Vision 01: First Blog Post on Dalikmata

I met a being when I was 19 years old while visiting the Philippines. This was around 2006. She had introduced herself when I was much younger but I only noticed her when I turned 19 and had a heartbreaking experience by the ocean.

I had experienced a particularly painful moment with my adoptive family. My mother’s side of the family rejected me in a very public, loud manner that shocked me. No one in my family knew that I was disabled because my mother was so ashamed. My disabled traits annoyed people. She allowed people to think that I was just demanding, entitled. I was very direct and very sensitive. I cried easily because people didn’t understand me but they interpreted this as manipulative, attention-seeking girl behavior. This is a sexist part of our diasporic cultures.

Most of my life I was selective about who I spoke to and how much I spoke. I was technically a nonverbal child who also experienced Autistic catatonia. I would drop down to the ground, almost like fainting, but I would be awake. Sometimes people in my family helped me, but I was ignored so much that often I was left on the floor or in the shower without help. Catatonia spells got me in high school, too. But in high school students helped me. I remember a powerful moment when I went into a catatonic state at school and a bunch of girls who I didn’t know well helped me and surrounded me in a protective circle before the nurse came.

It took a tremendous amount of skill and fine motor development to speak my mind well. When I cried because my adoptive cousins were going to slaughter a pig that I was playing with they interpreted this as selfish, dramatic, entitled, white-washed (I was vegetarian but never preachy about it!). I was intuitively connected with the animal and felt shocked, couldn’t hide it as an Autistic person. I was not ignorant about Philippines customs. I respected my culture.

Later, after the family yelled at me and left me to cry alone, they had a food fight with the dead, cooked pig (lechon). Pig parts were flung around the rest house and I sat in one place, out of place, falling apart inside as I watched my family ignore me for the rest of the time. I felt alone and wished I had my birth family with me. As I cried out for my family, I was initiated.

This moth appeared and died in front of me. It wasn’t simply a sign, it was an initiation, an introduction to a being who had witnessed my pain. The being was feminine, associated with the mind and visions, mourning. I don’t know her actual name— I don’t think the gods have true names. I chose to depict her as Dalikmata (Dalikamata, Daligmata) because of her ties to my motherland and where my birth parents are from. Ever since that time when I was a teenager, moths show up during major changes in my life, landing and dying in front of me. These have been consistent messages, transmissions, that I have received for many years. It is a precious part of my everyday reality. She refines my ability to discern messages and sends me messages in my dreams. I learned to embroider and found my art style by dreaming, not through study. This is my savant trait and I get this from beings like her. I really don’t care anymore who doesn’t believe me. My path has led me to amazing, kind people who are authentic all the time. It’s been a challenging but phenomenal life.