Excerpts From Aviator’s Journey – Secrets of the Philippine Jungle

Introduction:

After my third divorce, the one that really hurt, the one that peeled away most of the facade behind which I lived my life up until that point, I began my search. In retrospect what I was really searching for was the love of a father; the love that my own father was incapable of giving me. I needed to know that I was loved by a man, not merely provided for, but loved, touched, shown, affirmed, included, respected, taught.

My search was more unconscious than conscious. In every instance of my spiritual journeys over the next twenty years I would end up in situations, usually at the feet of some guru, some teacher, where I would try to get something from him, some affirmation, some reassurance that I would somehow be good enough, that I would somehow find what I was looking for at his feet, in his glance or his bestowing special favors upon me.

I  was looking for that love on those adventures. Without the assurance that I was loved, I would endlessly second guess myself, making the same mistakes over and over again. For most of my life I was filled with self doubt, starting projects without finishing them, throwing money – small fortunes – at “stuff” that I hoped would substitute for the love that I was unconsciously seeking.

I was looking for the love of a man who could teach me how to be a man; who could show me how to love like he had mastered, who could teach me all the things that a boy needs to learn from a healthy man; that boys used to learn from fathers in the fields, or over machinery, or behind the plow of a horse, on a cellular level; on a level that would stay with a boy throughout his manhood, into and through his relationships and on into old age, where he could shine his light on other, younger men and pass on what he had learned.

But without that love, I forged an external self assuredness, an arrogance that hid the fear that haunted me, that twisted my guts at times, that fooled almost everyone, except me eventually and my four wives whose lives I helped derail.

My time in the jungle began the process of peeling away the layers of defense that I had surrounded my little boy’s heart with. It showed me the futility of trying to always “figure things out.”

It taught me that there’s another side to every person that, for the most part, lies unexplored, especially in men. That’s the intuitive part, the feeling part, the heart that, for many men has never learned how to express it’s feelings.

So many of us have never learned how to use our God given emotional pressure relief valve, our feelings, to release the stress that we suck up. Without hitting that dump valve our hearts too often attack us.

The old timer pilots knew how to do that; it was called “flying by the seat of your pants!”

It taught me a new respect for, and reverence of, the “little people” of the world and how much I had to learn from their humility, their simplicity, their trust in God and the unseen, the unknown. These were things that unknowingly became an integral part of me as I literally laid my life in their hands.

Copyright © 2007

The Secrets of the Philippine Jungle

Like a moth drawn to a flame, I was off to the Philippines in May, notoriously one of the hottest months of the year there. Even knowing that I would be stepping into that jungle furnace wasn’t enough to shake the feeling that something was drawing me there. I was following a hunch that grew out of my meeting with a couple of young therapists in San Rafael, California a few months prior to my departure. I was impressed with the results of their healing work and wanted some of that for myself. It all sounded logical enough: I would visit and learn from a teacher who the couple studied with some time back. Their experience with this “faith healer” had a major influence on their work as therapists in Marin County, California.

There was something I needed to know about the faith healers that I felt would help my work as a psychotherapist and, subsequently, a men’s workshop leader. What I witnessed in my friends Jenny and David told me that I needed to go to Manila to learn from and experience their teacher’s work. It made no logical sense to travel half way round the world on a hunch but I was getting better at “trusting my gut” on these matters.

It would become clear to me some years later that what I really went to the Philippines for was to begin to trust God and the various ways He shows up in my life. I would learn how to look for and see “normal, everyday miracles” in life as well as be able to access healing power that lay dormant in me for many years.

So there I was, hunkered down in row forty something in coach on a Philippine Airlines 747, bound for Honolulu and then Manila. Having learned the tricks of the airline trade as a “magic carpet” pass rider, I asked the agent to seat me in an empty row if possible so I could stretch out and sleep.

God was good, my wish was granted and I was able to grab a few hours of good sleep, stretched out across the seats in my row. On the way to Honolulu and then to Manila I had more than enough time to look over the notes I had copied from my briefing with Jenny and David. They also gave me the phone number of one of their teachers to call once I landed in Manila.

After checking into the hotel in Manila and decompressing from jet lag for a couple of days, I experienced a deep sense of loneliness that was strangely laced with excitement and hope. I walked around town aimlessly, unable to relax into a normal “tourist” mode.

I decided it was time to get what I came for and, after checking out of the hotel, I hopped a bus for a four hour ride to the little town of Carmen in the province of Pangasanan. There I hired one of the ubiquitous motorized tricycles to take me to the little village of Rosales, home of Paz Navalta, a Filipino healer and teacher of David and Jenny’s.

A Lady Mentor

I climbed out of the little single seat, open sided rickshaw cab. It was covered by a faded, blue awning and powered by some kind of two stroke motorcycle engine that had long ago blown it’s power out the tiny exhaust pipe.  I made small talk with the driver in my worst pidgin English as I continually wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. Then I reached in my fanny pack for the five pesos fare. I learned later that I was ripped off big time when Paz told me that the ride was supposed to cost only one peso (about 20 cents) Ah yes, the universal taxi caveat of “passenger beware” was in effect even out here in the middle of the Philippine jungle.

I was greeted by Paz, one of her dogs and two little children and was asked, in a mixture of Tagalog, the Filipino native language, and broken English, to come into the house. We proceeded toward the modest little, open screen sided white house, down an inlaid rock walkway with chickens and dogs and cats and ducks running, squawking, cackling and barking everywhere. As soon as we got in the door, Paz headed for the kitchen and started fixing me some lunch. I ate while her and the kids and the dog watched my every move. When I was through eating, she showed me to my room upstairs.

It was a plain bedroom, with a chest of drawers along one wall and a four posted double bed with the posts extending up about four feet from the sides above the bed, placed in the middle of the room. An enormous mosquito net was hung from each of the posts and draped down over the entire bed. The bottom of the netting extended down over the sides of the bed by at least two feet.  The room had a view of Paz’s vegetable and flower garden, which was surrounded by a large, white brick wall. I looked around for the air conditioner. Good luck.

Sweat was oozing out of every pore of my body while Paz and the kids looked cool and composed. For the next two days, my favorite pastime was lying motionless under the mosquito netting, sweating, trying to read while in a semi comatose state of heat exhaustion.

I often looked up through the top of the netting for a sign from heaven as to what in God’s name I was here for.

Instead of an answer from above what I got was an elaborate reptilian high wire act being played out by a team of geckos working the high wire five feet above my head. All I could think of was one of them missing a pass from one wall to another and plummeting into my netting as their death defying act went awry.

The second night at Paz’s she fixed me a wonderful dinner of fresh fish, white rice, beans, fresh salad picked from the garden and tang, their favorite drink. Again, she and the kids watched my every move as I ate.

This whole scene was very surreal and many times a day I would wonder what I was doing here; why I wasn’t home enjoying myself, riding my motorcycle or busying myself with some other mindless activity. What the hell was I searching for? Why couldn’t I just be like everybody else and be content with what I had?

Grateful

I felt a tremendous amount of gratitude and love for these people who opened their home to me, a complete stranger. After dinner on the second night, Paz went into the other room and brought out a bible, handed it to me, and asked me to read some passages, one of which was II Corinthians, Chap. 5, verses 16-21. I hadn’t picked up a bible since I attended mandatory catechism classes as a seven- year old kid at my local catholic church in the Sunnyside district of San Francisco.

Paz told me to read the passages and to then meditate on how that passage might apply to me. I had no idea how important this passage would become later in this trip. It would be years before I would venture back to Scripture for answers to the questions of my life.

After I finished my meditation, she went into a trance and proceeded to answer, in a general way, most all of the questions that I had. Questions like: What will my life’s work be? When will I realize what it is and when will I truly pursue it? Where will I live? Will I find fulfillment in this life?

The questions that she couldn’t answer she said would be answered when I left the Philippines. She appeared to be talking to me in a normal way, but the whole time it was clear that she was in some kind of a trance.
She told me I would be doing some important healing work.

“Who me?” was my mind’s skeptical answer.

Shortly after this, she told me,

“Mr. Bert, go up to your my room and rest, because we are going to church later this evening.”

I thought this was rather strange, church late in the evening. But I was here to learn and that meant putting my agenda aside and opening myself to the possibility that God had something else in store for me. After all, my life hadn’t been all that great up to now, so what did I have to lose!

Just another night in the jungle with God…

It was Thursday, May twenty first, 1981. I slept lousy the night before because the mosquitoes had made multiple penetrations of my hopelessly inadequate netting defense system. I felt surprisingly good when I awoke nonetheless.

Paz had breakfast ready for me when I walked downstairs – fresh scrambled eggs, fresh tomatoes from the garden, potatoes and the old standby, Tang. The eggs were plucked right from the chicken coop outside the house and tasted delicious. I had forgotten how good eggs tasted fresh from the factory. I was starting to see the animals around Paz’ home – the pigs, ducks, chickens, dogs, cats – in a different way. They were now more like family and friends rather than noisy intruders into my measly attempt at spiritual reverie.

I felt more relaxed today, but still wondering what I was doing here. I was less worried now about “wasting my time.” This was actually a perfect setting for me, a classic overachiever; nothing to do except sweat, be with myself and think.

Paz told me that I would be going with her to a healing service tonight at her church in the jungle, about five miles away by car. I laid down upstairs anticipating the need for rest as the healing service was going to be an all night affair.

A walk in the jungle

When we arrived at the church site, it was around nine p.m. and the steamy curtain of night had descended on this place. It was pitch black where Paz parked the car in a small, semicircular clearing at the edge of the dense jungle. It was at this point that I really began to question what I had gotten myself into. I seriously contemplated asking her to take me back home, that I would wait there until she was through with the service. This might have been an option had she not treated me like a member of her family and with such gracious hospitality. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her to take me back home.

We got out of the car and Paz reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a flashlight and stepped into the dense growth alongside the road. It was follow her or stand at the edge of the jungle all night, so I moved ahead, hesitating before plunging into the thick carpet of the jungle floor.

As the branches and leaves swacked me in the face and tore at my bare arms and legs I knew immediately that I had made a serious wardrobe blunder.
I felt like your typical American tourist, since I opted to stay as cool as decency would allow in shorts, tank top and my very hip Birkenstock sandals. Long pants and a long sleeved shirt would have been a much more appropriate uniform of the day out here.

Besides the small beam from the flashlight in Paz’s hand, there wasn’t a trace of light or any other indication of human life as I followed close behind her. I felt like this was not a good place to be as the jungle snapped shut behind us, like a Venus Fly Trap ensnaring it’s victims, instantly removing any trace of our ever having walked this way.

The jungle was alive with it’s own sounds; it made me think of the Martin Denny jungle sounds recordings of years past.

We must have walked at least a quarter of a mile when, through the branches and vines lining our path, I could make out a faint ray of light up ahead.

As we entered the edge of a clearing, the light I saw turned out to be what appeared to be a ten-watt bulb hanging from a tree branch. Only God knows where the electrical power came from. I didn’t hear the sound of any generator and it seemed that we were a long way from any power source.

In contrast to the absolute pitch blackness of the jungle, the tiny bulb shown like a searchlight, lighting up the clearing for a radius of thirty feet. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I saw maybe twelve to fifteen “little people,” Filipino spiritualists, standing under the cover of a clear, plastic tarp that measured about twenty feet square and stretched over two rows of ten plain, hardwood benches, each one about ten feet long.

The people were gathered around a podium, talking softly in Tagalog. The podium was standing on a five-foot square platform that lifted it about three feet above the jungle floor. This seemed to comprise the church. There was a six foot hardwood bench, about three feet high, placed a few feet off to the left of the podium, still under the plastic tarp, that was perpendicular to the rows of benches, as if awaiting a healing victim – like me! Something about that bench spoke to me; it said that,

“It’s pretty clear that these little people didn’t often get a chance to work their magic on a meaty white boy from Marin county. It looked like I was the featured guest here tonight.” Something else told me that I needed to ‘trust the process’, that I was in good, albeit strange hands here.

The people varied in sex and age from a teen age girl to a few men and women in their thirties and forties. There was a tiny little Filipino lady, about four foot nine or ten, who looked to be in her seventies or eighties. This old one would play a very important role for me tonight, in a fashion that I never could have imagined.

The Sermon

The congregation slowly assembled on the benches with the teen-age girl standing at the podium, leading the prayers in Tagalog. Before she started the main body of the prayer, she spoke to the people, and I assume, told them that there was a special guest here tonight, as all heads turned to look in my direction.

After the introduction, the girl on the podium looked up at the top of the clear plastic tarp as if for guidance, and began to shake visibly for about a minute or so. When she began speaking again, it was in the deep baritone voice of a much larger, masculine presence, totally different and impossible to fake from the one she had introduced the evening’s prayer in.

I felt myself recoil slightly as the power of this new personage shocked me. She then moved her hands, which were now continually vibrating, around a compass board that was on the stand in front of her and continued to talk in, what sounded to me like tongues.

She preached in this new entity for about two hours with the people chiming in periodically with some kind of Tagalog litany affirmation prayer. After she finished the sermon, she shook back into her original person and gently took her place among the people who were now gathering around a table off to the right of the podium where refreshments appeared.

Socializing took place for about an hour and then about a third of the people began to leave, fanning out into the jungle in all directions. It was now about midnight and very apparent to me that “my time had come.”

The little old woman came toward me from out of the crowd of people that were left, said a few words to me in Tagalog and motioned for me to follow her. She led me over to the bench off to the left of the podium and waved her hand over the bench for me to lie down.

As I did, the people remaining gathered around the bench and began to chant softly. That did nothing to quell my fears, even though I felt a gentleness and love in that jungle clearing, among these people, the likes of which I had never before felt.

My turn on the bench

Paz took her place at one side of the bench and the little lady took her place on the other. Paz held a large bible in her hands. I looked over at the old one and someone handed her the largest syringe I had ever seen! The needle had to be about eight inches long and the body of the syringe was at least eighteen inches long and a couple of inches wide. Fear swept over me as I began to sweat even more profusely than normal in the steamy jungle air.

In my fear, I forced myself to return to the feelings of love and compassion I had felt from these people; that’s the only thing that kept me on the bench. I still didn’t understand a word of their mumblings in Tagalog.

The old one continued to pray over me for what seemed like an hour or so. After that preliminary prayer she then had Paz open the bible; she placed the needle into the bible to, what I found out later from Paz and was told to meditate on, was II Corinthians, 5:16:

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

She began to “suck energy,” is the only way I can describe it, from the open pages of the bible until she had the syringe extended all the way back and full of II Corinthians. Then she placed the needle up against my left arm and began to simulate injecting the withdrawn energy from the bible into my outstretched arm. I felt what I can only describe as a rush of energy go into my body as she pushed the extended part of the syringe into the main body.

I felt like I rose up off the wooden bench as she continued to inject the energy into me. Then she did the same thing with my right arm and I felt myself rise up again. During this whole process the people were chanting and praying softly and now, the chanting comforted me and eased my fears. I sank back onto the bench, relaxing into whatever power had been placed in me.

After the ceremony, two of the people in the healing group helped me gently off the bench and stood me up. They laughed softly as I wobbled, trying to get my balance. The first thought that went through my head was,

“Why me, God. Why are they spending so much time loving and tending to me?”

The early morning sunlight was just beginning to filter through the jungle canopy overhead and stream down onto the jungle floor in a thousand, thin shafts of light as we walked back to the car for the ride home.

The energy that I received in the jungle clearing that night would continue to build in me until fourteen years later, when I too would mount a platform and do a very different kind of preaching and healing.

But there was yet another piece to the Philippine puzzle that I would soon learn about.