Malayang Pagluha: Love from the Depths of Grief

In this webinar, Ate Lizae and Ate Leny will share the story of Mungan, the first Babaylan of the Manobo in the epic of Agyu.  Mungan's story elucidates something deep in our Ancestral Memory and can be translated into our stories for this time of pandemic and crisis. Mungan taught her people how to be immortal.  Her story tells of how Sickness and Pain can be healed. It is in our vulnerable beginnings, hardship, darkness, shadow (Grief) that our most creative gifts are often made... like the Golden Rays of the Sun turning everything into Gold in Mungan's story. The Golden Rays of the Sun is the other side of of the coin where Grief lays, as in Birth, Death, and Rebirth.

About Lizae and Leny:

Lizae Cervantes Reyes was born in the beautiful island of Northern Cebu, Philippines and grew up in Metro Manila. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over forty years. She is a certified sound and music healing practitioner from the California Institute of Integral Studies and studied with practitioners in the field of Integrative Medicine at the Institute for Health and Healing in Marin, with focus on Healing Harp. She plays Harp to offer comfort, inspiration and calm at the bedside of patients and meditation circles. She draws Inspiration from Ancestral memories and Ancient ways of story-telling. As a multi-modality artist and Ritualist, she uses dance, Myth, storytelling and poetry as a way to create sacred space for healing. As a student of Indigenous Wisdom, she continuously travels to the Philippines to gain deep insights about her Indigenous roots. She appreciates learning from Filipino Elders and Healers. For over 35 years, Lizae has facilitated multi-level classrooms starting from Pre-K up to middle school utilizing an Earth-based program among other approaches and says that children and youth are her main teachers. She is quoted in saying that the time is ripe for a great need to develop greater consciousness of relating to self in the other. Her work is rooted in what she calls the Journey to Wholeness, where she recognizes everyone as co-journeyers and offers a quiet announcement to help open the inner doors, and to go even further...creating a swirling mass with no separations. 

Leny Strobel- Professor Emeritus, American Multicultural Studies, Sonoma State University. Founding Director of CfBS. You can check her out here: https://www.lenystrobel.com/