A Bouquet of Good People

The best thing about being a writer is the chance to meet good and proactive people to write about. These evolved souls have surely uplifted my thinking and my spirit.

I have met moms who miss their sons in the troops. They group together to send their sons video DVD's, music CD's,food--candy and chips, socks, pillows and other comfort things. They hold garage sales to raise funds for their group.

I have met a mom who, with the help of her 2 best friends, mounted a community party fundraiser for Alissa, her 2-year old with terminal brain cancer. Since the little girl has only months to live, and their home nears foreclosure, they raised funds to give the little girl the comforts of home. Hundreds of people showed up at the party to eat and play, with donations in tow.

I have met a mom who lost her child to stillbirth. She now heads a petition that demands a Certificate of Death Resulting in Stillborn versus just a Certificate of Death--to acknowlege the viable life of that child, instead of just its death.

I have met women who walked to help out breast cancer causes, or people who walked to ease hunger. I have talked to a man who launched the local Random Acts of Kindness chapter here--looking for people who do acts of kindness without recognition or funfare (wow, I like his job, too!)

I have met a woman who collects crocheted squares from volunteers. She puts them together into blankets for the needy. There was a senior group who knits preemie caps and blankets given out to premature babies in the hospitals.

I have met a man who single-handedly mounted the first local filmfest in our area, setting up his backyard with a big projector screen for viewing under the stars--just because he felt there were many filmakers in need of more venues.

I have met Julie and Marisa, avid keepers of the soil, using worm compost and harvesting most of their vegetables, and teaching the community and their children how to plant.

Today, I met Shelly McMahon who lives in a farm that she tends with her husband and sons. On her Brentwood farm, she has lettuce, chard, tomatoes, arugula, radishes, and most of the salad greens we know of. But impressive are her herbs--basil, oregano, chamomille, mint, cinnamon-basil, lavender, scented geraniums, lemon verbena--that she dries into tea leaves. She gifted me with a bunch of these flowering herbs. (like the pic?) I am a coffee drinker but I may very well shift to tea just because of this beautiful bunch. The smell of all these fresh herbs reminded me of the bouquet of many good things I have been blessed with.

On her farm I also spied a real tree house, a pool, and all the space you need to raise 100 chickens, mules, and kids. She goes out on a tractor to till her soil and sow her seeds.

I feel like I stepped into a dreamland of peace and quiet, where she grows most of her food, eats in season, and enjoys an abundance of the earth's gifts.

I am smelling a lavender twig as I write this and I resolve to one day live among vegetables and flowers. Hey, maybe I already am!

Peace walks in the Labyrinth

“It is solved by walking.”
-St. Augustine of Hippo


A labyrinth is an ancient form found in many cultures and religions as far back as 5,000 years. Some labyrinths are made with rocks, some on landscape, and some on marble. There are labyrinths around the world—from Europe to New Zealand to the Philippines.

I checked out The Labyrinth Society and was so proud to find the we have several labyrinths in the country. One of which is at the Mirador Jesuit Villa (Society of Jesus' Retreat House) Phone: (632) 426-5941. They have an impressive-looking Classical Right-handed Knidos type of rock and garden labyrinth set in Baguio near the Lourdes Grotto.

Here at the St. George’s Episcopal Church in Antioch, there is a walkable nine-circuit French Cathedral Chartres-style labyrinth—a pattern developed for use in the 1200’s. Installed on asphalt by trained labyrinth facilitators, Craig and Jane Wirth in October 2004, the labyrinth continues to attract those who wish to connect with their deeper selves in the midst of our fast-paced and noisy outer world.



The labyrinth, versus a maze, has only one path that leads to the center and out again. There are no tricks, traps, or dead-ends. There are also no religious, age, status, or any requirements to walk the labyrinth.

“It’s always different for everybody,” said Jane. “You have to experience it to understand it. But once you walk the labyrinth, you will understand what it brings. For me, it was a mirror of my unrealized pain at first. It also helps me when I am stuck creatively. It is always a different walk—there is something new to learn and feel.”

Helen Curry, author of The Way of the Labyrinth: A Powerful Meditation for Everyday Life, said, “Labyrinths offer the opportunity to walk in meditation to that place within us where the rational merges with the intuitive and the spiritual is reborn. Quite simply, labyrinths are a way to discover the sacred in everyday life.”

Craig explains that, though the labyrinth “is not a magic tool,” it may be a magical avenue for self-expression. “Here is a tool to look at your own life. There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth. In the many years of facilitating walks, we have sensed the joy and the suffering of the people. It has been very powerful.”

Members of the Labyrinth Guild of the Delta and The Labyrinth Society (TLS)—a non-profit world-wide organization providing educational information, project support and networking opportunities for people interested in labyrinths, past and present, Craig and Jane expound on the international efforts to share the healing labyrinth with a broader audience, specially with schools, hospitals, and prisons. TLS also created and maintains the World Wide Labyrinth Locator which will give everyone the opportunity to find labyrinths all over our planet.

The labyrinth at St. George has been used for candlelight walks for 9/11 memorials, for honoring Tsunami victims and survivors, and for the bombings in Beirut, among others—as a way to express concern and healing. Lately, Craig and Jane organized World Peace Walks. Held every third Sunday of the month, the walks are aimed towards achieving inner peace and sending peaceful thoughts to the world.

Walking for peace that Sunday was Kitty Hayes from Pittsburg. “Don’t worry much about the outcome. Just come and try it out,” she said. Also peace walking were Kathy Scopel from Antioch and John Fearn from Sherman Island. “The labyrinth is very compassionate. There is no judgement or comparison. I just offer myself the way I am,” said Fearn.

I send out prayers of peace and that all wars be resolved. I send out good wishes to my friends who are down or sick or lonely or poor. I think about my parents and my brothers and reflect on our lives together. I miss my brothers. I send happy thoughts to everyone and hope that our lives will continue to remain full in challenges and rich with wisdom and love. Let's not forget what is most important okay?

when life gives you lemons

a repeat of the reason for my blogging. . .

a TV show not so long ago continues to inspire me. "the new heroes" aired in PBS last year featuring 14 people from around the world, the social enterpreneurs--that developed their businesses around solutions and resources to the very needy communities they were in.

albina ruiz found a way to address the inefficient garbage collection in peru. there was even a marketplace that had no garbage collection at all. unhealthy garbage festered. she gave the people in that community livelihood by empowering them to collect garbage more efficiently and environmentally safer than the government. now, the people prefer ruiz's services than peru's.

maria teresa leal founded a sewing coop for the very poor women in brazil to work from home and take care of their kids at the same time--recycling scraps of cloth into fashionable quilted fabric with knit and crochet accessories for designer fashion, now exported to europe.

muhammed yunus set up his grameen bank amidst the slums of bangladesh, providing micro-business with loans without collateral to the poorest women. grameen bank has been acknowledged as the single most important development in third world countries in 100 years.

i hope you can check out the site and meet the other 11 of my new heroes, not of wars or weapons, but of creative ideas and determination to change the world. maybe they will inspire you towards something greater, too! everyone has been made for some particular work and the desire for that work has been put into her heart. and aristotle said that "where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation."

my cousin, franco and his friends have founded ADVOCACY--a cause marketing agency that seeks to pursue CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives by linking companies with philippine NGOs. all the best to them!

so when life gives us garbage, we must segregate it. when life gives us cloth scraps, we should make a quilt.

how shall we change our world today?

click on the new heroes

can you fix it?

my daughter was playing with Leggo toys. she carefully built something piece by piece. when she finished she was so excited, she ran to show me her new masterpiece. but she lifted the toy up too fast and some parts of it came off and shattered to the floor.

she looked very worried. "can you fix it?" she asked.

i was busy, on a deadline. but then i went to her and we picked up the pieces, one by one. we put them together and restored her toy. she was smiling now, with a confidence that was infectious.

and then i realized, that my purpose may not be grand. rather, it can be the simplest thing--to help, to heal, to teach, to nurture--to make it a better place for someone else--and i must not miss even the smallest opportunities to make it so.

baby girl X

when i first saw her, she was on TV. she was abandoned and fighting for her life. encased in a glass incubator, she was thin gray, with at least half a dozen needles and monitors stuck into her dry and old skin.

i rushed to PGH and brought the antibiotics the public-service program said she needed, along with disposable diapers, a knitted cap, a soft toy, fuzzy blankets, and a stampita of the divine mercy. i peered into the most complicated incubator in the room, and there she lay, even more premature and smaller than i thought, weighing 950 grams, less than 1 kilo of porkchops.

baby girl X--it said on the incubator. and for some reason, she looked like my grandmother, mama maying, we used to call her, which was a baby's way of saying maring, a nickname for maria.

many people ask me when i decided to adopt my daughter. although i may have not known it yet, it was probably at that moment when i was astonished that baby girl X looked so much like my mama maying. for signs like these may seem coincidental to you but incredibly meaningful to me.

baby girl X did fight for her life, hard. through infections and roller-coaster sepsis levels and immature lungs, she made it out of the ICU into a regular ward (where cats and roaches settled underneath her basinette at night). i would visit her at night when my other kids were asleep, and my friend would tempt me to put baby girl X into a gym bag and whisk her away, so as not to go through the DSWD system. we weathered the bureaucracy and legal requirements of the welfare department and secured her adoption papers in time for our US immigrant petition. her legal and beloved name is selena.

selena is my light, my awesome reminder that God is good. everyone in the hospital said i could not adopt her. but obstacle after obstacle disappeared in the process. she has taught me the walking-on-clouds euphoria, that i have walked out of the county hospital with my feet seemingly 4 inches off the ground--you get only when you are in alignment to the Will of God at His precise time.

maybe i was poised by age, but adopting selena has defined my life in a way that continues to push the boundaries of who i am, what i can do, endure, achieve. we have endured uncertainty, rude questions, the gasps of people who think we have too many children. but as dr. wayne dyer said, "when you are inspired towards a greater purpose, all of your thoughts break thier bonds." there wasn't anything i wouldn't and couldn't do to adopt her. i miss this kind of clarity.

and so i start here, with an abandoned baby girl, with no name--for she brought with her an inspiration so strong, i would have been far less without it.

starfish poem