A Poem of a Tragedy Erased
This is the creation from Day 4 Prompt of 30 for 30 Decolonization through Poetry. The prompt was, “Imagine a historical injustice/tragedy that created hardship for you/your lineage. What would life be like if it never happened?”
It angers me, when I hear adults tell children, especially young girls, to “be good.” When this is said to children, you are instilling in them that one “is” or “is not” good or bad—rather than a result of a choice, the behavior that they choose to show. Specifically, I think about the Maria Clara ideal, a colonized ideal of what a woman “should be” that remains in much of Pilipinx culture. Maria Clara is the female protagonist in Noli me tangere and El filibusterismo, novels of Jose Rizal—a Pilipinx nationalist and hero during the late 1800s.
There are different interpretations of his intention with this character, but considering that these are satirical commentary on Spanish colonizers of the time, it can logically be inferred that Rizal intended Maria Clara as the model for the Pilipina ideal to also be satirical. Jane J Alfonso gives a nice explanation of this in her essay, “The Death of Maria Clara and the Resurrection of Babaylan: Reclaiming the Filipina American Body”, which can be found in the text, Back from the Crocodile’s Belly. Alfonso astutely states, “To take refuge in Maria Clara is the spiritual bypass of the traumatized, but to be her is to attempt to attain an impossible ideal: virginal, pure, sefless, endlessly devoted, and half-European” (2013).
This idea of “being good” and “pure” is not one of natural states, at least not in my experience. I felt like I had to stifle my instincts, yearnings, and creative self more, to be what I thought was expected of me. This colonized ideal perpetuates the idea that women and girls have to be perfect to be good and worthy. Through my training as a therapist, engaging in my own therapy, introspection, intuition, relationship to the land, and dream work, I’ve taken great strides to undo much of this thinking—but am also painfully aware of where this influence continues to restrain me by causing me to fall to old habits. Self-compassion and forgiveness are the tools that I employ to continue this part of my healing.
This poem is a reflection of this spiral process—and what would have been for Pilipina women living in las Pilipinas and the diaspora if we could be free and honored for our wild feminine selves, as we were once before. The Babaylan were often women, or feminized men, and were honored members of their community. This is a dream, an old way, I harken back to for strength. Luzviminda is the name that I chose to give to this aspect of my self. As is explained in its wikipedia page, Luzviminda is a portmanteau of the three major island groups in the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao. Its choosing is a form of reclamation of the islands before colonization, a journey back towards an older, indigenous connection to the motherland.
