Story and Photos by Vanessa Meng
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing. – Arundhati Roy
We don’t live in a time that believes in portals. But, come close, listen: They exist.
Meeting Eva Wang at the Ecoversities Asia Region Conference in DaNang, Vietnam, in the fall of 2023 proved to be a natural confluence. I am a spoken word artist and educator who has always wanted to visit the Philippines. Hiraya (Tagalog for “vision” or “imagination”), the Philippines-based collective that Eva founded in 2022, provides creative and learning activities for the visually impaired. Its original mission statement had included spoken word activities, but by the fall of 2023 those had not yet happened. Two Zoom meetings after the regional conference, Letters of Healing, a poetry workshop that I’d begun in the United States, went on Zoom for the Hiraya collective.
The portal that we created in Hiraya is not only a series of workshops and events that invited community members into a space of slow breathing and healing, but also a portal into a way of doing. Wayfinding — a method of journeying that Eva embraces —- was how the Polynesians navigated between islands, a technique based purely on the observation of stars, the swelling of the ocean, wind patterns, and bird behaviors. Wayfinding is a way of navigating solely through relationships.
A portal is often understood as a way to leap from point A to point B, skipping the traveling, thus bypassing what the journey entails. In the mainstream sense, portals are yearned for so that the space between two points can disappear. In our workshops, through writing letters of healing and using the vehicles of art and poetry, our participants can travel not into a different physical space, but into a different energy and way of navigating within the same space. Wayfinding is finding paths by posing questions and trusting that the answer will come. The destination itself is sometimes a mystery. We might know that we are looking for a landing space, but where, and which one, we will know only when we arrive.
What was born out of this kind of being in the world were three online workshops, two in-person workshops, a live performance at University of Philippines Baguio and one giant mesh of workshops and performances that touched the lives of at least 80 active participants.
After the online workshops we realized that healing between the different selves that we all have within us is clearly a universal need. The workshops led participants to invite all the multiple selves within them to get insight on what dynamics are at play. Is there a character that is often quieter than the others? Is there a character that is in conflict with someone at the table? Is there a character that seems to dominate the table? The poem itself is based on writing letters from the different voices to each other from within. From these online workshops, we had collected a vast array of stories, of metaphors, and of reflections that came from a wide range of visually impaired and sighted friends. People allowed themselves to become vulnerable and shared many personal stories and feelings with one another.
I was astonished at how much people were willing to dive into themselves and allow us as a collective to hold their emotional journeys. The members of Hiraya Collective engaged in the real work of healing, and many of their poems were tender and heart shattering.
Serendipity Since the Beginning
When we arrived physically in La Union for the residency, at the home base of Hiraya, called Balai Mayari, Eva and I had a blurry understanding of what needed to be done. I had invited Inna, my friend from college who is a painter. We knew we wanted to bring the workshop in person, but what exactly would be the scope of our project? We had only three weeks. How could we best serve this new community with intention and meaning, without dismissing the local knowledge and community? We turned to a Tarot reading for guidance.
The truth is, we cannot disconnect our own personal lives from the life of the project. Everything that we create is a culmination of our lives and our energies, and in any group work, it would make no sense to dismiss that side of ourselves. I think about how violent it is to expect work to be a space that is completely severed from the other aspects of one’s life, which is what most of us are taught. As three women who were working together, we talked about the relationships that worry us, the feelings that we had in other parts of our lives, and how those all informed our level of presence. We agreed to let things flow and not make this more stressful than it needs to be. We agreed to open ourselves to what may come our way.
So. Our plan was not planted by our hands alone.
In fact, I would even go so far to say that instead of it being a process of planting, it was more like a process of gathering and foraging. We spent the first day meeting Joar, an artist from Iloilo who was finishing a residency in La Union preparing for his first international exhibit in Hong Kong. Like many Filipino men, he had been a seaman for 10 years. His mother, who was a domestic worker in Malaysia, was not able to be with him for most of his childhood, but every year when she visited home, she brought back art supplies from the family she worked with. That was how his passion for painting and art began. He used to paint while on the boats. He said something like, “The thing about being at sea is you don’t have any of the usual life after work. There’s no friends or family to hang out with, you barely have cell service. You’re just out in the middle of the ocean. It’s vast and it’s scary, and it’s deeply lonely.” Now he’s sending his pieces to Hong Kong to an art gallery who believes in his work.
Joar’s mother, Rosie, was with him now. For the first time his mother could be that support he needed. They live intimately together, and she cooks and cleans the way she used to for others, but now her care is for him. In this time she has also begun to paint, and it was the most heartwarming thing to see mother and son show each other their works side by side. They treated us with great hospitality, feeding us dumplings and snacks as we learned of their art.
The bells in my own heart reverberated. I’d long wanted to go to the Philippines because I was raised by Daidai, a domestic helper from Iloilo. I visited her right before La Union, meeting her again for the first time in 15 years. I wanted to be there because I had a mother wound as well. And here I was, sitting in the studio of a man who could’ve easily been Daidai’s son too . . . on the other side of the story. It was like a sign from the universe that we were on the right path, whatever that may be.
Everything flows the way everything goes.
Friends Along the Way
We continued to gather friends along the way, who gave us the wind and water to our plans. Eva introduced us to Czyka, the founder of a local anarchist publishing company, Kwago. She introduced us to Juan, a local spoken word poet from a nearby town called Baguio. The week later he would come to support our in-person workshops as a support member and live with us for the rest of the time. We met Jet, who later helped us with the sound equipment. We went to a ceramic studio and played with clay, meeting the lovely owner. We met Summer and Andrew, who helped us arrange the speakers for our final performance. We went to a quiz night with a room full of surfer-dudes, and one of our teams got second place! It was the projector used in this quiz night that delivered the performances via Zoom to those Hiraya participants who couldn’t attend in person. We met Czyka’s friend JJ, who later helped with videographing the whole final performance and event. Most importantly, we met Aki, Jai, and Derek, visually impaired community members of Hiraya who came all the way from their hometowns to perform. We were piecing things together through the relationships we had, which is to say community is the portal to this other way of being.
Our first small event was a Sync Up, a kind of art party I planned in my college days. This was held at Mebuya, an art installation in one of the beaches, to garner the energy from the February full moon, which fell at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. A group of community members in La Union gathered to paint, to share stories, to watch the moon rise, and to share a light ceremony in the dusk light of the beach. Those who came shared with us the ways in which they found their own peace and magic in the community of La Union. The banner that we created would later hang on the gates of our final workshop, which can be seen in our video.
The house kept growing as the plan started taking shape. With the energy from the full moon, our first two workshops were a huge success. The first day was centered on tapping into your own inner heart space, and creating it tangibly with tactile art. Through guided visual meditations we guided the participants in deeply discovering the space that is in their heart. From that, they created textures and forms that reflected their inner worlds, and they were able to then write about it and express it using wall putty, the white substance that is usually used to cover holes in the wall. It was important for us to create art that would be accessible for the visually impaired community, and everyone was so creative in their expressions of textures and scenes. Members shared everything from memories of their grandmother’s rooms, the peaceful mountains, to a love that they yearn for and the darkness they feel in themselves.
The second day was all about colors, and what colors you’d like to bring forward in your own life and what they mean to you. Through poetry exercises and small group discussions people talked about what colors mean to them in their life, and what colors they’d like to express their own world. Then they painted their tactile art and finished the pieces that they started the day before. Everyone had an opportunity to share in small groups as well as in the large group about their findings and their feelings after the workshops.
Funnily, on the second day of our workshop a woman came in late, and unbeknownst to Inna and me, she was one of the most popular celebrities in the Philippines. Kudos to everyone for keeping their cool as Cristine Reyes, a huge star, came to our little workshop and ate halo-halo (delicious native dessert) with us on the beach afterwards.
After these two workshops we were 10 people all living and eating and bathing under the same roof. Magenta, someone who traveled from Baguio a nearby town to attend the workshops decided to stay. So it was Derek, Juan, Magenta, Pooja and her mother (who came all the way from India), Eva, Inna, Jai, Aki, Jodie, and I sharing the same bathroom and the same kitchen, and yet it felt like we had ample space. Four members are visually impaired, and we helped each other with grace and laughter. Every day was a party. We were dancing, we were creating, we were cooking, we were painting. Inna made these beautiful tactile pieces of art, a hand carved wood panel that served as a welcome sign for Hiraya, and a beautiful piece of boats symbolizing the wayfinding journey. Aki was practicing in the corner. Jai was getting ready. Magenta was dancing. Juan was cooking. Derek was making jokes and helping everyone. It was a beautiful moment of cooperation and coexistence and magic.
We were making a family, a residency, a community, out of nothing but desire to build relationships and to create . . . and that is the magic.
After the first two workshops we went to perform at University of the Philippines Baguio, and also got to see Juan’s home town. It’s the land of really good vegetables and strawberries, and when we arrived a festival was taking place in the streets. It was so lovely to experience. Then we shuttled ourselves to the best vegan restaurant in town, which was created and conceptualized by elusive and mysterious film director Kidlat Tahimik.
University of Baguio’s performance night was beautiful. From singing to poetry, to heartfelt expressions on the guitar, I was taken aback by the lovely student’s works. It was there, after Juan and I performed that Aki had his debut spoken word performance shook the entire crowd with his poem that took us through his emotional journey after his blindness at a later age in life. We were so proud of him, and the cheers from the crowd rang in our ears for hours to come.
That night we slept in Czyka’s friend’s place, a small clean room in a village on the outskirts of Baguio. To get to our shared room we walked past chickens resting on the path and a giant garage with the a pile of the most cabbage I’ve ever seen, it was the size of a car! We started a fire and talked about magic and sword wielding and shamanism and the likes. At the end of the night we were all sleeping collectively on sleeping bags on the floor and the shared bed.
Back in La Union, we went looking for venues for our final performance. We dined at a local joint in San Juan, where Pooja met another performance poet, Leandro. He invited me to do a tag poetry performance the next day. In the audience was the president of a local college. Familiar with Hiraya, she generously offered us a space at their library for us to perform.
Magnificent Magic
In the end, we decided to hold the final performance at the place that felt like home — Balai Mayari. This gave us a new set of problems: How were we going to set up the equipment? The stage? How were we going to lead a workshop? How were we going to get it all going? It’s all possible, we thought, we just needed to be creative.
It’s hard to distill the amount of magic in this time into words.
I wish we had videoed the preparations as well (in the video you’ll see later on you can catch a glimpse of the set up). We took off all the curtains and hung them up behind the stairs. At one point the artworks started falling off the walls like they were melting. Bah! What’s going on? Oh, the double-sided tape is like roof tape, it’s melting in the heat. I guess there’s not much else we can do, let’s just push it back onto the wall periodically. Everyone was working and troubleshooting, and the thing is, there was nothing more beautiful. Food stands and book stands emerged seemingly out of nowhere. I didn’t even know they were coming! Czyka’s friends caught wind of the project. Suddenly we had transformed the same space into something else entirely: a gallery, a festival, a whole stage.
At one point when we were trying to set up the stage section in Mayari, we decided we needed a spotlight. How were we going to do this? At this point everyone was walking in and out, and there was a buzz. A team of people went out to get . . . more fairy lights! Yes, we need more fairy lights! A team went over to buy halo halo. We need some snacks! Yes, now what else do we need, oh yeah, some more of that wall tape please, for the art to stay on the walls! Oh yes, now what were we thinking about . . . yes, a spotlight, how are we going to do this? We looked over at what we had. What if we used this lamp? But it needs to be plugged in. Yes, that was the issue, we didn’t have enough adapters, especially after the speakers and projector were plugged in. Oh, but I have my portable charger! Oh yes, so what are we going to do, tape it on the ceiling next to the light? Yes! That group just went to get more double-sided tape and duct tape anyway! Okay let’s do it. (And it was a crazy idea. But it stayed!) Is it safe? I mean, it’s working for now, right? And what about this . . . we have a mic stand but we don’t have a mic holder. Oh yes, look at this broom, it’s perfectly sized, you know the part of the broom that holds the stem of the other part of the broom. Not bad thinking, right? Yes! Everything was working, even if it felt like it was barely working, even if it felt, and feels, like it’s impossible.
Then people started coming, and the anticipated event began. It was, in the truest sense, a Sync Up, a kind of art gathering that I used to throw in my college days. We began the workshop with a somatic experience at the beach, especially as there were visually impaired participants. It was mesmerizing seeing everyone dance with the beach in the background. Then I asked everyone to write a letter to one another on their backs, sharing a new and different way to feel the act of writing. Then we came back and I led everyone in a guided meditation, prompting everyone to think of someone they needed to write a letter to. They wrote, then they shared with their partners. Then they wrote some more. People’s feelings came out and up. Finally, after some eating and drinking, we began the performance and an open mic. Astonishingly, many people signed up, and we had a three-hour show. Tears flowed, laughter rang, and hearts were warmed.
It’s hard to distill how much was invoked in this residency. What is magic if not Derek, who in the entirety of the workshop, from online to in person, did not write a single word, but after all the performances pulled a group of friends aside and said to them a poem in Tagalog — bringing tears to his and Juan’s eyes and resulting in their taking long walks together.
What is real power, if not Jai, performing a poem named “Origami Bird” about a girl who is so quiet and never spoke, but can finally open her mouth and sing. Jai told me afterwards that she was surprised by herself during the workshop. “I had already decided I wasn’t performing,” she told me as we were walking back from meeting Dawn the blind turtle, “but your encouragement and the poem spoke to me so much, I knew I had to.”
What is healing, if not Aki’s poem of exploring his own self hatred and finding, in the end, forgiveness for himself and also colors, still, in his new world without sight?
Portals to Possibilities
There’s nothing more beautiful than the opportunity to live in this way, to have nobody breathing down our necks, to enjoy life in such creativity and flow. It is a reminder that it is possible to “go easy towards the light that shines your way,” as the poet Mary Oliver wrote — and that that may be enough to birth something impactful and meaningful to those around you. It is a reminder that the portal into a new world is not at all about a new destination, but creating within the same space to find something new in what was already there. It is a reminder that what is felt is always beyond what is seen. Wayfinding is allowing yourself to be guided. Healing too can be understood as something that will naturally occur if we follow with our intuition. All life grows towards healing.
As a facilitator I have renewed faith in trusting the signs that emerge within the community in which I find myself. Everything is speaking, and everything is alive, which is to say, every possibility is precious.
So much gratitude for the moon, for the friendships that made the magic possible, for the ocean, for creativity, and for Hiraya Collective for the Visually impaired for creating this portal. Now I go forward in life trusting the cosmic signs the universe plants, and held by webs of relationships, knowing it is this way that will take me where I need to go.
Here is a video that reflects this time:
Vanessa Meng is the founder of Butterfly Center for Aesthetic Education, an organization that teaches creative writing and hosts workshops in writing as a means to cultivate a deeper relationship with the self, the community and the environment. Currently she is pursuing a PhD in Expressive Arts Therapy, Education and Peace-Building at EGS in Switzerland. She loves to connect, and you can see her own poetry and performances on Instagram @Ms.butterflyyy__.
Origami Bird by Jai
Jai is a totally blind co-convener of Hiraya, a collective that conducts workshops on accessible arts and crafts, among other things. Expressing mainly through simple poetry, she likes creating pieces about loneliness, longing, blindness, and her appreciation for language, music, stories, and visual beauty. “Origami Bird” was written over the course of the hybrid workshops that spanned two months.
Once upon a time, there was a bird
She was made of paper filled with unspoken words
Unable to bear the weight, on the ground she stayed bound
So she waited in the shadows
And hush so profound
Her name was Silence
Hello, silent one
I want you to know that I see you
As you surround yourself in nothingness
Drown your breaths in the susurration of flipping pages
Not even your whispers making a sound
I see your longing to shout
But nothing comes out
How the words rattle and slide against your teeth and tongue
Then, with effort, you swallow them all back down
I see your fear
Fear of rejection, of ridicule, of dismissal
Afraid, always afraid
So instead you bleed ink
Confess everything to that little notebook you carry around
Then you make origami birds out of its pages
All the time getting cut by their blade-like edges
I do see you
But I don’t know that you like that I do?
Or perhaps I’m just making excuses
For I am afraid, too
And I am sorry
That I looked, but I never listened
People say I’m kind
But I do not know how to be kind to you
I am sorry
For sharing my warmth to anyone but you
For humming my melody to everyone except for you
Letting your silenced origami birds be left crumpled on the ground
I do not know why
But I know I have to try
So, hello to you, silent one
This is me finally reaching out
Hoping one day you’ll reach back with your little hands
I have gathered your origami birds for you
We’ll unfold them and transform them into wings
Turn the written words into something we can sing
Maybe then, our story can truly begin
No longer in silence
But with the beautiful music only you can bring
Once upon a time, there was a bird
She is made of breath bursting with melody and words
Now weightless and free, she flies up to a tree
Then
Hesitantly at first, but gaining confidence as she goes
She starts singing
Kidnapped: What Have You Done? by Aki
Richard earned a bachelor of science in nursing at the University of the Cordilleras in Baguio City. Before losing his eyesight and becoming totally blind in June 2021 due to retinal detachment secondary to encephalitis, he had held a team-leadershop job for 11 years in the business process outsourcing industry for international companies, supporting campaigns in banking, telecommunications, and power and gas services. Joining Hiraya Collective for the Blind in November 2023, he started supporting the organization’s advocacy that aims to raise awareness about blindness and visual impairment through alternative learning and workshops in the community.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
I’ve come to talk with you again.
Leaving your own dark seeds inside your brain,
Creeping so slowly, I know pain still remains.
Kidnapped by your own Beast from the darkest kingdom,
You’re hollow and alone, what have you done?
Now at Thirty-four,
you’ve never been serious like ever before.
You thought so many times that there is always tomorrow,
That if you need time, it can be borrowed.
Often do a lot of things that makes you feel happy and satisfied,
But rarely find the true meaning of life, and just fly.
You did not see that time runs so fast,
That there’s not enough time to rewrite what has been written in the past.
You wasted and gambled your time on meaningless things,
Now at Thirty-four, you regret everything.
Kidnapped by your own fresh-blood son, with your own handgun.
Your youngblood days begun, ruined and can’t even run, what have you done?
If not like a honey bee tirelessly working,
You’re like a monkey in the club terribly, ridiculously smoking, drinking, partying.
Higher and higher, you used to get high with dead end kids.
In evil’s house, you trade your soul, life was bid.
You met MJ, Dope, Kush, and Party D’s who helped you to live in your fantasy.
Insanely crazily giggling from cerebral rush of euphoria, to the cloud9, you flee.
You never had time for your loving family.
Who’s always there caring and waiting unconditionally.
They told you to slow down, ‘cause you’re going way too fast.
That you’re burning too bright, like you would never last.
You even lost the love of your life, and became your Ex.
Now, the four-letter word that bonds you together, became a lonely X.
All the x that you used to the walls that you kept building.
The x you used to create the demons you’ve been kissing.
Remember that dawn when the darkness was still ruling the sky?
After a long exhausting night, you took a bus passing by.
You just closed your eyes and slept in shallow.
You woke up and surprised, could only see shadow.
You know what you want, but it feels like you’re paralyzed, feelings couldn’t define.
You scream at yourself, felt like there’s nobody else to find.
I remember that black sky, the small lights around you.
I remember each flash, as time began to blur, ’til fate of fades had finally found you.
Waves break above, your world fell apart, started to burst.
Storm clouds gathered beneath you, didn’t stop cursing the universe, believing he’s the worst.
No second you haven’t blamed your self.
You shrank like a tiny little blind elf.
Your tears didn’t stop falling,
Like the waterfalls from the highest mountain.
Gently flowed down to the river,
Created a sea, like it wouldn’t stop forever.
Started counting 1, 2, 3, holding a gun to your head
Believing it’s all you need, wanting to lay down dead.
You’re stuck in the world you never imagined, not even in a single dream.
It’s the darkest place you ever encountered, stronger than an evil’s scream.
Imagine? Not even a single ray of light is passing through.
Is this the demon’s prayer that came true?
You’ve been kidnapped by your own Kraken, stuck and bond.
In the dark, Helpless and drowned, see what have you done?
Now, you could only hear the sounds and touch the things that you used to see.
And your confidence began to drown with Hades in the deep dark sea.
Clutching your cure, you tightly lock the door.
Painful than the needles who carved your tattoos, hurt much more Than anytime before.
Headfirst hallucination you want to fall wide awake, right way.
Watch the ground giving way.
Wrapped up, so consumed by all this hurt, connections began to decay.
Only few of your friends stayed, like the empty plastic sheets blown away.
Gone in the wind, like the Jeepers Creepers in the Halloween.
They left a lacerated skin, like a murdered body rotting in the trash bin.
With their big fake smiles and stupid lies,
What do they know, they’re all gone a thousand miles.
Chasing out the darkness, like you were lost and no one there to save you, but you’re wrong.
Your family didn’t leave, you’re never dancing on your own all along.
All along they have is you, they were all there whatever it takes.
Despite the trouble and many mistakes.
All along they have you, you and your gold eyes.
Rationalizing your darkest thought, to the pain, they’d help you to say goodbye.
Say goodbye to the demons you’ve been dancing.
We’ll pack them up, like the process of disappearing.
They better have some place to go, can’t come back here.
We’ll burn them down, make it ash not fear.
Say goodbye to the darkness, tell them that you’d rather be here in the starlight.
Tell them that you’d rather be here where the love is, that your body and soul is yours, it’s your life.
Anger, shame, confusion, roads that go nowhere.
I know There’s somewhere better, I’d take you there.
Today, together from the darkness we will fly.
Leaving the shadows of yesterday, away and high, we will reach the sky.
In the sky of a million stars, who cares if one more light goes out? Well, you do.
Shine bright with the diamonds, I would take you to the moon if you want me to.
Seems like it was yesterday the last time I saw your face.
Sorry for blaming you, I was wrong cutting out our lace.
I would take care of your broken soul, and take away all the pain.
Create a beautiful tomorrow, design a colorful future, together we will wash away the stain.
to hear your voice again, nothing I wouldn’t do.
To bring back the fire in your eyes again, let’s write a beautiful ending or two.
You just don’t know how much I’ve missed you since you’ve been away.
Whatever it takes, embrace the new world, and in the darkness we will breakaway.
Releasing from being kidnapped, I would hold you in my arms.
We’ll start again, to the grave we’ll lock the evils and their firearms.
Forgiving all your mistakes, and take you home with a marching band.
Still have a long way to go, but congratulations, you’ve gone so far. Thank you for all you’ve done.
Breathing and alive, with all my heart, I am forgiving what you have done.
