Author's Extro:

Before I go...

I was very recently asked by a bosom friend a pointblank question: why have you been apparently getting preoccupied by the topic of death? He was actually just referring to my decision last December to write a long poem on the 110th anniversary of Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios and it really was also an adios, albeit just my "First Farewell." And also to my decision to include in the long title of this mini-book the words "Ding Reyes Writes 30" which in journalist jargon would mean that i already have passed away. "Are you not actually courting death? But why would you? You seem to be such a happy man!"

Well, I really am a happy one, I started, and added that my preparedness for death had been in my consciousness all these long decades because I almost died in my infancy, and because I have many times "cheated" death by exciting combinations of carelessness and pure luck, including a harrowing experience in the torture chambers of martial law.

And as a boy scout in my youth, I have been trained to be "Laging Handa" (Always prepared). And with my spiritual background, earlier limited to religiosity, I vowed long ago to try my utmost to die in the "state of grace."

I was very recently asked by a bosom friend a pointblank question: why have you been apparently getting preoccupied by the topic of death? He was actually just referring to my decision last December to write a long poem on the 110th anniversary of Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios and it really was also an adios, albeit just my "First Farewell." And also to my decision to include in the long title of this mini-book the words "Ding Reyes Writes 30" which in journalist jargon would mean that i already have passed away. "Are you not actually courting death? But why would you? You seem to be such a happy man!"

Well, I really am a happy one, I started, and added that my preparedness for death had been in my consciousness all these long decades because I almost died in my infancy, and because I have many times "cheated" death by exciting combinations of carelessness and pure luck, including a harrowing experience in the torture chambers of martial law.

And as a boy scout in my youth, I have been trained to be "Laging Handa" (Always prepared). And with my spiritual background, earlier limited to religiosity, I vowed long ago to try my utmost to die in the "state of grace."

And when my two sons were very small, I asked God that they be spared the fate that befell their "Kuya Pilo" who had died at the age of one like I almost did, and asked fervently that if death would threaten either of them it would be I to die and that they both reach the age that I shall have reached by that time, for after all, I have long been living a bonus life. I was not making a deal with God; it was just a request, a whispered wish in my heart, a fervent prayer and about prayers, I have believed that "Someone in the great somewhere hears every word. I have been told not to entertain such "morbid" thoughts. and I do believe what they are saying. Still, I have to admit that being prepared to go anytime has had its advantages in my inner work.

Yes, I do believe that my writings will be accorded more value after I die than at present, but I do want to discern more, and do more in serving the people (primarily by sharing my humble discernments), and share more with others (Yes, to write more), before I go.

In the meantime I am determined to happily live this life fully. As much as I can.

This, for me, has been to touch more lives by sharing the flames of light and warmth that I have been blessed with. I fervently believe that the current human evolutionary imperative is for Homo sapiens to make the real leap of consciousness from preoccupations with "myself" (my body, my pleasures, my job, my prestige, my ideas) and all its separative small-group extensions, to really living the "we" and the "ourself" consciousness of the oneness of all, where the benefits of the principle of synergism has been and will be both instant reward and clues that we are on the right path -- the centripetal movement -- in human development.

Whenever two or more of us are gathered in unified "wishpers" and in earnest effort to serve well the least of His brethren, He Himself, as unconditional love and as powerful synergy, is in our midst.

Cheerful thanks for all the support that you have been or would in the future be willing to bless me and my humble efforts. I love you all.

--Ed Aurelio "DING" Reyes

Makati City, May 3, 2007