MAMBUKAL, of mystic falls, sulfur sprays & wedding memoirs

Going down the stone steps of the Pagoda to Lola Tinay’s kitchen, chattering excitedly, a little berry fruit almost knocked me down. Involuntarily, I looked up and sensed a silence that refused to be disturbed. I looked inquiringly at Lola Tinay, sitting serenely by her door, but she only smiled and placed a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. Lola Tinay & Lolo Ponso in their famous Mambukal Pagoda are among my first memories of Mambukal, a place that never failed to awaken me from drowsy jeepney rides with its gentle coolness and a feeling of watchful silence upon approach.
This feeling persisted on one grave visit when I sought the spirit of the place to bless or deny my need for a union. I stepped down after the bridge, where the grotto was and walked, hand in hand with my partner, to sit quietly at the foot of the image of the Virgin Mary. “The trees are talking among themselves,” we whispered with a smile. The faint smell of sulfur under the rumbling clear water transported us, as it always did, to the mythical domain of the Kanlaon centaur, proudly protecting his turf, intolerant of excesses and wastes.
The Virgin smiled kindly that day and all our plans came into being. I ascended the rising plains of Mambukal the day before my mountain wedding, full of hope, buoyed by the sweet mountain air, enlivened by the pleasurable task of finding places for novel things which bespeaks of new beginnings.
Trusting the constant music of the Mambukal waterfalls, I arose with the dawn, cradling my coffee cup and awaited the coming of old family, old friends and new family, new friends. I was amused at the stirrings created by one unexpected wedding picnic, dear ones dealing with the silence imposed on a supposedly lively event.
I walked the walk of one betrothed to a man who stands in his own home. To one who has made Mambukal his home for many a year, cultivating a community of artists among the local lads. A distant picture of early morning sulfur baths, lessons on the shaping of the naturally colored clay, ethnic music filling the orange sunsets and dreams under the moonlit, star spread sky.
I walked to him, amidst the pulsing music of the bamboo flute, hair unadorned, dressed in a long native garb, a flower in my hand. With the Virgin in attendance, I sealed a pact to honor all that was natural and beautiful and limitless. Like the untiring waters and the whispering trees of the mountain that lent its own kiss of approval through the sulfur scented spring which ran freely beneath us.
I have returned, year after year, to that place in the mountains of Kanlaon, first with one daughter, then with another, and one more. Three daughters now, all with memories of their own. Of Mambukal…