrillic, Greek, Baybayin, Runic, and to some extent, Hebrew. I also learned enough kanji to take the Japanese L3 certification test. I came across the Enochian alphabet several years ago as a budding mage, and as much as I would like to learn it, any attempt that I do just becomes futile.

I don't expect to use Enochian letters often, but I believe knowing how to read and write with it is part of immersing myself in the Enochian magic paradigm. Besides, this time, I intend to work with Lon Milo Duquette's method in "Enochian Vision Magic" instead of the good old, tried and tested, yet much more complicated, Golden Dawn method, and part of the LMD's ritual is reading the Enochian letters in the Holy Table out loud. I'm quite sure I will be using the letters in future talismanic works as well.

There were two things that put me off from studying the Enochian alphabet: One, it's not particularly pretty to look at. Two, it doesn't make sense at all. The Enochian alphabet only has 21 letters, but what makes it excruciatingly difficult to remember is that the name of the letters is so confusingly unrelated to the sound that it makes (except for the letters Ged and Van). To compare, in the Elder Futhark, the rune for M is called Mannaz, P is Perth, and S is Sowilo. In the Enochian alphabet, the letter M is called Tal, the letter P is called Mals, and the name of the letter S is Fam. What the heck?

So, instead of taking them separately, I thought of fusing the sound and the name together. The letters M, P and S will now be henceforth known as Mtal, Pmals, and Sfam. In case I need to call the letter-name out loud, I just have to omit the first part. To demonstrate:

What's written in Enochian letters: B-K-G-D-F-A-E
How the magician should spell them out loud: Pa, Veh, Ged, Gal, Or, Un, Graph (crazy, no?)
How I will see them instead: Bpa, Kveh, Gged, Dgal, For, Aun, Egraph 
How I will spell them out loud: 'pa, 'veh, 'ged, 'gal, 'or, 'un, 'graph (I just take off the first letter)

It's just like what happens when some Pinoys call each other by their first names. I've been called 'Tian pretty often by some of those who know me as Christian. Eric becomes 'Ric. Joseph becomes 'Seph. And so on.

I think it's better to treat Enochian letters more like Japanese characters than alphabet. The Japanese usually has two pronunciations for each character, called onyomi and kunyomi. In the same way, each Enochian characters can be pronounced in two ways.

I employ a pretty simple mnemonic device to remember the shape of the Enochian character. To each character, I associate an image that resembles that character, with the name of that image beginning with the associated letter. For example, for the letter Bpa I assigned the mnemonic butterfly because it does look to me like a crude butterfly perching on a branch seen from the side (though this doesn't ring quite true for Crowley's version of the letter). Unfortunately the rest of the alphabet looks so odd it wasn't as easy to assign a mnemonic, so the rest are admittedly pretty lame. But then, that's the thing with mnemonic devices, it doesn't have to be logical, what's important is that it resonates with you.

The Enochian Alphabet (from Wikipedia)

Latin equivalent	Enochian Name of the Letter	Murmur's Version	Mnemonic
B	Pa	Bpa	butterfly
K	Veh	Kveh	K
G	Ged	Gged	G that looks like J (this letter can be pronounced as G or J)
D	Gal	Dgal	D with wings
F	Or	For	F with a wing
A	Un	Aun	anchor
E	Graph	Egraph	elephant (a very crude elephant head: showing the head and the trunk)
M	Tal	Mtal	M toppled to its side
I	Gon	Igon	"Igon" Spengler's hair
H	Na	Hna	hawk (flying towards the Horizon)
L	Ur	Lur	luna (crescent moon with two Legs setting foot on the side)
P	Mals	Pmals	plump (a Plump, Pregnant woman lying on its back)
Q	Ger	Qger	quake (a Quake creating a rift on the land)
N	Drux	Ndrux	nail (Nailed so hard it made a dent on the wall)
X	Pal	Xpal	Professor X (don't ask why. May take too long to eXplain)
O	Med	Omed	okras (they're said to have medicinal properties)
R	Don	Rdon	rose (I don't know why but the curves remind me of rose petals)
Z	Keph	Zkeph	zipper (one hand holding the flaps of the pants together, and one hand about to pull the zipper up)
V	Van	Vvan	vortex (a bent tornado uprooting and swallowing a tree)
S	Fam	Sfam	skip (two legs Skipping on a Step)
T	Gisg	Tgisg	thorn

March 29 at a tea joint: Traced my own Sigillvm Dei Æmæth using a template and a couple of alphanumeric tables. It's tedious, but fun. I find myself palpitating and catching my breath as soon as I finished. I forgot I was working with divine and angelic names. Or it must be the caffeine from the bubble tea. Darn, and I need to make at least five more of this.

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I'm back. (I hope.)

Last year, I worked a spell to overcome my internet addiction, and while it did wonders on the quality of my life - having had less screen time and more real time - it sort of backfired at me: my personal emails have become a spammy mess and my blog has been catatonic.

 I also discovered Instagram, which has become sort of my mini-blog, and which is why you shall see more of these grainy photos from now on since it's a lot easier to carry a phone than a big-ass SLR camera.

Some friends also began to think that I had decidedly become a 'cowan' and left the magical life entirely. LOL. Silly friends. I am magic.

The local occult/pagan community seems to have quieted down anyways so there are quite a few events to write about. Most of the people's interests these days are leaning towards New Age and/or 'psychic' stuff that I really couldn't care about.

As for me, I'm still going strong with my (almost) daily asana-pranayama-meditation routine which I started a year ago. But since this year started, I haven't been personally celebrating any pagan feasts even though I'm still a member of the Arn nDraiocht Fein and have yet no intention to leave. I have gotten a bit lazy on Brighid's feast day, and Spring Equinox just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not particularly keen on celebrating the coming High Days either. I still keep and maintain an altar to the orishas but my cultus to the Lord of Iron has come to a hold. So there, I'm currently in pagan-practice limbo. It's as if I suddenly got tired of following established pagan traditions. I've become so lazy that I even had to 'hire' a friend to offer to the gods for me. Still, I'm a happy plain vanilla pagan.

Oh yeah. I'm going back to Enochian magic, which will be sort of a challenge since I have given all my high magic implements away. But then, beginning from scratch also has its merits. I think I've become wiser and more experienced now to handle the Work™, and the mental and physical training I have undergone through I believe is enough to protect me from the ill-effects it may bring about. Enochian for me is an adventurer's magic - it's scary yet fulfilling.

Shit. It's been three years since I last used this. How do you switch this thing on?

This is the first post for 2014, I'm really hoping there will be much more to come this year. Meanwhile, time to work on those drafts, or maybe I'll just post some of my vacation photos for now.

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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 various shit that many everyday people are carrying - easily gets into our skin. That's why it seemed like a joke of the universe that I had to be born in the world's most densely populated city and live among the world's most emotional people.

It is not all pain and suffering though. Being an HSP for me is more a boon than a curse. Creativity, curiosity, spirituality, and a rich inner life are just few of the perks of being an HSP. Art and music and all things beautiful excite me, therefore I search for and surround myself with them. Regardless of what the cynics say, there's still much beauty in this world, and yes, even in suffocatingly crowded Manila, if one knows where to look.

A quiet afternoon in General Luna street.

1. Portable Music Players. I've had them since the early 90's - from my no-name cassette player in high school to the 160gig iPod with noise-cancelling earphones shoved into my ears right now. I never leave the house without it and it's become virtually a part of my physical body. It's a miracle I haven't got any hearing problems yet since I often listen at maximum volumes. Whether I'm in a rush-hour commute or drowned in the noise of the corporate office, the music in my ears instantly transports me to another, more pleasant world.

Bakasana. Getting there.

2. Exercise. I consider exercise more as a way of life rather than merely a solution to fix something on the body. The benefits extend way beyond looking better physically, it also helps a lot to feeling better mentally, emotionally and spiritually. This year I have learned to leave the confines of the gym and took my exercise to the swimming pool, the running track, the yoga studio and the boxing ring and it has actually become more than a lifestyle, but a passion. Strength training improves my endurance, which serves as a layer of protection against strong, unpleasant physical stimuli. Yoga, though I'm hesitant to categorize it as "exercise", is specially quite valuable in helping me learn how to temporarily tune down my hypersenses, or at least my reaction to stimuli.

My meditation-friendly bedroom when I was living in Alabang.

3. Reprogramming the mind. Being hypersensitive means being easily annoyed, rattled, ashamed or depressed, and when I am in any of these states I would often come up with irrational thoughts that do more harm to myself and to other people. While I was reading a book on the train, there was a guy who kept popping his bubble gum throughout the half-hour commute, the sound was so annoying and I could still hear it even with my iPod on at maximum volume. I was getting so riled up that I began having evil thoughts like "accidentally" stepping on his foot on the way out. I'm training my mind to raise an alarm bell whenever thoughts like these come up, and try to counteract it with the voice of reason: "This guy isn't deliberately trying to annoy me", "If you had bubble gum right now you'd be popping it too". Changing how your mind reacts can be quite difficult - like potty-training a kitty. I find that it's a lot easier when I heave a deep breath and try put to on a smile however fake it is. Eventually the devils in my mind would be banished anyway and I end up genuinely smiling at myself.

Having coffee like an ilustrado at Barbara's Café.

4. Cafés. I avoid Starbucks as much as I could. Although there are a few exceptions, they tend to be so crowded and tend to have a loud-mouthed group of friends who would spoil your introspective Nescafé moments. Those quaint, lesser-known street-side cafés are more to my liking. I would rather go for a teh tarik and a kaya toast in Kopi Roti, or a banana-split in that old ice cream parlor in Escolta which exudes a pleasant, American-era vibe. An Illy cafe inside a bookstore branch is my favorite art spot. When reviewing for the French exams, I tend to hangout in the coffee shops near schools and find myself surrounded with young people solemnly reading their textbooks. On weekends, even popular cafés and tea joints in the business districts become cozy sanctuaries due to the absence of the working folk.

Serene and a bit creepy. San Agustin museum.

5. Museums. A silent place filled with art and history, it's an obvious choice for an HSP to run to when escaping from the city's madness. Ayala Museum updates their exhibits from time to time, and a walk inside the San Agustin museum is not to be missed. Unfortunately, museums in Manila are quite few and far between - just like nature parks, which HSPs sorely need. 

Crêpe Flambée au Grand Marnier, by Monsieur Gigi at the Salcedo Market.

6. Weekend Markets. Yes, there are crowds but they are not (usually) the unpleasant types. While I try to hold myself from buying every shiny trinket that I see, I wallow in the festive air and savor my excitement to explore these interesting curiosities around me. Fortunately we have a growing number of them, from the posh Salcedo market to the artsy and bohemian Escolta market.

Riding a calesa in Intramuros.

7. Explore, explore, explore. Manila has the biggest malls in the world because Manileños are such mall rats. But spending my weekends aimlessly strolling at malls just make my weekend feel so un-special. Besides I have already been spending the rest of the week in a crowded, soulless, concrete box. I would rather be walking (or running) on the streets, learning in a classroom, attending a workshop, watching a play, doing sports, trying out a new resto, having coffee in a quaint little corner, or just simply trying to discover new places and new things to do. Don't listen to what the SM commercials say - "We've got it all for you!" my ass. There is a huge world outside the malls waiting to be explored.

Learning about Manila from Carlos Celdran at La Monja Loca.

8. More people can be fun too. Not all crowds are bad. Living in a city with a population of more than a million offers lots of opportunities to meet interesting characters. Widening my tiny social circle is one thing I would no doubt find challenging but the prospect makes me excited as well. Though I'm not quite ready yet hitting up a conversation with a stranger, I'm opening myself up more and have promised myself not to try scrambling away whenever a stranger in the café, yoga studio or gym initiates a casual chit-chat. Besides, I'm in my 30's. I'm already too freaking old to by shy.

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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 few steps from where I was taking a walk at that time so I immediately decided to drop by. I was even more delighted to find that they were offering free classes that week as a promo to attract new people in the area. It's as if the stars conspire that day to finally get my ass to a yoga class.

I remember how difficult it was walking into the class for the first time - especially since I was alone, no friends to secretly giggle at each other with. It was Sunday morning. Seeing these fresh, lithe, beautiful creatures in really nice yoga outfits got me all the more intimidated, out of place, and feeling awkward. I was already tense and my mind was racing before the class even started.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

The teacher came in and after a short introduction we were asked to stand up and do the yoga poses. This is it. Not knowing the names of the poses I just tried to manage what I could to mimic what the people around me were doing . The teacher kept telling us to focus on what I mistakenly heard as the "vagina breath" or something, which really didn't matter as I could only manage to huff and puff all along. Why is this making me feel so stressed? Isn't it supposed to do the opposite? It was almost an hour and a half of painful exertion, awkwardness, and feelings of stupidity. I kept glancing at the clock on my cellphone anticipating the end of the class, but time, like a mocking devil, was running painfully, teasingly slow.

And then, after what seemed like eternity, the class was finally coming to a close and we were asked to lie down. Just lie down, and close our eyes. Like a corpse. Shavasana - that's what the pose is called. It was the first Sanskrit asana name that I learned. I was simply anticipating to rest my limbs, until the teacher said the words: "let go" - and that was when the magic happened.

Let go. And I realized how tired I was of being so conscious of myself. How tired I was from trying to look good to others and trying to fit in. How tired I was from over-thinking and how I hate my brain for coming up with those irrational thoughts of anxiety, fear, and envy. It was not merely the poses I'm really grappling with, it was me. It was a trick. The poses were just tools. The problem was my mind more than my tight hamstrings. I was finally getting the idea of what it was all about. Coming into this realization brought a little smile in my face as I lay there splayed like a drunken Buddha. I finally let go. And the breath that followed was no longer a strained attempt to catch my breath, but a breath of relief, accomplishment, and gentle, calming bliss.

It was love at first sigh.

Padmasana

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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 novel "Neverwhere". While I was rummaging through stuff, a few shoppers suddenly burst into song singing a medley of 90's Filipino hits. It turns out that they are performance artists, and after the song they performed some story about an electric fan. Weird. I love it.

 Saturday Market at Escolta.

It was tough to decide what to spend my weekend money on but as luck would have it, I found a replica of the Srivijaya-era golden Tara found in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. I finally have a Filipino deity on my altar! The seller told me a longish story about its history and archaelogical significance and stuff, but really, dude, just take my money. Pagan friends went green with envy as soon as I instagrammed a photo of it.

On Sunday, I met up with Aldrin and Jonathan to shop for some deity statues in an arcade in Dapitan. We've heard from friends that there's great bargain to be found here. True enough, the arcade looks like a treasure trove of Christmas giveaway ideas. It was a total feast for the eyes: Buddhist statues, kokeshi dolls, replicas of Rococo paintings, antique santos and Egyptian relics. Unfortunately it was sorely lacking in Greek statuary, which my Neokoroi friend was hoping to buy. All was not lost though as we have found a very nice looking figurine of Avalokitesvara-Guan Yin and a ceramic portrait of Lakshmi, Sarawati and Ganesh, both for just a measely one thousand pesos. We're hoping to come back after a few pay days to buy some more.

Knick-knacks at the Dapitan arcade.

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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 landscape was. It felt like we have just stepped into the Windows XP default wallpaper. There's a great feeling of accomplishment and natural high just standing on top of the mountain and looking at the land below. It would've been cool if we set up camp here but we had to prep up early for a morning dive.

When in Batangas, have barako coffee (my favorite).

The seaside diving resort we stayed in was quite cozy. The porch was wide enough to lay our mattresses on, and so we had the mountain breeze and the crashing waves lulling us to deep, restful, delicious sleep.

We had our dive master Pixie teaching us the basics of scuba diving. Thankfully It wasn't too complicated as I thought. I couldn't get over how cool I look the first time I wore my diving gear. We had to take a boat to the diving site and the preparations took quite a while before we finally plunged into the sea.  As we go deeper and deeper I was growing in awe at the alien, dream-like, underwater world revealing itself for the first time around me. It was so beautiful, I could cry. Seeing it was one thing, feeling it is another. The sense of being weightless is just indescribable, I felt like a spirit hovering over the seabed. I emerged from the waters with a bleeding nose because my right ear had problems equalizing, but I was relieved after being told that it was quite normal among newbies. I slept that night dreaming of Finding Nemo land.

I'm hooked. I'm saving up for a PADI course right now.

 Tired feet on top of the mountain.

Feeling the mountain breeze.

 Waking up by the sea.

Laughing at the instructional video.

 Prepping for the plunge.

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