Started my holiday shopping only now 
Got my 9-month old goddaughter this toy only because it reminds me of my niece’s favorite–a hand puppet!
Took a peek of what’s inside before wrapping.
Little did I know that the toy teaches these:
Oh yeah! Start them young! 
It is just so hard for me to greet “Merry Christmas”, so hard to be merry when people around you are suffering. Christmas is a season of giving and I guess the best gift one can give is a better, brighter future to the succeeding generations.
Made a quick summary of typhoons that hit the Philippines in the 1990s onwards and the damages they caused in lives (measured in terms of wages people could have earned in their lifetime) and properties. This is my challenge, this should be the state’s challenge, to any business that poses threat of destruction to our environment: if you will spend Php9.5 billion a year in labor or wages, that of the executives’ excluded, and not in taxes, not in revenues or gross domestic product or value added, then go operate in this country. Otherwise, we do not need you in this place, we have no reason to let you operate in this place–neither principle nor profit justifies your existence.
*****
Happy to know that the likes of Christian Monsod is on my side. His article read:
The challenge to the government to disallow projects that, in the words of Paul Krugman, socialize costs and privatize benefits, such as mining, the biggest problem cited—in Surigao, Albay, the Cordillera Administrative Region, Palawan, Samar, Caraga and Zamboanga provinces—where the poor hope that the Aquino administration is not misled by the industry in the face of their personal testimonies on the hardships it brings them, including the social divisions through the wrong use of money.
Read his entire article here.
Overall, I think that the impeachment of the chief justice is a necessary yet an insufficient condition to achieve the reforms that the poor want, and DESERVE.
We can always share our prayers, energies, and good intentions to our fellows in Mindanao. For those who can, let us also extend practical help to them. Here’s one way to do it:
*****
Reports say that aside from the abnormally heavy downpour brought by Sendong (first time CDO and Iligan experienced typhoon no. 2…and that was only no.2?!), what also caused the water to rise were the logs, yes from logging, illegal or otherwise I don’t care, the blocked the waterways. So where the *&^*&^% are those loggers now who earned a fortune by destroying our forests? Let this be a lesson to us. The aftermath of mining will not be any better than what Sendong has brought us. NO TO MINING! NO TO EVERYTHING THAT WILL DESTROY NATURE! We destroy nature, we destroy life, we destroy us.
*****
Last week, before Sendong came, I was having an interesting and intelligent conversation with a taxi driver. He was certainly against mining, arguing “Sila ang namamasasa, pag dumating ang karma, tayo ang kawawa. (They enjoy the profits, but when karma comes, the rest of us suffer.)” Ah, the wisdom of the simple-minded!
Me and My Guru 
A couple of months before I started my yoga journey, I met my guru who introduced me to the world of energy and the chakras. One of the things that fascinated me was the proposition in the book he shared with me, Power versus Force: that humans live at vastly different levels of energy or “consciousness” on a logarithmic scale of 1-1000 and any person, concept, thought or object that calibrates at 200 (the level of integrity) or above is positive (“power”) while anything below 200 is negative (“force”). This concept made me understand better my friend who taught me that construction workers speak their own language and you need to speak it as well for them to understand you (read: for them to do what you want them to do). I initially thought he was mean; but the book suggests that there is no way one can change the way low-energy people behave–lying, living in disorder, etc. “Kailan mo silang bulyawan para sumunod, kundi hindi nila gagawin ang trabaho nila (You need to yell at them so they would do their jobs.)” Of course this is not intended to judge or offend all the construction workers; needless to say, my friend is speaking from his experience with his own staff. But you get the drift.
Another lesson I learned from my guru is that the things around us create and/or affect our energy. I am obsessive-complusive (OC); I notice the slight changes in my things, so I know right away when someone messes up with them. And it really, really, irks me! One day, I noticed my pencil holder in the office wasn’t in its place so I screamed “who worked on my desk?!” My co-worker was quick to admit and apologize though. “Grabe ka naman, napansin mo, hiniram ko lang yung ballpen mo sandali pero sinauli ko naman. (Wow! You noticed. I just used your ballpen for a moment but put it back in the holder.)” But I digress. The guru said that it is good keep our energy channels clean and in order so that energy can flow easily, and that means keeping our things organized. That the environment we create is a reflection of our state of mind is true.
*****
My five-month old pup used to be a sweet darling…until she learned to chew up on a lot of things around the house. Our front yard was a mess every morning. Last week, our help took a day off so the cleaning was left to me. OM. OC that I am, I cleaned up every nook and cranny of our yard. Voila! My pup behaved very well the whole day until the next!
On the third day, she pulled and chewed on our aloe vera plants (was she empathizing with me?). So what gives, I wondered. I plotted my observations–she misbehaves when our help feeds her dinner and does otherwise when I do. Not to demean our help but she is the type who throws her trash anywhere in the house even if there’s a bin in her room and lies through her teeth–a sign of low energy level.
It just amazes me to realize and actually see how my energy can be transferred to?affect? another living thing.
*****
I thought this concept of energy transference is something I make up in my mind. I have always believed that yoga teachers transfer to their students their own energy so that when YT experiences low-energy level, s/he finds it difficult to “enable” me to do certain poses. On the other hand, during her/his high-energy days, I could do some asanas miraculously. Adjustments, I think, require not only strength and skill, but also energy transference.
Not only the teachers, mind you. Even the students affect one another. I can sometimes feel someone’s unstable or heavy energy in class. Oh well, I hope my energy does not affect my yogamates in a negative way.
Even outside of the shala, there are times when I am extra sensitive to other people’s energy. I not only expend energy, I also absorb energy! The thing is, sometimes I cannot/do not discern the frequency I pick up. Some people just zap my energy, while other’s delightful energy is simply contagious!
Oh well, as Einstein said, “energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another”…or channeled from entity to another. And why not? We live in one world, one system after all. So what to do with the low-energy entities? Either avoid them or deal with them…because negative energy cannot be destroyed and positive energy cannot be created.
OM.
