Rant and Rave!

So I've been taken, no fallen, into the blog world thanks to my friend Grace and her blog. Check it out, Pukenkeng Liberation Front. I am inspired by her courage to out herself on the web with her blog. Once sacred kitchen table space, the web has become a venue for sharing our ideas, discussions, beliefs, hopes and dreams. Urban Babaylan on the web!!

My hopes for this blog is to archive what I am doing, thinking, saying, writing and dreaming. It will also force me to write and write about the process. I have many projects I am currently working on and processing through writing has always helped me get through it to the other side. Perhaps it will also keep me accountable to my dreams. I also want an identity outside of my paid job which I love, but it is not my whole sense of self. I want to make sure I work the muscle that helps me to pump out my creativity.

Last night's Rant and Rave 1st anniversary at the daSpace where DaArt is DaWord was so much fun! Auntie Moana always hosts a wonderful evening, a true hostess with the mostest. And she even sang, too! It was the 3rd Rant and Rave for myself. My alter ego came out in full force for the piece, "Island People Epistemology: Switchum". I'm sending it over to Susan Miller who will put it out on the web. As soon as I get the info, I'll post it and link it to the blog.

Yesterday morning, I had a wonderful conversation with Grace about finding one's voice and how to switch out of an ego-driven paralytic funk. You see, I've got Eckhart Tolle and New Earth on my mind lately as I slog through it for this book group me and my friends formed. My explanation of switching out of voicelessness in stages came tumbling out. We shared our stories of being in meetings where people don't say what they mean and everyone goes all chicken when it comes to telling the truth. In our conversation I explored my ideas of how and why local people don't say anything when we know something is wrong. The seed of the poem started there. I remembered my frustration during community planning meetings for public health where most of the local people sat silenced. Is this experience just a mini example of the larger silencing that is happening in Hawaii? How can we apply the concepts of this metaphysical thinker to Hawaii and this local arena? I think can, can.

So for now, I leave you the title of one of the poems I am writing: "The Tae of My Futlessness, Not to Be Confused with the Tao of Pooh." In case you didn't know, "tae" means "excrement" in many Pilipino languages. It's gonna be a good one, I can feel it in my gut. Look for it at the next Rant and Rave!