THE CALL OF THE BABAYLAN MANDALA by PERLA PAREDES DALY

Poet, professor, mentor, thinker and decolonialism scholar (among many other things) Leny M. Strobel  recently sent me two tiny blank books inspired by SitWithMoi!  She had made those tiny books to hand out to participants of a retreat preparing for an upcoming conference by the Center for Babaylan Studies.  Those tiny books and conference will be discussed in another blog post, but for now let me share that “Babaylan” is of the Philippine Visayan dialect and means “priestess” or “woman leader.”

Anyway, along with the two tiny books was a postcard featuring the image of a “Babaylan Mandala” created by Perla Paredes Daly. It also happens to be the cover image to one of Leny’s books, Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous (oh hey, I’m innit!)

Here also are the images from the covers of the tiny books. I show them spread out; they were folded to become the front and back covers:

I kept looking at these items with much fondness—for Leny, Perla and all the other modern-day Babaylans I’ve been privileged to meet.  From such love arose the idea, nay, sudden compulsion, to create a miniature book!  Undoubtedly, the idea was facilitated by the postcard’s card stock.  It was heavy yet bendable enough so as to make a logical book cover.

I didn’t yet have a plan on how exactly to create the book, but as with many other tiny books I’m making for SitWithMoi, decided to trust the process.  First, I thought to Xerox the material as I suspected I’d want to integrate the images of the lovely tiny book covers into this new book. The images are quite enchanting—I would find out later that both were from postcards treasured by Leny, with one being a mermaid and the other an Igorot tribal dance.

I folded the postcard to create the book cover, and gave it “French flaps” to somewhat diminish the size of the book.  Even with those flaps, though, the book came in sized at 2 5/6” x 3 ¼”, larger than the 2” x 2” scale I was hoping for “Books on Chairs.”  But I decided to stick with this size and call it a “coffee table book” because I didn’t want to cut the mandala (and my copier at home doesn’t have the ability to copy at smaller sizes):

As you can see from the above, there is information about the Babaylan Mandala on the left side of the postcard, and a complimentary note from Leny on the right side.  I decided to cover the messages with some post-its as I liked the idea of messages waiting to be discerned.  I used fuschia-ish post-its as I wanted to integrate a vibrant color—Babaylans are often colorful , after all…

At this point, when I closed the book, the fuschia pages stuck out beyond the edges of the book cover. 

Initially, I thought to trim the pages, but then decided to leave them sticking out.  It’s an idea I recall from a chapbook by marvelous poet j/j hastain which I once reviewed. I left the pages long for the same reason I interpreted the elongated pages in j/j's chap: that the book contains something whose expanse is so large it cannot be contained within a book’s borders; I wrote in the review, “It’s as if the cover cannot contain what is inside.”

I next opened the book cover to begin inserting in its contents.  First, I inserted in the Xeroxed copy I made earlier of the Babaylan Mandala.

The Babaylan Mandala would be split by the book’s spine in order to be the first and last images seen by the reader.

Next, I inserted in the copy of the Igorot tribal dance, followed by the copy of the Mermaid.  Both copies are longer than the length of the book, requiring them to be folded into two.  I placed on each of the two folds the words that I Xeroxed from the postcard and are hidden by the fuschia post-its.  Thus, the book unfolds as follows:  First, the final book cover where I wrote the title and author’s name with a fuschia-colored ink pen:

We then open the book, first to see the first half of the Babaylan Mandala and the first half of of the postcard text about the Babaylan Mandala (which I'll replicate below):

After reading the text on the Babaylan Mandala, the reader then can pull the fuschia-colored tab to see the Igorot tribal dance:

The reader folds the page then turns it over to the next page

After reading, the reader can pull the fuschia-colored tab to see the mermaid:

The following is the text read by the reader, taken from the postcard:

Babaylan Mandala

By Perla Paredes Daly

The Babaylan Mandala represents YOU, your soul and existence in the cosmos and your connection with all of Creation. YOU are the Bahala tree of life at the center, shown with sacred numbers… symbols of the elements the Seen and Unseen, the macrocosm and microcosm… and Philippine baybayin symbols of KA and BA, HA and LA.  All these symbols have metaphorical meanings that I share with you and that you too can discern for yourself.  It is a message from our ancestors that I convey through symbolism, instead of words.

The Babaylan Mandala can be used as a meditation tool for “pagbabalikloob” or return to “Loob” (Inner, True or Higher Self). The image is meant to be contemplative so that you can connect with the metaphoric details and the whole.  It is a visual device to enable you to look inwards, realize and live from your True self and to find “pakikipagkawa” or connection to the Cosmos and to the Divine source that sparks all of Life, that exists within all humans, all creatures and all of Creation. This journey may empower you to be whole and in harmony with all your “kapwa” and the Earth.

 

After reading—hopefully meditating on—the text, the reader can then turn the page and see the other half of the Babaylan Mandala, the image that would finish the reader's experience with the book:

For those of you interested in finding out more about the Philippine Babaylan, there is much information in the internet on the Babaylans.  You might also click on the link to Leny's book, , Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous.

And now, where oh where shall we “shelve” The Call of the Babaylan Mandala by Perla Paredes Daly?  But of course, it should be placed lovingly on the coffee table of the narra sala set from the Philippines!

"THE LAST WORD" FROM A TREASURE IN THE CONTEMPORARY POETRY WORLD

This week, I got snailmail and it included a box worth waiting for--a bunch of smallish books sent by Kansas/Mexico-based poet jim mccrary!  I was absolutely thrilled with this trove, which includes some iconic stuff like LUCK, a 4" x 4"-ish 1987 chap by Charles Bukowski for Black Sparrow!  Apparently, jim used to live in an old residential hotel in downtown Santa Rosa.  Then John Martin moved his Black Sparrow Books into town (from Santa Barbara), and jim says he "used to stop by and visit (and try and mooch free books to be honest).  Those were the days."

Thank you, jim!  And of course I'm also thrilled that jim thought to create a book for our "Books on Chairs" project!  It's very clever!  Here's the front cover to his THE LAST WORD:

The "book" is basically a single photograph that jim folded.  When you open the book--unfold the photograph--you see the interior text:

"If this is the last word, that's good."  What does that mean?  Well, look at the photograph in its entirety (back and front cover, in other words):

I assume that's jim on the photo.  Behind him is a long road.  Given the positioning of jim's body, it's fair to interpret that he came from the road behind him, rather than that it's a road he's planning to take.  So, the forefront of the photograph could be his ending days (though of course I know, jim, you still have a munificent amount of years left in you!).  But let's say that the person in the photograph is at his last days, hence the word he just uttered through this book is his last.

Well, that last word is "good" because he's traveled a long road, come a long way (if you forgive the cliche), and he's smiling.  Dude is smiling!  He's had, in other words, a great life!

A "great life" can be interpreted many ways, but what matters is what one thinks of one's life at one's deathbed and this smiling Dude is happy with how and what he's lived!  So: "that's good"!

Anyway, jim has many more years left (note how the photograph, too, has a forward momentum--that is, the person is portrayed actively, not statically just because he's in a snapshot, so that he seems to be in motion forward).  Bot for his last word, this is certainly the conclusion I wish for jim mccrary, one of contemporary poetry world's living treasures.*

(*An example of why he's a treasure is because jim, when writing critically to support other poets, musters forth gems like THIS.)

Now, where shall we "shelve" jim's book?  Of course!  As an oversized (larger than 2" x 2") book, on an oversized (larger than 1:6 scale) but authentic Mexican chair!

P.S.  I adore this man. So I'm going to post another photograph of him -- with his cat!

Thanks jim. Live long and prosper!

THE RELIEF OF AUTHENTICITY

Somewhere in lovely Mexico is a lovely grandmother who, in exchange for moi home-grown honey, sent over two AUTHENTIC Mexican chairs for SitWithMoi! She sent them through my friend and her daughter, Rocio. Muchas Gracias!

I capitalize AUTHENTIC because these are apparently duplicates of how real chairs are made.  Here's the backside:

Mexico actually generates a lot of mini chairs.  But the chairs gifted here duplicate how real chairs are made, versus the toy chairs that apparently have come to be painted over-the-top, in the opinion of Rocio and her mother.  Rocio told me that many of the mini-chairs today are ornately painted/decorated and utilize (to the dismay of Rocio and her mother) such ridiculous words as "Princess" painted on the seat of the chairs.  So it was a relief for Rocio's mom to have found these chairs.  They look like they could be painted but I can certainly envision the visual relief they, unadorned, also offered Rocio and her mother (shades of Christopher Dresser?!). 

Indeed, these are the most plain-looking (in a good, Shaker-like way) Mexican chairs I've seen as most of those I've observed are quite colorful.  Huh. And this authenticity dilemma, if you will, actually reminds me of one of the unnecessary battles within the poetry world -- the insistence of the binary perspective in considering plainspoken language vs more baroque or ornate language for use in poems.  Actually, why am I raising this now?  Nevuh mind then....!

Anyway, my thanks to Rocio and her Mom and I'll try to ensure that the future books placed on them will be, uh, also authentic! Here's Rocio with the chairs:

The chairs are actually slightly larger than ideal, but that's okay.  Some poets who -- despite their mastery of their art's minimalist requirements -- can't seem to measure the books they send over here for "Books on Chairs" and send them larger than 2" x 2" (wassup, poets?!).  Those oversized books can now be shelved on these oversized chairs!


[Scale: 9.25" height, 3.5" width, 4" depth.]

MOI BEAUTIFUL MOM'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK

My Mom, Beatriz Tilan Tabios, was bedridden during her last few months, and she couldn't talk during her last few weeks.  These ... time-pauses ... are what inspired me to write a book on her behalf--one more book by her since her first book so delighted her!  I was initially moved to do so when, in going through her stuff, I saw some address labels she never had a chance to use:

I paused to consider them, to consider specifically the flowers and the waterfall whose images must have pleased her.  My mother adored pretty things.

So I cut up some slips of paper and folded them into a mini-book entitled The Last Words I Could Not Say (though of course she'd ended up saying them by virtue of the book's existence!):

I knew immediately that there would have to be a dedication page like so (as it was in her first book):

One thing never doubted--and which life has taught me not to take for granted--is that Mom LOVED her family.  Because of that love, I decided to write an Introduction:

The tiny Introduction says,

My mother, Beatriz Tilan Tabios, could not speak during her last days of being bedridden from cancer. This only meant that, instead of hearing, I saw--with my mind's eye-- her "last words." I believe they reflect her love for Beauty.
                                                                       --Eileen Tabios
                                                                       Jan. 17, 2013

Mom's thousand-word-equivalents are the stickers from her sheet of address labels.  Here is a snapshot of Pages 2-3:

I thought that these images of beauty reflected the words Mom would utter when she was at her best.

Pages 7-12 are stickers of the same images from the first six pages, except they are of a smaller scale.  Here is a snapshot of Pages 11-12:

The second half, so to speak, of Mom's book are of smaller images to reflect the diminishment of her speaking ability ... and later her breath.

So, the interior of the book was finished.  I then thought about how to create a cover to Mom's book.  In looking through her things, I came across stacks of unused Holiday cards.  I thought it'd be fitting to use one of these cards as her book cover, specifically this one:

I chose the above image because a dove symbolizes peace and I do so hope that Mom is resting in peace.

So I cut up the holiday card in preparation for making a cover.  As with other mini-books I'm making, I used a single staple as a binder:

And all of such would have sufficed to make a wonderful tiny book for and by Mom, but I felt something missing.  I looked around some more among her stuff (Mom was a pack rat; she left behind tons of stuff!).  Among her costume jewelry, I found an earring of black "pearls."  Mom loved pearls.  As I fondled the earring, I thought to turn it into a bookmark!

So there you have it, a tiny thing of beauty by Mom.

Now, on which chair to place Mom's book?  There wasn't even a close alternative.  Of course Mom's book had to be placed on the ethereal beauty of the vintage hand-woven chair discovered by Kathleen La France: 

R.I.P., Mom.  I miss you ...

INTRODUCING "THE RICHARD ODOM STOOL"!

Poet and Lacan-Aficionado John Bloomberg-Rissman is thoughtful and always thinking of Moi.  To wit, he recently sent me this blog post by Lisa N. Guenther, "Reading Plato on Death Row."  The article discusses a discussion group at Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Prison involving prisoners on death row and philosophy graduate students. At one point, Guenther cites Foucault considering "the possibility of shaping one's existence through aesthetic practice."  Foucault is quoted from a 1982 interview as saying

This transformation of one’s self by one’s own knowledge is, I think, something rather close to the aesthetic experience. Why should a painter work if he is not transformed by his own painting?

From that question, Guenther discusses how many of the prisoners are or had become artists:

Everyone in prison is an artist, it seems.  They paint, they draw, they write poetry, they tattoo themselves and others.  When they don’t have access to standard art supplies, they become even more creative, using toilet paper or white bread to create papier-mache sculptures, or scraping the pigment from M&Ms or Skittles to use as paint.  Richard Odom, a participant in our discussion group, makes doll furniture out of discarded toilet paper rolls.  He says, “Society has flushed us down the toilet, but we can still make something beautiful with the leftovers.”

It is through this discussion that I was introduced to Richard Odom's work; here's a photo of colored chairs and footstools he created from toilet paper rolls:

Odom's chairs are also featured in an exhibition entitled "Prison Galleries: Imagining Justice from the Inside Out" at Vanderbilt University's Sarratt Gallery. Here's another image:

I don't know anything about Richard Odom, but am inspired by how he turned to the objects within his environment and, from such, created art.  I was discussing this all with The Poet With Chairs the other day while she visited my studio, uh, dining room

and we decided we'd try to replicate his chairs since there are toilet paper rolls in the house. However, after considering the images and a toilet paper roll, I realized that a "chair" would be smaller than my desired 1:6-ish scale.  So I decided, instead, to make a stool.  First, I did this:

In looking at the result, I decided to shape a small back to the stool mirroring the circular curve of the toilet paper roll.

What was now needed was the seating pad.  Well, La Poeta y Yo looked around to see what we could use and we decided to create an upholstered seat from cotton balls!

So here you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen and Trans, the global introduction of THE RICHARD ODOM STOOL!  (Technically, Richard Odom-Inspired but let's get poetically minimal and make that moniker more punchy, eh!)

Once another toilet paper roll in the house empties itself into cardboard, I might take said cardboard roll and create a small, curved, braided back (which would be more in fitting with Mr. Odom's design).  Meanwhile, here's another shot at it (since it is, after all, such a photogenic thingie):

Now, I didn't need to hear the hubby's art criticism of moi stool ("anti-Platonic") to know I'm no Gerard Dago Jové.  Mr. Jové brilliantly makes miniature chairs (see his blog (en Espanol) HERE and the section on him at Tom Giannini's MiniatureChairman (in English) HERE).  But since La Poeta Con Silla is happy, Moi am too!

"The Richard Odom stool," proclaims La Poeta (with some of her To-Read-Books ever in tow--ever like Moi!), "is ergonomically correct for my back!"

Thanks to John Bloomberg-Rissman for writing to us about these fascinating topics and introducing me as well to Richard Odom as Artist.  Y'all should go buy John's VERY SMART BOOK!  And don't forget Volume 2 to said SMART BOOK!  Too bad I can't miniaturize them for "Books on Chairs"!
 

[Scale:  3.5" Height, 3" seat circumference, 3" from seat to floor.]

1/30/2013 UPDATE!!!!

Well, I kept being bothered by the back of the stool I made.  I just felt the back should be "braided" to really be in keeping with Richard Odom's design.  So, once a toilet paper roll emptied itself in the house (hah), I proceeded on such:

I next lined the inner side of it with yellow Post-it paper because I like the color combination of brown and yellow, to offer a more finished look (insofar as one can "finish" this toilet paper roll stool),  and to offer a more "comfortable" side to the person who'd sit on the chair.

Then The Poet With Chairs tried it on for size.  It fit!

La Poeta is pleased, and she placed her own books on the stool for the moment ...

I hope you've enjoyed this update since Moi lives to please Toi.