Pilipinas Musings: Ancestral Remembrance

Heart Memories

Embodied ways of ceremonial journeying

To the homelands

Awakening this earthly body

Surrendering to the sacred waters of the unknown

Treasured heart memories

Gratitude for this tender time 

Less words, more feeling, being, creating

Present in these moments

For a month in April-May of this year, I visited my ancestral lands of the archipelago known as the Philippines. It was such a heart-warming and deeply emotional experience to visit my many families and the lands I grew up in. It’s been a while since I visited home. My time in the homeland was packed with full itinerary and adventures. During my visit, I was with my sister, brother, great aunt, aunties, cousins, and family friends. Each time I visit, it always feels like I never left. I was asked to tend to our home and daily life routines by my family. Wash the tropical plants outside our front porch, talk to my manghihilot cousin in the province about teaching me the healing ways of hilot, and plan for our trip up north in the mountains of Luzon. Deep, old Tagalog (Batangas dialect) fills the humid jungle air of our homes. Each spoken native words I feel deep in my bones, awakening the ancestral roots within me. I speak back in my native tongue to my people, washing away my grief-stricken tongue that speaks English most of the time when I am in the U.S. I visited my grandparents and aunties’ graves with my sister and my aunties. It’s a traditional practice in my family that I visit my ancestors’ grave as a way of welcoming my returning home and for honoring those who have gone before me. I shared tears, laughter, movement, and deep listening with my people, my ancestors, my plantcestors, and my Lupang Inay (motherland).

I sought out traditional medicine and medicine people in my blood lineage and in my family’s community. I was grateful to have received traditional hilot a few times from mga manghihilot. I received a womb healing massage session with a traditional indigenous midwife on the island of Palawan. She shared childbirth stories with me as she applied healing touch on my womb. It was a sacred moment I will always keep in my heart memory.

Here I am with Apo Whang Od receiving a traditional batok. “She is often described as the ‘last’ and oldest mambabatok (traditional Kalinga tattooist) and is part of the Butbut people of the larger Kalinga ethnic group. She has been tattooing headhunters and women of the indigenous people of Butbut in Buscalan, Kalinga, since she was 15 years old, but the Butbut warriors who used to earn tattoos by protecting villages or killing enemies no longer exist. Despite this, Whang-od continues to practice her traditional art form on tourists visiting Buscalan” (Wikipedia).

“Prayer in every direction
Trekking the mountains of rice terraces
The last Mambabatok blessing me
Reclaiming my indigenous Bisayan and Tagalog batok/tatak/tattoo tradition

Reciting prayers as I move through the pain
Beloved supporting me, my sister tending to our homestay
Pomelo thorn hand poke, entering the ancestor realm as guidance flow through

“A baby is the greatest gift,” a Kalinga mother tattooist tells me, to the doula in me, as she tattoos an arm band of prayer symbols during a night of heavy thunderstorms
She tells me they have a fertility room in their village
Grateful for these shares of birthwork wisdom with a kapwa

The land is fertile here in the sacred grounds of rice terraces
I bow to the ancient farming practices of our people
A prayer in every direction, I remind myself to walk with integrity, courage, and gentleness in this path of healing and promising future”

— Joyce Zara, journal entry on Kalinga land

Pagsikat ng Araw (Sunrise)

From the vast ocean, to the high mountains, to magnificent volcanoes, to ancient old mangrove trees, and a full moon eclipse cycle,

My heart is grateful and is ever-expanding in all the ways my homeland reminds me who the fuck I am. Na pakikiramdam/feeling-knowing a love so pure for my homeland,

I bow in deep reverence to my ancestors, Filipino revolutionaries, and ordinary people fighting for our liberation and loving our homeland purely.

Tears continue to be shed, in mourning, in belly-laughter joy, in finding art, in seeing poetry in nature, and in all-encompassing ways. 

As I reflect back on the past few months of being back here on Turtle Island, I am reminded of the importance of ancestral remembrance. As a native Batangueña-Bisayan Waray Tsinoy and a 1.5 generation migrant Filipina, I am constantly navigating two worlds and the feeling of homesickness that can often times feel unfathomable.

I reflect on my legacy and where my people are from. My people who resisted 500+ years of resistance from oppressors and ongoing imperialism. My people who tended and worked the land. My people who were community leaders, medicine people, architects, inventors, artists, childbearers, herbalists, fishers, farmers, revolutionaries, and so much more.

I reflect on where my people are born and buried, from womb to tomb. I’m the first one in my blood lineage who was born here, on Ohlone land (Daly City, CA), though I grew up in the Kumintang province (Batangas) from infancy to ten years old, and visiting as much as I can throughout my life. I think about where my people are buried. No one in my blood lineage are buried here, all my transitioned ancestors are buried in our ancestral land.

I reflect on my work as an ancestral birthworker, my work navigating the tender waters and thresholds of life and death. Honoring the ceremony of childbirth and postpartum. What it means to hold my lolas and titas’ hands as I walk this path of healing and indigenous ways of being. As I continue to witness the unfolding of reproductive journeys, I reflect on the ways I want to be remembered—when my descendants and loved ones have a picture of me on their altar… How I want to live this sacred life in reverence and in dedication to my ancestors and guides.

Soulful Rest

Sinigang na baboy by the waterfall
Wood fired isda by the ocean
Unpaved bamboo trails
Tranquil sleep in a bahay kubo
Far away from it all
Soaking in the wisdom all around me

Minsan walang salita ang makapaglalarawan sa nararamdaman ko sa mahalagang panahon ito

I’m remembering the importance of rest and how healing it is for my mind, body, and spirit. I’m deeply grateful to be able to camp so close to the ocean, next to the kind and humble indigenous family’s home, who hosted us in Palawan. Cooking fresh fish on traditional pugon (outdoor wood fired oven), napping on duyan (hammock), and drinking freshly picked niyog (coconut) from climbing a coconut tree next to our bahay kubo. I am reminded of the beauty of slow and simple living on the islands. This is how my people lived and continue to live.

Paglubog ng Araw (Sunset)

“Aling pag-ibig pa ang hihigit kaya
Sa pagkadalisay at pagkadakila
Gaya ng pag-ibig sa Tinubuang lupa?
Aling pag-ibig pa?
Wala na nga, wala. ”

— Andrés Bonifacio, on pure love for one’s homeland

Admiring the beauty of Coron, Palawan with my beloved.

Reflect on Your Ancestral Remembrance:

Where are your people from? Where did they originate? Where were they born? Where were they buried?

How did they commune with the land?

How did they resist and fight for their sovereignty?

How are you honoring your well-intentioned ancestors daily?

The following questions are by Ancestors in Training:

What does it mean to be an ancestor in training in the face of climate grief, hyperconsumption and an uncertain future?

How can we live lives that our descendants and the next seven generations can be proud of?

Given the state of the world, what environment will the next three generations inherit?

Think of an ancestor that is unknown to you - what would you like them to know about you?

What does intergenerational compassion look like to you? What are the possibilities?