Don't move.  Let me hold you at a standstill.  Let me have you like a photograph in a locket, close to my heart.

~

On a full moon, a faded orange tint on dried corn fields;

an evening when the sun has just set after a long day of unforgiving heat;

the sunflowers have bent like heads bowed in prayer, fighting death;

the soil is burnt and in the air there mingles the smell of ashes.

On this night, I anticipate my forever with you.

You are here.

~

But everyone moves.  Only a photograph can hold you in a frame.  So move, my sister.  But move the world with you.  Take the core that makes you You, and spell your name with every step.

~

The wound goes deeper, as fast as the airplanes that take Filipino artists away from home.  For every plane that takes off to the sky, there is a mirror image in at least one heart, where the plane accelerates downward to the pit of absence.  It is sad that our nation cannot sustain even its most promising and moving artists.  The story keeps circling and dreams clump to wasting, which leads us again and again to one canker that we cannot solve (yet):  corruption.  But there must be a way.  Not a way out, but a way to CHANGE.  We can change our country whether we are walking on its soil or not. 

Perhaps we should just all move; but move purposefully.  Perhaps by being scattered, we will find our strength; like fertile seeds sown by the wind.  Perhaps that wind is God revealing unto us our nation's destiny.  Our Art will bloom and be known.  Somewhere in our travels- - may be at the world's edge, at sea, on its roads, a nameless street, a cafe, along the gutter of our most solitary journeys- - I know that we will find the wisdom in all this, and we will be home.  

It will come.

Change can overwhelm.  Let me look back where I was before I changed element from land to sea.  

~

River Mnemosyne: The MirrorMyth Library

~

Time written with light.  Light riding the river, refracted broken by the waves, creating images.

These images are my reflections, broken.

These images written with light.

These images spell Time written – Past, Present, Future – All of which, I remember.

Do we only remember the Past?  If the universe were contracting, we will remember the Future.  What if I tell you my inner universe can contract and expand?  I remember fragments of Time that I try to put together and turn into a mosaic of imagery, glinting; an eclipse of experience and reflection.  What the Inner Eye sees is according to the motion of its internal universe - - expanding or contracting.  The soul summons its path, outside the grip of the automatic clock.  

~

An artist, metaphorically and poetically, is a shaman.  An artist opens doorways for souls to explore.  An artist brings about an ecstatic experience, as with dance, music, or a visual work.  S/he can take people to different worlds, and can initiate healing; healing of the mind, the heart, or the soul.  S/he is a bridge between the natural world and the spiritual world; the world of the seen and the intangible; the physical and the Divine.  Like a shaman, I have invoked this landscape of imagery.  I have slept in it, walked in it, lived and danced in it.  In this landscape, I have died and been reborn.  I am a vessel, a visual poetess, a ferrywoman, a channel, a ceaseless current, green electric; the unforgetting witness of the First Light that is Life, always circuiting in search of the meaningful in the meaninglessness.

River Mnemosyne is my visual poem.  This is my truth.  These visual pieces interlace a tale of the soul’s pilgrimage: from innocence and duality, to isolation and the dark, to love and its many semblances, to awakening and liberation, then to the unknown, and then back. Yes, ‘and then back’, because there is no end to the soul’s myth.  It is ever existing, ever replenishing, and ever learning.  And with this endlessness comes the cycles, the repetitions, the circle that becomes a spiral, and ultimately, the learning that comes with the Soul Memory. 

I believe that the soul has memory.  If it has not, then we do not learn.  If it has not, then we do not have a purpose.  If it has not, then all this existence is for naught.  My soul is past all nihilism.   I believe that the soul is just remembering while the body steps forward in Time.  It is through this that the spirit reaches realization.  With our body, we experience the material earth, but it is with the soul that we truly undergo pilgrimage. Throughout the exhibit, there is a repetition of themes and symbolisms, as it is in the experience of life- - how events happen repetitively until we learn; how we feel as though our life is moving forward yet how it is still a circle; how symbolisms in our lives remain unchanged through time; again, the cycles, the repetitions, the circle that becomes a spiral.  This is an introspect, as though looking through surrounding mirrors, the reflection repeated infinitely; hence, the predominance of self-portraits.  

These images are dreams of a path that encircle Time as one, embanking their soul imprints in Memory, setting them in motion, as in the flow of a River; setting them in motion as the First Mover gave us the first Breath.

Breath spurs motion.  I breathed.  And the images have coursed the River, to reach you.  Entering through your eyes, the images are now coursing through your internal universe, your River.

~

River is a metaphor of Time.

Mnemosyne is a river in Hades from whence initiates drink to remember everything that was in their lives.  Mnemosyne is also the goddess of memory in Greek mythology.

~

The images were dreams captured by a film camera.  The photographer printed with her hands lovingly and painstakingly.  In the red, tiled darkroom, in the shadow of precise Science and the light of intuitive Cosmos, she wrote with chemical romance.  Chemicals used in every stage were self-mixed, and most were personally concocted from scratch.  

All 18 images are original and are owned by the artist. The photographs are printed on fiber base paper, museum weight, and toned for maximum archival quality.  The dimension of the prints is 30x40 cm (11.8 x 15.7 inches) which are presented in wood framing, matted to a size of 47x57 cm (18 x 22 inches).  The compositions presented are an archive of old and new works, the old ones remade to fit the format of the whole exhibit.  

~

Do you know that a copyright exists at the moment of creation? Yes, it does. Copyright needs no registration.

However, for the purposes of documentation and reference, a deposit is needed to complete the collection of the National Library and the Library of the Supreme Court. You can deposit with either library; both is sufficient under the law. I want to stress that the deposit is not needed for the copyright to exist. Again, the copyright exists from the moment of creation.

Directly quoted from the website of Intellectual Property Philippines, you can demand the following 
penalities for the infrigement of copyrights: 



 1st offense – Fine of Php50,000-150,000 and 1 year-3 years imprisonment;

 2nd offense – Fine of Php150,000-500,000 and 3 to 6 years imprisonment;

 3rd and subsequent offense – Fine of Php500,000 to 1.5 M and/or 6 to 9 
    years imprisonment with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency

Uploading digital formats of any artistic works (photographs, paintings, music, poems) is
a common practice now.   We are in the tide of the digital wave. Speed  and reach are its advantages. 
Plagiarism and violation of intellectual property rights are some of its disadvantages.  I am aware of a story
where, in his website, a photographer claimed another photographer's work to be his own, when it is not.  
Can we sweep the whole of Cyberia for such thieves?  How do we protect ourselves?

In our legal system, we'll be drained of our resources before our filed cases can be solved.  What is the use 
of copyright when piracy cannot be solved; when our judicial system cannot uphold that right? Aaah, 
puzzles for the mind, technicalities, long discussions with fellow artists, contract clauses, lawyers, 
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  Still, it is good that the law against intellectual thieves is legislated.  
I haven’t sued anyone for the infringement of a copyright, but if my copyright is violated, 
I hope I will have the capacity to sue. I will see if something happens before I lose every financial resource. 
And if justice is served promptly, who knows, I might make a hobby out of litigation. The fines are high.  
Hik!