It was my first time to take the bus to Manhattan since the pandemic. I realized that I was no longer used to the urban setting, the crowds felt strange, and the dirt and traffic actually grated on me. Living in the foothills of the Appalachian or in Lake Harmony in the Poconos in Pennsylvania has made me more sensitive to my environment: I notice the noise, the air and the changes in the climate and nature, where the sun rises and sets and the phases of the moon.
I got my new passport from the Philippine Consulate General in New York City.
Thanks to the consulate staff, the process was efficient and fast. For both the application and pick-up, it took only an hour.
I am already itching to travel home to the Philippines. No particular plan to do anything but I have been missing a few things: meeting and teaching my students, especially those from INAM, the healing and acupuncture center in Quezon City that has sponsored my seminars since 1997; being with friends and relatives;
and of course traveling around the islands and different countries in Asia.
Well, I’ve had a few seminars in different areas outside of MetroManila. Teaching in villages in the southern islands was particularly rewarding. I told Annie Sollestre, my thoughtful assistant at INAM Philippines who organizes my seminars, that I would like to start a training for children and their parents. We’ve never had one since I started teaching there in 1997. I’ve taught children in the US when I lived in New Jersey in the early 1970s. The church I belonged to had a recreation project in Neptune, just across from Asbury Park. There were usually between 10-15 young kids, ages 10-15, who joined regularly. We had art, games and basic martial arts. It was a multi-racial group. I was the director.
Since I started teaching at INAM Philippines (formerly Acupuncture Therapeutics Research Center) 25 years ago, the organization has integrated different healing modalities into their program aside from acupuncture: Qigong, meditation, Chi Nei Tsang Internal Organs massage, Cranio-Sacral, Tai chi chuan (fist, staff and swords), Inner Smile, 6 Healing Sounds, Microcosmic Orbit, and Zhan Zhuang.
I’ve taught different Tai chi forms: Tai Chi Chi-Kung 1, Yang Tai Chi Chuan fist form (first section),
Dao/Broadsword (first set) and Jian/Straight Sword (first 2 sections).
to train. There are 1300 flowering ylang-ylang trees, 50 coconuts and 30 mango trees, and
100 wild Philippine boars.
Universal Healing Tao) to blind masseurs at INAM Philippines.