Filipino Indigenous Wisdom

NOTE: I know I come from a people whose wisdom, joy, enlivenment comes from something deep and profound. And yet because of the damage done to our tongues and imagination by English and its emissaries, our language fails us when we try to express this depth of knowing and being. We end up falling back on bible verses, hallmark-like platitudes, popular song lyrics, mimicked lines from hollywood films, quotes from non-Filipino thinkers/writers. Where can I find this FIlipino indigenous wisdom today? Where and how does it show up? So I took to Facebook and posted a call: Tell us about the wisest words you’ve heard from a Filipino source (maybe an ancestor or a relative, a mythic story). Tell a story as to what these words have meant to you. Here are the early submissions. EILEEN TABIOS February 15, 2018 Today, I was proofing the pages for a forthcoming poetry collection entitled HIRAETH: Tercets From the Last Archipelago . I was astonished at the beauty of the lines. Lines lik