Kaibahan kan mga nobenang piglalagda kan daan na imprenta kan Cecilio Press, iyo an libro nin mga pangiturogan, prognostico kun apodon, nakasurat sa daan na ortograpiyang nasaralak pa an c asin k, sarong bagay na minatundag pa sa orolay kan tataramon na Bikol. Mababakal pa an mga babasahon na Bikol na ini, asin dyaday pa man kinaka-osip, sa tamang bulan nin pagharong, an lokasyon kan Bakunawa, anong aldaw marhay magtanom nin paroy. An mga pangiturugan sarong pakikipag-osip satuya arog ki Jose sa daan buda bagong tipan. 

Pangiturogan na sa mga Bikolnon, parating nag-aabot bilang huni nin gamgam, sa loba ko katurugan sabi sa kantang “Sarung Banggi.” An katurugan na nagpapamati bilang tingog, an simong boses, iyo palan.  

An mga gibong ini kan parakurit na si Rustom Pujado, mga prognostico na kaipuhan hinanyogon, himation. Kun mayong imahen, mayong kabatiran, an signos iyo an gnosis kan prognostico. Kaya yaon an rigsok ni Beatriz na ngunyan iyo na si Handyong nakikitumang sa dakulang upon. An harong ni Angela Manalang-Gloria, ngunyan nakatindog saro na sanang anino o kalag na nangangalagkalag o an saiyang imahen, na base sa daan nyang retrato, ugaring an mga babaying nag-uusip, kakolor kan daga, kakolor kan liwanag kan sinarom an mga gibo ni Pujado, siring man yaon an oroboros, an buto ni Kurakog, mga simbolong timbang-buhay, an balanseng pig-aatid-atid sa buhay nyatong pigpapalis-palis an gin saka Coke, ribay-buhay.

Among the novenas published by the old printing house Cecilio Press rests a book of dreams, which are considered prognostications. People still acquire these readings in Bikol and pass them around, consulting them about all manner of things, from what is the opportune month for building a home to where the legendary Bakunawa is pointed so as to figure out when and where to plant rice. Dreams are a manner of communing with the heavens, of entering into a bit of storytelling, of osip—just as Joseph did, in both the old and new testaments.

This dreaming, for the Bikolnon, always comes in the form of birdsong, which “at first, I thought, were in my dreams,” as the old folk song “Sarung Banggi” goes. The dream that presents itself as a tune, “was your voice, indeed, all along.”  

Rustom Pujado’s artworks that accompany the pieces of our folio, Osipon, possess this dreamlike quality. They need to be heeded, felt. If there is no image, there is no awareness; the Bikol signos (sign) is the Greek gnosis. Thus, Beatriz Triumfante—the heroine of Ana T. Calixto’s story “Slipped the Snare”—now embodies Handyong wrestling with the giant boar as told to us in the epic Ibalon. The famed, reclusive author Angela Manalang-Gloria, whose work is both published and analyzed in this folio, is depicted as a shadow or a specter in her own house, only to be rendered up close in another image, looking straight at us with her own secret knowledge. A portrait of women conversing (osip) echoes that secret knowledge, with the image’s background the shade of the earth, the same light as the dusk in the works of Pujado. Across Pujado’s art, symbols of life’s balance recur, from the coiling Ouroboros to the scales by which we pass our days, poured between gin and Coke, exchanging life for life.