Water Serpent Dharma is the folk religion I started for myself and my family. I’ve recently opened it up to my communities. I’ve been developing it since I was a child. As an adult I’ve studied with many teachers (see my “Mediumship” page), studied texts on ancient mind-sciences, attended countless meditation retreats, placed myself in refuge for many periods over the course of 30 years in an attempt to simulate the cave-meditation techniques of ancient Tantric Buddhists. This effort started as a way to uncover for myself the roots of pain, ignorance, apathy, violence that I experienced a child. I wanted to put my energy into understanding the universe but the available religions were either bastardized, watered down, used for oppression and control, lacked credible teachers, were riddled with drama or corruption especially sexual deviancy, and so forth. Additionally, I didn’t want to appropriate spiritual practices from living indigenous people with whom I had little to no connection. I saw a few groups of diasporic people, as a young adult, trying to make a new version of indigenous practices and it just seemed inauthentic and prone to incredible spiritual errors. Making my own path, approaching it all logically, was my only real choice.
As a teen I found that many sages, teachers, artists before me attempted this path, and then I learned from their stories and methods. Over time, I put together all the effective, powerful methods that seemed to really work for me and others around me in order to shape Water Serpent Dharma. Here is what some of Water Serpent Dharma entails:
Theurgy: Key Hindu-Buddhist & Visayan Goddesses: Mahadevi, Maa Kali, Maa Tara (Inanna), Maa Vajrayogini and Maa Chhinnamasta, Dalikmata, Magwayen (Tiamat), the Moon, the Sun, the planet Venus, the Land, Dakini (Skywalkers/orbs), Nagas and Sirena.
Sages & Texts: Key Ancient & Modern Sages & Seers: Lord Shakyamuni Buddha, the Dhammapada, and many sutra texts; The Venerable Padmasambhava; The Venerable Yeshe Tsogyal; The Venerable Palden Lhamo; The Venerable Sage Narada; the Akkadian High Priestess Enheduanna and her Exaltation of Inanna; the modern systems theorist and philosopher Ervin László; the author Audre Lord’s Uses of the Erotic; the author Haunani-Kay Trask’s Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory; the poet June Jordan’s Directed by Desire; the author Octavia Butler and her fictional religion Earthseed; futurist inventor Nikola Tesla; Yeshuani’s text The Light Within: A New Era of Purpose for Neurodivergent Sensitivity; many texts on Socially Engaged Hindu-Buddhism by The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, radical animism, Land Back, and critiques on Western Buddhism.
My Honored Teachers: Lama Gyaltsen, Dhomang Gyatrul Rinpoche, Lama Drimed Lodro Rinpoche, Lama Jigme, Lama Palzang, Pema Gellek, Upasika Kee Nanayon, my mother-in-law, Ka Virgil Mayor Apostol, Guro Dan Inosanto, Guro Kristen Cabildo.
Key Buddhist & Animist Ideas: The Six Great Elements, The Six Sense Bases, The Three Marks of Existence, The Three Poisons, The Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eightfold Path, The Seven Factors of Enlightenment, The Five Precepts, The Five Aggregates, The Eight Wordly Conditions, The Five Remembrances, The Ten Perfections, The Five Hindrances, the planets as sentient beings, the reality of humans on Earth as a manifestation of the mind, electricity and the electromagnetic light spectrum as transmission substance, karmic cycles/Samsara and The Three Pillars of Dhamma, the soul as part of a collective sentient energy (Mahadevi), Akasa (Akashic Record), Nirvana, animal and nature communication, quantum systems.
Key Buddhist-Animist Rites & Rituals: Refuge Vows, Bodhisattva Vows, empowerments granted by Lamas (teachers) and others, ancestor veneration, moon cycle rituals, ocean/water rituals, volcano/earth rituals, growing plants, caring for animals, animal rights and Land Back activism, harm reduction for homeless communities, anti-racist social justice organizing, women’s social justice activism, mutual aid for the working class, hexing oppressors and those who cause mass harm.
Meditation & Mindfulness practices: Sitting meditation; dance; Muay Thai, Yaw-Yan, Kali-Silat martial arts; Tantric meditation and demon feasting (Chöd), Dzogchen, Kum Nye and yoga; astral travel and dreamwork; wakeful-mindful walking and eating, mindfulness as key to receiving transmissions; sound and light meditation.
Ritual Tools: Bell, vajra, dagger, offering bowls, copper, quartz, iron, black stones like obsidian/onyx/tourmaline, white stones like moonstone, blue stones like lapis lazuli, green stones like jade, gold and pyrite, rooster and peacock feathers, shark/alligator/angler teeth, chicken/yak/snake/carabao bones, singing bowls, veil/head cover, divination beads.
Art-Making as Portal Key & Demonstration of Transmission: Use of creative energy to connect with pure consciousness which is actually pure creative energy (Mahadevi and her emanations). Erotic energy as creative potential and healing energy. Dissemination of wisdom through art and public speaking (exhibits, speeches, workshops, etc).
Mind Alchemy: Alchemize pain/collapse loops of disharmony by responding to systems via writing and journaling, painting, drawing, singing. Face off with pain like a friend you’d like to understand. Make powerful, memorable art that is fast to make yet impactful to show others what art can do, that art-making and art-sharing is an opportunity to raise the frequency of low-vibrational pain as a collective. When we allow the muck to surface then we can filter through it and receive the transmission within it, benefitting all. All pain is a transmission of wisdom that calls for action (compassion) in the direction of liberation.
Acknowledgement of Root Pain: Family Environment as Mirror: Families can work together in attaining enlightenment and liberation. The absence of family or a family filled with suffering (including separation and estrangement) provide immediate material to work with that can lead to enlightenment in a single lifetime. Blood, adoptive, and chosen families are like sanghas or communities with which we actively identify and work out our karma.