mt. pinatubo

My childhood memories include scenes of the ground shaking and our clothesline rattling among those of chasing dragonflies, riding bicycles, visiting parks, playing dolls, crushing hibiscus flowers and making bubbles. It included memories of my mother talking about earthquakes and aftershocks, scooping me up and carrying me as she dashed outside the house whenever the ground shook. I remember feeling dizzy and not understanding why, but then again so many things were a mystery to me back then. I recall my mother waiting in agitation for the aftershocks to come along. It confused and frightened me.

I was seven years old when ash fell from the sky while I was riding my bike. I remember how I thought in glee that it was snow only it wasn't white. It was gray. Still, I was mesmerized with my innocent mind not knowing that it was something destructive that brought all that ash. I remember telling someone that it was snowing. But my mother called it an ash fall. I recall getting a pan and a small pail and scooping up the ash so I can play with it inside the house. I'm not sure if it was my mother or my grandmother who ordered me to get back in the house. I didn't understand why they wouldn't let me stay outside when something so amazing to my eyes was happening. My grandfather told me that Mt. Pinatubo erupted. I didn't know what it meant, only that it made the ash fall possible.

Years later, I learned in Science about volcanoes, eruptions and earthquakes. In History classes, I learned what the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo truly meant. I would like to think that I understand a lot more now, perhaps not fully but at least a fraction of it.

Twenty-three years later, I found myself visiting the place where the ash in my childhood came from.

Lake Pinatubo,
December 29, 2014.

This is now the crater of Mt. Pinatubo, which has been drawing a lot of tourists - local and foreign - to the area. Being there and seeing the beautiful body of water amid towering walls of ash and greens, it was hard to imagine how such a beautiful and peaceful place could have brought so much destruction once upon a time.

But then I thought that perhaps the calmness and peacefulness present in this mountain were tributes to the lives the eruption has claimed. The trek to this mountain was very personal to me. I can't say that I was in awe of what I saw in the same manner that I was in awe of the other places I've been to. I suppose it's that this mountain touched and moved me in a way that was different from what I felt with the other mountains I visited. It was special and moving. It tugged at my heartstrings. I made me reflective in a way that wasn't about me. It was about the mountain and the its people. About nature. About life, death and rebirth. About endings and beginnings.

The reflection started the moment we entered Crow Valley riding a 4x4 vehicle. It was unlike anything I've seen before.

Crow Valley

Our trek to the crater of Mt. Pinatubo started when the 4x4 vehicle couldn't take us any further. From the very first steps I took, I couldn't help but think of the power this mountain had to change it to the way it is now - to the terrain that I was experiencing with J and his family.

At the beginning, the trail was more of the same - walls of ash and rocks and stones. There were streams and rivulets here and there.

Crossing a stream along the trail in Mt. Pinatubo

It's the silence and the sound of flowing water throughout the trail, even on the part near the crater where there was vegetation and trees, that (to me) give this place calm and peace. During the trek, a word frequently popped in my head: zen.

When we started our trek back, I realized that this trip was more than just ticking an item in our travel list. It has become so much more. It was a trip inward, deeper than the self to something more profound that I have yet to understand. I have grasped at something that was important to me; that touched and moved me.

J and I in Mt. Pinatubo

Hello from Mt. Pinatubo