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by Mary Hernandez

March 2016 Update to the T’boli crowdfunding campaign

March 12, 2016 in Indigenous Groups, Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by Mary Hernandez

Dear CfBS friends and donors:

We want to share a quick update about the crowdfunding campaign to support the T’boli teachers and school children in the LASIWWAI community.

Teacher stipends, children’s meals and school uniforms were funded through the campaign.

2016 March Tboli children1

2016 March Tboli children4

Jenita Eko, leader of the LASIWWAI enterprise, is pleased to report that extra funds from the campaign also were allocated for key T’boli community projects, including:

  • New source of drinking water serving 806 families
  • New paint for indigenous school classrooms
  • Audio visual technology (television and DVD player) for instructional purposes

2016 March Tboli children3

2016 March Tboli children2

Jenita writes that many families live in homes without electricity, and access to a communal television has been a great addition to the LASIWWAI community. Community elders, along with parents, established a policy that the TV only will be used only on Fridays. In addition, only educational programming will be shown to parents and children. Parents also have expressed an interest in learning English, so some of the instructional programming will focus on basic language instruction. Jenita assures that the policy about the use of visual technology applies to sustaining oral traditions in the indigenous T’boli community.

2016 March Tboli1

2016 March Tboli2

The LASIWWAI community also shared photos from their Christmas celebration. T’boli teachers, children, and parents are grateful for your generosity and kindness.

On behalf of the Center for Babaylan Studies core team, thank you again for your engagement in this important project.

Best regards,

CfBS team

Thank you for your continued support!

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by Jen Maramba

The Road Ahead for the Indigenous Peoples

November 26, 2014 in Babaylan and Community Healing, Decolonization and Filipino Identity, Events and Conference, In the News, Indigenous Education, Modern Practices

, Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by Jen Maramba

by Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta in UP Forum

For countless years, indigenous peoples (IPs) have lived on the fringes of society, barely mentioned even in the footnotes of history texts. The IPs, if given any attention at all, are often viewed as collateral damage in the march to economic development, as members of a somewhat lesser race of humans, and at best, icons of a romanticized past regularly trotted out and paraded during cultural celebrations. This is the case for many of the 370 million indigenous peoples in some 90 countries around the world.1 

“[IPs around the world] share common problems—the non-recognition of their rights to their territories and human rights violations—but in different degrees,” said Marissa Cabato of the Philippine Program for the Indigenous People’s Empowerment and Sustainable Development under the Baguio City-based indigenous peoples organization Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education).

Tebtebba (www.tebtebba.org) was one of the participants in the Rio+20 International Conference of Indigenous Peoples on Self-Determination and Sustainable Development held on June 19, 2012 at Rio De Janeiro, participated in by IP organizations, traditional and spirituals leaders and indigenous peoples from seven regions of the world. “During those partner-meetings, representatives from different countries came together and discussed their situations, so we saw that the issues [the IPs] are confronting are not all that different from one another.”

Progress has been made in all areas of development with regard to the world’s indigenous peoples since the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations was designated in 1982 to promote and protect the human rights and basic freedoms of indigenous peoples. This led to the drafting of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 1995 and its eventual approval on September 13, 2007. However, Cabato acknowledges that the issue of the non-recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights remains as pressing as ever, even into the second decade of the 21st century.

To read more, click here.

 

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by admin

Reflections from the 2012 CFBS Planning Retreat

February 6, 2012 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

Tahanan-Aralan Para sa Babaylan (CFBS)

Our annual planning retreats began in 2010 when we planned and organized the First International Babaylan Conference. In 2011, we  met to plan the August retreat/symposium, “Decolonization and Indigenization as a Path to the Sacred.” In 2012, the theme of our planning retreat was “Strengthening Our Foundation”; the choice of this theme reflects our growth as a community that is now having to think about sustainability and  how we want to move towards the future in this time of great turning.

This time of “great turning” refers to the transformation or shifts that we are experiencing at many levels: cosmic, planetary, climate, economic, cultural and social — shifts that we experience in our personal lives. We believe that we are a resource-rich people as we recover and remember our connection to our ancestors and to the indigenous core values we still know and live in our bodies. As a Filipino community in the diaspora, CFBS exists to study and research Indigenous Filipino Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP) as well as to provide a container for our indigenous/babaylan-inspired projects and to participate and collaborate with other communities who share our vision. We are a community that is drawn together by our love for our Kapwa and the calling to share these gifts with our communities and the world at large. Our vision is inspired by the wisdom and power of the ancient babaylan to bring about well-being and wholeness to the communities s/he serves.

At this year’s retreat, we were inspired to call forth new names for the various levels of engagements within CFBS:

Haligi ng Sinag/Pillars of Light — refers to the seven core group members that meet regularly via conference calls to make decisions about CFBS events and projects in consultation with …
Banaag/Ray of light — members who have worked closely with the core group for the past three years in organizing and implementing CFBS events and projects.
Alaya/New Dawn — members who volunteer their time and talent at various CFBS events and projects.

So we invite you, our readers, to join us at these various levels. Please talk to us.

During this weekend, we also worked on creating group norms that will guide us in our process of planning. We share them here as a work-in-progress:

  •  We commit to uphold the beauty of Kapwa through playfulness, openness, respect, honesty, appreciation and affection, patience, and trusting.
  • We commit to doing shadow work constructively and responsibly in service to ourselves and to our community.
  • We commit to the sustainability of the organization through financial independence, resource generation, legacy planning, and alliance building.
  • We commit to a process of indigenous-inspired decision-making that is based on modified consensus and is scalable. We commit to the centrality and importance of ritual.
  • We are mindful that we are Kasinag to each other; each an expression of the individual rays of light that shine from the core of our Loob.
  •  We commit to be discerning and wise regarding issues of information-sharing in the process of     decision making that impacts our community and our projects
  • We commit to the research and compilation of archival materials of IKSP.
We create a strong foundation by listening to each other’s ancestral stories: our roots in the Philippines and the routes we took to arrive at this continent; the stories we carry in our hearts and minds about our love for our people and our homeland; our immediate families and communities that nurture us in the present. We spent Saturday evening passing the talking bowl relishing these stories. Our cultural, personal and ritual nurturance comes from such deep work and sharing…all of which helps us translate these into our “CFBS programs.”

We also set up a mural wall that we put up on our pantry door. At the center are the baybayin scripts for Tahanan-Aralan Para sa Babaylan (CFBS) . Each one was given a piece of paper that contained a phrase from our vision and mission statement. We were asked to meditate on this phrase and then the following morning to draw a visual representation on the mural.  As we moved throughout the weekend, this mural was our visual reminder of why CFBS exists, why we are engaged with it, and why the calling is strong and clear in each one of us.

Some Alaya members joined us on Sunday for further planning of events for 2012-2013. Everyone was excited by the idea of having the second international babaylan conference in 2013. All roads lead to this conference from hereon. These are just some of the ideas that we are brewing together.  


       Music concerts: Grace Nono; Kulintang groups
       Healer/s-in-Residence project
       IKSP Healing Circles: Connecting to Filipino roots
       Healing Grief Rituals
       Kapwa Cafe and catering
       Book projects
      Video and media projects
      Advocacy Projects in support of IPS in the Philippines
      Weaving Threads, Weaving Tales: Indigenous Fashion and Folklore
Supporting Kapwa 3 conference in The Philippines

Please ask us how you might participate and join us.
  







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by admin

Tera Maxwell’s Reflections on the CFBS Retreat

January 28, 2011 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

Moon smiling down on us at at the lake on last night of retreat.
(Photo by Karen Pennrich)

On the last evening of the Babaylan Retreat 2011, we gathered at nearby Lake Ralphine in Santa Rosa, California to make an offering to our ancestors. The twilight sun softly dipped below the trees to the west. A swollen moon awaited evening in the east. This land held the painful memories of my adolescence, but sharp regret troubled me no more. Balikbayan describes diasporic Filipinos who return to the homeland. It literally means returning to settlement. Balik means return; bayan means settlement. (Vicente Rafael p206). It is a feeling of coming home. Yet here, in Sonoma County, California, I experienced balikbayan at this working retreat for the Center for Babaylan Studies (CFBS). 

The intention of the retreat was to brainstorm upcoming plans for the Center for Babaylan Studes, whose main purpose is to educate about indigenous knowledges and practices. Before the closing ritual of the weekend, we sat on a sharp outcropping of rocks above the lake and recalled our experiences at the retreat. I expressed gratitude for each participant for the gift of acceptance. As a second-generation mestiza Filipino American, it was the first time I felt I belonged as a Filipina. Among the group were Filipino artists, writers, musicians, academics, and healers. Virgil Apostol taught us about Ablon, the Filipino art of healing. Lily Mendoza lectured on the indigenization movement in the Philippines.  Perla Daly presented on the babaylan’s many symbols. Lane Wilcken talked about the Filipino art of tattooing as a committment to one’s ancestral family. Leny Strobel discussed the Center’s purpose and welcomed us into her home. Titania Bucholdt shared her bamboo percussive instruments, and we danced in a tribal circle. We nourished our bodies with good food. We laughed. We played. 
The first night we feasted together. Mila Anguluan Coger led the opening ritual. The first ritual was called “The Gathering.” Frances stood with a bag of scarves tied to her hip. She called to the first person in the circle “Intan, Tera” meaning “Come here from wherever you are. Put your feet on the earth.” Each person tied her scarf to the last person on the scarf chain, like a winding snake of scarves and bodies. After every person in the group was welcomed into the chain, the ritual shifted. An outer circle and inner circle formed. Every individual in the inner circle spoke to each member of the outer circle: “I honor you” and shared something unique about that person. Everyone took turns. 
Mila invited us to play through ritual. Her activities would be presented to Filipino American college students to help them get in touch with their indigenous roots. We were asked to draw a power symbol and an indigenous symbol. My power symbol is the waterfall, shifting and moving continuously, a fitting metaphor for my energy, and my life, married to a corporate gypsy. But intuitively, I was given my ancestral symbol–a large, smooth stone. The stone is solid and unchanging. It represents the islands of my ancestors. It symbolizes the source of my strength.
Atang in Ilokono is a ritual offering to one’s ancestors. It is showing respect for our ancestors on the other side of the veil. It is acknowledging their presence and assistance in our mortal affairs. This honor of ancestors is important in Filipino indigenous traditions. We were invited to make an offering to our ancestors. I wrote a note expressing my gratitude to my ancestors for their help in writing my dissertation among other things. Because of my own religious biases, I came to the ritual expecting simply a beautiful ceremony, but not necessarily a spiritual act.

I was wrong.
As Lane Wilcken placed the offering of food and letters on taltalabong, a spiritual raft, and uttered a chant of respect to the ancestors. The taltalabong drifted out on the lake. Seven geese circled overhead twice from left to right, a Filipino omen that the ancestors were pleased with our offering. To my surprise, I felt my heart surge with joy. I felt the joyful embrace of my ancestors; a strong presence of many surrounded me. This sacred experience was more profound than words can convey, but I knew that this indigenous ritual was important, as I honored my indigenous ancestors in a ritual they recognized. I received the impression: “We are always with you.” 

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by admin

Notes and Reflections from the CFBS Retreat, Jan 14-16, 2011, Santa Rosa, CA

January 24, 2011 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

Attending: Leny Strobel, Perla Daly, Letecia Layson, Lorial Crowder, Mila Coger, Lane Wilcken, Virgil Apostol, Lizae Reyes, Gina Honda, Karen Pennrich, Lily Mendoza, Tera Maxwell, Venus Herbito, Frances Santiago, Titania Bucholdt
Last night of the retreat. The lake was as still as a mirror.

Wednesday, January  12: Letecia and Lily arrived on this day and am glad they got here early because they helped me with the food preparation for the weekend. They chopped, peeled, sliced, diced vegetables while we got a head start on storytelling. Letecia also created the altar as we prepared the space. We set our intentions.

Friday, January 14: Perla arrived from Austin; Lorial from New York. Tera (Minnesota) arrived with Malena (9mos) in Santa Rosa where her mother lives. Lane arrived at Sonoma County Airport where he was met by Karen. Venus, Virgil, Mila and Gina arrived from Los Angeles; Frances from Maryland. Lizae picked up Perla and Lorial from BART station near her home.
Lizae, Perla, Lorial, Venus, Frances, Mila, Gina had lunch at Café Gratitude in Berkeley and they all celebrated the graduation of Frances (MA in Indigenous Mind). Mila, who has defended her dissertation proposal and is now on her way to do the research was also feted.
I mention the places where everyone came from because I am still in awe at everyone’s resolve to come and be with one another. Our home was happy to be the container for the vibrant energy of beautiful souls. Cal and I felt honored.
Opening Ritual: I was washing dishes when Mila, Gina, and Frances came up from behind and started the summons: Intan, Leny! Intan, Leny!  and proceeded to summon everyone to the living room. Mila then gave each one a scarf and then we tied our scarves together and formed a circle and then Mila gave us instructions on welcoming and honoring each other.  This was a wonderful way for everyone to greet and honor each other individually. Already, there were misty eyes and laughter.
Afterwards, Letecia led us in reflection about Sacred Time and Sacred Ritual. We all made a commitment to the structure of the weekend’s program as agreed upon so that there would be no need to have a timekeeper. We posted our weekend schedule and weekend menu on the door of the pantry for everyone to see. For me, Letecia’s words can be summed up thus: Remember what CFBS stands for, what we have committed to and then show up. Her words are much more profound than these, of course.
Saturday, January 15: Everyone was on time! I mixed the vegetables with the bihon for our no-cook pansit lunch baon; made hummus, and then laid out our breakfast of lox and bagels, cream cheese, fruits. Tea with calamansi and ginger and honey; coffee, orange juice.  By 8:30 we were rolling out the door and headed to Sonoma State U.
At SSU, after our brief opening Kapwa Jam with bamboo instruments brought by Titania (thank you!), we began the day with “framing our Big Story” as a way of clarifying what we mean by Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP); identifying the various discourses under IKSP including, of course, the Babaylan discourse. We emphasized the significance of understanding how the stories we tell ourselves are often shaped by powerful historical narratives and ideologies, and, therefore, the decolonization and indigenization processes are critical to the vision and work of CFBS.
Lily continued the morning session by talking about the indigenization movement in the Philippines – its history of emergence and the strands (Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Pilipinolohiya, Pantayong Pananaw), key persons, and its relevance to CFBS. Furthermore, in linking IKSP to the global concerns (environmental, social justice, capitalist exploitation, etc), she used the example of Detroit (as a post-industrial city) where the local movement is towards “Grow our Food; Grow our Stories; Grow our Beauty.”  She further noted how wonderful it is not to feel the need to have a divide between cognitive ways of knowing and the more “embodied ways of knowing.” At CFBS the community process allows one to experience a more integrative  mode of knowing where indigenous consciousness and ancient ways of being are not only studied and theorized but  actually re-learned and practiced as living traditions.
Saturday afternoon: Mila, Lane, Perla, and Letty presented their modules.  Mila’s workshop is designed for her presentation to undergrads in Southern CA. Her interactive activities got us invigorated and creative. Lane presented his outline presentation on Filipino tattoos and their spiritual symbolism; Perla presented the “Babaylan Power Roles” which she has developed and has had online presence and she is now ready to take them on the road. Letty presented her outline of a presentation she will be making at a Matriarchal Studies conference in Switzerland this summer. Her plan is to talk about decolonization as a spiritual path to liberation using Babaylan discourse to present her main ideas.
Saturday evening: Lane shared about the power of storytelling and why and how we need to learn how to read the metaphors in our creation myths, folklore, and legends.  I was reminded that the ancestors want to speak to and guide us and we have to pay attention when they manifest their presence.  For our bedtime meditation, Lizae played the harp. When Lizae plays, the energy settles down and puts us in deep reverie…that place where words are absent and inadequate. In the silence of our collective calm, Spirit dwells. A beautiful ending to a full day’s work.
January 16, Sunday morning: After a breakfast of crème brulee French toast and  vegetarian sausage, fruit, and tea and coffee, we settled in the living room and Karen led us in a grounding meditation followed by Perla’s invitation for us to enter dreamspace and await the revelation and inspiration from our deep well of Memory. To some of us it was a time of cathartic release of long held grief, tears flowing to wash us clean. Venus said it best: all of your tears are making me really…joyful!  After journaling our dreams, we began to talk about how we might manifest some of these dreams through the work of CfBS.  Even as we are still keeping these plans under wraps, we are excited to birth them this year and into 2012.
In the afternoon, Virgil led us in an Ablon workshop teaching us some ways of relieving tension and stress in our bodies. As we tried the poses and Virgil corrected us, more raucous laughter ensued as we realized that some of the poses looked more like prostrations to a deity and it so happened that Virgil was standing in the middle of the circle. Laughter, of course, being therapeutic as well.
Sunday at sunset: We said goodbye to Gina and Mila who had to leave for LA. Then the rest of us went to Howarth Park’s Lake Ralphine to do our closing ritual. Lane was led by the ancestors to offer an atang/offering on a boat that would carry our food offering, our symbolic offerings of “letting go”. As Letecia led us in our final recalling and recapping activity, we were all facing the serene lake and watched and listened to the birds and ducks as we listened to each other’s voice. Lane then lowered the atang boat onto the water and as he did, a flock of Canada geese circled above from left to right – an auspicious sign that the ancestors have received our offering.  We walked back to our cars in silence and serenity. I am thankful for rituals that return us to this primordial sense of belonging to the Earth and to each other.
Greetings & blessings from the ancestors.(Photo by Karen Pennrich)

As Perla puts it: The weekend could not have ended any sweeter than when the geese passed us twice overhead in the air, spiraling over the Atang ritual, indicating that our ancestors were pleased with our questing to feel and release their pain, to connect with them and to help our Kapwa rediscover them also.

Sunday night: Our first post-retreat event: Intimate book launch with Lane and Virgil. We felt privileged to be the first book launch audience as this gave us a chance to know both of them not just as authors but as kindred spirits. Lots of laughter as we feted and blessed the books’ journey with cake and toasts.
Post-retreat events: Om Shan Tea, Filipino Community Center of Sonoma County, BAyanihan Community Center/Arkipelago Books. The Grace Nono performance was cancelled due to an emergency situation.
Postscript: For over a week, I savored the presence of each of you in our home. A few days before everyone arrived, I had an epiphany (which I shared with you during the retreat) and during this week, this epiphany became more and more real and helped me appreciate Lane’s metaphor of being tattooed in your heart. It also made me realize that what we at CFBS can and will offer to our communities is the communal experience of our Filipino indigenous spirituality as it is made to bloom through our individual and collective processes of decolonization and indigenization. Over the weekend, we sharpened our intellect, we nourished our bodies with good food, we cherished and learned from our child-like spirit of play and creativity, we grieved together, we created rituals together, we danced, we honored and thanked each other. In doing all of these things, we were also palpably being guided by our ancestors.  It is as if all of our tacit knowing became explicit as we created together the container for its manifestation.
I am now out of words and will end with this:  PADAYON! Onward….

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by admin

Honoring ancestry: a journey of oneness interweaving ancestral offerings

March 14, 2010 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

Brought to you by Unity of Berkeley, Center for Babaylan Studies, CIIS Alumni Sound Voice Music Healing Ensemble, March 12, 2010

The Boro Boro gongs called us to gather. The Warsi ritual of purification invoked ancestral blessings. Offerings to the altar in the Talaandig tradition and the Dugso ritual ushered us into the evening’s celebration of oneness.

Our feast: Tradicion Rondalla, Kulintang Dance Theatre, Kulintronica/Ron Quesada, Inner Dance by Jen Navarro with Lizae’s harp composition, The Great Ocean, spoken word by Jodie Olympia, musical offerings by Mila and Vedel, Koronado Apunzen. A talk, “In the Spirit of our Ancestors”, by Virgil Apostol.

True to the inclusive Kapwa spirit, we were joined by the Sound Voice Music Healing ensemble from the CA Institute of Integral Studies. They offered a Medicine Melody, a Japanese Medicine Melody, and Sounding the Oneness. Another member of the group, Jose Garvia Silva and our very own Lizae on the harp, offered De Repente California.

We were also blessed by the Pierre family from Haiti who shared a Haitian Dance and Chant and Yanvalou, rhythm for ritual dance from Benin. Romain Grouazel shared in his native tongue in Brittany the oldest poem titled Ar Rannou.

I can describe the program above, but I cannot do justice to the spirit of the evening with mere words. Perhaps it is enough to tell you a story?

A few years ago, she would never have danced in public. During street festivals in her hometown, her feet always pulled her in the direction of the drummers and dancers. She envied the women who took off their shoes and danced their joy; she wished to do the same but she didn’t know these women — they all seemed to be part of a group of drumming women — it would have been awkward to join in.

In the year after the patriarch died, she found herself in the Philippines in the month of June. This time something inside let go. With the Cordillera gongs, she joined the circle and danced and danced. She was with her community and it was okay to dance.
A few weeks later, she was in Mindanao at Pamulaan College. The indigenous students began drumming as her group was saying goodbye. And again, the shoes came off and she danced.

The dance hasn’t stopped. The dance wove its magic. More dancers came and brought along singers, poets, drummers,healers, creative souls, searching souls. They called their village – Center for Babaylan Studies. One day they said “we must enlarge this circle, let us organize a conference, a gathering.”

Each of the women said they have heard the call of the ancestors, the call of the Indigenous. From New York, New Jersey, Texas, California, Philippines – they came. “I get it.” “I have been waiting for this moment for a long time.” “I cannot not do this.” “I vow to do this work.”

In January we held a retreat. After a meditation session, one of us saw a vision – a buwaya/crocodile was sitting on the table, she fipped her tail, she showed her ancient body. We remembered the story of the babaylans who were fed to the buwayas. The vision and dream about the buwaya visited different members of the group for days to come. They started calling it the Buwaya’s path. What does the buwaya – she who ate the babaylans – want from us?

And why am I writing this as if you would understand the language that hides so many things; the language that is available to those who ask for doors to open to the gentle prodding of the Indigenous Soul.

Is it Real when someone writes after last night’s event: “Oh the night was so healing for me. I feel I have renewed energy and vision, even how to utilize my energy appropriately so that I am able to make it through the day.”

Are the tears from the deep well of joy, real? Is the energy we bring home with us real?

Yes, of course. It is to me and to those of us who didn’t want to leave Unity Church last night.

But the dance continues. Next week, Katrin will join us. Then another ritual gathering in Los Angeles on March 27th. Then ta da! The Babaylan Conference on April 17-18, at Sonoma State University.

Are you being called and pulled in this direction? MAybe you are not sure. Maybe you are curious. Maybe you think we are nuts. Just the same, you feel something. Trust this feeling.

Last night, a woman said that she had to beg off from another appointment to make it to Unity. She said she was afraid of disappointing the white women in her group that meets on Fridays. But when she read my email telling her to follow her heart’s desire, she called the women and asked for a raincheck. She was glad she came.

This third generation Filipino American didn’t understand a word of Ilocano when Virgil was invoking the ancestors. She held her hand to her chest, teary-eyed. She remembers the sound of Ilocano spoken by her grandparents and parents. There is power in remembering.

If you tell her she is merely being nostalgic or is romanticizing the indigenous, she will probably punch you in the nose. Nah. Of course, she won’t. But she might want to tell you a long story about how she came to this point in her life, this desire to reconnect with her forgotten and suppressed history. How it has started to change her life. Will you give her the time of day to listen?

There will be more stories like this that you will hear at the conference. I have to end this now. I have to open the mail with conference registrations. May one of them be yours.

Leny

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by admin

BABAYLAN RISING | Fundraiser | Saturday, December 5, 2009

December 5, 2009 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009
Time: 6:30pm – 10:00pm
Location: Bayanihan Center 1010 Mission Street @ 6th Street San Francisco, CA 94103
More Info: Babaylan Rising Details and RSVP page

“BABAYLAN is a Filipino word that refers specifically to an individual or a group of healers, mostly women, who were acknowledged by friends and family as possessing extraordinary gifts… having a gift of vision; an ability to see through schemes or situations and later advise on future plans… or the gift for healing; a specific touch or intuited or passed-on knowledge to specific processes of ‘fixing’ and ‘putting’ people and things together. The first priority of all Babaylan [is] her community.” –Carlos Villa

Join us for an evening of ritual gathering and ceremony.

This fundraiser’s intention is to Invoke the Babaylan spirit through a ritual dance the Dugso in the tradition of the Talaandig tribe, creation myth reenactment, Eskrima martial arts, poetry, and sacred drumming.

*Presale tickets $15 – $20 at the door
Discounts for students with id $10 presale – $15 at the door*

This event will also feature guest speaker Leny Strobel (Center for Babaylan Studies Director www.babaylan.net)

A silent auction of Babaylan inspired art and crafts will start at 6:30 and go on throughout the evening. Requesting that guests bring a check book or cash if participation in the silent auction is desired.

Light appetizers will be provided with an open invitation to guest would like to donate food offerings for the evening.

Come with open mind and an open heart and witness the blessing and wisdom of Babaylan Spirit.

SPONSORED BY: No Worries Catering www.filipinoveganfood.com

The Center for Babaylan Studies (CfBS) is a 501c3 tax-exempt nonprofit activity of the International Humanities Center (IHC) http://ihcenter.org/.

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by admin

November 2009 Events

November 21, 2009 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

There are two exciting and special events taking place this weekend.

These events are brought about by the volunteer efforts of those impassioned by their connection to ancestry and the babaylan spirit. May this event bring healing, wholeness and Light into you Life. Mabuhay.

(click on the above events to view their programs)

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by admin

Babaylan Spirit Retreat

June 11, 2005 in Organization Updates, Reflections and Commentaries by admin

presented by FAWN2005 presents
Held the day before the FAWN2005 conference, we gathered together to create sacred space and time. To center and reconnect ourselves with higher purpose and our indigenous spiritual heritage. And also for focusing the energy and intentions of the next days’ gathering of Filipino women leaders from around the world. This was a special opportunity to come together to pray, meditate and contemplate on the many levels of where we come from, who are we, what do we want for not only ourselves but also for our families, our communities, Filipinos and humanity.
Click here for the complete gallery


L to R: Potri, Baylan, Rowena, Letty, Joanie, Evelie.


L to R: Ann, Letty, Potri, Baylan, Rowena, Evelie .

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