Your mantra for the week: “I am blessed beyond all expectations.”
Be very aware of the one Presence that is within and around you now. This Presence goes with you wherever you go.
This Presence is God. This God loves you and cares for you. You are one with It and your awareness of your oneness with this Power links you to Spiritual Wisdom. Thus, you are guided in all that you think, feel, say and do.
Choose to tune in to this Wisdom for every challenge in your life, rather than listen to radio stations that broadcast fear, judgments and complaints.
Through this Wisdom, you achieve the body shape and weight you desire. A sense of well-being fills your whole person, and you are directed to all channels of healing and wholeness.
As you tune in to this Spiritual Wisdom, all the abundance of the universe appears for you. All lack and limitation disappear and fade. All the material things you will ever need appear in your life simply by tuning in to It—for It is the source of all the good that you desire.
This Spiritual Wisdom, which is also Love, brings harmony to all your relationships and thus creates joy for you and those who touch your life. It leads you to forgive yourself and all those who have ever hurt you. You are led to understand that each is in his/her own journey, desiring the same things you do: health, abundance, love and freedom of expression.
And as you go through your own adventure, there are times of darkness—and then we are there for each other. Those who are in the light bring those who are in the darkness into the light.
As you link yourself to Spiritual Wisdom, you discover talents and abilities you may never have known that you have. When you become aware of them, you are led to develop these gifts and share them with the world.
Yes, there are difficult times, but those are opportunities for us to rely solely on God rather than on the material structures of the world.
Know that whatever challenge you may be facing right now, it is there because you are ready to overcome it. So, receive the gifts that the universe has to give through that experience.
Art in Digongland
Visual artist Hayden Sison ended his fourth one-man show yesterday at the SM Center in Megamall. For those who are wondering why his show was titled “Adventures in Digongland (More High Fructose Corn Syrup),” it is because the words in parenthesis were the title of his third one-man show.
His latest works were inspired by events and personalities involved in the present dispensation and President Duterte’s first 100 days. The paintings are reflections of the many questions and uncertainties that have arisen in various sectors of society.
His mixed-media works combine oils, acrylic, pastel and graphite pencils. Although his paintings project a sense of fun and playfulness, it is clear they are expressions of satire and dark humor, focusing on politics and politicians.
Hayden and I are not related by blood, but by talent (for sure, ehem!) and taste in women, as can be observed in his choice of a beautiful wife named Michelle.
Hayden says, “I was born a son of a Sy and now I am legally a Sison.”
Moving forward with Grace
Last Thursday, Grace Glory Go launched “The 2017 Fookien Times Philippine Yearbook” at Samba in Shangri-La at the Fort, with son Vernon cohosting and his wife Happy assisting him.
The Samba room was filled with many familiar faces from government, business, society and the cultural world, which exemplifies how popular and well-liked Grace is.
As we watched her entertain her guests that evening, one can truly describe Grace as being totally in her glory while constantly being on the go—and “moving forward” toward a prosperous 2017.
8 best-dressed
Tomorrow, Jan. 16, I am honoring my mother Priscilla, whose birthday it is, with an intimate cocktail party where I will award a Priscilla statuette to eight ladies of my choice. They will make up “EPITOME 2016—Dressing at its Best.”
The Priscilla statuette is an adaptation of National Artist for Sculpture Napoleon “Billy” Abueva’s sculpture of a woman, which became a frontispiece in my mother’s Forbes Park residence. This was a birthday gift I gave my mother, which I acquired through an exchange deal with Billy for one of my own painting-poems that he fancied. The painting-poem appears on the cover of my book, “In Words, In Color.”
For the last two years, the awards were given by simply announcing my pick for the year in this column and delivering the statuette to each one of them.
My mother was among the women chosen for the Hall of Fame of the Best Dressed Women of the Philippines by the then dean of fashion designers and now National Artist for Fashion Design, Ramon Valera. She shared this honor with the likes of Elvira Manahan, Chona Kasten, Imelda Cojuangco and Baby Fores.
This is what Valera said to them: “They are meticulous in their clothes, from cloth materials to the smallest stitch in the hemline; they all own originals from world-famous houses of fashion in Paris, Italy and the United States; each one is equipped with a bank account that could easily launch a thousand gowns a year; all are endowed with good looks and a trim figure, and general grooming which includes hairstyle, shoes, bags and jewelry.
“These women knew how to choose their things to go with their dresses. Everything is just right in anything they wear. They do not have to be coached or advised by any couturier about what to wear and with what. They instinctively know what to pick out.”
Practical innovation
In an interview with a weekly women’s magazine in 1962, my mother said: “In cooler countries, the cocktail suit is an essential number in the wardrobe of the woman who has adopted the social ways and amenities of urban living. In the Philippines, however, a suit would be too warm to wear, except perhaps on a cold December day, or, say, in Baguio. But the short evening dress, a practical fashion innovation of comparatively recent vintage, should be a favorite with the Manila woman caught up in the whirl of the cocktail hour, which has a tendency to become an all-night stand.
“A silk sheath, in black or print, cut along lines that never change drastically from one year to the next, can take in with aplomb a round of martinis, manhattans and the small talk that comes in between.
“There are cocktail parties and cocktail parties. Some of them can be as elegant as a Buckingham Palace reception. Others are small, cozy and informal. To a very formal cocktail party, a fashionable woman would wear a dress that calls for a solitaire diamond ring. To the more informal cocktail party, the little black dress—timeless, simple and worn with only a strand of pearls—would be the elegant answer.
“Fabric pumps, in satin, silk or faille always make a fashionable stand. And no matter how many hours one spends on one’s feet, flat shoes are out of the question.”
Happy birthday, Mom!
