So some people have been asking me what are my beliefs and what exactly is my path. As many of you know I am not Wiccan, though I was for about 7 years before my current path now. I thought about how I would go about writing this post and decided that I would start out from the beginning when I first found out about Wicca, Witchcraft, and Paganism when I was around 10 years old, to my branching out from Wicca to my spiritual path now.

My Spiritual Journey:

I have been Pagan for almost 10 years now since I was around 10 to 11 years old. For the first 7 years I was Wiccan before starting to branch away from it when I was in my senior year of high school. I was always a spiritual kid even when I was Christian. Being raised up in a Filipino Roman Catholic household my parents as most Filipino’s are religious. My mom was more liberal and open-minded while my dad was the conservative type. While my mom was interested in the supernatural and New Age, my dad resented anything that had to do with it as well as Witchcraft.

Being raised Roman Catholic I attended a Catholic school before moving and then attending a public school. The only religions I knew of as a child were Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I never questioned anything the church said, what I was being taught in school, and actively participated in church choir, being a server, and other jobs at the church behind my school. It was just something I was raised in and being young it was all I knew.

When I moved I started to look more into other religions, first with Hinduism because I knew a few people who were Hindu’s. Eventually I also started looking more into Christianity and started questioning some aspects that I either didn’t agree with or understand. After awhile I started to feel a lack of connection with Catholicism but still dutifully went to church every Sunday and went to CCD.

Around that time I was obsessed with Charmed and the whole idea of witches and witchcraft fascinated me. I pretended I was a “witch” and “casting spells”, and eventually I started looking up on the internet on witchcraft. From there I discovered Wicca and learned that it was an actual religion that practices Witchcraft. Now being the young naive little girl I was I had no clue what Wicca really was and never heard of it before but the idea of real witchcraft and witches peaked my interest. So I started researching Wicca a bit and printed out all these spells that were on sites back then on Wiccan sites and well you can tell where this is going.

At first I was only attracted to the Witchcraft and casting spells. After a couple months however of looking more into Wicca I started to actually know that there was more to spells and that it was an actual religion. I started learning about the Wiccan Rede, the Three Fold Law, reincarnation, the God and Goddess, the Wheel of the Year, etc. and I started feeling connected to this new religion I was learning about. I eventually drifted away from the spells and started becoming interested in the spiritual and nature aspect of Wicca. After feeling disconnected from Catholicism I actually started to feel that this religion was for me. The reverence for nature was the main factor why I was attracted to Wicca and the concept of a God and Goddess felt right to me. The Wheel of the Year woke me up to actually being in tune with nature and the seasons and being the nature freak that I am the religion spoke to me.

I started practicing Wicca, going on my year and a day study before dedicating myself to Wicca with a ritual I read from my Wicca book, Simple Wicca. Since then I’ve been practicing Wicca, learning everything that I could from books and online. At one point I told my mom that I was Wiccan and she didn’t mind, guessing it was just a phase for me and would go away. My dad on the other hand threw a fit. He would see all these candles in my room and would yell at me saying things like “What is all this?” “What are you into Witchcraft?” “You know that Witchcraft is evil right?” “Enough with all this Witch, Witch, Witch.” Let’s just say he not only was afraid of Witchcraft and Witches but hated it beyond anything else. At first I never knew why exactly he was having a problem with it but later on I realized it stems from the negative views of Witches, Magick, and Witchcraft, or known as Kulam, from the Philippines. From there I never mentioned Wicca or Witchcraft again until years later.

Finally after my final year of high school I eventually told him again that I wasn’t Roman Catholic when he started to question me why I wasn’t attending church anymore. We had a discussion that lead to an argument due to my dad taking things into proportion and not wanting to accept what I was saying. We didn’t speak for almost a week before he started talking to me again but never brought up the topic again. Eventually wanting him to understand me I wrote a letter to my parents, mainly for him because my mom already accepted it long before (she even bought me a pentacle pendant when I was in 9th grade). I wrote on that letter my beliefs back then, that I believed in a God and Goddess, was Wiccan, etc. Eventually he got over it but he doesn’t bring it up anymore. I haven’t been expected or forced to go to church every Sunday after that except for Christmas mass because family values which I’m fine with. He may not like it but he eventually accepted my path.

Around that time I also started looking into my own culture’s mythology. I’ve always researched European and other Asian deities and myth’s but never my own. I didn’t even know if we even had any but I was curious so I looked it up online and I was surprised that the Philippines is rich with deities, mythologies, and beliefs. I started learning more as well as getting to know more about my culture, the real culture prior to Spanish colonization. What I started to learn amazed me not just the mythology and beliefs but Pre-Hispanic traditions, arts, dances, music, writing systems, and the tribal people that have remained untouched by foreign influence, that I never even knew about. My own parents never even knew about some of it. It was like an another awakening for me.

I started learning about the deities in the Philippines from the different ethnic groups and the remaining tribes that have survived influence and started to work with them. At this point I still considered myself an Eclectic Wiccan, who practiced the Wheel of the Year, followed the Rede, and did the occasional spells. Actually scratch that I rarely even did spells as I wasn’t interested in them or the ceremonial magick which is a contrast to how I first began my journey in the first place. But I still considered myself Wiccan who started to work with my own ancestor’s deities.

Eventually however my views and beliefs started to change. It was being shaped by the beliefs of my ancestors and the tribal people who held similar beliefs. I started feeling more of a connection to my ancestors, nature, and the Divine, than I ever did when I was Wiccan. At this point I started not following the Rede because I didn’t agree with it and I already stopped believing in the Three Fold Law long ago because the idea of the energy you send out comes back to you three times is no way universally possible. You receive the same amount of energy as you sent out.

It eventually got up to the point where I just started calling myself Pagan and didn’t consider myself Wiccan anymore because I didn’t believe in Wiccan ethics and beliefs anymore. I still followed the Wheel of the Year because it was celebrating the cycles of the Earth and wasn’t a Wiccan concept anymore but a Neo-Pagan one.

After constant researching from online and the few books out there on Pre-Hispanic Philippines and the traditions, beliefs, and mythology I turned to more of a Reconstructionist. My path is in a Reconstructionist standpoint, reviving back the ancient beliefs of my ancestors from what is historically recorded and spoken of in the rural and tribal area’s. However my path is not fully a Reconstructionist path because I syncretize it with some aspects of Neo-Paganism (for now but that’s quickly changing) and New Age such as Western divination like Runes and Tarot, the Wheel of the Year, and my own belief that there is an ultimate universal feminine and masculine energy, not particularly a Goddess and God like Wiccan concept’s.

There is no name for my path that is mostly based on Pre-Hispanic Philippine beliefs with minor things in Neo-Paganism, however the collective name for the Pre-Hispanic belief systems is Anito, which is a term I will explain in a bit. I consider myself a Pagan, an Animist, & Polytheist. I still don’t call myself a Reconstructionist, at least in the strict sense, though technically based on how I am practicing and reviving beliefs and tradition’s from the past as historically recorded I am with the difference of syncretizing with a few modern Pagan concepts.

Now I just finished telling you about my spiritual journey up to now. But what exactly are my beliefs?

Animism:

First and foremost the spiritual practices of Pre-Hispanic Philippines and the tribes are animistic. The belief in spirits is prevalent even today and is the core of my beliefs. There is a belief in the anito and diwata, which depending where you are in the Philippines the terms are used. Anito is used up north in the Luzon regions, and parts of the Visaya’s, while diwata is used in the south in Mindanao and part’s of the Visaya’s.

The anito are the ancestors and nature and land spirits who are around us. It also sometimes includes the deities, but in my path I include all 3. The diwata are the same but the term is used in the South and in some parts its used either for the deities or for the nature spirits.

The belief that there is a spirit in everything from the plants, animals, rocks, mountains, rivers, and even rain, thunder, and lightning, meant that nature was sacred and to be treated with respect.The balete tree or banyan for example, was a sacred and revered tree. It was where the spirits lived in and people were careful not to disturb them. There is a phrase, even now that many Filipino’s still use to not anger the spirits and risk harm to themselves. When walking in forests, mountains, fields, and other sacred and natural places, people say “tabi-tabi po”, which is basically “excuse me, excuse me” with “po” being a term used for respect. It is asking the spirits for permission and telling them that we are passing through and mean no harm. Despite being a dominant Roman Catholic country, we still believe in spirits and do this. I remember my parents telling saying this when in forested area’s and they would tell me to say it to so I don’t anger and disturb them.

The Divine:

I am a Polytheist and I believe that all the deities from all culture’s are their own being. I don’t believe in the concept of a God and Goddess anymore though I do believe that there is a sole universal energy that makes up both the feminine and masculine energy found throughout the universe.

I don’t personally follow the concept of a Patron deity anymore though I know how it works and I acknowledge it. My Matron Goddess was Brighid for many years before my current path. The first year of my new path she still had me until eventually when I started practicing my path fully and ending my transition she decided to finally let me go. Even though she isn’t my Matron Goddess anymore I still do respect her and give her my blessings but I don’t work with her anymore which is fine. She understood where I was heading and stayed with me until I transitioned to my new path before letting me go.

Now being a Polytheist I work with the deities from the Philippines mainly the Tagalog and Visayan deities because that’s what I am. There are plenty of other deities from the different ethnic groups in the Philippines which is a lot that I acknowledge but don’t personally work with due to not being those ethnic groups. I call on and work with them when I need to depending on their attributes before leaving them my offerings. The deities I worship and respect most of all are are the Sky god Kaptan and the Sea Goddess Magwayen who are one of the original and primordial deities in the Visaya’s.

In a creation story for the Tagalog’s there were three deities, Bathala, Aman Sinaya, and Amihan the God of the North East winds who took the form of a bird. In the story Bathala and Aman Sinaya they were bitter enemies who constantly fought each other. Bathala would send his thunder and lightning down to Aman Sinaya while she sent her waves eventually creating the islands. Eventually sick of the feud Amihan flew back and forth between the two realms bringing the sky and sea closer to each other. Because of this both deities finally agreed to stop their feud and as a sign of peace Bathala planted a seed in the bottom of the Aman Sinaya’s ocean floors. From this seed it grew into a bamboo shoot and one day Amihan flew by it hearing voices. Curious he brought the bamboo over to the nearest island and pecked it open. Inside the first man and woman, Malakas and Maganda (Strong and Beautiful), came out. There is also another one very similiar to the Tagalog between Kaptan and Magwayen for tbe Visayan’s.

For the ancient Filipino’s there was a belief in a Supreme Deity, some were male, some were female, while most of the time it was either genderless or a hermaphrodite. Regardless, there was a belief in a Supreme Deity with lesser deities who the people worshiped. For me the being is genderless. Unlike most Neo-Pagan’s worshiping the deities comes second to the ancestors. Yes I respect and honor them but the ancestors are more important.

Ancestor Worship:

Ancestor worship is a big thing in my path. In Pre-Hispanic Philippines, especially in the Visaya’s where my mom’s side of the family comes from, worshiping the ancestors were for some even more important than the spirits and the deities. The ancestors were believed to play an important role in our lives and have the ability to interfere with aspects of our lives just like the spirits. Even today most Filipino’s respect the ancestors and the dead.

The ancestors were said to reside around us in nature and in wooden and stone figure’s called tao-tao, bata-bata, larawan, or anito. It was referred to as idol worship by the Spaniards because they saw the people worshiping and paying respects to these figurine idols. Today we still have some of these small statues in some parks, houses, and in the Cordilleras Mountain Region in Luzon, the Igorot tribes still worship these statues which they call Balul, or Rice Gods.

In the Visaya’s the umalagad, (ancestor spirits), were personal guardians of a person or family, sometimes even taking form as animals. They were here to help us and were invoked for fertility in agriculture, harvest, healing, war, leaving the house, or safe journey’s when traveling either by land or sea.

For me I know none of my ancestors are here in the states as they didn’t die here so they definitely aren’t in the trees or mountains. However by the form of my ancestral shrine I honor them and pay my respects by giving my offerings of rice, chicken, incense, money, coconut and rice wine, and any of the other Filipino foods I choose to offer depending on the occasion. I do this every morning before I do anything else and before I leave my house to receive their blessings and know that they watching over me and my family. I still do need to carve out two anito statues, one to represent the males and one for the females of my ancestors and I plan to do that as the days get warmer. I also hope to buy one from the Philippines as even though they aren’t worshiped the way they were before, there are still statues in the Philippines being sold for homes, gardens, and even as something as simple as a keychain. I can bring my ancestors with me ha! In my path the ancestors are more important than the spirits and deities themselves.

The Soul:

In my culture there is a belief in a person having two souls one the physical, the other spiritual. The physical soul is the soul of the body that can never leave. It is the soul of where you are born and when you die that soul will return back to the earth, becoming one of the many nature spirits. The other soul, the spiritual soul, is the one that can leave the body and walk about. In the West it’s like astral projection and dreams. If the physical soul does manage to leave, the body dies and without it you are dead. When you die, while the physical soul stays on earth, the spiritual soul moves on to the land of the dead or reincarnates.

Life After Death:

In the Visaya’s there is belief that when someone dies their soul goes to a place which is akin to a place for the dead, or for Wiccans, the Summerland, called Sulad. When someone dies their soul gets taken in a boat by the Sea Goddess Magwayen who brings the souls to Sulad.

There is also a practice of second burial jars. The most famous burial jar is the Manunggual Jar (right) dated from 890-710 B.C. that depicts a ferryman and a soul traveling to the afterlife. In the Philippines it was believed that the rivers and oceans were the gateways to the land of the dead. The way this burial is done is when a person dies the body is wrapped in cloth, mainly cotton, then put in a wooden coffen. It is then buried, usually under the house of the family where traditionally the homes were built on stilts. After about 3-4 years the coffin is opened up and the bones are cleaned, washed, blessed, and sometimes decorated before putting them in a jar. Once that’s done that jar is then placed usually in caves or buried again.

There was also a belief in reincarnation however this reincarnation was strictly family oriented. If there were no descendants or not a sufficient amount, the incarnation would stop. In this belief in reincarnation after we die from our human life we do stay in the land of the dead until we reincarnate. Every 5 generations of the family line you would reincarnate as an animal or plant. After four incarnations as either an animal or plant, the fifth incarnation you would be reborn as a human again in the same family line. So basically the whole cycle from human to reincarnating as a human again would take 25 generations with 5 incarnations. In this belief it strengthened the belief that all life should be respected because you never know if that bird or flower can be an ancestor reincarnated.

Cosmology:

There is a common belief from the various ethnic groups of a Skyland, Earth, and the Underworld. This not only a Philippine belief but pretty much universal. There is also a belief in different dimensions, different layers of the world. In the Visaya’s there is a belief in 7 layers of the universe.

1. Nothingness or Ranig-Ranig. The uninhabited base.
2. Tubignon. The abode and kingdoms of sea spirits, a layer entirely made of water.
3. Idalmunon. The abode and kingdoms of the earth spirits, a world in the bowels of the earth.
4. Lupanon. This is the earth world shared by both humans and spirits, such as the anito and diwata.
5. Kahanginan. The sky above the earth’s surface, inhabited by a flying half-human horse (bentohangin) and a gigantic wide winged bird (hubot).
6. Ibabawnon. Inhabited by babaylan/human mediums that intercede for humans with the spirit world.
7. Langitnon. The abode of the deities.

Other Random Bits of My Spirituality & Path:

- I follow the Babaylan tradition, which is a Shamanic tradition. The Babaylans, also known as Catalonan’s, Bailan’s, and Mumbaki as other terms from other ethnic groups, were Priestesses who had knowledge of healing, herbs, and communicating with the spirits, the deities, and the ancestors. They were given the most highest respect and were the one’s the Datu’s and Rajah’s (tribal leaders and chiefs) came to for advice on different things involving the barangay. (tribe, community) They were the Wise women (Men also assumed the role though it wasn’t as common, but they had dressed up as a woman, and were either straight, gay, or transvestites. It wasn’t until later on that males can let go of dressing up as a woman), the healers, the vessel who communicated with the Anito and Diwata’s, and in a way the witches who performed rituals for different events. Now seeing as I am still young, have no community I can serve, I do not call myself a Babaylan. I do follow the tradition and would be considered an Alabay, an apprentice or someone who follows the traditions but isn’t a leader.

- My cultural tradition’s such as chanting, dancing, and tattooing are also a part of my path spiritually. Traditional dances were created invoke the anito, for harvest festivals, and to tell a story as well as chanting. The tattooing culture that thrived in the Philippines prior to the Spaniards is also a part of my spiritual path. Tattooing or ,Batuk in the Visaya’s, in the Philippines was considered sacred and earned. Men earned their tattoo’s from success in tribal wars, headhunting, and other rites of passages. It showed that they were brave and warriors. Women received their tattoo’s not just for beauty but also as rites of passage as well. The Visayan’s were especially known for their tattoo’s as they were covered from head to toe and were called the “Pintado’s” or  “The Painted One’s” by the Spaniards. The men tattooed there chests, backs, arms, legs, and faces, the more tattoo’s the more they were a warrior and brave, especially by the way of the traditional tattooing which is painful and long. For women tattoo’s were mostly found on the hands, arms, legs, and chest and neck area. For me even though I do not have any traditional tribal tattoo’s at the moment I do plan to get them when I go back to the Philippines next year. The Visayan’s as well as most of the Filipino’s have lost our tattooing culture and only a few tribes such as the Kalinga still preserve it though it is dying out due to the younger generation not being interested in it. I plan to go back and learn from the remaining tribal elders who still practice and give out the traditional tattoo’s to keep the tradition alive. I plan to get tattooed with traditional symbols on my hands and arms for my dedication for my spiritual path and culture. (You can see some up in my picture above on my forehead)

- There is also totems in my culture and symbolism’s with different animals. Some examples are the crocodile and snake. Crocodile’s were revered and sacred and they still are today. They were given offering’s and were considered to be the ancestors. The word for crocodile is nuno which is also another term for grandparents, ancestors. They are also one of the most common motifs in tattoo’s with their scales and teeth. The snake was seen as messenger of the spirits and ancestors. In the Visaya’s there was also a belief that a person can have a snake as a twin, their umalagad, which was considered to be a good omen as the child would be protected by the ancestors and would become a great warrior. Today you can still see the heads snakes and crocodiles in the hilts of swords and knives.

- One of the major offerings for the anito and diwata are chickens. Even today both tribal and modern Filipino’s sacrifice a chicken for rituals and offerings. Many Neo-Pagans today frown upon animal sacrifice and reject that old practice for the past. Yes some practices today should be left in the past, I mean if headhunting which was a common practice in the Philippines, was still around that would be something wouldn’t it? However some things such as sacrificing a chicken or pig for the ancestors, spirits, and deities I don’t see a problem with and would do myself if I was back in the Philippines. Of course the animals are treated humanely and if one is sacrificed it’s a quick death by slicing it’s throat and letting the blood flow into the earth. It’s a sacred practice that has and is still performed today especially with the tribes to pay their respects and ask permission for anything. The animal is not wasted and is cooked to feed the community.

- I do believe in different creatures such as the wak-wak, tikbalang, kataw, sirena, tamawo, sigbin, kapre, and many other creatures.

- My path is both spiritual and cultural. Not only am I trying to revive the old beliefs but also the tradition’s as well. Even though the tradition’s such as the dances and music are starting to pick up again through performances and dance groups, there is still a lack of love and recognition for our tradition’s and culture and I hope to one day to not only work to revive them but teach them as well.

And this ladies and gentlemen is my path, my spirituality, and beliefs. I’m not going to go into the Gods and Goddesses, the symbols, and other specific parts of my path and Philippine Mythology and traditions because I think this is enough to explain my beliefs.

(Source: iheartpaganism)