Excerpt from email to Clay

Ok. So, I am cheating, but I don't have time to rewrite this and I am exhausted and I did a good job summarizing some of my weekend for Clay-->

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So. This weekend was amazing. I am so out of shape but it was such a great experience. I have been spelunking before, in TN and in New Zealand, but this shit was CRAZY. First, Mt. Banahaw is a "power mountain" --it is considered holy and it's where the Katipunan (wiki it, too long to explain, but basically the most famous and well known Filipino resistance to the Spanish) hid out from the Spanish and performed rituals to cleanse themselves before battle (in the caves where I spelunked! CRAZY!). There are some 100 or so churches and religious compounds on and around the foothills of the moutain and on the trails and in the caves there are all of these religious shrines. Dude. It was freaking crazy. It was like holy spelunking. Seriously. Y'know I am not spiritual and that I am a skeptic but I really felt something good and something significant that was greater than myself on this trip.

Ok, some of the crazy ish:
--I climbed through a cave that was probably the hardest spelunking I've ever done in my life and I did some pretty narrow shit in NZ. It had like 2 turns in it and several points I was stuck. I was just fucking stuck. And I was utterly alone since the first person that was ahead of me had already made it past the point where I was and the person behind me hadn't caught up to me yet. I wanted to cry. I kind of whimpered a little. Seriously. I panicked and forced my way through (which is now why I have so so so so so many bruises good god I have a lot) and when I was nearing the last 8 to 10 feet of the cave (or I should really say, sharped jagged TUNNEL), I heard singing. I heard people singing hymns in Tagalog. I thought I was going crazy or that I had hit my head. No. No, I climbed through into a small outdoor chapel. Seriously. The singing, the fact that I was finally out, the hard time I had had, the exhaustion from the whole day (this was almost are last thing before climbing up the rest of the mountain, of which we reached the top 30 minutes before sunset and then had to hike our way home in the dark--also CRAZY), being where I was, thinking about this tangible experience could be a metaphor for my life somehow...all of that made me CRY. I was sobbing. I felt so humbled by the whole thing.
--There was one cave where you climb in (also TINY--all of the climbing we did was CRAZY tiny and dark and we were only allowed to bring in candles since they're holy places) and then there's this little ledge and over it is a thin (widthwise) but DEEP pool of water with a giant cave wall behind it. You light a candle, climb down into the pool (SCARY) and dunk yourself under for cleansing. Then, after we got out of the cave it was raining MONSOON raining and I looked over the side of this mountain, stood and lifted my face to the rain and felt so unbelievably lucky to be in the moment of my life right then.
--So, the story with the mountain is: if you don't come with an open mind the mountain will be unkind to you; or if you are a sinful person, the mountain with purge you of your sin. I was so bruised and broken the first day. So I was the like, WTF mountain? I was super-excited and so the mountain couldn't have been unkind to me; so I figure now I am purged of all my sin. I'm just hedging my bets.
--Oh AND, all of the caving? BAREFOOT. Because they're holy places. My feet, legs, elbows are so cut up.

Ok. So much more happened, but the main gist of it: AMAZING nature, I am super lucky, I love life, ow that really hurt, wow I'm glad I am here.

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More and (maybe!) pictures later.

Don't worry. I haven't turned New Age nor am I going to live in the foothills. I just had a good weekend.