Whispers of the Duwende & the Little Seer pt 1
Once Upon a Time in a World Enchanted: A Tiny Seer’s Vision and Philippine Folklore’s Magic
A Prologue: The Animist’s Covenant
Once upon a twilight in Oton’s ocean sprayed village, where balete trees stretch roots like cosmic veins and fireflies waltzed in a mango-golden sky, I was born a wisdom keeper, my heart tuned to the earth’s enchanted songs in between the veil just in time to catch dawn’s early light. Where every leaf, mound, and gentle breeze hummed with spirit. As a Filipina child, I knew not what "animism" entailed, yet its truth pulsed in my veins. My childhood had visions and imaginations I couldn’t find words to express, a world where trees, rivers, and anthill and breeze hummed with anito and diwata, guardians of the Divine Mother’s tapstery, weaving the physical and spiritual into one. I witnessed it.
With cousins Hope, Beauty, and Faith, I danced through groves where duwende—tiny elemental tricksters with luminous eyes—whispered of sacred reciprocity, their underground realms filled with treasures, as enchanting as the womb of creation.
In Jaro’s monsoon-soaked fields, Boracay’s lost paradise with its powdery sands, Sambag’s mango-heavy groves, Guimaras’ emerald hills, or Oton’s shaded yards fragrant with sampaguita, we whispered “tabi tabi po” to anthills, honoring their homes. My lola taught us to see the earth as a living altar, each offering a thread in the Divine Mother’s tapestry.
Come, wander with me, and hear the land’s divine whispers…
This is my offering for Echos & Ethos, a bridge to Philippine folklore, where the duwende teaches us to listen to the land, to reciprocate, to regenerate. This is for all who hear the earth’s divine whispers, weaving through the aethers.
Children in the Duwende's Kingdom
One April in the South Pacific seas, under Oton’s starlit dawn, I emerged breech in my Mami Instek’s Oton kitchen, massaged and sung towards the light by four generations of Filipina women, the air thick with coconut oil, brown sugar caramels, a smokey herbed fire and hibiscus ocean spray.
Mami Instek, humming Pat Boone’s croon, named me Love. It was almost April Rose, but April Love, bloomed bright with my parents at that time, and it was a blessing. There was Hope. Beauty. Faith. And Love. and there was more. With a clan of cousins, we roamed enchanted lands— Jaro’s rice fields, where fireflies glowed and monsoons drummed a primal rythm; Boracay’s powdery shores, a paradise where waves whispered secrets untouched; Sambag’s intoxicating sampaquitas and hibiscus fields; Guimaras’ mango groves and emerald hills, heavy with fruit; Oton’s hibiscus coconut seaside botanical gardens, where lola’s orchids glowed with enchantment.
Growing up, all before 5, we just sorta giggled and chased, experimented and got dirty. a lot. I had bruised knees with dirt I had to always brush off, chasing and playing hide-and-seek, but really, just trying our hardest to try to catch a glimpse of the duwende in the house, teasing one another that the shadow we saw was just our youngest cousin.
We wove palm-frond bracelets, colors like prayers, giggling as we whispered “tabi tabi po” to anthills, our voices mingling with peacock cries. Whispering about in orchards & courtyards, talking of duwende, trying to find their kingdoms, we caution near balete trees to one another, stepping around roots pulsing with diwata songs.
Obsessed with fairies at the time, I would warn them, and offer up captured dragonfly wings as an offering to be taken to their leader. At six, I just wanted to talk about their plans in life and with our world, but of course.
“Be careful and pay respects!”
“Shhh! I hear them, we must not move , not even a rock, from their home,”
On tippy toes, cautioning as we draw near a suspected balete tree.
Once, Beauty scoffed by a swampy mound, denying duwende magic, and woke fevered, her skin hot as embers, healed only by an albularyo’s herbs and chants.
I, too, forgot my plea chasing a dragonfly’s gleam across a muddy field, and a fever gripped me, dreams swirling with tiny, scolding eyes under a balete’s shade.
Yet, we learned eventually to be kind to these kindred invisible watchers. With our yayas help, we were threading colors like incantations for the spirits, while they spun tales of duwende, the mystical tricksters guarding the earth and the messengers of sacred reciprocity, whispering to the Divine Mother of our duty to the land.
Lola’s rice offering, placed reverently at dusk, soothed them, and I vowed respect. Anthills were gateways; banana trees hummed secrets; yaya’s tales of Tianak babies luring with cries kept us wary. Each knot we tied was a prayer to the Divine Mother’s. We were taught to weave early and sit with the land.
My life was in awe of nature’s wonder. The fireflies and dragonflies in the sunset skies filled lola Corazon’s prairies in Sambag, complete with woods, swamplands, and farmlands nearby.
Mami Instek’s botanical garden was a throve of seaside beach paradise with infinite coconuts, peacocks roaming amongst the pekingese and shih-tzus, anthills near the banana trees and the smell of orchids, sampaguitas & hibiscus.
We strung together sampaguita bracelets as offerings as I thought one day, if I were a duwende, just know I would choose sea side rather than deep underground inside of the balete tree, their favorite undisturbed holy grounds.
At seven, a lucid dream unveiled a shimmering reality: my one-year-old brother lay on a sterile table, doctors probing his mind. I awoke, drenched in sweat, my yayas whispering of my seer’s gift. Later, at three, he wandered into the duwende’s kingdom, and this is a child’s tale of how our family called him back home.
A Seer’s Vision Woven in Starlight
At seven, nestled in my Del Carmen bedroom, a dream lifted me on the night sky’s starlit tides. I floated nearly two feet above my bed. My first out-of-body experience. Following my gaze down the dark hallway to my parents' room, I beheld my baby brother, barely a year old, lying on a cold, gleaming table, blue-clad physicians peering into his cranium. He was not moving.
"Where were Mama and Papa? Where am I?"
“Whoa. Wait a minute. What is this place?”
Somewhat sensing I wasn’t in the right home, I felt myself look around for help, only to discover more blackness elsewhere in this darkened maze.
I wondered as the physicians' gazes met mine. I felt a pull, as my heart pulsed like a drum, my body beckoning its return. Sensing the dream's veil lifting, a cosmic force zapped me back right in to the body.
"Zzzphhahhpop!"
And just like that. I awoke, damp, sweat-beaded, goosebumps illuminating my skin like a celestial map. This was no ordinary nightmare. The emotions felt vastly different. My yayas whispered of my "seer's gift" as I recounted my vision, warning that what I had seen might come true, that I was traveling in my sleep and into other worlds.
I clutched my blanket tighter, a scared little girl trembling before the spirit realm's revelations. My first lucid vision blazing like I had time traveled, suspicious of reality around me for the first time.
Helpers cautioned with eyes wide with ancestral knowing that “the visions I had in my dream might all come true.”
I checked if I had peed the bed. Indeed, I was just seven. For days, I tried to travel back to that dream, to find out more, to alter it somehow, but I couldn’t.
The Crossing of Realms
Two years later, disaster struck.
I was nine when he was finally three, a bright eyed and stubborn, hyper energetic little bugger.
He charmed us with Ilonggo our dialect and was learning English, so very cute and a tornado of laughter spinning through our home. Always running, spinning like a clumsy tazmanian devil, or a wild tornado set free. Jumped off tables and chairs. And no-one could turn around for a second when he was under watch, yayas would get fired and replaced, again and again until we had Ping. She was like a tiny commander with eyes all around her.
Though it didn’t ever stop him from challenging the others, even me. He would just turn and go, as if he was given an order—the endless zoomies, the zombies he ran from, he was pure ADHD and adrenaline. Once, he even fell into a sewage ditch, which left a scar as big as a caterpillar on his thigh, with a serving of nature’s immune system boost of natural antibiotics.
No wonder twos and threes were known to be terribly terrifying, like a young pirate first discovering his sea legs, he was an explorer on a mission.
One night, he came back with his yaya Dyanang, when he fell ill after a playdate at Mama’s friend’s home.
That night, he came home when his fever flared, skin searing under touch. By midnight, he convulsed, eyes lost to shadows, limbs jerking like a broken puppet. Our yaya slipped a wooden spoon to guard his tongue as we rushed him to St. Paul’s Hospital, night thickened with panic.
He sank into a coma, silent for almost a week. The sounds of wheels, the beeps from machines, the smell of sickness and sterilized tools. We had to get him out of his slumber. Doctors murmuring of dengue or yellow fever, faces grim with talk of permanent damage or perhaps never returning, with no brain activity for days.
My Uncle Bob, and lola Corazon, were there while tita Nene, clutched my shoulders tightly with her long red polished nails, her anxiety worse than mine. She & lola questioned and bugged the helpers on what exactly happened.
We were wanderers of the Philippine diaspora, chasing dreams. Papa at the U.N. working for our diplomatic sponsorships, Mama doing daycare watching children for the wealthy, and dashing from New York to Iloilo to Manila & back again for our papers. Mama had to fly home the next day from Manila due to the emergency.
Mama, her seer’s heart ablaze, demanded MRI and CT scans, pulling me from class to pray rosaries at his bedside, her faith became a beacon in the sterile dark.
Through adult eyes now, I recognize a woman desperately advocating for her son’s life.
But to my nine-year-old self, I knew the truth perhaps ran even deeper. The words of my yaya reverberated through in the back of my mind.
“Could it be that dream when I was just seven?” I tried to shake off the thought, but it made me shudder instead. I looked around to ensure no one knew I may have seen this already happening, but somewhere else before.
Who gave me this inner knowing? Can my brother return? I tossed & turned trying to infiltrate realms in the night, finding my brother in dreams, in nightmares, in astral flight.
What happens next is to be continued…
Read on for Part 2 of Whispers of Duwende & the Little Seer.
Secret Treasure Hunt & Journal Prompt
Find Your Haven: Seek a tree, mound, or garden where duwende linger.
Gather Treasures: Hunt a radiant leaf, spiraled twig, or gleaming pebble—earth’s gifts.
Offer a Boon: Place rice, a flower, or woven threads (green, fortune, white, peace),
whispering “tabi tabi po.”
Sing Their Song: Hum this lullaby, adding a verse from your heart:
“Twinkle, twinkle, anthill’s gleam,
Where duwende dance in moonlit dream.
Rice and blossoms, soft we share,
Guard our hearts with tender care.
Sing so gently, spirits small,
Keep the earth alive for all.”
Dream of a Wish: Envision a thriving earth—lush forests, clear streams, joyful creatures.
Plant a Secret: Hide a note or sketch for another to discover, spreading duwende light.
Sing this duende lullaby to a tree or an anthill mound, and see if gnomes or duendes play peek a boo with your inner child. Don’t forget… “tabi tabi po.”
Read on for Part 2 of Whispers of Duwende & the Little Seer.
Journal Prompt:
After your ritual, write a letter to the duwende, sharing a memory of the land’s whispers or a promise to nurture it. Keep it under a tree or in your diary, a sacred pact.
What have earth’s elemental spirits taught you about living in harmony?
Glossary
Anito: Celestial spirits of ancestors, nature, deities
Duwende: Tiny earth guardians with boundless dreams
Diwata: Luminous nature spirits of the wild
Tianak: a vampiric creature taking the form of flying cherub babies
Tabi tabi po: “Pardon me!” for spirit abodes
Lola: Grandmother, keeper of tales
Lolo: Grandfather, provider of safe spaces
Yaya: Nanny, guardian of secrets
Albularyo: Healer of herb and song
Pag-anito: Sacred rite for elemental spirits
Share your tale in the comments below, threading our living altar of regeneration.
Subscribe for part two and more stories at Echos & Ethos where the veil between worlds grows thin... Share your tale, lullaby verse, or experience in Echos & Ethos.
Read on for Part 2 of Whispers of Duwende & the Little Seer.