question lives in the mind

an eclipse reflection

I am constantly mourning the disconnection I have with the indigenous ways of my people. There were so many forms of severing that took place, distancing myself from ancestral ways. And yet—there are so many avenues of transmission that have connected me with what could have been lost forever. What was lost is still seeking us and what is seeking us has the determination to become implanted into our being. If time is a cycle, then what was lost will return to us in orbit whether or not we are amongst the living or beyond our final inhale.

I didn’t have a solar eclipse ritual until this year. What I wanted to do during the eclipse was to wear my fancy little glasses and stare at the sun. I didn’t do that. Instead, I trusted the ways of my ancestors: staying indoors, making noise, banging pots, and fighting off a mythical dragon. Indigenous tribes in the Philippines believed that an eclipse occurred when a dragon came out of the ocean to eat the sun. The dragon represented greed and avarice. The dragon could only be fought off by people who loved their community deeply and wouldn’t be swayed by the sweeping destructive and materialistic energies the dragon unleashed. Many indigenous Filipinx peoples kept their children inside the homes, stored away their livestock, and created loud cacophonies to fight off the dragon and protect the sun who protected them. But their protection comes with reflection: what do we know of ourselves, of our lives, now that we exist in the shadow of the sunlight falling victim to the energy of greed, materialism, individualism, and ego?

in Indigenous Philippine mythologies, an eclipse happens because a dragon is trying to eat the sun // image found on Quora

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