13 December 2012



Siquijor
The next 3 months in the Philippines: I’m traveling to remember my Filipina ancestry. 
My Lola died when I was nine.  She was from Manila. Her name is Conception Ruska or Rusca. 



Wandering around the Visayas (Manila was too much for me to start), I ride a motorbike.  It’s my second day riding a motorcycle ever. 





playing music on our porch, cottage home, siquijor


 Wandering in the seas, I scuba dive.   It’s my third day diving ever.  Cebu, Moalboal, Dumaguete, Dauin, Siquijor, Bohol….

Moalboal, Cebu

I wake early, I watch the gorgeous sunsets, and I write about Mestiza Filipina spirituality. 
Sacred Balete Tree, Siquijor

11 June 2012

It's you and me in the summertime....

Lovely summertime fun towards the end of May and now full summer in June.

Burlesque at the Elbo Room, SF

Golden Gate Park Day and Goodbye Party

Napa day
Enjoying myself down here about Los Angeles, I wrote yesterday at the beach:


sun and sand and wind

ocean soothes me:
wave and wave and roll and rest.
oldies play on our radio,
portable and amazing.
this glare off the paper is amazing too.
and, my hand writing, so out of practice,
is lovely too.
the puppies play;
i write and lounge.
soon i will be in the water,
but for now,
a nap.

24 April 2012

A little write-up about my Women's Spirituality Program




When I entered into the WS program at CIIS in 2010, I had no idea what to expect.  I was coming from being a lecturer of English at CSU, Long Beach.  I also worked as a women’s spiritual advocate at the Women’s Resource Center and at the Interfaith Center on campus.  My focus was on British women’s literature as well as women’s advocacy and spiritual well-being in my local communities.  Altogether, I didn’t know how to bring together my spirituality, my love of literature and academia, and my identity as a woman.  A friend and mentor told me to look up Women’s Spirituality at a school in San Francisco.

This Women’s Spirituality program has given me the space to explore my spirituality and my identity as a whole.  The WS classes have changed my life. Embodiment and integration have become a daily practice, and I’ve learned how to bring my unique voice into academic conversation.  I’ve been challenged and have grown on so many levels – from the physical to the spiritual – and I am so grateful. 

The community of women has also been one of the gifts of this program. It is here that I found an abundance of women who speak a similar language as my own.  Where in other schools and communities, I would have to be the voice to highlight the abuses of patriarchy, in WS classes, I am supported to expand my way of thinking and speaking to include the multiple oppressions in our world.  Here I am encouraged to be more sensitive to privilege as well as to grieve the violence I’ve suffered and celebrate how far I’ve come. 

And, I do believe I’ve come far.  The WS program inspired me to make the program my own.  While working on my PhD at CIIS, I’ve co-created an intentional farm community of women in Ventura County, lived on a permaculture farm in the Cuyama Valley, and studied independently in Europe.  I am currently working on my first comprehensive exam – (Re)Naming Ecofeminism – bringing in my identity as an ecofeminist mestiza, and I will present a paper on this subject at the American Academy of Religion conference in Fall 2012.

I am thankful for the WS program at CIIS, and I look forward to continuing my studies here these next couple years. 

31 January 2012

This bay area life...




Things I haven't had in a while:

-It's so new to have weekly rituals. It's been a year and a half I'd say.  Monday it's writing and my women's group; Tuesday music-making, work, then dance class; Wednesday hike, work, then happy hour with some spirit sisters; Thursday yoga/exploration day with Lisa, dinner with Jill and the flowers; Friday work then weekend adventure and studies. Everyday, too, I've been walking into the hills.  

-I got a paycheck today, or rather, it got automatically put in my bank account. It felt good.

-Being in love. It feels so new to me and yet so warm and familiar.