A Thousand Summers 4

Saturday Evening Posts

January 31 to February 6 Edition

A Thousand Summers 4

Christmas came. I love that special feeling in the air.

I see Yuletide differently now, like a migratory bird sensing the advent of winter.

This is the time when I stop, step back and review my life. I do it with as much detachment as I could. It's like somebody outside looking in, watching myself and seeing somebody else.

I ask myself the questions inward-looking people normally ask only during moments of abysmal existential angst: Where am I? Where do I really want to go? And perhaps the most soul-stirring: what kind of person have I become?

I feel keenly that my life is an ongoing journey. It gives me comfort that, wherever I may be, literally and metaphorically, I won't be there forever. The road is endless and the world is infinite.

I cannot imagine myself living a conventional life purely to satisfy other people's double-standard expectations. Still, I am sort of conscious of the human yearning to be where I can feel I belong, to finally find a place I can call home.

I have always yearned for a simple life even during my bohemian teenage years. Then at the end of that December came an epiphany like a thunderbolt: I already have it.

To Be Continued Next Saturday

Across The Universe

Huggybear's Favorite Songs From The Beatles

January 28 Midweek Musical 

Here Comes The Sun 

If I Fell 

Here, There and Everyday 

To Be Contined Next Wednesday

Photo courtesy of lagubestbest.com

A Thousand Summers 3

Saturday Evening Posts

January 24-30 Edition

A Thousand Summers 3

Happily, I got a four-day vacation near end November: two days off because it was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and weekends are our fixed rest days.

          My first stop was Manila. I circled Luneta Park from the National Library to Instituto Cervantes, both in Kalaw. I saw a lot of young students in different groups practising for their stage presentations in and around the towering Lapu-Lapu statue. I love children. It's always a joy seeing them in action - so full of innocence and enthusiasm for living.

             

          The next day, I was in Batangas City. Ostensibly, I was paying some debts but I, hands down, chose to make the trip instead of sending it via money transfer.

          I basked in the relative tranquility of the tree-covered courtyard of the old church. It was amazing to see all those sculptures and Masonic symbols

             

          Next stop was Lucena City. I like the people there in the same way that I like the folks of Santa Rosa, Laguna when I lived there in 1992. But I now avoid saying "The natives are friendly since I realized it's condescending. The fun part of Lucena is the plaza full of jam-packed food stalls in front of the provincial capitol. And the most intriguing is Benco, the old-fashioned stand-alone movie theater.

          It transported me back to another place just like it, also showing two bold films for the price of one. That was in Zapote some time ago. I was playing hooky from another high school I went into, in Las Piñas. I was 13 years old. A stranger sat beside me. We were the only ones in that row. His hand gently fondled my knee. My heart pounding nervously, I felt his fingers beginning to caress my thigh...

             

            My next destination is Mount Banahaw. Before I got surrounded by communist rebels in Tiaong, I had almost died in Sariaya: our overspeeding bus almost overturned after skidding off the dirt road beside the Maharlika Highway.

            In some of my previous lives, I believe I had died as a samurai who committed seppuku on Fuji and as an Incan shaman on a vision quest in the Andes. So as far as magic mountains go, for thousands of years, things have remained relatively the same.

A Thousand Summers 2

Saturday Evening Posts

January 17-23 Edition

A Thousand Summers 2

I love walking, it always clears my mind.

There was a time I walked a dozen miles from the Tikling crossroads in Taytay, Rizal to Sumulong Highway, overlooking the metropolis, in 2004. All the while, I was singing Trav'lin' Boy by Paul Williams, whose music goes with me everywhere. 

I remember my 1996 idyllic countryside stroll to Calantipe village in Apalit, Pampanga from Calantipay in Baliuag, Bulacan, where I stayed with someone who will always be special to me.

One of my trips that took me high was when I a young kid in 1991. I was then in Morong, Rizal, in one of the high schools I went into. I made my mountainous journey from Tanay to Siniloan in Laguna. Then to the woodcarving capital, Paete, then to Santa Cruz, Liliw and other towns. Somehow I ended up in Alabang, Muntinlupa, and little did I know that I would also live there.

Fast forward to October 2012, still in Alabang, is one of the happiest periods of my life.  I was then a call center worker bee in the campus-like Northgate Cyberpark. I was then living in CENA Village, a 5 minute walk from the office, my route under the trees with grassy vacant lots on both sides of the wide jogging lane behind Bellevue Hotel. It always brings me back to U.P. Diliman. Good vibes! I had established my own personal routine revolving around my vampire schedule.

I'd go home at the birth of daylight, my mind playing Umagang Kayganda by Ray-An Fuentes and Tillie Moreno and Al Jarreau' Mornin', and I would spend two hours, just for me, before going to sleep. This is when I'd listen to music on headphones and read.

Umagang Kayganda

Mornin'

See My Favorite Songs of Ray-An Fuentes and Al Jarreau

For the first time in my life, I began giving time to me, giving myself permission to be all I can be, free from the insecurity-driven obsession to please others.

That was just last year. A year. Seems like a thousand summers.

November came, and along with it is a chain of events that would make me see that there is a Higher Power guiding me and that angels brought me to where ever I may end up. It started the night before the morning when I'm supposed to enroll in a gym after being touched to my soul after watching Finding Forrester on cable at the office lounge.

Finding Forrester

See My Story On Finding Forrester

I had been issued a memo because there was an apple on my workstation; it was just there for my past-midnight lunch so I don't have to get it from my knee-level locker. The memo was from my supervisor, whom I had seen in the past eat burgers and rice meals at his station, on recommendation by the power-tripping assistant sup who hates me because I don't suck up to her. For me, a company that values hypocritical rules over common sense is not worthy of loyalty. That slip of paper would affect my chances of getting the promotion I was targeting. Suddenly, I lost the motivation to stay and move up; instead, I wanted to move out.

Of course, that was assuming I would survive the end of the world that coming December.

To Be Continued Next Saturday

Trav'lin' Boy

Paul Williams

See My Favorite Songs From Paul Williams

"I won't say that I'll be back again,

'cause time alone will tell,

So no goodbyes for one just passing through,

but one who'll always think of you..."

I've Been Waiting

Huggybear's Favorite Songs From Foreigner 

January 14 Midweek Musical 

Waiting For A Girl Like You 

Waiting For A Girl Like You 

Live 

Waiting For A Girl Like You

Rock of Ages

I Want To Know What Love Is 

I Don't Want To Live Without You



Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.com

A Thousand Summers 1

Saturday Evening Posts

January 10-16 Edition

A Thousand Summers 1

Some of the happiest moments in my life is when I'm on the road, traveling alone just for the sake of being somewhere else. I grew up in Antipolo and I have lived in lots of different places.

But Manila will always be special. Manila is where I first fell in love, where my heart was broken into a million pieces - the kind of pain where living seemed pointless. And Manila is also where I crawled back, got up and moved on again with my life.

I don't always get to where I want to, but I always find myself where I am meant to be.

One of the many places that's special to me is Olongapo. I first stayed there in Barretto town in 1997, spending most of the time in Driftwood Beach. It's still vivid how the bus was navigating the long and winding road, surrounded by the mountains of Cabalan, with the radio playing Boyzone's Isn't It Wonder.

Isn't It A Wonder

Boyzone

I even had the honor of spending an unforgettable morning with 3-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and PREDA founder Fr. Shay Cullen when I returned in early 2012, on the Preda patio with a breath-taking view of Subic Bay.

Fr. Shay Cullen Receives The Meteor Humanitarian Award

            On the way back to Caloocan, I passed by, naturally, Bataan. I have always felt a gut connection with the Filipino and American soldiers fighting side by side during the Second World War. I don't know why I feel I was there with them, giving our last full measure of devotion in the name of freedom. I remember standing in reverence in front of a black granite memorial in Intramuros, Manila, my heart full of inexplicable emotions.

The Bataan Death March

Then another time, another marker, this time in Indang, Cavite on February 17, 2012. It was for the town's brave sons and USAFFE soldiers who died in Bataan and Corregidor. I was then living in Tanza, and I went to General Trias, Trece Martirez and all the way to Indang for no particular reason but making perfect sense to me.

When I visit a place, I always look for their homegrown foods. I got a pizza roll; it's cut up in pieces in a small rectangular paper plate like those ubiqitous sidewalk squidballs but you eat with a toothpick like cocktail pica-pica. They even had bottled water named after the town's nineteenth century Revolution hero, Severino De Las Alas, whose bust faces the marker at the little plaza adjacent to the Spanish-era-style municipal hall.

Back to Bataan, I took a photo of a billboard that says "Malayo Pa Ba (Is It Still Far)?" which turned out to be an advertisement for a local funeral parlor; the creativity made my day! The first time I was in Bataan was in 1995. There are two things I won't forget on that trip: the sight of a broken fire hydrant with water gushing out and flooding the street, and the stand-up comedy act Pork Chop Duo. I was a teenager then, and because of their green jokes, I almost died young from laughing.

Porkchop Duo

See Our Story On Pork Chop Duo

Along the road, in Lubao, Pampanga, is where I found the best fresh lumpia in the galaxy. (Conversely, the worst is from a popular food chain which I first tasted in Market! Market! mall). That day was also the Coca-Cola National Blow-Out and I got my free Coke! Thank you, Mr. President For Happiness! The best things in life are free!

Coca-Cola Happiness Truck Philippines

To Be Continued Next Saturday

Someone To Love

Huggybear's Favorite Songs From Leif Garrett

January 7 Midweek Musical

I Was Looking For Someone To Love

When I Think of You

Photo courtesy of ecordsale.de

What Drives Me For 2015

Saturday Evening Posts

January 3-9 Edition

What Drives Me For 2015

October 11, 2014

Saturday

I'm writing my newest novel. It will be "an adventure of the mind and spirit," like in Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

I felt a sense of unbearable lightness as I released the pressure of my latest scrape with authority earlier this week as I put them down in words.

I think it's the same psychological exorcism Eugene O'Neill endured in writing his troubled life in A Long Night's Journey Into Night.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

I believe a Higher Power pushed me to focus on what matters most to me and set down the story of my triumphs and challenges to achieving them and, along the way.

I fervently hope, as a chart of my development as a better person and a more evolved human being. I'll build my book from my journal entries I'm going to publish on my blog 2Rivers as I go along.

This will be the chronicle of my education in developing intuition, lucid dreaming, astral projection, meditation, yoga, martial arts, body building, food combining, travel, books, entrepreneurship, filmmaking, the Law of Attraction and the Silva Mind Control Method.

I began my book today just as I finished reading two books I bought the other day which are both enriching mine: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by that great American genius.

My novel is a series of personal revelations, inspired also by two bestselling memoirs: Lee Iacoca's Talking Straight, which I bought and finished reading last week; and John Edward's Crossing Over, which I bought earlier this year and read for the second time, with deeper involvement, a fortnight ago.

One of the books in my collection of rare out-of-print occult classics, which is a major influence to my still untitled work (and in my life), is George Noory's Worker In The Light.

My inspiration to have a record of my own spiritual odyssey is, of course, Shirley MacLaine's Out On A Limb and Dancing In The Light, both of which I've read for the nth time from cover to cover last month.

I found them (or they found me) more than a year ago. Since then, figuratively speaking, I've never put them down.

Out On A Limb

These books by Shirley, George and John are some of the greatest inspirations for my own. All the books I mentioned, including those of Quinn, Iacoca, Shelley and Ben Franklin, are "I" first-person accounts, like mine; like the writings of two of my most revered spiritual mentors in writing: Winston Churchill and Charles Lindbergh.

In the literal and metaphysical sense, my new work is my soul's memoir. This is the adventure of a lifetime.

Jonathan Aquino's Journal

October 12, 2014

Sunday

As I writer, I want to do my own thing, in my own time. I'm at my best when the spirit moves me.

I write, so naturally I read a lot. In my adventures in learning, I've become a student of the psychology and principles of success.

What all winners have in common is a clear vision of what they want. I know exactly what I want: to be a successful author and columnist. What I want to avoid is other people telling me what to write, so I cannot be a staff in a publication or even a freelance agent in an online writing site.

I've always said that other people can do all I've done, and I tip my hat to those who do what I cannot and what I will not. At the end of the day, it is not about talent - it is about how you used it.