Láwû Makuriye’nte

electric shocks of grief to the heart while our dragon eats the moon

Full moon habitat posts pull stories from the places in my painting archive. These transmissions from now on will be available for all subscribers in honor of our new chosen ancestor Láwû. Read on for a look at Dry Hill and our Beloved Kapampangan Dragon who swallows the moon.

Dagger, Dry Hill painting, Sarita, and Láwû at the yurt habitat, Los Angeles, 2019

Tonight is a total lunar eclipse. The dragon eating the moon is our Beloved Láwû Makuriye’nte, aka Mango, who transitioned into spirit last Saturday, March 1st, 2025.

Láwû was only 28 when a tractor trailer in Arizona hit the truck they were riding in while helping their friends move.

I met Láwû in the pit at the Earthlodge in Long Beach, 2019. I looked up from the dirt I was digging and saw them and Samar approaching, faces full of excitement, young beings full of vital energetic power.

We became instant pamilya and Láwû made it out to the closing night of Tagolilong, me and champoy’s exhibit at Tita Linda’s PintaDos Gallery to commemorate our yurtlife before moving from LA to the Bay. champoy had a collection of Bakunawas on the ground, one of which we used in our Teatro Tagolilong. We asked the children to bang pots and pans to scare the dragon away from the moon in the Bisaya version of Láwû: the sun/moon-eater during eclipses. We didn’t know then that Mango would become this dragon and leave a hole in our hearts.

Come eat this moon, Láwû, pués stay and eat the sun, too! Spit fire unto the lords of planetary destruction. Your leaving is not in vain. We will carry your legacy on in everything we do.

Láwû Makuriye’nte in its performance of WAKE by jay carlon with micaela tobin, photograph by Argel Rojo, shared by them on Instagram @eo.biont.

Láwû is expansive and explosive in devotion to liberation.

From their bio:

láwû makuriye’nte solders infernal dissonance, permaculture farming, immersive live performance, kapampangan and filipino experimental music, catolonan hilot, albularyo technology, lethal kinetic movement, bioplastic prostheses, hand-built industrial and robotic electronic instruments, sonic fetishism, and mixed-reality films to encrypt its instinctual bloodcurdling resurgences. it is currently ululating across earth with its international and multidisciplinary performance projects: EOBIONT, ligament amalgamate @ligament_amalgamate , and mirrored fatality @mirroredfatality .”

While performing with Samar as Mirrored Fatality they summoned rage as resistance. The sets were exorcisms to channel and release the grief of patriarchy, settler colonialism, ecocide, and the present and future held hostage by empire. Láwû was a supernova of service in body and now their spirit can truly be with all of us, everywhere.

At their vigil we witnessed them through the wind when we sang; recognized them in the orange snake slithering out from the altar when we prayed to the direction of the Ancestors, North; and felt them in every embrace between loved ones.

Láwû was supposed to be in town for my exhibition opening on March 1st, but told me they couldn’t make it to help friends move. Always helping! We wanted them to rest. We wanted them to decompress. We felt a strong “nooo!” in our body when they told us of their change in plans but didn’t want to be selfish, so didn’t speak it aloud.

I was soothed knowing I’d see them soon at the show without exile with myth they were curating with Cat and then the next day for a playdate with Lida and I. They had asked me to do the opening ceremony of without exile without myth. This day of performance and experimental music was as a love letter to all their chosen family in the Bay and fundraiser for a soup kitchen. So wild and fitting that they did all the work to initiate a sacred gathering of beloveds that would become their vigil.

Tending the ofrenda at their March 9th vigil at Peralta Historic Park, Oakland

Láwû is everyone’s hypeman. Láwû would visit and notice the labor I was shouldering and always took the time to pull me aside and check in: “How are you boo? Are you getting enough support?” They saw the invisible layers stacked onto women and mothers and jumped into the take part in the holding. They wanted me to date and fly and thrive. They wanted my art out in the world.

He is an Uncle to Lidagat, a titx always bringing something cute or yummy, sharing quality time with her when he could. Their special bond is in winks and laughs and taking her ice skating for the first time with Samar. They made time to come do a healing for Lidagat, pulsing energy into the shift that helped her overcome the asthma attacking her lungs at our old house in Richmond, California.

Láwû is an Earthworker and farmer, pulled to the medicine of soil. Their hands worked dirt all over Turtle Island, drawn to the substance of life. They amended, planted, played, and harvested as a child of the Earth.

When my mama deer heart would wander into worry for the future of a hot, dry Earth our children would inherit, I felt calmer knowing that Láwû would continue guiding the work of generating a just and living world for Lidagat’s generation.

Láwû looked so hard and carried so much grief in their body but were so fucking courageous and loving in their devotion to transmutation, survival, and beauty. They were a rock star but always tuned into sustaining living systems; a true Earth Warrior.

Queen from the Earthlodge has been channeling messages from Láwû to us: one is that their death has not been in vain. They are working ever-harder from the spirit realm to being peace and harmony to our planet. He wants us all to step up and know that the children are watching to see what we do.

So to the freaks and visionaries, world-builders and water protectors: may we step deeper into our power and calling! Play as BIG as weather systems and planets! Láwû is with us as an ancestor now. Pray to them, praise them, channel them. We are expanding with them, too. May we unabashedly step into sacred roles ordained by the dragon of the eclipse.

Dry Hill, oil on paper, 2014

I gifted this Dry Hill painting to Mirrored Fatality when we moved. This was my view to the left of the yurt in Lincoln Heights, LA. You can see the little city-scape to the right in a dusty dirty sunset glow. The heat of the summer was brutal already in 2014. The fog would bring moisture though, enough to coat the blue-minty leaves of tree tobacco with sustenance for yellow tube blooms. Enough for Castor trees to take over and an arugula-yard to survive. Blue plastic tarps would tarnish as pulverized confetti in the landscape, scattering lost hope for shade. I started out there with a kitchen outside in the elements, and once champ moved there we built our kitchen at the front of the “studyurt” as we called our little studio, the one where we posed in the picture at the top of the post.

I feel so lucky to have Láwû ~ Mango in my cosmology, in my heart forever. I’m so grateful for all that Samar and sibling Nimir and their whole community are doing to honor their life and body. I look forward to playing with Láwû in sunsets and mountainsides, dirt kitchens and flora again someday. I hope we can become the rain.