Dear friends,
to those who have passed this way and to strangers who became friends...
introducing... the new faces, the new hands, the good hearts, the new management of former TARZAN'S NEST RESORT with a new name...
please visit our website to get to know who we are... we will be the one to welcome you the next time you come and visit the only exotic TREEHOUSE RESORT in Camiguin Island, now we call Enigmata Treehouse ART Camp, an artists playground managed by artists.
http://www.enigmata.tk
We are Enigmata.
We are professional, we are passionate, keeper of secrets, the storytellers, risk takers, moon bather, star gazers, and we are accountable, to you and humanity.
Our work standard is based on spiritual functionality. We do mind aesthetics; does it work or not? Will it hurtle us towards a more elevated state of evolution?
Our creative juices flow in waves of emotion. Energy in Motion. We are an espresso machine that will wean audiences away from their world of lethargy and decaf.
Our services aren’t limited to customary media. We will throw the most effective and imaginative concepts your way, if we think it will do the job for you; whether the work exhausts our very marrow, we will throw in our entire being if we believe in what you believe in. It is in this conviction that your needs cease to be treated as mere “accounts,” but rather, earth-shaking movements about to cause a great rumpus.
We are creatives with a universal soul. Composed of a highly experienced team of hyper multi-tasked masters of all trades scattered all over the Philippines, it will be natural for you to think it difficult to deal with us because of the vastness of space that separates your offices from our traveling artists. Yet this is what allows us to offer you the freshest insight, the most inspired angles, and the craziest schemes, conveyed to you through the highways available technology has to offer. And you need not find us too “flighty”; we work fast, we’re accountable, and we will DELIVER ahead of time, beyond expectations. You can expect nothing less from grounded people rooted in their beliefs and who live in a tree house.
Our team is made up of vegetarians in the guise of former heads of Manila-based advertising agencies, world-class visual artists, event producers, musicians, digital film directors, development workers, environmentalists who can now be found in mountain tribes, island resorts, beaches, and a few cities. We have worked with consumer goods companies, banks, government, advocacy groups, schools, travel producers, and special interest groups. Our vast network of suppliers and contacts around the country allows us to efficiently produce almost any communication requirement known to man.
excerpt from the first newsletter.
Sacred Tourism
The Filipino island stood up and walked to the city, hoping to find a better life. It is through the rediscovery of the ancient art of walking in circles that we hope to bring the focus back to the island within us all, through the inevitable path that points to the center of our heart, and hopefully, the core of our country’s soul.
“Pilgrim, begone! Nor return more hereafter,
Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth;
Others may sing of their love while rejoicing,
Thou once again must roam o’er the earth.”
- The Song of the Traveler, Jose Rizal
We call it Sacred Tourism, a walking quest for individual and national identity. During the yearly Holy Week Panaad, tens of thousands walk Camiguin’s 64km circumferential highway confirming this sacred walk has now become the island’s revered way of moving across space, an annual vow to walk the path of sacred homecoming.
Beside the Enigmata tree house, an indigenous sculpture by Kublai Millan pays tribute to a labyrinth garden walk, a spiraling stone path in the shape of a creative hand. Labyrinths can be found in almost every religious tradition around the world, where the act of walking in itself becomes a sacred act of pilgrimage to the core of one’s spirit, rather than the standard tourist look-see.
What is the difference? The tourist looks around, the pilgrim participates. The tourist comes with an interested eye, the pilgrim comes with a searching heart. Whether pilgrims find value in Enigmata’s resources, facilities, or in our Mindanao network, they are in any way encouraged to become advocates in the cultural, environmental, and spiritual regeneration efforts ongoing in Mindanao and across the country.
The Enigmata Tree House in “The Magic Eye-Land”
Enigmata subsists in the heart of Camiguin, the magical island born of fire. Aptly enough, we live in a tree house, the Tree of Life being our chosen metaphor; here is the soulful soil we have chosen to plant our seeds on, where our steadfast trunk meets both the sturdy roots that ground us, and our many branches that point heavenwards.
“Enig-Mata” means to open one’s eyes, to stir from a deep slumber to a magnificent awakening; The Enigmata Creative Circle is made up of gutsy dreamers from Mindanao, all sold on the conviction that the islands they walk on is indeed the Promised Land; this vindicates their vigorous passion to donate their talents as change agents, founded on the belief that it is not through passing idle time, but through hyperactive exploits that this promise, indeed lands on solid earth.
The paradox we live by is that we become more homeward bound, the farther we go. The higher we fly, the more ground we see. And it’s when we’re self-centered that we begin to desire to help all those who come our way.
The Tree of Life
Our Roots [Where did we come from?]
The walk to the center of the labyrinth refers to an inward remembering of our most profound roots, the very seed that makes us who we are, the seeds that will bring us to our grandest individual and collective versions of ourselves. The labyrinth walk signifies the pilgrim’s process, yet extends outside Camiguin to various parts of Mindanao and the Philippines. Enigmata seeks to help journeyers get in touch not only with their own personal identity, but to provide resources in the Enigmata tree house library and our various scattered Mindanao partners for those interested in helping us with the immense task of unearthing the pieces of the forgotten Filipino, back to a pre-Spanish time when “conditions in the islands” Jose Rizal says proved “that there was life, there was activity, there was movement.”
We are in the process of accumulating a vast library of resource material that will be relevant to a pilgrim’s path. e.g. [history of our religious, mythical, and indigenous roots, anthologies on extra-ordinary Filipinos who championed the path to self-identity, etc.]
We are collating an extended family tree which traces the genealogy of the modern-day Filipinos back to our most ancient forefathers. We also plan to create an interactive travel guide and map of the country’s sacred sites. Travelers will be encouraged to contribute to these interactive media, an ongoing process that grows over time with the vast information gathered from each pilgrim’s visit, sent email, or text message to Enigmata sharing the many things they have learned during their travels.
2. Our Center [Who Am I/Who Are We?]
Enigmata stands for the convergence of our rich history and the optimism in which we regard our bright future. We believe in an awakened Filipino; empowered to lead through our inherent nature to serve mankind. We believe the means to a new-found greatness stems from a simultaneous remembering of the past and a clear conviction to reinvent our image of the Filipino on an individual and communal level.
a. Empowerment workshops, seminars, and forums aimed at unearthing the buried aspects of the Filipino psyche through painting, creative writing, science, creative photography, meditation, exercise, food, general health
b. Celebratory Rituals, Parties, Festivals
3. Branching Out [Where are we going?] The walk away from the center of the labyrinth branches out to the different artists and groups around Mindanao and the Philippines networked with Enigmata. Our aim is to empower journeyers with the heart to volunteer and assist communities with needs in special advocacies (art, community development, history, culture, environment, science). Our quest for the hidden “Great Filipino” in all of us is founded on the present conditions and past experiences which have readied us for our inevitable role to lead ourselves and others to the path to self-discovery. As such, research and knowledge is not just professed, we believe it must be lived and shared.
a. The labyrinth walk extends to other points in the country, via a home-stay program where pilgrims could learn about the various tribes, historical landmarks, and benevolent communities; our aim is to create actual and positive participatory cultural re-generation that involves the pilgrim and the community involved.
b. We are continuing the sacred traditions of storytelling and the efforts in cultural banking through the arts. Pilgrims who come across artifacts that can add meaning to our religion called “Life,” can contribute their own personal discoveries through snail or electronic mail, or by sauntering over to the tree house for candid storytelling sessions over a hot cup of chai.
c. Enigmata envisions the sacred playground in Camiguin Island to becoming the confluence of the new and the sentient, the young and the old, the dreamers and their dreams, where all journeys take a life of their own, yet are connected to all the journeys ever walked.
Ma-I’s Sacred Playground
With respect to the need to protect the ancient ways and myths that has brought us to our current place in the sun, comes also the task of creating movement where dysfunctional stagnation persists. As we broaden our scope in defining and unearthing the “Great Filipino,” part of the sacred walk’s “grounding” and “branching out” process is discovering existing patterns. The ancient Chinese traders and settlers referred to Mindanao as “Ma-I.” This term, re-ordered, hints at a reversal of an existing pattern, revealing to us, a resounding “I Am,” yearning for the long-awaited moment when we decide which adjectives to follow those two succinct words to finally complete this elusive sentence.
