On the boat ride from Pundaquit to Anawangin Cove, Sky
told her cousin, Ashley, about the pine trees that grew on sand, and that they
were Mt. Pinatubo’s sons and daughters.
At seven years old, Ashley’s brows furrowed on the similes.
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| The agoho "sons and daughters of Pinatubo." Anawangin, 2010 |
“Di ba, mommy?” Sky needed story
reinforcement so I pitched the local tale about how the cove used to seem like
any other cove, with beige sand matting the length of the long shoreline and
turning slightly gray on the left cleft where fresh water met saline.
In 1991, when ashfall from Mt. Pinatubo carpeted San
Antonio, Zambales, there also came a seeding of sorts. “Anak ng
Pinatubo,” was how the old caretaker explained the mysterious birthing of
the agoho trees, so uncharacteristic
of Philippine beaches with most having coconuts and talisay as resident terrestrials.
It is partly this realignment of Anawangin’s geomancy –
fire conceived the agoho, earth midwifed
newborn islets and dunes, water gurgled in the center and flowed freely to the
sea, mountain protected her back -- that validated it: secluded Anawangin is
soul terrain.
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| Anawangin river, meandering and meditative. 2010 |
Twice here already, Sky regaled family with philosophical mastery that niners throw out so casually, “the beach and river, they’re kind of never the same.”
But the never-the-same, this time around, had no
philosophy, and created bad feng shui.
