We post this every year and we want to share it with you yet again.
Do you know which country celebrates Christmas the longest?
If you guess the Philippines, you are correct.
Christmas is celebrated early in the Philippines, we’re talking early November.
You can hear Christmas carols being played, the streets starting to be decorated with Christmas decorations.
These decorations include the traditional parol, a five point star-shaped Christmas lantern (something like a Pentagram) which has been a time-honoured Christmas symbol in the Philippines.
You see parols hanging in every street and road of towns and cities, outside almost every Filipino homes, in schools and office buildings, shopping malls, and even churches during the entire Christmas season which usually starts as early as November.
There is no other Christmas symbol in the Philippines that shows more warmth than these Christmas lanterns called parol.
These Christmas lanterns are very unique to the Philippines.
Parol-making is a traditional folk craft of Filipinos.
It is even taught to school children.
Schools hold lantern parades every year to showcase the artwork of these students.
In the Philippines, this folk medicine woman is reading candles, also known as candle wax or candle drip reading.
It's a form of scrying where the candle wax is either dripped or dropped into water where it forms a shape that's interpreted by the Witch.
This Filipino medicine woman has been reading candles as a living and is visited by locals for all kinds of reasons - sometimes it's about dwarves and other beings which have been disturbed by people.
The psychic rituals are meant to satisfy the dwarves or whoever, so that they may forgive the human victim and reverse the punishment.
There are several methods practitioners use in TAWAS:
The Egg
A raw egg is cracked into a glass of water and gently shaken, the egg white starts taking on different forms. The egg-
white is examined for any change in shape that might suggest the nature of the illness.
The Paper
A piece of blank paper, about 4- by 4-inch square, whispered with prayers (bulong), is "crossed" over the body of the patients area of affliction then examined for an shadows or shades for clues to determine the cause of the illness.
Cigarette rolling paper
The paper is smudged with coconut oil; then the healer breathes on it while whispering his prayers chosen. The paper is then brought up to a light to "read" the shapes that have formed that will suggest the diagnosis or cause of the condition.
Candles
A piece of candle is heated and melted on a spoon, then placed in water.
The shape taken by the candle on the water will suggest the nature of the medical issue to the healer.
Very often. shapes of dwarfs or elves are seen, and treatments are prescribed.
There is an awareness of Witchcraft and Voodoo in the Philippines that has brought the craft into the mainstream.
Although these practices have been considered taboo since Catholicism was introduced in the 15th century, many Filipino witches are still practicing their ancient customs.
Richard Quezon, the mayor of Siquijor town, the capital of the province, remembers being terrified by stories of evil witches in the mountains that rise from the middle of the island.
“Before, everyone went to healers for things like liver problems or cancer,” he said. “But now, with modern medicine, only those who can’t afford to go to the hospital seek out healers.”
Quezon defends witchcraft. Last month he went to a witch because of a skin condition that wouldn’t go away.
“The medicine from the pharmacy didn’t work, but the herbs and spells from the healer worked right away,” he said. “Some things science can’t explain.”
White Lady in the Philippines is a female ghost reportedly seen in rural areas.
There were lots of white lady stories in the Philippines, some of them haunts old houses, old bridges, caves, rivers, and many more.
But the most popular of the haunting grounds of these white ladies is the “Balete tree”.
Filipinos believe that such tree is the home of wandering spirits.
The most famous Filipino white lady of all is the “White Lady of Balete Drive”.
The White Lady of Balete Drive in the Philippines, according to the people who had seen this, she is a beautiful lady with long hair (sometimes it covers her face), wearing a white flowing dress. (somewhat like that of a gown or just like a loose Sadaku's dress)
So, if it is only a legend one thing is certain, there is great spiritually in the Philippines.
People are willing to seek out deeper meanings and truth.
Traditional healers are one such truth in the Philippines and the story of the Hands of Time Documentary is wonderful.
It features Jeff Cohen and his brother Gordon Cohen who was paralyzed from an automobile accident. Jeff takes is brother on a journey to the Philippines in search of a cure.
Jeff learns from a traditional shaman healer from a tribal community practicing animal sacrifice and ancestral worship. The shaman teaches Jeff over a period of years the art of Hilot massage which Jeff uses to help his brother recover.
For centuries traditional healing in the Philippines has been practiced to heal wounds and heal sicknesses.
These practitioners have been secretive and protective of their craft, so, not everyone could understand their methods.
Today, the tradition still continues, but the people who once were an essential part of this culture have been replaced largely by the Western Medicine.
These days People no longer go to the local albularyo, instead, they go to a clinic or a hospital.
Let's face it modern medicine is necessary when needed.
Yes, western medicine deserves much respect because it's effective with many health issues, but at the same time modern medicine seems to overlook certain aspects of how nature works.
Traditional healers believed in a practice of health where imbalances are caused by environmental factors that affect us mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.
Should these imbalances remain unattended the conditions of our physical selves suffer.
These healers know that the human body has the capacity to recuperate itself but with the existence of imbalances, recovery may be impossible.
Healers understand the four elements that exist within our bodies.
These are Earth, Water, Air and Fire.
Earth elements deal basically with digestive organs and digestion process.
The Water element deals with water-related organs and processes.
Air element deal with the lungs basically, and the Fire element, which is the energy of the functioning of Earth, Water and Air.
Health is a balance or correct function of all these elements and their respective processes, sickness is the reverse.
Nature has many answers, all we need to do is pay attention and listen.
Archeologists found stone tools on the island of Luzon in the Philippines from an ancestor 700,000-years older than modern humans. The tools were used to butcher a rhinoceros by a currently unknown ancestor.
Until now, the oldest fossil evidence of humans found in the Philippines were 67,000-years old coming from Callao Cave on the same island. Now, this new find changes the timeline of our ancestors’ diaspora to southeastern Asian islands.
The team uncovered 57 stone tools and roughly 400 bones total, belonging to an assortment of animals, including lizards, turtles, deer, stegodons, and rhinoceroses.
Previously, archeologists only had evidence of human migration to southeastern Pacific islands in the Indonesian archipelago dating back 118,000 years ago. Now that timeline has been pushed back more than half a million years.
Sadly, the Philippine nation has seen the unbelievable cutting down of 100 year old trees.
Government characters only care about the money that they would get from such destruction and not the massacre of hundreds of trees and the devastating loss to the environment.
The Pagan Kitchen salutes the protesters who have stepped in to make a difference.
We want people to be aware of the greed and selfishness of political opportunists who could care less about nature or about you.
Trees are living things, trees consumes resources, gives off waste, grows, reproduces, and dies. All the qualities of life.
We actually heard someone say, "if trees are so smart, why don't they talk?"
We think they do, we just don't know how to listen, besides, there are a lot of people who talk who say nothing.
Someone once asked us that if trees were so important, how many hospitals have they built?
"How stupid", we responded, "how many wars have they started?"
In the Philippines, this folk medicine woman is reading candles, also known as candle wax or candle drip reading. It's a form of scrying where the candle wax is either dripped or dropped into water where it forms a shape that's interpreted by the Witch.
This Filipino medicine woman has been reading candles as a living and is visited by locals for all kinds of reasons - sometimes it's about dwarves and other beings which have been disturbed by people.
The psychic rituals are meant to satisfy the dwarves or whoever, so that they may forgive the human victim and reverse the punishment.
There are several methods practitioners use in TAWAS:
The Egg
A raw egg is cracked into a glass of water and gently shaken, the egg white starts taking on different forms. The egg-
white is examined for any change in shape that might suggest the nature of the illness.
The Paper
A piece of blank paper, about 4- by 4-inch square, whispered with prayers (bulong), is "crossed" over the body of the patients area of affliction then examined for an shadows or shades for clues to determine the cause of the illness.
Cigarette rolling paper
The paper is smudged with coconut oil; then the healer breathes on it while whispering his prayers chosen. The paper is then brought up to a light to "read" the shapes that have formed that will suggest the diagnosis or cause of the condition.
Candles
A piece of candle is heated and melted on a spoon, then placed in water. The shape taken by the candle on the water will suggest the nature of the medical issue to the healer. Very often. shapes of dwarfs or elves are seen, and treatments are prescribed.
UPDATE: Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said he will defy the Roman Catholic Church and seek to impose a three-child policy, putting him on a new collision course with the bishops a day after he called them "sons of whores".
"I only want three children for every family," Duterte said on Sunday in Davao City. "I'm a Christian, but I'm a realist so we have to do something with our overpopulation. I will defy the opinion or the belief of the Church."
About 80 percent of the Philippines' 100 million population are Catholics, the largest concentration of any Asian country, who oppose abortion and contraception.
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The presumptive Philippine president-elect has called the Roman Catholic church "the most hypocritical institution" and accused some of its bishops of corruption for allegedly asking favors from politicians, including him.
Rodrigo Duterte questioned just how important the Catholic bishops are.
After all, his overwhelming victory in the May 9 presidential election defied all efforts by the Bishops to persuade Filipinos not to vote for him.
Détente cursed the bishops, calling them "sons of bitches" accusing them of taking public money for their benefit, while the poor could not even afford to eat and buy medicine.
