We adapt to the industrial and the post-industrial world with energy software designed for living in the wild. In spite of new challenges in our world, we often respond using the fight or flight strategy even if this is not applicable. Take for example my present lifestyle. For many years in the apartment where we used to live for almost thirty years I had a small garden. There was a space apart from our living quarters where I could walk around talking to my plants. There were demarcation lines separating Nature from the daily grind.

Our condo on the thirty-seventh floor, comfortable and elegant as it is breathes of confinement. I sometimes feel as one with the factory workers even of modern times. My introversion makes me enjoy the comfortable isolation of our condo. Nobody can disturb me except the young men who deliver our laundry and our meals. Even then they are subjected to screening first by the guards at the entrance then by the guards in barong at the lobby. What a sanitized life!

Luckily even if I stay in the condo the whole day I get a lot of sunshine. My body may not have the luxury of living in the wild but I am close to Nature. With my unobstructed view of the skyline I can stay in bed and wait for the sunrise to burn the sky into crimson. Between 5:30 and 6:00 in the evening I am treated to another type of red – the sunset.

In the mornings I don’t need an alarm clock. I know it’s time for morning prayers when the dogs bark and the roosters crow. I prefer these sounds to those of the LRT and those of the buses. In the afternoon I once distinctly heard roosters crowing around 3:30 in the afternoon. Is it possible the roosters had taken a nap and felt it their duty to awaken the world?

I can watch the moon’s cycle as it waxes till it wanes. Many times I get the best of both worlds, the ancient and the post-modern world with airplanes seemingly circling the stars. Interestingly, the contrast is repeated with the airplanes seemingly being guided by  numerous birds.

Yet, I can’t deny my present world. I live in a frantic world. “How can I live in the moment? It’s good to live in the Now provided there are no bills to pay. How can I live in the NOW when every so often I have to deal with our one and only daughter living in a different time zone? How can I live in the NOW when my husband thinks differently daily depending on which university he goes to for the day? Today he is CSR or CSI personified. The next day he can be reached only if I agree with his research terms and designs. Still another day it will be education tailored to his Chinese, Vietnamese, Iranian, and Korean students. Add another adjustment when he goes to PWU. I have been trying several practical schemes to live in the NOW. Sometimes I am successful but more often I need to anchor myself consciously.

An Introvert like me stayed in solitary confinement in our condo, six days in a row. My Monkey Mind was getting out of hand. I was supposed to stay away from the mall to concentrate on my inner life, to get messages. It wasn’t working for me that day. Most of the messages were tapes of long forgiven memories. “This was not meant to be. I deserve to take time out to smell whatever could give me a sense of wellbeing.”

Finally I found a passage to give me permission to end my six-day self-imposed retreat. “Surrender your mind’s resistance to what is happening even as you work to improve your situation,” so I remembered the advice of Martha Beck. I had the right to improve my situation I chose to go to the mall. Having learned from one of my shamanism books that memories can be held by various muscles of the body, I had an hour’s massage by a blind masseuse. As my muscles on the shoulders, on my back and my feet were kneaded I felt liberated from the pesky thoughts that had given me a foul mood.

On another occasion while Emil was engrossed with seminars and classes I had the opportunity to deal with the pursuit of my wellbeing. I did not need to go to the mall. I simply had to go down to the ground floor of Grand Tower 1. What an experience! Being in “Bugis” means affordable but tasty and filling food. Along with memories of Bugis Street in Singapore I was regaled with travel stories set in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, the United States etc. by Thunder, the young owner of one of the new eateries in our building. For a senior citizen like me, engaging in a meaningful conversation with somebody like Thunder is soul food. It is meaningful to deal with success and problems, with difficulties as well as possibilities. Thunder’s Ilonggo connections and the fact that he is a language teacher are certainly added value.

Reviewing this essay brought to mind Dr. Ronald Mann’s idea about the Western health profession which heavily impacts on our Philippine system. He referred to the symptom – oriented focus that perpetuates the paradigm that most problems can be solved through dealing with thoughts and with behavior only. This modality has been very useful for years but with new knowledge and new problems there is a need for something else. As earlier discussed in this collection of essays, the complicated needs of the individual call for different solutions. Man is spiritual by nature. I refer to meanings that go beyond religious liturgies, rites, formulas, duties, requirements etc. I refer to individual hungers that can only be filled by connection to the Greater One and Only no matter what name is used by the individual.

Yet, I am reminded by Dr. Page who wisely warned against preferring the spiritual to the linear. Her contention is that because we are spiritual human beings, no dimension is more important than the other. While we live in this planet and because of our physical form we cannot but grow spiritually if we disregard our physicality. While we live in this planet, and because of our physical form we cannot but grow spirituality if we disregard our physicality.