From a physical exhibition of digital works at a local bar, Fatima Lasay takes digital photographs of the guests and transforms them into depictions of shamanic initiations. The result are fifteen digital images of the invisible made visible. "I am interested in seeing how we may interpret and translate the mythology of the shaman in the context of modern society - the shaman in the modern city, the shaman in cyberspace, the shaman in the crowded streets of urban life, the shaman as the street-child, the beggar, the artist and poet."

Mitchel the Initiate

Roxlee the Half-Shaman

Notes on the Mythology:

During the days, weeks, months or years of her initiation, she disappears from home. When she is finally found, she is either seated on top of a balete tree or sitting beneath it, seemingly out of this world, unmindful of the ordinary life of people around her. She seems totally absorbed in some person or persons whom she sees but are altogether unseen by others, to whom she totally attends. Bisayan shamans, according to Alcina (1960), went through nuptial rites with the Diwata in the balete tree and for this rite she bedecked herself with gold fineries.

During the initiation, the candidate is brought by her initiators to visit the land of the Diwata in the sky or the land where the demons dwell. She meets with the spirits of diseases who partake of her flesh which is scraped by her initiation masters. These spirits of disease thereby become her healing assistants. The shaman-to-be is given a new pair of eyes, a new heart and new intestines; her flesh is also renewed, fitting her to operate in the realm of the spirits. Her initiation is analogous to the paschal mystery, whereby she dies to her old self and awakens to new life; the life of the spirits.

Page 132, The Soul Book by Demetrio, Fernando, Zialcita

See also: Ang Babaylan Sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas by Z.A. Salazar, Professor, University of the Philippines. Bagong Kasaysayan, Lathalain Blg. 4, 1999.

Not everyone can be a Shaman nor an Initiate. But those who frequent the Blind Tiger have the makings of a Shaman. No, that is not patronizing the bar, that's a socio-cultural phenomena. Fifteen shamanic initiations are presented in Ethermorph (by clicking the link above) and a few are shown in whole in these pages. Not everyone at the Bar have the potential to be a Shaman and the few featured here have the fullest potential. Yet still everyone is an initiate.

Reluctant Shaman

The Shaman in contemporary culture is grown from within; they take both the humanly mundane and the cruel with an interior awareness that is not given to all. They may appear lost or unwary at times but they are incredibly focused - the eyes would have a gaze that penetrates. They are magnets but are never loud; often they are reluctant of their calling.

Shamans and would-be-Shamans often find each other and they rarely live ordinary lives. They often look older than they really are because of the weight of their responsibilities. But when they do reach very old age, they seem not to age any much longer.

Defining the Shaman is a psychic endeavor and not a matter of regarding gender, education or social class. Today's Shamans are often the most reluctant, there being little sense of Shamanism in contemporary society, which makes matters a bit more difficult. Using the boxed categories of gender, education and class would be in error, as the Shaman, no matter how uneducated, poor and of whatever gender, is strikingly secure of where they are.

This security is often mistaken for loud arrogance by the arrogant and quiet ignorance by the ignorant.

The Healer-Initiate

A Wandering Soul

Fire Bearer

The many faces of the would-be shaman during her initiation is visible only as an aura; the faces depict the many powers she has the potential to possess. The initiate may also carry the symbol of fire as a weapon for destruction or death and ultimately, rebirth. The pallor of one of the faces of the initiate depict the white ashes of cremation or death.

It is the notion of rebirth, the paschal mystery, that prevails in all the representations of the shamanic initiation with the shaman-to-be's expansive life a pilgrimage to the death.

- Fatima Lasay, June 2001