‘Artists are gnostics, and practise what the priests think is long forgotten.’ – Hugo Ball
I’m BagongPinay. And I’m an artist, activist, journeyer, healer, and lover of life.
I’m daughter of visayans, Siping and Ma-ing. Kag ako ang ka-updanan mo sa ginalaktan naton tanan (and I am your companion seeker in this journey).
My artist name is Omehra a reminder of my soul purpose.
You think? I know. This is what I have to live up to these days. Whatever sh*t you have to think or say is up to you. I put up with the alchohol-drenched dagger words of people I love who are tormented by their own inner and ancient demons. This is my personal journey. The onset of time… and pain has allowed me to be frank with you. And myself.
By a regular work day, I go undercover as a senior art director and visual designer for corporations. Right now, my “side” job is for one of the oldest, global tech corporations. I used to work at Apple, Inc. Do they know there are awakenings in their midst?
In my “real life” I aspire to be an underground supah hero of Pakikipagkapwa through babaylan expressions, baybayin symbolism, dream journeying and various forms of digital and print media for Filipinos, people on Earth, and for all dimensions and multi-verses. (Is their existence in dark matter, in the dimensions that mathematical formulas hint at, the places we cannot perceive with human eyes?)
I’m a proponent of promoting a multi-dimensional online identity for Filipinos since 1996 (Flip serv and pagbabalikloob discussion groups) and for Filipina women since 1998 through publishing, writing, social media and art found— bagongpinay.com, babaylan.com, the organization of the Center for Babaylan Studies, the international FAWN2005 conference for Filipinas, Bahala na for the 21st Century for cultural transformation social media experiment, and pinay.com for Philippine women everywhere.
I’m into metaphorical sight, karmic patterns, archetypes, symbolism, sacred geometry, dream journeying, art, music, gardening, yoga, meditation, wacky friends, walks, nature, kites, dancing, the moon, sunshine, clean water, laughing, light, sparkles, large-and-extended family, offspring and life-partner.
“I seek to look in others’ eyes and see their Beauty. I seek Kapwa and to be connected with all I encounter and meet.”
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As BagongPinay I’ve created the Babaylan Mandalas
as a gift for my kapwa Pilipino. “It is a contemplation tool for Filipinos to heal from any lingering & even hidden imperial trauma from centuries of colonization that programmed illusions of hierarchy and privilege & also disempowering beliefs that we were inferior in every way to our conquerors. The Mandalas speak of pakikipagkapwa and say that we are ALL beautiful, filled with Light and interconnected from our Divine Source. The mandalas are a tool so that Filipinos can reclaim their inner gold. |
I have dared living, creating, speaking and writing my Truth to the indignant tune of my RC mother grumbling that I’m no longer following the traditions of our family. In the bigger picture these traditions were taught to us by our Spanish colonizers. I share my truth to the drone of impersonal thinkers who have forgotten their ancestral wisdom, calling me “different” or “new age,” their prejudices preventing them from seeing that what they call “new” is, in reality, quite ancient and universal. It is that drone that has spurred me to bring about this blog.
I choose to describe myself as existing, breathing and thinking outside of “the box,” outside of patriarchal programming, obsolete paradigms.
God/Divine Existence/Cosmic Intelligence/Truth is bigger than the infinity of Universes and the darkness beyond them and bigger than time-constrained devices and petty ego-constructs.
I sometimes contemplate these questions and always come up with the same answer: Why become human? Why this gender, this race, this culture, this country, this planet, these souls? Why—because of Love.
Ask questions. Seek Answers.
Mabuhay— be filled with Life & Light.
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BagongPinay’s other pages |