ANYAYA ~ Re-View

ANYAYA

An Earth Day Ancestral Offering centering Pilipinx roots, body, voice, and highest self.

04.22.2020

Graphic by V

Soultree photo by Jamale Yusan

The call / Process

Early in this quarantine period my spirit sibling V reached out to me and our other sibling Jean to connect on an offering we could share with community from a calling within. As a self-identified OURstorian, I am reflecting on the lessons and blessings of this exchange one month later as the potent messages continue to settle into our bodies and spirits.

There is something supremely impactful about coming together in community, collective, and communion with your Kapwa (shared-self) in times of change and challenges. Organically tuning in through calls, meditations, and deep listening to what was coming through for and of our culture, the guidance of our ancestral callings became clearer.

The INSPIRATION

During one of our calls, I invited the energy of Anyo at Halad, music released by Nicanor Evangelista (@inkanor), Diyan Valencia (@bukobomba), Jun Tianco, and Farid Balgos. This project is “an offering to our Creator, ancestors, healers and shamans, Babaylan, teachers, workers, and devotees of the arts”. In that same spirit and light, we offered this space and experience.

Anyaya means to invite and without knowing the names of each song, we listened with our hearts. Anyaya (invite), Diwa (spirit), Handa (ready/preparation) were the songs that connected with us most. We also included Rise Up by Low Leaf, World’s Gong Crazy by Datu & Han Han, and Coquí Lullaby by me, Soultree produced by Jesús Iñiguez as part of our free-flow dance with the anceStars session.

The Illumination

With these bridges within us activated by the sounds of our dear and divine creatrix friends, we chose Anyaya as an invite for our communities to move deeper into their roots, body, voice, and higher self. Combining the skills and focuses of our trinity, we opened up a virtual exchange in honor of our ancestry.

We centered our Pilipinx practice though all were welcomed to join and connect with their own lineages respective through this space, imbibing movements and memories that are authentically living within us. Welcoming our community, honoring their rhythms, providing space and time to process and check-in. We opened up a Zoom window of opportunity to connect virtually in a way that reached deeper than many of our in-person cultural gatherings. The intentions and actions we infused into each part struck powerful cords for those who were present with us.

I feel it is necessary to map out and trace where we are receiving inspiration, divination, and information, so that those that are seeking out their own way can learn from these trails we leave behind.

As this quarantine allowed accessibility to one another through the internet, I was able to attend an UnKonference call with the theme "Batok Talks” organized by Kristian Kabuay with Mababatok Manong Lane Wilcken and his apprentices where they spoke on the tradition of batok or hand tap tattoo practice. They spoke of how our headhunting ancestors (which most if not all of our ancestors were in those day) and dancing with the heads of our “opponents” in sacred ways that allowed us to release the PTSD.

We referenced this practice in our offering to give context to possible ways people may feel the need to release or connect with their ancestors or to their selves and their mental health in this time of transition.

Through this virus/viral time, we acknowledge the continued warfare we are experiencing with one another and the need to shed that energy in the moment as we go through life in order not to carry trauma in our bodies and to free ourselves & our cells allowing creativity and energy to move more freely through and with us.

Tree-NITY

In this natural co-creation with between the three of us, we chose the reclaiming of the Trinity remembering that the Holy Spirit is also the same of the feminine divine so often excluded or minimized in HIStory and present day. We are reclaiming our rightful place in sacred space channeling our knowledges rooted in our influences from the diaspora and the journey that has taken us here. We hope to continue co-creating and interacting with cultural and spiritual sources as they come forming circles through our triangle that will shape our collective futures for the benefit of all beings.

Gratitude for Sacred SIBLINGhood

I have such deep gratitude for V for reaching out to us in co-creating this experience and offering. Her way of inviting and guiding people into their fullest potential and the way she listens to spirit and ancestors from a deep diasporic place is so powerful.

I am also thankful for reconnecting virtually and closely with Jean who has been holding sacred movement space for us in Chicago and digitally for a few years now. Her approach, insight, intuition, and intentions in connection to Mother Earth and mother herbs further grounds us into doing work that honors both the living and those who have passed on.

This experience allowed me to write my first Tagalog prayer and be unabashedly diaspora and spiritual in sharing my pieced together language without fear of judgment. By sharing our language, there is still so much trauma on all sides because of what colonization has done to our tongues and minds. However, reclaiming my language and sacredness in this spiritual way freed something in me that I was able to share with our community.

Pasalamat sa kapwa - Gratitude for community

Those that showed up were meant to show up. We each thank you all so much. Here is a video of our gathering for future communities to connect with, learn from, and design their own divine experiences with. In our offering, I quoted my Reiki Teacher Hiroki Keaveney who also received this message from their mentor, “We are always sacred”. I lift up the truth that we all have claim and ownership of our own respective cultures, expressions, and sacredness. Only we can return our right to ourselves and our cultures through devotional and relational acts as we undo generations of colonization on our roots, bodies, voices, and highest selves.

Mabuhay Ka,

Soultree

May you live & receive our offerings with grace & love as you pass on the blessings & lessons into the future. We offer this video with humility and hope. To honor our community’s confidentiality, we removed the parts where they shared in the beginning and at the end while giving them the full version of our exchange for our respective reference.

-TREEnity