The fragile indigo in this particular evening is the same fragility and indigo-ness that Gugurang painted in the evening sky long before the time of Handiong, Magayon, Isaray or Dimaarog –

Now, the color, is a lingering hope in the slowly darkening velvet of the evening sky as D. H. Lawrence, in his novel Women in Love, precipitates my own thoughts with the present global condition: “if mankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is this beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am satisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost.”

What is mankind, but just one expression of the Incomprehensible?

OLD TIMES, HERE

Long before Kagurangnan conquered the Bikol land and soon the entire archipelago, Gugurang governed the earth, waters, panganoron and kamurawayan. The land was bursting with the abundance of God and the people respected the other Selves: the trees, rocks, plants, animals, sun, moon, star, air, insects, man, mountains. They saw in the other creations the same thread binding them all together in a circle, mutually dependent on each other. One breath connects the people, one huge rock where they step on, one small star giving them warmth and light. One river and sea sustaining all.

The Bikol land, the Philippine land, was blessed with mountains and waters (the coves of Gods) teeming with the vibrancy of life, all the expressions and manifestations of the Supreme: 3500 species of indigenous trees. 33 gymnosperms. Ants belonging to 200 families and 1500 genera. 4000 pteridophytes, bryophytes fungi, algae and lichens. 32500 species of wild fauna excluding insects and invertebrates. 196 species of mammals. 950-975 species and sub-species of reptiles. 950 birds including migratory birds. 2400 species and sub-species of fish. 488 species of corals. 971 species of benthic algae.

That was.

APOLOGIES

We have to move on with the current of Modernization! The future is Today! The white strangers cried at us.

So we cut the Yakals, Narra, Mahogany. We burned the forests to create cities. We changed the course of the river because it was DAMN on our way. We “reclaimed” the seas because it was making us an island. We cut the bellies of our sacred mountains because we discovered the Gods’ treasury of gold and precious metals. We paved our mother earth for easy transportation.  We made mountains of our own! Reeking of the funereal stench of the dead and the dying.

We exiled Gugurang.

We know the story of our own time bomb. We created it, our parents created it, our ancestors helped made it. Now, it ticks in the changing weather pattern, it ticks in the landfills and the mines. It ticks in our canned foods. It ticks in the ozone. It ticks in our hearts like a throbbing pulse, No! A bomb in the arteries and caves of our hearts!

What can we do? We shouted, we whispered the query into a torrent of inquiries. Leading only to apologies. To apologies.

If I have to apologize to Gugurang and all the victims of this rampage and be the representative, the ambassador of Bikol and Humanity, I’d say simply: My apologies felled trees, for the table’s four legs. Then maybe the trees will tell the river and the river will tell the wind and the wind will tell brothers Isarog and Asog and they will tell everyone, how sorry I am. How sincerely sorry we are.

Or not.  Because one foot is stuck in this quagmire of modernization, capitalism and gross abuse, while the other is scratching the head thinking otherwise.

And then, like an unsolicited blink of an eye, the ticking stops –

Humanity does not embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more.

And what is left is the shining evening.