track 07: this must the place

An Ode to my Lola

I never knew what it was really like to have grandparents. My mom’s parents passed before I was even born, and my dad’s parents came to visit me once when I was just a baby. They passed before an age I could even remember them. 

In January of 2022, it was first brought to my attention from my therapist that I was in a severely depressive state. To be honest, I probably should have known that, but I didn’t. I thought that this was just a part of life…hardships, stress, and struggle.

I was coming out of a period of being in a toxic phase of my relationship with my ex-fiancé (I won’t say that the entire relationship was toxic, because it wasn’t), canceling my dream wedding, exiting a toxic job environment, having no financial income, and overall just losing my community of friends and family at an alarming rate. Little did I know at the time that the people and environments that were fading away were the weights in my life that were keeping me down and preventing me from uplifting my life. Now looking back, God, the Universe, my Spiritual Guides were clearing the way for me. 

I was in a place where it was extremely difficult for me to get out of bed everyday. Everyday felt as if the weight on my shoulders would never leave me. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve never been a really religious person. I was raised Catholic, but I never really practiced Catholic rituals. I “prayed” at night, but not in a way that I was memorizing the prayers of the rosary or anything. It was usually just a conversation between God and myself… “keep my family and friends safe, keep us in good health” etc, etc. 

It wasn’t really until this time period in my life that I really turned to faith. What really felt like me going through a delusional state of talking to myself on the daily really turned into talking to whoever was listening, whether that be God, my Guardian Angels, the Universe, my Ancestors. 

I started to meditate heavily. My anxiety was unbearable - making me feel sick to my stomach at times, and I had read that this would help. The days of smoking weed to calm my anxiety were over - they, in fact, were counterproductive instead causing panic attacks. So, my broke ass paid for the $70 Calm subscription seeing it as an investment on my mental health (one of the best investments I ever made) I started doing the daily meditations with Tamara Levitt every morning. Since I could barely pull myself out of bed, I would just lay in the savasana pose in my bed and listen to this 10 minute meditation. 

Although difficult at first, I started to keep up with it and came to realize that meditation was the one part of my day where I could feel my mind at rest - bringing myself to focus on my inhales and exhales and the parts of my body that were moving along with my breathing. 

Once I was able to get my bearings around meditation, I started to meditate in the evenings too - but, these would be on my own without any guided meditation. This is really where the magic started. I started to realize my meditative states were much stronger in the evenings. I was able to meditate for longer periods of time, and also get so lost in my meditations that I sometimes would wake up from them crying. 

I won’t get into the specifics of what “spiritual downloads” that came to me from my meditations - but, I will say that there is a lot to learn about yourself in this space. That Ghandi shit is true (respectfully) - when they say if you’re looking for life’s answers, you must go within. 

How does this relate to my grandparents? 

Well, I’ll tell you specifically about one of my meditations. It was right in the middle of my depression. At night, I would often cry (sob actually) because I just felt so deep in this hole that I couldn’t get myself out of. I didn’t know why life felt so hard, or why I couldn’t get out of my head, or why I felt so incredibly alone. One of these evenings after a nice ugly cry, I settled down into my evening meditation. In the middle of this deep meditative state, I very distinctly felt as if someone was sitting in front of me, cupping my face very softly in their hands. This feeling actually made me cry harder. 

Lola.

It’s something I’ll never be able to explain how I knew, but I did. I could hear her talking to me in tagalog telling me to stop crying and that everything would be okay. That she was here. Nandito ako, wag ka umiyak. She was listening and that I wasn’t alone. 

After this experience, I really threw myself into meditation. If I could meet her in this space, I would meditate every day if I had to. Also, if I could meet her in the 5D, who else was I able to meet in this spiritual realm? 

Some parts of this experience I'd like to keep for myself, but after I made meditation a part of my daily life, I started to experience such a strong connection to my intuition. It was what led me into my Southeast Asia travel journey. 

This started as a dream I had of seeing rice terraces. In hindsight, I strongly believe that the vision of the rice terraces was given to me by my Lola. I woke up that morning and remembered thinking to myself - “rice terraces?” The first place to come to mind was Vietnam. This moved to the top of my list of countries to visit. A couple months later, I followed my intuition, leading me to sell all of my belongings in Los Angeles and set out for my 3-month Southeast Asia journey. 

The original plan was to spend 1 month in Vietnam, 2-3 weeks in Cambodia, 1 month in Thailand, and end in Malaysia or Indonesia. (Notice that the Philippines wasn’t even on my list originally. I was “saving” this trip for later this year when my whole family was planning to come visit.) 

As I migrated through these countries, I kept trying to figure out - why VIetnam? Why did Lola tell me to come here and not home to the Philippines? Why did I choose this route? 

Once I got to Thailand, I was trying to figure out where I would end my travels before heading back home. I decided that maybe it was time to return to the Philippines…and that maybe it was a little fucked up that I had completely skipped over the Philippines and visited all these other countries instead. 

This is what I believe and have come to learn about my experience. The thing was that I mistaked that vision as Vietnam, instead of the Philippines. It actually never occurred to me that the Philippines had rice terraces (this is how little I know about my culture smh) I remember arriving in Sapa to see the rice terraces in Vietnam, and although still an incredible experience, it wasn’t the harvest season so it didn’t live up to my expectations. 

I think that that’s the part of my intuition that led me to travel through the other parts of Southeast Asia first and end in the Philippines. The reality is that I would have not been ready to come directly to the Philippines in March. The 3 months that I spent traveling were such an integral part of my spiritual journey. It was as if leaving my environment allowed me to gain such a clear understanding of my self healing. 

I was still very much grieving the life I once had when I was traveling through Vietnam. I was still overcoming the feelings of leaving my life behind - years of pain and immense sadness - a large part of my identity. I needed to grieve through this on my own. As I traveled through Cambodia and Thailand, I grew much more into myself, more comfortable in my own skin. By the time that I had reached the Philippines, I was ready to reintroduce myself to my family as me, the real me, and probably a similar version of me that they had met 23 years ago - essentially, my inner child. 

I recently returned from traveling to Buscalan to see Apo Whang-Od. On this journey, you must trek through the Banaue Rice Terraces to get to her village. And THIS - is what I saw in my dream. Lola was always telling me to come home. I just didn’t know it. 

So, this post is an ode to my Lola -  

For bringing me back to myself. For being my guiding force through one of the most difficult times in my life. For shielding me from life’s forces and ensuring a safe journey home. 

I am now staying at her home in Sampaloc, and I can’t even begin to say how connected I feel now that I am here. She’s helped in giving me a new chance at life - the one that I was meant to live out.