Childhood never leaves me

Scalded palms. Burnt fingers. Sometimes singed hair. This is what I always go through year after year every 1st of November. No, I'm not domestically abused every All Saints' Day. Every year when we pay our respects to our departed loved ones in the cemetery, my brother and cousins always assume our positions in front of the headstones, specifically the burning candles and their treasure trove of sculpture material: wax drippings! With our bare hands, we would valiantly collect the hot wax, form them into different shapes that our brains can imagine, collect more wax until it accretes to our desired size. And we have to do this before the wax completely hardens! It will always be a part of my childhood, this tradition every All Saints' Day.


I remembered how we were always reprimanded for playing with candles, how we were threatened by parental statements such as, "Babalisawsawin kayo dyan! (You'll get polyuria for that! - or fire pee, according to one online translator)" or "Para sa mga patay 'yan! Hayaan nyo na lang yan! (Those are for the departed ones! Leave it as it is)" But we were young and we see this as an adventure so off we continue scalding our fingers until we get satisfied with our obra maestra. I remembered making a 'bomb' model using an inch of candle as the bomb's wick. I always think it was cool. I also made a 'Shukaku' model complete with the bamboo hat and all. 


Back when I was a college freshman, I was filled - brimming even - with UP pride (you know, kids these days just jump around knowing that they passed the UPCAT, not knowing how much sacrifice they need to do to actually survive and graduate from the institution. Ugh.) so come All Saints Day 2009, I made an Oblation wax dripping sculpture (see picture below).

Should have bought white cartolina rather than tape
together pieces of bond paper. O Younger Me, how
naive of you.

And another thingy with an island-lighthouse for a headgear.

Jacket, SWIDT? 

This year, I return to my position in front of the burning candles and the dripping wax to form another piece of art (or paperweight). This time, I made models of the heart and the brain, complete with the aorta, superior vena cava and the (anatomically incorrect) coronary arteries for the brain; and the Circle of Willis for the brain. I was aiming to put a corpus callosum and a pineal gland in between the brain hemispheres but I also wanted the vasculature, and the Circle prevailed!

I apologize for the anatomically incorrect rendition of the coronary arteries and the Circle of Willis. And the left hemisphere's organization only shows how it rigidly directs logic and the right hemisphere just wants to bulge and become more carefree as it directs a person's creativity. Or maybe I just made the right one a tad bigger? Maybe that's why.

So what will it be next year?