LOSING WEIGHT

by a Lily*

I was once, not very long ago, many many pounds heavier. Such that now, people I meet keep asking me how I lost the weight! In truth, the answer is – I don't really know! As Scott Peck has said, everything is overdetermined! I could give many different answers (and they'd all be truthful):

1. When I got confined in the hospital last year with high blood pressure and had that awful feeling of head aching, body so unwell - that scared me into shaping up - exercising more often, eating better. (I guess a great desire was also born for wellness)

2. I got acupuncture treatments around that time - and then it seemed I just wasn't getting hungry - so maybe it was that

3. I got a Lily activation and attended core light healing

4. I got sick for a time later on (maybe detox?) and lost even more weight

But the closest to the truth would probably be that once, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror - and seemed to see myself clearly for the first time. I had always thought of myself as "plump," and had always superimposed that idea on whatever I saw - but now I seemed to see clearly - was it even a vision - was this really me...yes, this was the same body I had seen for a long time - but now I seemed to see its beauty instead of its ugliness... (I was drawn to the slim legs and narrow frame and never even saw the flabby arms and tummy which seemed to be the only things I ever saw before) - in truth my body was lovely! I saw that I wasn't necessarily fat... it seemed I was more of an ecto-mesomorph...in that moment I marveled - stared - and turned - appreciated my body - loved my body. In my head I seemed to shift categories. "This is who I really am - I am really an ecto-mesomorph! I’m not 'plump' after all!” (The stress was on the marvel I was seeing, this new reality.)

(Around those times, I was also struck by pictures of Valerie Plame, and the wife of McCain - pictures of older women who were slim and carried themselves so easily - so it was possible! getting old didn't necessarily mean getting fat!)

Then for no reason at all, it seemed I didn't get hungry. I’d have two meals in a day and be fine (I was just sitting in the office much of the time anyway). I didn't crave for sweets. My nightly desserts just never seemed to happen anymore. My chocolate stash even began to get stale - I just wasn't interested!

Often dieting is forceful, willing oneself not to eat, forcing oneself to do without that luscious chocolate cake. This wasn't like that. My body didn't crave, I couldn't even make myself eat those chocolates! I just had no interest and they didn't even seem delicious anymore!

My body just seemed to naturally do it by itself! All the actions needed to lose weight, I mean. Honestly, I wasn't even doing a lot of physical exercise. Just a brief walk around the campus now and then, to enjoy the gracious trees and savor the changing colors of dusk.

After a few months I noticed I could fit into smaller clothes. So I primped, and loved myself even more! I dared to buy, and wear, flattering clothes; started using beauty products (which I never did before - hadn't even been moisturizing my face!) - and my body just continued to improve! (All this wasn’t too easy on the pocket though - new clothes, new products, etc. :)

My point is...from my experience - and I’ve tried countless diets and exercise before - maybe going about it from the outside - the forceful diets and exercise - is less effective than going about it from the inside - from loving the body, loving the self - and then letting the body just naturally lose the weight (if that is what you want).

Abraham, through Hicks, once said that if you are happy, and if physically what makes you happy is a slim body, and eating ice cream also makes feel you happy, then you will be someone who eats a lot of ice cream and is still slim - and happy.

Does that make sense?

I still don't know too clearly what process I underwent. I know I like the results, and hope that it will be last (it’s been about a year now). I also know I am loving myself more, learning from Abraham’s teachings about connecting to source and the primacy of one's own joy. This has led me to the Lily and Beyond, and on and on. The journey is expanding. And to my delight, I am slimming :)

PS. What has energized me again and again through these times is the remembrance of someone I met in the Lily Cloud. She beamed such affection and love for me – as if she was a dear old friend – who knew me very well and liked me very, very much. But I didn’t know or recognize her. Yet I have carried that love she has for me down from the Lily Cloud and through my days. And that feeling of being Beloved has just transformed me. There, that’s one more to add to my overdetermined reasons for losing weight! :)

*a Lily activation – see lilyandbeyond.org for details

In Defense of the Manananggal

The image of the manananggal strikes fear in the heart of most Filipinos. Here is this hideous, bat winged, half-bodied woman perching on the roof to hang down her long, evil tongue in order to suck out the life in the pregnant woman’s belly! Imagine a dark, windy night, in a small hut in the province, and hearing a thud, as if some thing had landed on the roof, and then scraping, scratching sounds up there … yiiikes! Oh let’s take out our rosaries and pray that the manananggal doesn’t get us!

Research into the manananggal, strangely enough, has yielded that these monsters weren’t present in the pre-Hispanic myths of the Filipinos.

In fact, they seem to have been an invention of the Spanish clergy.

Before our colonization by the Spaniards, there are reports of babaylans, shamans, mostly women, who led the worship, who were knowledgeable about herblore and healing. In short, they were leaders – spiritual leaders, even healers and probably midwives as well. They had a solid place in society, a respected status.

There are also reports of male babaylans – but these men were depicted as wearing skirts and other women’s clothing. Wearing women’s clothes and acting like women was a way of accessing the divine feminine. Perhaps these men already had a feminine orientation to begin with – in modern parlance perhaps they were gay. As baybaye or babaylans, they were respected as well.

With the Spanish colonization, a new religion was imposed, a new order – a male-centric or patriarchal one. After putting down numerous rebellions – many incidentally led by women, by the babaylans, according to our history books – a new order was superimposed over the old one. The datus or the male chiefs were utilized as kapitans… but there were no leadership roles for women. So what happened to the babaylans? There was no place for them in the new society. They fell from grace. The conquered provinces with the strongest rebellions, the most revolt, Capiz, Roxas – the Visayas – became the new seedbed of tales of manananggals. And these are historical accounts written in Spanish by the conquerors – by the friars, not fiction. Strangely enough, areas which remained unconquered, like Mindanao, spawned no stories of manananggals.*

Were the Spaniards horrified at the show of bullishness of the women, of their power, of the respect they garnered? It seems that these strong women were seen as perversions, as something unnatural. In short, women leaders were seen as bitches. Or witches. They were demonized. From spiritual leaders became depicted as supernatural monsters. From being healers, they became viewed as unnatural beings. Supernatural, unnatural – meaning they were not in the “natural” order of things, as imposed by the new patriarchal power.

The colonizers could not regard these very different way or paradigm of our native land – let’s call it matriarchy – as “different but equal.” Those people could not be seen as contemporaries or colleagues. They could only be seen as either barbarians or perversions, that could not be part of the “natural” order.* Not being able to accommodate the other resulted in the demonization of the other.

They do say that the gods of the old religion become the devils of the next. As the gentle, nature loving Pan became the hoofed and tailed devil of Christianity. The babaylans became the manananggals.

The friars also burned what indigenous literature there was in the archipelago. Report is that they were scandalized by the openly sexual tone, though surprised that almost everyone was literate. By destroying and forbidding this literature they transformed a literate society into an illiterate one. It seems only some indigenous peoples like the Mangyans have preserved the ancient script, and they do continue to write poetry on bamboo.

Upon my reflection of manananggals, and the popular image of them perching on roofs to suck out the life of fetuses, I began to think – did the word manananggal refer to one who removed babies? They were women who could give the gift of abortion to other women!

I mean if the babaylans were healers and midwives, then most probably, they would know how to perform abortions as well.

In a matriarchal society, such abortions might not be viewed as “sinful”. As Arnold Swartzenegger said in the movie where he became pregnant, “my body, my choice!”

The idea of a forceful abortion is horrible. But if it was an unwanted pregnancy, a manananggal might be seen as a wonderful blessing.

This history that I’ve unearthed has turned everything around for me. From being horror movie monsters, I now think that maybe the manananggals are heroes. Leaders of the resistance. I once viewed Capiz and those nearby provinces with awful dread. But if it’s true that that’s where people rebelled and fought, and these rebellions were led by women – whether they used magic or not, I now see them as strongholds, heroic places, as places that might have managed to preserve some of the old ways, the old lore, places that refused to lie down, roll over, and be stepped on. They are no longer scary but admirable.

How strange these inversions are. It’s amazing how certain pieces of facts transform the landscape. How different things look when you know the truth. Enemies turn out to be friends. Who your thought as allies turn out to be enemies, out to do you harm. Indeed, the truth will set you free. Free to really decide. It also truly seems that truth casts out fear. Certainly it has cast out my fear of the manananggal. I wonder then if fear only comes from illusion, or unreality.

For now when I think of manananggals, and of them having wings and flying across the sky, over rooftops… in absolute freedom in the night – I just feel exhilaration, and even envy. How fun it would be to be able to leave your body or at least half of it on the ground and fly off into the moonlit night!

The fear then of these “women monsters,” or the manananggal has come from our colonizers, who made us see through their squinted eyes, that strong women are unnatural and fearful monsters; that places where women, and gays, are respected as leaders are dreadful and terrible – horrible, not natural. From this perverted view, the freedom and power of the babaylans are depicted as batwings and claws. The knowledge they had of medicine, including abortion, became a furtive and terrifying delivery of death.

But batwings are still wings. And the thought of being able to fly, to soar through the night now gives me a feeling of freedom, independence, and strength. What once was feared – a woman’s strength, knowledge, and independence – is now admired. And now I know, I am right, I think, in admiring the manananggals.