|
 Fore Front Challenges: Changes An Assignment Malate, Manila Fleur Feast Color Coordinates Lively Lines Refreshing Reprise Table Tops Sweet Scents Prosperity Pillar ________________ Diversions Flowering Frisco Buddhist Banahaw My Mahayhay ________________ Sign Guest Bbook Read Guest Book  BOOK ONE CONTENTS Foreword Introduction Part One Formative Years Space to Start Tools of Trade Concept Renderings First Break East by Southeast Part Two Working Manner Space Transitions Seasons' Home Summer Spring Autumn Sunsets' Place Pied á Terre Something Different Restrained Elegance Dream Zones In Comfort Part Three Prestige Investments Building Lobby Legal Office Garment Office Realty Office Asian Gallery Part Four Lighting Objects Flowers Afterword Professional Profile Personal Profile Interview Clippings Times Journal, Mla. Architectural Digest SCM Post HK Philippine Standard Style Magazine HK Todays Living HK Lifestyle Asia Other Links Importance of Living Lin Yutang Herman Hesse 
|
| |||
Mt. Banahaw is a 2,177-meter dormant volcano that looms over the provinces of Quezon and Laguna, 170 kilometers southeast of Manila. It is also called "Bulkan de la Agua" (Volcano of Water) because of its numerous springs and waterfalls. It is considered the most sacred, mystical and spiritual mountain in the entire Philippines.
She serves as a home to numerous Christian cults led mostly by women priestesses who are usually prophetic mediums.
In Jerusalem, the one who reigns supreme is an old woman called Nanay Akleng. She is spiritual healer and
high pristess of all sorts of people. From renegades, to reforming addicts; the emotionally and physically sick, to the common vagabonds and misfits. But she also has a following of rich patrons who stay with her on their pilgrims to the mountain. She runs her tightly knitted community with a firm hand but with motherly affection and understanding. She is a living witness to the mysteries of Mt. Banahaw and in one with the spirits of the mountain.
Above right & left:The first Buddhist shrine in Mt. Banahaw is surrounded by volcanic rocks leading to my forest lodge. Cave-like the overhead opens to the sky with thick hanging vines creating a kind of a ceiling. I asked Kampan, my best friend from Thailand, to come over and invoke prayers on the icon's installation in Mt. Banahaw. The lotus flowers on the unfinished altar were flown by him. I decorated the rock walls with small Buddhist votive tablets and genuine gold leaf. At, night when I light hundreds of candles, the gold shimmers against the dark rocks. Sitting in the center of my "cave" shrine alone in the evening, it feels eerie if not peaceful and inspiring. 
Nanay Akleng also permitted me to built the first Buddhist shrine in Mt. Banahaw, a bastion of Christian-inspired faiths. Nanay Akleng told me one day, that in one of her dreams, she saw different flowers blooming in Jerusalem. She interpreted my coming into her community
as an affirmation of her vision that Jerusalem would one day become a crossroad of pilgrims with different persuasions. To express my solidarity with my adopted forest community, I sometimes join in their
prayers and supplication rituals that are haunting and deeply moving particularly because they are done in the evening. I wrote the 
