I have a blog column under the category of Religion and Spirituality at blogit.com. My penname nickname there is Wild_Grace.

Check it out:  "Frog Clan Babaylan: the Odyssey of an Emerging Babaylan of a Thousand Faces:" Link is below.

http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Affil/?307126/Blog.aspx/Frog_Clan_Babaylan/

I want to learn how to balance these opposing dualities in myself. How do I honor my need for security and domestic bliss with my need to take risks and adventure in a broader realm? How do I honor tradition and culture and accept my wanting to assimilate the new? How do I honor my spiritual self and understand my need to investigate and explore the underbelly of the workings of humanity? How do I serve and heal others yet attain status, achievement, accomplisment? How do I show humility and humbleness but can outshine and gain prosperity? How do I help others be prosperous when my checking account doesn't reflect my own prosperity?

Beauty, Joy, Courage, Strength, Power, Grace, Faith, Patience, Compassion, Forgiveness, Love, Order, Harmony, Peace, Creation, Being, Universe, Mind, Body, Spirit, Form, Without Form, Cosmos...a child's hand...a baby's birth...a horse's gallop...a smile...tears from a life lesson...an epiphany...roar of tides...silence of a leaf...crickets in a meadow...cicadas...butterflies...geese in migration...laughter...cobalt blue sky...cirrus clouds...marshlands....alps...rivers...creeks...it's not enough to describe this and then some as "God." Many even argue about the word "God." There are many names for God...just are there many forms we can sense or feel. Multitudes. Ha! I just contradicted myself.

No, I wouldn't because I would miss the lessons of being older. There is something to said about the "crone archetype." We have an ageist society. I would encourage a whole community where the young and old and the in between share their lives and experiences together. They can learn from one another. As a woman in her late 30s who looks like she's in her twenties, I am looking forward to the time I'm not judged by appearances. Many women envy that I look young for my age. But I rather they ask what brings me most joy in my life that brings radiance, vitality, and passion.

As a producer, I love collaborating with creative people. I appreciate how each invidual's talents and skills are integral part of making it happen. I appreciate their diversity and their insights and their problem solving abilities.

As a poet, I love expressing things that intangible. I love the release and energy from transforming an experience to a work of beauty. I enjoy the craft of wordsmithing.

As a performer, I love the adrenaline rush of being on the stage, and allowing myself be completely human in front a captive audience.

As a massage therapist, I love facilitating people's healing process. It is empowering to watch others empower themselves by embracing their own responsibility for their own healing.

As a volunteer, I love serving the community as whole. It reminds me how unified and interdependent we are. That if each person does his or her part we can make a difference.

Gee, Glynda, how should I answer this question? I don't know. Yes, you do  know. Well, you run around with poetry lines in your head. You get stuck on some word that's hard to rhyme so you randomly rhyme. Ah, yeah. I do that, huh? Well, you do worry a lot. What's to eat? Do  I have time to eat? Where's that shirt? The one that says "Deadlines Amuse Me." Hmmm...Do I have a deadline? You better get started working on that presentation on Reiki. Yeah, but. I gotta clean this mess first. Where are my books? They're in your storage unit. You really gotta cut down on your book spending. But I love books. I know but you can't read all of them at once. Besides, you'd save money not housing those 200 odd books in a storage unit. I have other stuff in their too. Yeah, stuff. When are you gonna start feng shuing. Is feng shuing even a word? Clutter. Yeah, how are you gonna get the Flow flowing if you're blocked up with this *&#@. I know, I know. I really feel like I have the Odd Couple in one woman's body. One's neat and tidy and the other is a slob. Right now the slob won. Where are you going? I thought you were gonna clean this mess. I'm hungry. Why is there soo much food in this fridge but nothing to eat? I'm bored with everything. Food, routine. Oh, hush. Where was I?

My birth name is Glynda Tejada Velasco. I was named Glynda after my birthplace, Glynco county in Georgia (USA) and Glynco Memorial Hospital. The y is pronounced like a short e. When people hear my name they want to spell it Glenda which is a more common spelling. Upon introductions, people joke asking if I'm a "Good Witch?" in reference to Glinda, The Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. (I know it's spelled Glinda because I read the Frank Baum novel The Wizard of Oz.) I learned Glenda is Welsh meaning "from the Valley."

Tejada is my mother's maiden name. I am proud to have that name because I admire both my grandparents.  My grandfather in particular was highly esteemed by my mother. He was an intelligent and compassionate man who taught himself English reading newspapers his customers left on his bus. He raised his daughters encouraging them to get an education.

Velasco is the sir name, my father's last name.  Once again, my grandfather is also highly esteemed. He was the mayor of Castillejos, a town in the province of Zambales in the Philppines. He was considered one of the last honest politicians. His townmates loved him for his generosity. He won his first election in spite of the fact that his opponents were buying votes. He prided himself in winning the hearts of his townmates.

My mother says that I remind her of both my grandfathers. She also remind me that my grandmothers were business women and I may have inherited that from them too.

Furrawn

From Anais Nin I learned the word furrawn- "the intimacy achieved through conversation that leads us to a greater understanding of ourselves, others, and thereby the world at large." (quoted from a filmmaker who created a video diary festival)

I have this need for greater connection in our relationships and in our communication. Conversation that leads to this type of deep connection delights, inspires, enourages, and makes me grow as a person as whole. It makes me feel interconnected with every human being.

First I would truly listen to that person. Then I would just be with that person. I would say that alone is ALL ONE. Once we realize that we have a greater connection and relationship to Oneness and to everything we truly are not "alone" as in isolated/separated. If this "feeling alone" has a feeling loneliness then it is the lack of relationship with one's self. Shift perception from isolation/separation/loneliness/lack to joy/wholeness/completeness/connection. Spiritual optometry: Let's remove these glasses of "Feeling alone" to "Feeling Joy."  If it's the lack of friendship or relationship, be friendly or relate--even if it starts with a hello or a smile.

Finding a pantheon of identities that call themselves "me"
I find the world conspiring and inspiring all my aspirations
and my creations.
All the multiplicities and complexities brought to unity.
Scarcity is an abnormality
when my brain finds different strains of creativity.
My juices firing and my heart desiring
Dabbling in the arts, yeah I crush-a-lot.
Admiring the masters, yeah I lust-a-lot.
But I have an ongoing project of self-mastery.  

Furrawn, the connection that brings greater understanding
of one's self and others and even the world
Is greater than listening, it's about being thoroughly heard
Not only with open ears, but open heart
Embrace the new day with new eyes
Taste new smells
Encapsulate the senses with new dances
Do a jig with a techno beat
Can you rap that in tagalog or mosh the tango
Pantheon of multiplicites a buffet of spiritual beings
wrapped in human being skins
Akin to a family of one race
CALLED
                      one 
                                  CALLED  
                                                      One

called


ONE  



Glynda Tejada Velasco, March 11, 2007
performed and written as Q-Trace