*May 5: I had great fun reading poetry on Zoom with the group at the Grind Coffee Open Mic in Vancouver, BC last Friday April 29. It was held at 7 PM, PT, 10 PM here on the eastern seaboard. I read poems from my book “Ascension and Return.” The program also included a “tour” of the artifacts in my study and a video of myself doing Classical Tai chi chuan fist and sword forms. It was one of the most memorable and happiest poetry readings I’ve done. I was surprised to see Kelsey Pardonner, an artist and friend from New Jersey, Jackson Tan, an acupuncturist and student from the Philippines and my cousin Ray Navarro from Oakland, California in the audience. It was too late in the night for me, I could barely keep my eyes open.
I’ve had other poetry readings that were live. One was when I read my poem “The Old Calligrapher” at the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The commemoration was held at the Serenity Garden in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. There were more than 50 in the audience during the candlelight event. Another poetry reading I did was also live: it was held at the Curiosity House in Larnaca, Cyprus back in 2005. The occasion was a gathering to initiate a peaceful reconciliation of Turkish North and the Greek South. Joseph Blessingson, a poet and healer from the Northern sector, came to join us. I read my love and war poems. Larnaca was where Lazarus was bishop after the
Crucifixion of Jesus. I made a pilgrimage to the church.
A reading organized by Filipino poet and writer Ed Maranan at the Philippine Center in London in 2002 had Patrick Rosal, Filipino-American poet, and me performing together for the predominantly Filipino group. I also did a Tai chi chuan sword dance.
I have read my poetry at the Marble Summer Arts Festival in New York City the last 3 years. The first one was live, the next two were online because of the pandemic. Mario Sprouse, the Arts Ministry director, organizes the Festival.
My mentor Len Roberts and I did a couple of poetry readings together, one time
at the Riverside Arts Center in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and the other at the Borders Books in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I’ve read in other venues: with two award-winning poets Debra Kang Dean in Framingham, MA and another time, it was with Bino Realuyo in New York City.
*May 8, 2022 is the 3rd anniversary of Ed Maranan’s death. A prolific writer, poet, activist, and playwright who wrote in Tagalog and English, he is known to have won most of the Philippines literary awards. He graduated with a degree in Foreign Service from the University of the Philippines and studied at the Writers Workshop in the University of Iowa. He spent 12 years in London as a member of the Philippine Embassy. That’s where he and I spent time together after he invited me and Filipino American poet Patrick Rosal to read at the Philippine Center in 2002. I would cook dinner and Ed would bring a bottle of wine and we would talk into the night at the flat overlooking the Thames. Back in the Philippines, Ed and I would do Tai chi chuan and sit with his fellow activist and political prisoner Temy Rivera for long lunches. Twice Ed invited me to join him at the Palanca Literary Awards at the Peninsula Hotel in Makati. When he died after a long illness, he was buried at a cemetery in Baguio, his hometown. Luchie Maranan, his sister and a poet, and I visited his grave and read poetry in the middle of a typhoon.
Awards in Manila.
*May 8: We are in Durham, NC, just waiting for Uber to take us to the airport. We’ve been here since Thursday afternoon attending different events during Ava’s graduation. She has a degree in Global Cultural Studies — that’s actually a Bachelor of Arts in Literature or English Major — with a minor in Documentary Studies. I do not know what she’s going to do with it! But good news: she has an internship at an advertising agency in New York City this summer, with a possibility of a real job on Madison Avenue.
Ava received her Varsity ring for being a member of the fencing team (epee). Her name is written on it above cross-swords. She told me that she had more than 200 tournament matches during her four years in college, plus so many hours of practice. Well, her work saved her parents (and grandma) so much because she got a generous athletic scholarship for her work.
We had a graduation dinner for Ava at Vin Rouge, a fancy French resto in downtown Durham that has a menu that includes Duck Confit and Lamb Shank in wine, prawns and halibut seviche. We are staying in a house that has a lot of rooms, a kitchen, TV with all the channels, reclining leather seats and even a foot massager! Albert found it on the internet. He also got wheelchairs for Lolit and me. In the tour around the campus and the Gardens we were pushed around like royalty. Duke has such a huge campus. The statue of Robert E. Lee riding a horse was removed from the Chapel entrance in 2018. It must have caused a furor on both sides of the political line.
Ava already received a couple of interviews for jobs in NYC. One of them — an advertising agency on Madison Avenue –has offered her an internship for the summer. She’s going to take it. We’ll be able to see her when we spend a weekend in the city.
*After researching the background of Lao Kim, a group of us composed of Mark Wiley, Manny Maramara, Karen Borla and me concluded that Master Lao trained in Fujian Temple. We do not know if the Fujian Temple was affiliated with the Northern Shaolin Temple in Loyang Province. We have no way of verifying it now because the Master has passed away. His number 1 disciple Johnny F. Chiuten has gone, too. Johnny did tell me when I began training with him in the 1960s that Lao shigong studied at a Shaolin Temple in Fujian. Perhaps somebody among Master Lao’s surviving students or family could help us clarify this subject.
With a background in Buddhism and martial arts and knowledge of die da/traumatology and bone-setting, Lao shigong provided the most authentic source and transmission for the system he studied in the Fujian Temple.
The curriculum that Master Lao taught consisted of these forms:
FIST FORMS:
Sap Ji Kun/Cross Form (I call it Number 10 Form because of the Chinese character for 10)
Ching Hua Kun (translated as Plum Blossom or Young Flower form)
Kang Li
Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin
Long Hu Hok Pai (Dragon Tiger White Crane)
Long Hu (Dragon Tiger)
First Attack
Offering
Wat Let
There was also a basic form whose name I did not get, but Johnny Chiuten called it “Pre-Kata,” meaning it was studied before the other forms.
WEAPONS FORMS:
Flower Staff (3 forms)
Spear
Broadsword
Sword
Guan Dao
Trident/Tiger Fork
Hoe
5 Sectional Chain Whip
He also taught combative techniques and maneuvers to a few select disciples. Some of these included “ground fighting,” “positional sparring,” “dim mak,” and others I do not have a name for: they consisted of training the digits. If you look at his hands, you will not know that they were the weapons of a killer because they had no calluses and scars and – a friend who shook his hand said — they were very soft like a girl’s.
*Artist Statement
My practices that include martial arts, healing, poetry, meditation and alchemy provide a secret sanctuary for me; it feels like I am leaving the material and materialistic world of money, success, division. When I do martial arts or alchemy, for instance, I am able to take refuge in a paradigm that taps not just the body in an ancient dance or ritual but also the spirit. In short, the totality of the human as a physical, energetic, shamanic, emotional and spiritual being. I am journeying to a sacred temple where the form was choreographed by unknown monks and where I am in their company. There are no distractions from the meretricious and hollow: I am alone by myself and I am content with what I have. They are really routines but when I do them, I get transformed: I am still myself but it is these movements and techniques that are doing me. The form and I are one. It is when I share these arts that I feel thoroughly fulfilled. They are healing modalities that nourish the self and life and are methods of self-cultivation and transformation. Teaching them to others means that these arts will survive and endure and will help in the healing of the planet.