I am amazed How the Diwata is working with us right now. I thought that Diwata were long gone but it seems that they are present and guiding us on how to know them more.
It was the New moon of July when we officially start to work out with the names of the Diwata as our Shrine have vowed to keep the names of the Supreme Diwata of the Philippines and as of this time we are keeping 46 names and make them sacred by making offerings to them and prayers. And one major work that we do for them is to reintroduce them to people, though these Diwata are already known by the Indigenous People where they have their supremacy but through Colonization and conversion of the People into Christianity and Islam, the numbers of their followers declined, but that does not mean that the powers of the Diwata have declined too.
When i started this project, I asked my Self what would it benefit us from reviving the beliefs in the Diwata? If it is convenient enough just to follow the modern deities that been preached in our society. But why do i get out from Christianity and started this Journey of Spiritual liberation? This already have happened in the past during the days of the Katipunero. They already have thought of reviving the Indigenous Spiritual Tradition of worshiping the Diwata's but instead they focused liberating our Country from our colonizer politically but failed to rebuild the Temple of the Diwata instead building up Iglesia Independiente Filipina or the Aglipayan Church which is a Filipino Version of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. This is why up to this day, because of the influence of the Catholic Church in our government, most of the laws that supposedly make people free are being censored and filtered by the Church according to their doctrine.
But We as a Church that been registered and recognized by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission are working that our Indigenous Spiritual Beliefs and practices be also properly recognized as we Educate the people starting in Social Media and world wide web platform like this that We as Filipino have our own God that will liberate us from Spiritual Colonization.
Decolonizing our Spiritual beliefs starts with freedom from the current spiritual beliefs and practices that we have. So this freedom that we seek will start a Spiritual Revolution that will give struggles on getting out from our current environment that we have. When i was converted into Bible Baptist Church from Roman Catholic Church, my former pastor have told me that most new converts may experience persecution from the former religion that we have. I've been told that my parents would get mad at me and start to deprive me of any privileges that they may give. People might mock and laugh at me because on the new faith that i believe in. These are only few instances that might happen if you start a Spiritual Revolution. But in order to overcome all these struggles that we might experience, we should be firm to our decision of achieving freedom.
We can overcome these struggles by having Faith. So how can we have faith? and to whom we put our Faith? Before we become a Filipino, our ancestors belongs to a Tribe where each Tribes has their own Diwata. As you notice that Filipino now-a-days, there are over 120 languages spoken in our Country, and with that languages there are God or Diwata that people could speak with. Indeed we have our own Diwata that could better understand us when we are in need. We can put our Faith in the Diwata as they never been lost nor died. What all we need to do is just call their names.
Unlike Christians or Islam and other book Religions, our Diwata has no Written Scriptures where we can read to learn who they are. As the Christians or Muslims have taught that Read the Bible! Read the Quran in order to know God. But for me, reading is for schools. When you read, you learn academically and follow rules like in a box. But working with the Diwata is more personal than you know. Like if you want to know and make friends with other people. You don't read books about that person if that person has their autobiography. But even the person has, your knowledge about the person based on reading an autobiography does not make you a friend of the person.
So our Faith in the Diwata does not comes from reading an article or scriptures about them but through developing a relationship with them. I remember that when i was in the Bible Baptist Church that they have a ministry for young people that prepares them to behave properly specially in terms of dating. A special activity will be held for the young people that will bring them close together that they may know someone that could possibly become their life partner. Just like in building relationship with our fellow human, we need to get acquainted with them first then as we know them we make activities together that we may get to know them more and understand them.
That is the same way on how we can build relationship with the Diwata. We get acquainted with them first in a ritual, then by having been introduced to them we make move of developing our relationship with them through constant communication and interactions with them. We interact with the Diwata by making offerings to them and praying to them.
On this video we asked Clem on her experience as she encounter the Diwata sa Kagubatan. During the ritual we asked the participants to give a gift as an offering. Here like as usual person we can bring anything as an offering, and people will accept it but as we grow our relationship with the person, the person may ask specific gifts that they want to receive. And on the case of Clem, it seems that the Diwata has known Clem already for a long time that instead of receiving her necklace but the Diwata have demanded for Clem's Snake earrings. I believe that Clem has been called by the Diwata sa Kagubatan because Clem have woke up very early in the morning in California time just to be with us in the online ritual that we held by 8:30 PM Philippines Time.
With this having said, We will open again our door for a Public Online Full Moon Ritual this coming 10th of September 2022 by 8:30 PM Philippine Time. So if you are in New York that will be 8:30 AM of saturday while for us it will the same day but it will be already evening. If you want to join and want to experience encounter the Diwata on a ritual. Kindly message me by making comment below or email me at [email protected]