Earth Day Everyday

The first Earth Day movement by earthday.org happened in 1970. Forty six years later, it announced April 22, 2016 as this year’s Earth Day. But as they say, this is more than just a single day.

Earth Day Everyday was the message conveyed by the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro City (ACDO) - Ecology Ministry last April 17, 2016 (Sunday) at Centrio Ayala Garden. The event was named “HARANA para kay INA”, an acoustic jam for Mother Earth.

This was graced by numerous indie bands: Grupong Laya, Memoronnie, Cookies and Cream, Estilo, Escapo, But Karma Kills, Bloodflowers, Northern Sparks, Bombo Radyo Jasaan Rondalla, 4^th ID Band, Rage of Laura and Glennfalse & Thony. It also featured CDO Archidocese’s Ecology Musicians: Zee, The Right Stop, Dodu Abrio and Ding Cabreira.

Harana Para Kay Ina was a fusion of original compositions by several indie bands and unique renditions of popular songs like Lion King’s Circle of Life and Pocahontas’ Colors of the Wind. The event also included a performance of Malvina Reynolds’ song, “What Have They Done To The Rain?” by St. Francis Xavier Church Social Action Committee Head, Mr. Natz Jumangit and ACDO Ecology Musician, Mr. Ding Cabrera. The acoustic jam was concluded with all the bands singing the song, “Kapayapaan” by Tropical Depression.

To remind the people of our role in our environment, Mr. Ding Cabreira asked the audience to pick up the trash seen at the event area. He even left us with the words, “Basura ko, Ibulsa Ko.”, a movement inviting people to be mindful of their trash even candy wrappers that certainly go a long way destroying sea animals.

On April 21-24, 2016, tribute to Mother Earth continued as the Luna Musikalawaig Full Moon Festival was held at the Ki Bathala Gardens in Talakag, Bukidnon. It was graced by various musicians and artists: Joe D’ Farmer, Lost Tribe, Kamaggong, SinoSiKat, Emann Vibration, Jericho Vamenta, Spy, among others, with Rafael Kiefer, President of Professional Models Association of the Philippines, as one of the organizers. The tribal gathering was on its 5^th year since it started 2011.

The Summer Peace Festival was not just one night, but three nights of expression of love for art and music dedicated to Mother Earth. It was a way to commune with nature whilst being away from the convenience of technology and the internet world, to be specific.

To get to the venue, shuttles were provided and a camping site at the gardens was made available to those attending the gathering. It was nights of soulful music and speaking with the gardens and the river.

Meanwhile, in the north, a beach cleanup activity in partnership with Gawad Kalinga was hosted by O’Tara at Baler, Aurora. O’Tara is a non-profit organization with numerous advocacies like arts and nature. Last February 2016, O’Tara brought scholars of Smokey Mountain to an art tour at Angono, Rizal. Its latest advocacy is coined #advocaSEA for cleaning up Baler.

To sum it up, we can all take part in being stewards of Mother Earth. We can do simple acts of saving nature by throwing our garbage in the assigned waste cans and yes, cigarette butts in their supposed places. Human population is growing fast while trees and rivers continue to deteriorate as a consequence of our actions. We are so much into industrialization and constructing commercial buildings, we forget that every tree we cut, or every mountain we flatten is a pollution we impart with Mother Earth.

Let the passion for Mother Earth of the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro-Ecology Ministry, Musikalawaig Organizers and O’Tara be our guide to our personal advocacy in saving our world. There will be no use getting all the money we can from stock market or our rising business if the world we live in will just vanish. We will vanish along with the extinction of Mother Earth – no more food to eat, no more water to drink.

We make the world with our actions of negligence and self-centeredness. Let us try to be selfless and think of all the people living in this world, the future of the next generations, the cute pandas, the beautiful flowers, the relaxing rivers, and the innocent infants.

Indeed, everyday should be earth day.

(Photo credits to David Roa, Kim Alcantara and Yam Otarra.)

Under A Pen Name

Why do I feel like writing under a pen name? Well, basically, not for the thrill. It's for the paranoia. *chuckles

If you noticed, there are also fictional characters for Facebook accounts. Why? Well, I'd like to think they are as paranoid as me.

I love the thought of people not knowing me. It gives me the freedom and comfort of writing just about anything - sometimes to the point of just blabbering. It gives me a dose of happiness that my write-ups are read by people I barely know and I'm not being judged by my opinions, because after all, I am entitled to opinion in as much as anyone is.

2013, I decided to create this blog and dreamt to write anything under the sun. Afraid of being judged by people, I thought to choose a pen name. Random pinay. Well, truly, I am one random Pinay. You go to the Philippines and ask around my name, people will go "er, sorry, who?", or "Pasenya na po. Hindi ko po sya kilala".

Basically, I am no one. Like my first ever post in this blog, I am no "It" girl and three years later, gaaaah, nothing changed. 😂
(For a second, I got alarmed that nothing changed. Lol) I am the same person who started this blog, went dormant then active again. Well, probably, a little stronger and bolder.

Life taught me that when you go out naked (not literally), there are only two things that will happen: people will either accept you or judge you. Every person goes through mess and I don't understand, but people, they sense happiness and carefree aura and they just..knock you off. Sometimes, you bear them and say, whatever. But sometimes, you get weakened and they get through you and you just.... fall.

So yeah, I have fears. Haha fear of rejection, fear of..basically, rejection. Who wants to be rejected anyway? 😂😄 So I pour my soul into this blog and I just feel so alive under my pen name.

And I guess, people really don't care who's under the pen name. Because once people do, they start reading behind the articles, they start connecting it with personal life, values, etc. I just want them to read a book without knowing the life of the author, like when we read Harry Potter or LOTR or MockingJay - we just care about the book.

So I'm writing under a pen name, not to sound overly dramatic but to compensate my overly paranoid being. I write under a pen name, maybe because, ok fine, maybe I'm thinking big in the future - like this will get mainstream and people would want to know who's under the pen name. But hopefully, by that time, people won't judge me because they've read so much and they'd think I'm worthy of a pen name.

Or maybe I'm just really paranoid. 😂😄 Whatever it is, I'm sticking with the pen name. 😉

Carpe Diem

 What is Carpe Diem?

Is it when we party like crazy? Drink all booze until drop-dead? do something really high or awkward? How about when we mountain climb or rock climb? Go surfing? Skateboarding? Extreme Biking? Or those days we finally decided to take that bungee jump or skydive?

Sometimes we look at FB photos and we envy travellers for seizing the days – not even just one day. But is seizing the day only associated with lavish travels? Or tickets to fancy festivals and posh bars? What about the everyday routines?

I believe Carpe Diem is anything that will make us feel alive without the need of spending big – drinking a cup of coffee or tea at home, perhaps, reading good books, or watching great movies or sunsets with our love ones. Or it could be our everyday favourite moments: laughing with friends, playing with kids, running with our dogs, feeling the waves, smelling the flowers, or soaking in the rain. Or those times we become selfless – painting smiles with others, teaching street kids, taking care of the olds, etc.

http://v-i-v-a-l-a-vida.tumblr.com/

Carpe Diem doesn't have to be expensive. As we grow older, we realize that those little moments and those laidback times are those moments that really capture our hearts and make us feel alive; that seizing the day is choosing happiness and joy in spite of - when we choose to smile when others give us all the reasons to frown, and when we choose to laugh when others give us all the reasons to cry.

Small things and simple moments, these make up our lives. These are things that we often overlook but when we look back to these moments, these are those that truly paint a smile on our faces.

Seizing the day is claiming that truly, these are our moments – no matter how grand or small the moment. It is a celebration of life. It's finding happiness even in the little things. Carpe Diem is claiming each moment to be "our" moments.