Garcia, translator of Canon's poems cited in the essay, is better known as Tetch B. By the late 19th century, poets in the Philippines were championing a social and political point of view.
Intellectuality and Spirituality
A la Laguna de Bay is neither a journey through the human soul nor through the individuality of the protagonist. The poem is based on an analogical understanding of the world that originates from traditional Filipino culture; a vision in which a system of correspondences is always present. Before the bewildered eyes of history and literary criticism, it offers us a cultural gem that shows how the Ilustrada force realized and shared the power of the masses.
The next step is the meditation area where the suffering of the lower class under Spanish colonial rule is represented. Canon's poem shows the depth of the Katipunan experience among the Ilustrados, who were isolated by earlier historical categories from what was also a crucial experience for them.
Journey to Knowledge
At the beginning of the poem, the traveler has an experience of alienation and his digressions revolve around decay. After the process of introspection through daydreams and initiation rites in the green cathedral, which the traveler experienced when he leaves the vault, freed by the currents of the Diablo Pass, he is already able to speak to the oarsman, the other protagonist of the poem, and can share his story with him, so that he goes through the rest of the journey led by a paddler and an alligator. The rower lets the boat descend into the depths of the water and reaches the underwater cave.
The path by the lake and its caves and the alligator, which becomes a symbol of mediation, are part of the initiation, which is supposed to be access to esoteric knowledge and mystical nature. Technological progress is set against the wonders of nature and the hidden treasures of the past.
Scientific and Technological Knowledge
The transparent quartz of the rosy edge, Of ruby and emeralds is that violet pike. He is a modern poet, so much so that his imagination is strong enough to draw the future, and so he adds: “our old ships barely reached 100 tons like the airships today. The last part of the poem, when the narrative voice is restored, can be defined as scientific poetry, similar to the anarchist poetry of the late 19th century and early 20th century that were creations of non-professional writers such as Canon (Litvak) 303).
In A la Laguna de Bay, science is conceived in evolution, as an entity that can develop in dialectical discourse with other revealed knowledge, such as abraxas and kabbalah, and thus it progresses to create a synthesis and become instrumental towards a perfect. tomorrow. Canon shared with the avant-garde a worship of technology and advances, while the modernists maintained a love-hate relationship with the advances and changes they were provoking in life and nature.
The ground adheres to the fantasy of completing the revelation that emerges as an identifying characteristic of a Filipino way of interpreting and experiencing the world in this modern age. When the immortal soul does not enlighten it, When body with neither light nor half-light In the isolated chaos goes mad,. Man's world Forms in short stages Enlarges itself by layers What trivial worms settle.
Move the mountains and shake its heaps The fearful bends of craters and tombs And then. This nature is not an autonomous or self-sufficient entity, but a reality sanctified by Filipino spirituality, a Theophany and a system of analogies of which the word of the poem is a part. Every act of nature is explained in terms of access to the hidden and deep knowledge that is revealed through the poem as a mirror of the universe.
It is the embodied body of the Philippine homeland, upon which is imprinted the history and culture of the people who have lived and live in it and its surroundings. Similarly, the Canon requires images of the past to be embedded in the intellect of the country's modern inhabitants as a necessary condition for access to knowledge and ultimately freedom.
Esotericism, filipino Spirituality and Modernity
As Octavio Paz wrote in The Children of The Mire, modern poetry is articulated around analogy: "the vision of the universe as a system of correspondences and the vision of language as the universe's double" (10). This rejection comes with a clash against the imperialism of the United States of America that appears most strongly in the first decades of 20th century Spanish-Filipino poetry. Rather, he is the instrument through which it is conveyed, in his exploration of the metaphysical meaning of the universe.
This poetry is fueled by these practices that are truly of the Filipino people: the worship and pilgrimage to Mt. Banahaw,30 Laguna de Bay, Talim Island, esoteric writings in the caves and the experience of revolution through the poet's own military experience.
Symbols and Sacred objects
In A la Laguna de Bay, the traveler ascends from the mundane to the ethereal, from scientific explanation to the full experience of the mystical tradition, on a physical tour of the lagoon, from the underground caves to the top of Banahaw to see the whole country from a higher perspective up. This transformation allows the sailor to be part of the same people as the rower, to listen to him, to understand his language, to access his spiritual knowledge and combine it with his own, so that, as Ileto explains in his his entire book, part of the popular mysticism that inspired in the Katipunan the concept of national unity based on the rebirth of each person in a liwanang ("light") society (109) which consists in achieving the truths of the inner order. This is part of the initiation process of the traveler, who feels that there is a deviation from ordinary life.
This is one of the questions that worries the traveler from the beginning, since he usually tries to explain from a scientific perspective the events that happened to him and that he observed, whereas the rower is faced with this scientific vision. Perhaps it is the center, The magic symbol that marks in the water. The submerged portico of vast treasures Which the liquids keep Of the fabled sea.
The Crocodile
This wise man told the oarsman that the crocodile scales were "legible symbols of unknown things" because among them he could find "lost material". The wise man disappeared and the oarsman dared to look between the crocodile's scales and found "a petrified closed box". To remove the box, the rower had to tame the animal with food (37). One of the Maranao epic stories in the south of the archipelago tells the battle between Madali and a lizard the size of a mountain that Madali can control after jumping on his neck. The crocodile is discovered to be his twin spirit, born at the same time as the human baby.
This story not only reflects a specific vision of the world and represents an example of friendship and hospitality, but also points to the spiritual elements surrounding Laguna de Bay: the taming of this powerful force makes the oarsman a source of power. This bond between humans and nature through the crocodile is a metaphor for recognition despite the differences and clashes that must be experienced by the traveler and rower.
The traveler tried to carefully analyze "these miracles", which were said to be traces of stories about nature and its interpretation as an unfathomable miracle. But at the same time he went on to give a scientific explanation for what happened in the cave: now that an entrance has been opened, the air enters these deep enclosures and forms a fireplace, provoking the movement of underground gases, which can go like this. so much so that it evokes the exit of the lava from the volcanoes. Let's cover this entrance to the secret That awakens the roar of the volcanoes Oh, uneducated, naive oarsman You who have the strength of the Titans.
Working together, they return the stones to their position and thus put an end to the feeling created by the headwind flowing into the cave.
Abraxas
This magical inscription is an abraxas because the Canon interprets that 364 words can deal with changes in time. Number of inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago Probable appearance date of the Japanese pirate SIOCO33. This possibility of cyclical time, which allows for a connection with the past, is a primary concept that precedes the Christian era, uniting the community in eternity but in the future.35 The changes that accompanied modern times in the 19th century developed a linear line. and the accelerated concept of time that allows a community to act to improve its future, but without repeating the past, since with modernity each moment is unique.
For this reason, the Katipunan repeats the ritual of searching the cave of Bernardo Carpio (Ileto 99), one of the Filipino legends that builds the belief that the time of freedom, unity and peace can be restored. For Canon, this temporal conception of Filipino spirituality, however, must coexist and reconcile with modern times, since modern times mean progress and improvement.36.
A Unifying Vision
The altar of the people" is the symbolic point where the earthly communicates with the heavenly. As can be seen, the purpose of the stories achieves a meaning that lies in the transmission of a fundamental pillar of Filipino spirituality. This concept corresponds to 'pakikipagkapwa', which is considered one of the key values in social relations and the Filipino psychology (Enríquez 41-47).
Ni Jaime de Veyra ket immun-una a nagsurat ti kapitulo a "Ti Kultura ti Hispaniko idiay Filipinas", a paset ti libro a Sapasap a Pakasaritaan ti Literatura ti Hispano nga inurnos babaen ni Guillermo Díaz-Plaja ken naipablaak iti Seksion ti Filipinas ti Biblioteka ti Unibersidad ti Filipinas. 31 Ti nagkauna a kultura dagiti Filipino ket naisurat ti pakasaritaanna kadagiti kueba ken pader dagiti bantay, kasta met dagiti popular a tignay ken dagiti Katipunan.
At the end of the poem, Canon writes some verses in defense of women's participation in knowledge.
