Pinoy lit

October is Filipino American History Month.

Hollywood News Source is celebrating this annual occasion with book recommendations ranging from literary fiction, poetry collection, romance, YA and MG titles written by Filipino-American authors.

You can read and share these books all year-round. 

on the opening of the city's first permanent, public library building in 1971

fiction

non-fiction

poetry

In 1971 over 300 young Filipino American people gathered in Seattle for the first Young Filipino People's Far West Convention [FWC]. For the next 11 years youth participants met at the FWCs to discuss issues important to them.

From identity to the anti-martial law movement to farmworkers' rights to Ethnic Studies. The FWCs are considered the beginnings of the Filipino American Movement and the impetus for Filipino American Studies.

For FAHM 2021, FANHS encourages commemorating the FWC and 50 years of youth empowerment and organizing throughout Filipino American history.

Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything

The Great Picture Book of Everything is a stunning encyclopaedia of Japanese 19th century knowledge, illustrating nature, myth, anthropology, and providing a window into the imagination and technical skill of the master Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai did 103 beautiful ink brush drawings on small pieces of paper, which are some of the few original works by the master to survive to this day. 

the Columbian exchange

We are still prickly from the recent divisive celebration of Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples Day here at wonder | wander | world. It is stunning how much we still need to decolonize ourselves to annihilate the level of ignorance and passive compliance we tend too easily towards. 

So enough about Christopher Columbus - the symbolic figurehead of evil empire erroneous eradication. An on to the Columbian Exchange - the history of disease and food, ideas and ideals between what we have come to commonly refer to as the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by that same Christopher Columbus in 1492.

a seaport at the height of mercantilism - Claude Lorrain, Wikimedia Commons

The crossing of the Atlantic by plants like cacao and tobacco illustrates the ways in which the discovery of the New World changed the habits and behaviors of Europeans. Europeans changed the New World in turn, not least by bringing Old World animals to the Americas. 

10:10 stellar portal activation

Tonight it's raining down stars - still in the peak of the Draconids meteor shower, plus the Pleiades. It's the peak of the Southern Taurids meteor shower. These shooting stars harness powerful energies for manifesting. Make a wish. Meditate. Activate all day. Ascension time it is.

The new moon on October 6 ignites creativity, to birth original ideas and stimulate inspiration and insight. Carve out time for a private creative pastime or personal project. Generate especially imaginative ideas within the two weeks that follow this new moon.

On Sunday, October 10, the 10:10 stellar portal energy is massive. All the clearing work over the past few days prepared us to clear out old energies with karmic cycles in support of closing and healing. 

circle of time - aurora vortex

The 10:10 portal is meant to help us in opening new doorways, stepping into a new frequency. These energies are all about new beginnings and new opportunities, more sensitive and intuitive. Maybe even more emotional or physically affected by aches and pains. More sore as our dreams activate and stimulate a little extra. 

Mercury | ups & downs

This week may not go quite as planned. We can feel the best and worst of moods, experience lovely moments of flow, and go through patches of great technical difficulty as Mercury - symbolic arbiter of communication, thought, and transport - retrogrades, as it squares difficult Pluto and trines hopeful Jupiter.

Mercury Retrograde in Libra

Mercury square Pluto has us look at the worst-case scenarios. Mercury trine Jupiter can help us see our situation from a larger perspective and optimistically free ourselves from old patterns. The truth of our situation may lie between these two extremes. Those conflicting aspects can neutralize each other and leave us just puttering along.