I knew no one would listen to me on New Year’s Eve had I told them there was no reason to create mayhem and noise. We had been severely noisy the whole year and if the rationale for loud, thunderous sound was to drive away evil spirits and dark energies, then we had been doing that since January of the old year. Think of the videoke that is beyond the control of even the most militaristic of barangay heads. Think of drinking and dancing parties that go well into the next day because the mayor and his councilors had been there and had left enough funds to souse up the entire village.
Given the logic (which may not be logical on the level of the practical) of what we observe, how pervasive have the shadows covered our archipelago that we need to be relentless till the last days of the year in inviting back the light?
Rituals being rituals, how aware are we about the meanings of ceremonials and how conscious is our society of the premise of avoidance behind all observances, that taboos are as sacred as graces embedded in the feasting?
This year, as in the previous years of the millennia, as the clock struck 12 (which differed according to time zones), we accepted one truth, that 2022 had left us so that 2023 could enter our calendrical lives. The change is not merely numerical but cosmological. This means that, following Fiona Bowie, a noted anthropologist of religion, we have to contend with our “conception of the nature of the universe and its workings” and, more importantly, “of the place of human beings and other creatures within that order.”
In her book, The Anthropology of Religion, Bowie speaks of how we, as members of a human group, create stories that will explain about our own conception of the origin of the world and other elements in that world. The raucous and revelry every time the last days of the year arrive derive their significance from the tales that we tell each other why we believe there is a New Year, and how heralding such fresh start demands our most basic human intervention—the production of noise from anything we can lay our hands on. Thus cars honk at the expense of sleeping infants, sick old people and nervous pets; kitchen utensils are banged till our mothers go crazy; fireworks are thrown, some creating fires destroying homes rather than symbolically rebuilding them for the next 365 days.
What is our story then about the dawning of a New Year? What is our cosmology?
Among the older generations, there remains the belief in the Bakunawa, a Serpent-like mythical being that ruled the Sky. In other accounts, this magnificent Being (never a monster) places Itself in the bowels of the Earth, ruling all motions and lives above the ground, reigning over the affairs of wise men and fools, distinguishing between the sacred and the profane. The Bakunawa is our geomancer, the seat of the indigene’s Earth Magic. This Serpentine Being, for lack of a better appellation, functions like feng shui, except that It does not follow the masters of the latter belief whose propensity to color-code the auspicious color (or colors, just to have all bases covered) for the year is more the function of the fastidiously fickle-minded fashion market than the inscrutability of Fate.
I like to believe though that we, as a people, have moved farther from the belief systems where the Bakunawa is the supreme symbol and have grafted our faith onto the accessible feng shui, with its overwhelming flamboyance and commercialism.
Listen to what feng shui says: blue is the lucky color. What happened to magenta? At the close of 2022, it was circulated how the said color would bring fortune and happiness. Where did that color come from? Why not fuchsia, a color hated by many after weddings but remains a favorite of bridesmaids for reason only brides would know. The interpretations of magenta victimized many ardent believers, with photos of people in family reunions wearing color palettes ranging from the barely-pink to deep purple (perhaps a nod to the rock group) to sacerdotal violet, then to aubergine and lavender. Now, it is blue because it is the color of the Water Rabbit. Huh!
Here is also where the modern feng shui (I am certain there was a viable, more rigid ancient form of this tradition) is seductive: it tracks the mundane, including what color the underwear should be so as to attract love into your life. Well, I like that—hues and love, boxers or briefs, panties or half-slips. And yet, I would like to cling on to a more metaphysical notion of the universe, the one that does not trivialize loving and living. The more I read the feng shui elements being circulated online the more I tend to see the attitude to this kind of geomancy as wishy-washy. For one, there are just too many animals of fortuity we might as well bring in the zoo to watch over our luck or misfortune.
What happened to the majesty of the Bakunawa? The last time I got hold of a document detailing this Being was a magical moment. It was on the back cover of Kalendaryong Bikol, an almanac. Its shape was kin to the medieval dragon but without the latter’s ferocity. It is the same being imagined as swallowing the Moon or the Sun during eclipses, the divine creature able to ingest the Old Year and release the New. It had a crown on its head, carrying with it life mysteries, whose directions no colors and no noise can predict, and no human can foretell.
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Image credits: Jimbo Albano