Filipino Indigenous Wisdom for Personal and Shared Wellbeing with Carl Lorenz Cervantes

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Niralli D’Costa: Hello, Carl.  

Carl Lorenz Cervantes: Hi, hello, and hello to everyone who's listening wherever you are around the world.  

Niralli D’Costa: Yes, I have been so excited for this conversation. Just really enjoyed reading your book and grateful for the opportunity to support you in getting your, your wisdom and knowledge out to our audience.  

Carl Lorenz Cervantes: Thank you so much. I'm very excited to talk about it also. Yeah.  

Niralli D’Costa: Wonderful. As we're speaking tonight. Please feel free to correct my pronunciation of any of the words that I'm using the Filipino words, so I have a few questions about language that you share in the book and so I'll go ahead and start, and my first questions about the name, the title of your book is SIKODIWA. And can you speak a little bit to why you've chosen this name, what it means, what it means to you?  

Carl Lorenz Cervantes: Well, SIKODIWA is a word that I coined. It comes from two words which is SIKOLOHIYA, psychology, and DIWA, which is spirit or essence. So what's interesting about that is that DIWA is the, so anything has DIWA, everything has DIWA, you can say for example, a novel, what's the DIWA of the novels, you're asking for the essence of a novel, the DIWA of a film, the theme or essence of a film. So when you think about the DIWA of a person, they start to wonder what makes that person a person. It's not just up here, it's not just in the body, it's the whole thing. So SIKODIWA is a look into that.  

Niralli D’Costa: Oh, wonderful. I love this word, and it's a good sort of frame for my next question which is, I think about your DIWA. So, you know, what are your spiritual, cultural and psychological influences and what has sort of shaped your perspective that you convey in the book?  

Carl Lorenz Cervantes: So this goes to the question of how did my work start, right? So, but when you think about where work starts, people usually talk about, you know, their studies, what fascinated them, but I'll go back all the way to my childhood, because I was raised in a family of, who are very religious people, who are very religious. And when it comes to Philippine culture, when you say religious, you also mean very spiritual, and by that it's like mystical belief in unseen forces, spirits, all kinds of, you know, fantastical creatures as well. So I was raised in those beliefs that I was taught to think as, oh, these are superstitions, but they're not just superstitions because they do affect, you know, how people act, how people experience the world. They use it as a meaningful metaphor to express real experiences, real psychological experiences. I grew up watching faith healing sessions, for example, I have a relative who does faith healing. And then, you know, I, in every campus that I've been to as a teacher or as a student, always of some haunting, some building that has some kind of campus ghost or something, there's always these stories. So within Filipino culture, wherever I go across the archipelago, there are these stories, people carry these stories with them. It's part of their meaning making in a place. It's part of their meaning making with history. So when I went into the university, I was fascinated about the paranormal, because as I said, I grew up with like paranormal stuff, stories about the supernatural, stories about mysteries and unseen forces and so on. And when I was a child, right now I'm in my grandfather's old house, it was renovated. And so he had a library of books, and these books were, you know, pop psychology, the supernatural, religion. And that fascinated me, that was so interesting to me that it stuck with me, and it's always with me now. And, you know, looking into the paranormal is not just for me, it's not just about experiments, because usually it's in studies of parapsychology and so on, it's usually about, you know, setting up laboratories, these special cards and the Ganzfeld procedures, which are all fascinating to me also. But for me, it's a lived cultural experience. It's something that already has a special map within the language, within the frameworks that we have of living and being and talking to people, you know, there's these stories, the anecdotes. So my studies, as I went into graduate studies, my look into the paranormal slowly shifted into the cultural, because I saw, oh, it's not just about, you know, the experiments within parapsychology, it's not just about stories of, you know, ethnographies of superstitions, or, you know, the colonial notion of a primitive culture with their old ancient, you know, weird superstitions. It's a lived thing for me. It's a lived thing for the people that I love. And I grew up with that lived reality. So that's a lot of it, you know, I was, to use a culinary term, I was marinated in that kind of culture.  

Niralli D’Costa: Yeah, kind of steeped in it. I love the site. It, it brings up so many questions that I know we'll get to as we move along, but I'm curious about the role of indigeneity in this sort of mysticism that you say you encounter across the Philippines. And so I'm curious about that and just what indigenous indigeneity means in the context of your work?  

Carl Lorenz Cervantes: Right. So, in, within social sciences when we say indigenous we refer to what comes from a specific culture. So what's indigenous to a culture is what comes from it. For example, it's in biology, for example, when we talk about plants or animals, and something that's indigenous to a place is something that has adapted so well in that place that it is almost, you know, so different, if you put it in a different climate, you put it in a different place, it will have difficulty thriving immediately because it has adapted through years, centuries, millennium. In the same way, cultures as they move through different environments, we see how they adapt so well to certain places, to certain areas. And so when they're there, the culture, as something that's passed down, is also an adaptive response to one's environment, social, physical and so on. And something that's indigenous comes from that adaptation, that generational adaptation, that way of knowing as people navigate spaces, not just literally as in physically, but psychologically as well.  

Niralli: So what's the difference between Filipino psychology and Filipino indigenous psychology?

Carl: Right. So in, in the Philippines, because when you say indigenous people, it also means something very specific, right? So we say indigenous people, IPs, as in a protected community. So in the, in the Philippine law when we talk about indigenous people we’re referring to communities that have not been totally affected by colonization. So in the Philippines, it's a, it's very, it's somewhat different when you talk about indigenous people because in other places, you have indigenous communities, meaning they were first there. And then there were settlers, right? There were invaders and then the settlers colonize the place and they stayed there the whole time, and now you have the first inhabitants and then the colonizers. But then, in our experience in the Philippines, the colonizers came here, and then left. So it's very interesting because a lot of, a lot of Filipinos today will trace their lineage, the people who were born in these lands, and yet there's a distinction between who is an indigenous person, and so called majority Filipino. So when you say indigenous people in the Philippines, it refers to those whose traditions have not been totally affected by colonial influence. But then there's also this, there's also this legacy of colonialism in that idea of the indigenous, because the, the law itself about indigenous people comes from that tradition of Christianizing and modernizing these non Christian tribes. And so because, you know, they're, they're separated now, just because of that cultural distinction. So when we talk about Filipino psychology we can, we can think about it sometimes as, oh, it's an ethno-psychology, meaning the Filipino people, almost like a, as a nationality when you say all Filipinos are like this, Filipinos are like that, these generalizations might be applicable for Filipino psychology, then you talk about Filipino indigenous psychology as well, which comes from different indigenous cultures now, so you're looking at different experiences from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.  

Niralli: Okay, thank you. That's so helpful to differentiate and understand a little bit of the kind of cultural and social context within the Philippines. How would you explain Filipino indigenous wisdom to people that aren't familiar with that concept?

Carl: Well, you know the easiest way to do that really is to distinguish it from dominant Western culture. So when, that's what, that's what scholars have done since the 70s when, when Sikolohiyang Filipino, Filipino psychology, started, and they would always compare it. Because we, the US gave us our independence in 1946. So, around 1960, 1970 they were already looking at what's the difference of Americans and Filipinos. So they were looking at what's the difference between Western, the Western American mind, and the Filipino mind. And during the 60s, the reason why people were looking at Filipino values, Filipino concepts was because so that they could explain it to a Western audience, so that they could say, oh, if you're going to do business with us, you have to understand these values. So which is a very, you know, it's an outward looking way of thinking. But then if you think towards the 70s, around the late 70s to the 80s, there was a shift, it was it was a shift inward, it was a looking in and saying, Okay, but how do we understand ourselves, and how do we talk about ourselves through our own frameworks, through our own ways of knowing. And so, Filipino indigenous wisdom would come from that, you know, looking in, that reflection into the self.  

Niralli: Okay, yeah. I, I'm curious about the word, again, please forgive me for my pronunciation, [Loob], and the significance of, of, is that…  

Carl: Oh, Loob, L O O B?

Niralli: Yeah. In describing the, the, that inner self and life that you were referring to.  

Carl: Yeah. So yeah, so Loob is, it just literally means inside. Okay, so whatever is inside is Loob. So I'm inside a room right now and that's a Loob, I'm inside. But when you talk about what's inside you, you know, I mean, you say it in English like, what's inside you, what's inside that person? What are we referring to, are we just talking about their guts, or are we talking about the driving force that motivates them as a person, are we talking about their way of thinking, their way of deciding things? And this word Loob, in Tagalog Filipino, you see it a lot in different other words as well, that refer to action, that refer to charity, that refer to resentment. If I'm resentful, I say my inside feels bad, like, sama ng loob, or if I say that, if I'm doing a good action it shows how beautiful my inside is, kagandahang-loob. So all these things, you know, it's a, it comes from within. And maybe a metaphor would, would help here. If we think about it like a, like a house. When we knock on the door of a person's house we're like, excuse me, is a person here? I'd like to talk to them, and so they open the door and that's the communication that we get, that's the interpersonal interaction that we get. When we're, if we're lucky, if they trust us enough, maybe they'll let us in. Maybe they'll let us into their house, and that's, that's the principle of Loob, I knock on the door of your heart.  

Niralli: Oh, that's so beautiful. I love that. And can you speak to the role of authenticity and indigeneity? You mentioned this in your book and I'm curious about how this ties in with this concept of Loob.  

Carl: Right. So it's a, when people talk about authenticity they connect it with indigeneity, usually people think, because we were colonized for 300 years, I think, close to 400 years, because we were colonized for almost 400 years, people think of, excuse me, authenticity as going back to the pre-colonial. But if we go back to the pre-colonial, time traveling back there, it was, it was the 16th century. It was so long from now and there are so many customs there, that are no longer applicable to today, like for example, headhunting. There used to be human sacrifices. There used to be a lot of these things that are no longer applicable. There are things that still exist from that time, that are, that have transformed through struggle, trade, through colonial influence, yes, the food, the cuisine that we have, the language, the ways of knowing and writing and thinking about things. So when we talk about authenticity, it's about matching yourself with your environment, it's about the alignment of inside and outside, if that makes sense, like there's, there's no boundary because who I am within, aligns with how I express myself, who I am within aligns with where I am, it makes sense. And when there's a conflict between the inside and the outside, then we're faking it. We're pretending, we're wearing a costume, we're appropriating, we're taking things and not understanding their meanings because they don't come from within. They don't come from our normal way of interacting with the world. It's inauthentic, right? So when we talk about a person who's inauthentic, we know that they're wearing a mask, and you're seeing something that's different from who they are within.  

Niralli: Right.  

Carl: So in the same way we talk about, yeah, when we talk about indigeneity, it's the same thing. How do you express what's indigenous to you, what's your cultural context as well? Challenging the inconveniences of colonial legacies, right? Challenging the inconvenient systems left by these colonial impositions. Here's, here's an example, which I'm sure you've also read in the book, it's when, so the Philippines is a tropical country, it's, it gets to 30 degrees Celsius here. And still, it's fashionable to wear layered clothing. It's fashionable because we're following Euro American trends because we're looking at them from colder countries and we're saying, Oh, that looks cool. And if I want to look cool then I have to wear these thick, you know, jackets and so on. It's just impractical. So thinking about that, is that authentic to our experience? Is that authentic to who we are as a person? So there, so that's how I see authenticity.  

Niralli: Okay, yeah, so authenticity as a kind of coherence between the inner and the outer.  

Carl: Yeah.  

Niralli: Self and the environment.  

Carl: Right, yeah.  

Niralli: You shared in the book that when you began your research, it was about recovering ancestral memory. And I'm wondering how it has evolved or moved from there, and why?  

Carl: Right. So I wrote the book in 2024, so I wrote the book in 2024, it’s already 2026. So much has already changed in my way of thinking, the broad strokes are still there. So actually when the book was released last December, I immediately flipped through it and then I saw, maybe I could have explained this better or now I understand this concept better, now I could probably explain this, maybe I could have nuanced this more. Part of recovering ancestral memory is confronting historical realities. It's confronting the fact that there are social cultural nuances, that we live with today, that we take for granted, because we're looking so much in the past that we're no longer seeing how we have, sometimes, embodied that colonial mindset, sometimes we embody that colonial mindset today. And we start thinking about how one way of knowing is, like applies to all the rest. An example of that is, there are hundreds of languages in the Philippines. So when I say I speak Filipino, what I mean generally actually is just I'm speaking in one kind of language which is Tagalog, it's Tagalog based Filipino. But there are multiple languages across the Philippines, and I've already had, like I've been reading people's reviews, and sometimes people would say, oh, I wish there was more of the, of the Visayan version of this, or like a different language version of this. And then, from there it made me realize, oh, I also have like roots in, in my hometown Silay City which is in Negros Occidental. And that's Ilonggo, and our language is Hiligaynon, which is of the Visayan language. And from there I also think, I should look more into that, and it excites me because part of recovering that ancestral memory is seeing how it's lived out today, and how it varies across different regions, and how that, you know, these varieties, these diverse experiences, can help us flourish or fill in the gaps of what we don't know if we're just looking at one kind of, you know, one way of thinking.  

Niralli: Can you speak to what you've witnessed in terms of the process of language loss, preservation and resurgence?  

Carl: So, when the Philippines was still a Commonwealth of the US, there was an effort to have a national language, and the national language should be based, at least, on one Filipino language. And because the dominant, the dominant group in the Philippines, in the capital especially, is Tagalog. So it became based on Tagalog. Eventually, if you'll ask most Filipinos, I'm speaking in English, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm just a Filipino, but I'm speaking in English. It's part of my education as well. So now, most Filipinos are bilingual with Filipinio, which is usually based in Tagalog, and then English. And then a lot of, a lot of mother tongues from different regions are also being systematically erased. We're seeing this in the increasing globalization, or the efforts towards globalization, which really is more of a Westernization, right? More of a Westernization of different schools, where a lot of regional schools, they remove the mother tongue. This was just recent, also, I also talked about this in the book. And then, when I talked to some indigenous leaders or indigenous teachers as well, they tell me that, you know, a lot of their grandchildren no longer want to speak their language. So a lot of these languages are also being erased by the generational disinterest, or the generational interest to speak in English because it's more economically stable for their, you know, for their future. So there needs to be more support. And there are people who are very strong in that, in that, in working towards that effort. I think it's only pretty recent that we're starting to appreciate Filipino languages, rather than just the Filipino language because when I was growing up, August was just the, the month of the Filipino language. Now it's the month of national languages. So it's, now there's more of a recognition that, oh, you know, we have to preserve these languages. Now more people are more interested in upholding their, their own native tongue.  

Niralli: Oh, that's so good to hear. I, in reading your book, found that there were many words that were relational, there were more words for relationship and, and ways of really showing up for one another. I'm curious if you can share some of those with the, with us?  

Carl: Oh, here's a, here's a perfect example. There are three kinds of We. So when I, when I say We in English, it's just, you know, a very general We, but for us, there's a We that is exclusive, meaning, for example, me and my wife, that's kami, and then excluding you. There's also another kind of We, that is also exclusive, which is you and your group, kayo. So it would be you and your group that's kayo. So there's a, there's a distinction between kami and kayo. And there's also tayo, which is the inclusive one, inclusive We, which is you and I and all of us, that's all of us, tayo. But there's also another one that people always say is kind of indicative of the natural, supposedly natural Filipino way of relating, which is kita. So when we say kita, as in, for example, I say if I, if I love a person, I say mahal kita, mahal is to value someone, mahal kita, but kita is not like me and you, it's both of us together, kita, us. But it's interesting when people say, oh, kita, it's the mahal kita means that, oh, you know, we're sharing in love and kita means that Filipino Tagalog is a beautiful language. But actually, we also say sasaktan kita, which is, I will hurt you. But kita is also there, because it's like, I mean, you can't get hurt without your own involvement, right? I mean, if you say something bad to me, I don't take it, you know, it's, I won't get hurt. But if you hurt me, and I take an offense to it, then I will get hurt. So it's an involvement with love also.  

Niralli: Yeah.

Carl: There's another one, a prefix. So these are just part of the language, you know, the prefix ka. So the prefix ka is a relational prefix. So for example, a lot of these words that have ka before them, refers to some kind of relationship, kapatid, which is sibling, refers to ka, patid, patid means to cut. So you're cutting something. It's similar to kaputol, or sometimes people say tol, which is like bro, you know, more gender neutral, bro or dude, tol, which comes from putol, which is also to cut. And I was looking into Hiligaynon also in the line in my mother's language, which is utod, utod means sibling, but it also means to cut. So we see that sibling is, you know, we were cut from the same cloth, right? We're cut from the same womb or whatever it is. A spouse is kabiyak, biyak is to fragment. So you're part of the same, you know, fragment. You also have, if we're part of the same cause, I would add a ka in front of your name. So if you're like my comrade, for example, in a certain cause, I'd add Ka Niralli, for example, and then that would be your name in the cause. So it's part of the language. It's just a natural part of the language.  

Niralli: Wow, I feel like it really reflects the acknowledgement of our interrelatedness. So you write about cultural appropriation in your book, in a way that distinguishes it from cultural appreciation. And conversations about this topic are very alive in the US and in our discourse at CIIS, because cultural appropriation shows up a lot in the United States. And so I'm curious about your perspective on the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation, and even the possibility of cultural exchange.  

Carl: Yeah. Okay. Well, firstly, I would say that, you know, there's no really pure culture. People keep looking, for example, when I think Filipino, and they say, Oh, you know, let's, let's decolonize or indigenize Filipino. People think that there's some kind of pure Filipino all the way back, but that doesn't exist, you're not going to find them. The Filipino experience, the culture itself, is something that has transformed through struggle, through people's adaptation, by the way that people have matched things to their own preference, by the way that people have taken words and concepts and ideas and molded it into something that's helpful in a person's way of navigating their own world. So I think of, here's a, here's an example. So we think of cuisine, right? You know, have you tried Filipino spaghetti? I know that there might be some restaurants there that might serve Filipino spaghetti.  

Niralli: I have, yes.  

Carl: What do you think of it? Honestly?  

Niralli: I'd say I prefer some of the other noodle dishes.  

Carl: Right, I get it. Yeah. Because it's also, I mean, if you grow up with it, it's, you don't think much of it, but it's, it's sickly sweet, right? It's so sweet. It has a lot, it has hot dogs and so on. So the Filipino spaghetti is like something that you'll always see in birthday gatherings. You'll always have it because it's good for long life because of the noodles. But then this dish comes from the Americans, right? But the Americans also took it from the Italians, who got the technology from the Chinese with the noodles and so on. So you see how culture shifts, right? And culture moves and goes back and weaves around. And now when you talk about Filipino spaghetti, it's a specific Filipino thing. You won't have that kind of, you know, very sweet spaghetti anywhere else. But then you also have, for example, because we've had contact with, with the Chinese all the way back, we have what we call pancit. Also pancit really just means it's easy to cook, but we refer to it, we refer to noodles when we talk about pancit. And you'll see how in different parts of the country, depending on your region, what you add in your pancit will depend on what's abundant in that place. So if it's near the seaside, might be seafood, right? More shrimp, more and so on. If it might be, if it's in the field, might be cow or beef, beef or pork or what. So we're adapting these things. We're taking technologies, using it in different ways. So when it comes to cultural appropriation versus cultural appreciation, I would say appropriation is taking a certain cultural aspect and redefining it in a way that doesn't see any, you know, any connection to its source. It doesn't see any lineage. It's not part of a heritage, not part of a lineage of people transforming and moving and sharing. But cultural appreciation is part of that sharing. When we look at cultures outside of our own, we're participating in a human potluck. It's like a potluck, right? Wouldn't it be so boring if you just ate one kind of food for the rest of your life? But if you were able to gather people and, with different foods from different places, and then you're appreciating all these different meals and you're understanding them. And maybe you want to cook that kind of meal when you go back home. And so you learn how to do that, because you have a story with it, you know? So appreciation is that transmission of culture. And culture is not going to survive if people don't transmit it. It's not going to survive if people don't pass it on. And so the culture receivers, which is us today, people who read, people who integrate with the culture, people who immerse in cultures, people who learn about cultures outside of their own, or even their own culture. They're passive receivers now, but they will be the culture bearers of the future, because they will be the ones responsible to pass on this knowledge. So that's the difference, I would say. The difference is that appropriation does not have a heritage. It does not have a lineage. It's just taking out of context. Appreciation is part of a heritage. It acknowledges that there's a heritage to it. It acknowledges a lineage of thought, idea, sharing, human interaction. So that will be the difference, you know?  

Niralli: Thank you. Yeah, it acknowledges the relationships.  

Carl: Yes, exactly.

Niralli: It includes them. Many people think about colonization as a historical event or a series of historical events versus an ongoing series of structural and relational processes. I wonder if you can speak to the process, the ongoing process of colonization and cultural destruction, as you see it happening in the Philippines currently, and the role of climate change in that process.  

Carl: Right. Okay, so people like to say that we're post-colonial, right? Post-colonial kind of implies that we're done with it. But really, it still persists. Maybe post-colonial in the sense that we acknowledge that colonization did happen. And what we're going through now is part of an ongoing effort to reclaim ourselves. So post-colonial, sure, in that sense. There are a lot of systems. The political system that we have in the Philippines is still based on the American system. The constitution that we have, is also based on that. A lot of the laws that we have still carry over from the Spanish times. There's a law from the Spanish times called offending religious feelings. And people can go to jail for this. And there were so many cases, just recently, where people were in legal trouble because of offending religious feelings. For example, there was a drag performer who dressed up as Jesus and performed the Our Father prayer, and they got in trouble for that. They became persona non grata for a lot of different places in the Philippines. And then there are all these different things within our system. Our laws, most of them are written in English also. Proceedings are also discussed in English, legal and congressional hearings and so on, I mean, sometimes people speak in Filipino, but then English is still the standard to it. When a child is speaking in English, we say, Oh, that's a smart child. But we don't really confront the fact of asking the question, why is it a smart child? When there's just because they're speaking in English. It's almost natural now that we're just talking to children in English. So there's a lot of these very subtle things. A lot of the systems that we have, a lot of the roads, the businesses, the way that we conduct our businesses are also based on very American structures. So it still persists. And it starts from within. It starts from the way that we see ourselves. It starts from the way that we think, because we say, Filipino is not good enough. Or if it's made in the Philippines, it must not be as good quality as it is if it were made in the US. So I'm not trying to go anti-US or anything. I'm just saying that there are cultures that, you know, cultural intuitions that have to match. That have to match our ways of doing so if we think about it more as a, the metaphor that I like to use for decolonization is like a desire path, you know, the desire path in parks, so you have parks. Usually there's like concrete roads around the parks, but then people would still walk on the grass, right? And then now you'd have a desire path or the dirt path. So I would say decolonization is going back to the dirt path, understanding how people look at this ground. And I'm not saying that, you know, remove everything that's Western. I'm saying, if it's Western, does it make sense to our experience? If it's borrowed from somewhere, can it be applied? Can it be re-appropriated to match the intuitions of Filipinos? So that's, that's how I see it. You know, it's not like remove everything Western or remove, stop talking in English. That's not what I'm saying. Or stop globalizing. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, if we're going to do this, if we're going to look at these Western frameworks, let's not just apply it blindly. Let's engage with it. Understand how it can be matched and appropriated to our culture and how we'll be able to use it to modernize ourselves or to use, to improve ourselves.  

Niralli: Hmm. This is reminding me of a quote from your book, culture is invulnerable because we are alive. And so long as humans continue to interact with their physical and social environments, culture persists. So, yeah, I'm curious about how that shows up in relation to religion and spirituality?

Carl: Okay, so the Philippines, majority of Filipinos are Catholic or Christian, actually. And that does come from the Spanish colonial era when they brought Catholicism to the Philippines. What's interesting is that if we actually right now, it's Good Friday here. So we are actually in our Holy Week break. And it's very interesting because you'll see how religion is expressed based on how we understand unseen forces. The theology of the everyday Filipino, the folk religion, is not totally the same as like, if you say Roman Catholicism or the canon of it. There are so many practices that we still have today, and especially during Holy Week, that are not really canon, that are not really traditionally Catholic. They're animistic in the language of Catholicism. So they use the language of God the Father, they use the language of saints and so on. They say saints, but they really mean animistic spirits. They're interacting with saints as though they were animistic. I'll give an example. So in one of the chapels in Quezon City, there's this Padre Pio chapel. So it's Padre Pio, and that's a Catholic figure. But then there is a belief in that chapel where if you have an intention, you have to hang a rosary on the tree. And then if the intention was granted, you'd have to hang another rosary. So you'll see if you go into that chapel, it's just trees and rosaries everywhere. And that's like, isn't that such a fascinating way of how animism persists to the modern age? Another example would be, when I got married before my wedding day, there's this belief that there's another chapel in, another church in Quezon City called the Monasterio de Santa Clara. So it's St. Clare. And St. Clare, it's believed that you have to give an egg to St. Clair so that it's clear on your wedding day, so that the weather is clear on your wedding day. So we did go there. So here's a story. The months leading up to our wedding day, because we had a garden reception, and we were worried that it was going to rain because we kept looking at the forecast. And because it was January, we say, 90%, it's going to rain. It's going to rain. So months leading up to our wedding, we were worried, should we get a tent? Should we do this? And then a week before, we were looking at it, 90%, it's going to rain. We said, you know, let's go to Santa Clara. Let's go to St. Clare. Let's offer an egg. And we offered an egg. Next day, we looked at the forecast, 70%. And then it kept going down 50%. On the day of my wedding, it wasn't raining. And this is an example of, okay, it was a Catholic Saint. Sure, there was a relic in that building, but then I offered an egg. So doesn't that make it a little bit animus? So we see that these practices, you know, they persist. They're part of religious culture. It's a way for us to engage personally and culturally to unseen forces.  

Niralli: Right. And it's almost, I think, the acknowledgement between those unseen forces, the relationships between the unseen forces that were indigenous to the Philippines originally, and these deities or constellations of energy that came along with colonization and being able to see the relationality on that level and work with it spiritually. So I'm curious about the spheres of self that you write about in your book, Kaluluwa, Kapwa, and Kalikasan?  

Carl: Yeah. Kaluluwa, Kapwa, and Kalikasan.  

Niralli: Okay.  

Carl: It's, Kaluluwa is the soul. So Kaluluwa is, I would say, you know, the self. Kaluluwa, it comes from the root word, dua, which is two. So in a lot of, in different regions across the Philippines, you'd see that the belief in the soul is not that it's trapped in the body as in Western theology. It's something that accompanies you. It joins you where you go. So in Ilonggo, in Hiligaynon, we say dungan, it's a companion. It's your companion in life. So your soul is who you are. But like as a, so when you're asleep, for example, the soul kind of travels. That's what you see in your dreams. That's the belief. And when you wake up, the soul takes its time to come back. That's why you're still groggy, you know. So in the sphere of the self, I'd say Kaluluwa is that sense of being me, that sense of awareness of the world around you. Kaluluwa is related to concepts such as consciousness, Kamalayan. It's also related to concepts such as Konsensya, which is your conscience, or Hilagyo, which is also consciousness, awareness, perception. Kapwa is said to be the core concept in Filipino psychology. It refers to relationality. It's a shared identity. It's me and you. It's all of us. So when I relate to a person, as a person, if I'm treating you humanely, then I'm treating you as my Kapwa. And this refers to family, but also all the spheres of belongingness that you belong to, institutions, organizations, and so on. Kapwa is the person in their space, in the environment, in their social environment. But Kapwa, because it's a Tagalog Filipino term, people say, oh, you know, it's just a Tagalog concept. But I would say it's a human concept that happens to be Tagalog. Because we see it in a lot of non Filipino cultures as well. We see it in different places with their own version of Kapwa. And then Kalikasan means nature. Likas is what's natural to something. We also say likás-tao, which is the, what's human nature. Kalikasan is the space around you, non human forces, fate, time, you've got your cyclical resources, climate, and so on. So all these are part of who we are. Because we know that it's not just individuals. When you talk about mental health, you know, people say, oh, mental, it's all just in the mind. Sure, but if, when you're hungry, don't you lack focus? Don't you get angry so easily when you're not eating properly? When you're not moving in your space? When everything's so tight? When you have a fight with your friend or your loved one? Doesn't that affect your mental health as well? So when it's part of it, it's biopsychosocial, right? It's holistic. It's part of all of it.  

Niralli: I have so many more questions for you. I just wish we had three hours to keep going. This is my second to last question here. You write about the crises of the self. What do you see as the contemporary crises of self that we face collectively in the context of global modernity?  

Carl: Um, you know, I'm actually very excited about this, because every time there's social unrest in history, usually that's where counterculture movements blossom. Usually that's where art explodes. That's where, you know, people start thinking radical, exciting ideas. So we have a crisis today that really was a long time coming, right? It's been a long time coming because of social media, because of how we treat technology, especially the information age, as it boomed in the 2000s, you know, and now we're at a point of being so overwhelmed, we no longer know what we're going to do. We don't know what's true. We don't know what's right. So the crisis there is a crisis of discernment, a decision that we have to make. What do we consider to be true? How do we embody that? How do we feel that? A lot of people are going offline, touching the grass or logging off and so on, finding analog activities. It's not about removing technology totally. It's about reclaiming who we are as people, as human beings, considering what's going on around us.  

Niralli: How would you like folks in the US to engage with indigenous Filipino wisdom?  

Carl: Right. You know, there's this concept back when I was a child. I don't know if I had included this in the book. But there's a concept we call saling-pusa, which is the cat that participate, when children are playing in the streets, there's always a cat participating there. And saling-pusa is an informal participant in a community. If I'm a saling-pusa, for example, in a conference, that I don't know anyone there. So I'm just, you know, I'm a saling-pusa. If I'm sitting in a class that I wasn't, that I didn't sign up for, I'm like, can I sit in? Can I audit this class? I'm a saling-pusa. And this is how we can engage with communities that we're not living in, that we're not within that space. So when we're engaging, for example, with indigenous communities, we must recognize that if we're looking at indigenous communities, we're being with indigenous communities, we're saling-pusa. And to be saling-pusa is to sit with them, appreciate, sometimes participate when they invite us, participate in their customs. But then I'm not going to pretend that I am that, I'm not going to pretend that I identify because I have to learn first. And I'm not, sorry, I'm not just talking about folks in the US, I'm talking about, you know, all of us in general is like, how do we engage with indigenous wisdom is to sit with it, and to really appreciate it and understand that it's okay to be saling-pusa. It's okay to just be, you know, I don't understand this fully, but I'll watch like a cat when children are playing, I'll participate sometimes. It's, it's the, it's emotion towards people, because it's presence, you know, it's presence in the midst of something you don't understand. And that's fine. It's okay to not know things because in the information age, again, like I said, we're forced to know everything. It's okay not to know, it's okay to just be saling-pusa, to not know the rules of the game, but just be there, you know, be with them.  

Niralli: Thank you so much for that. That's, I love the image of the cat just present, non-invasive, curious, sensitive. Looks like we do have some time for another question or two. So I wonder how the traditional folk healer Cebuano point of view that the quote, power to heal and harm are gifts from a divine source, and all things are interconnected and bound by mutual intention, influence your perspectives on healing?  

Carl: You know, it's, so I'm a psychologist. In the Philippines, I'm a registered psychologist. And, you know, there's so much of our everyday stresses, everyday experiences, really are rooted in our intentions as well. It's rooted in how we see the world, how we navigate the world. And if the map that we have, which sometimes we grow up with dysfunctional maps, sometimes we were raised with maps that just don't make sense because they're harmful or hurtful, or colonially influenced or whatever it is, then we're unable to function properly. But then when we start to see that by changing the map of my inner world, by understanding it, by studying culture, by studying these cultural worldviews, I could reframe certain things, I could navigate my space better, and then I could realign myself better with the world around me. And I see this also when people, when people ask me, you know, because I'm a psychologist, and people ask, Oh, what are some mental health tips, right? And then I say, Oh, you know, I have a personal checklist for that. I say, Have I eaten? Did I drink water recently? Did I sleep enough? Do I have someone who's mad at me? Because when you go to a folk healer, and they start to do their diagnosis, the first thing they would ask is, Who did you offend? What did you do wrong that hurt someone else? And then how are you going to say sorry? Because part of healing is reconciliation. And don't you feel that also when, when you're mad at someone, it's hard to eat, like, you know, I don't have any energy or appetite to eat because I'm mad at this person. It's like, I'm just gonna sulk. But then when you reconcile with that person, suddenly, yeah, come on, let's go have coffee. Let's eat. Let's do something together. Suddenly, there's this burst of joy and energy. So who we are as people is connected to the, the networks that we have with everyone around us, with the habits that we form, with the mindsets that we carry. So the Cebuano’s belief, the albularyos belief of the holistic self, is aligned with that it's aligned with that way of thinking, are you taking care of your body, your mind, your spirit, your relationships, your community? That's all part of it.  

Niralli: You mentioned that from a Western point of view, some Filipino cultural attitudes may be viewed as toxic, when evaluated from a hyper individualistic Western value system. Can you speak to the power of social sensitivity and solidarity to move us from an individual centered worldview to a community centered social system?  

Carl: You know, it's difficult to, it's difficult if we just change ourselves, but the systems stay in place, right? That's going to be difficult. Because if the system stay in place, and it's hyper individualistic, the propaganda is geared towards your isolation. And, you know, success is tied to personal ambition and then it's very hyper individualistic. The ways of taking care of yourself will also be hyper individualistic. It's, you know, cut people off, do self care, take care of yourself first. And then it's always like me, me, me, my comfort. But we see that in Filipino psychology, sometimes people let go of their own comfort to make sure that other people are comfortable, that their loved ones are comfortable. And I'm thinking of, for example, I think of breadwinners in their families, I think of overseas Filipino workers, immigrants, and so on. I think of these people, I think of single parents, people who give up their own comfort, to make sure that their loved ones are comfortable as well. It's part of that community. And it's part of that reciprocation and understanding that we catch each other. The French philosopher Simone Weil, she said that obligations come before rights, it's more fundamental than rights. Because for us to have any kind of right to demand anything, someone has to be obligated to us to fulfill those rights. And so it's in Filipino Tagalog, we say pananagutan, which is to answer for other people, I have to answer to you, when you call me, I have to answer, I have to catch you, when, when you fall, I can't drop you. You have to be part of the burden that I carry. Burden, not in the sense that it's bad, burden in the sense that a child carries a dream, you know, a burden in the sense that a parent carries a child. That's what burden means to us, we carry it with us. So when we carry each other, that's when we go back to that, you know, reciprocation that way, that's when we go back to solidarity, saluhan, carrying each other, answering for each other. So there, yeah.  

Niralli: Oh, yeah, I love that idea of our responsibility to each other. I think that's so much of what we're seeing a lack of or a loss of in our world today. You mentioned that many indigenization movements align with liberatory movements around the world, such as feminism and intersectionality. So I wonder if you can speak to some of those connections transnationally of this sense of shared responsibility and mutuality?

Carl: You know, it, it really is that when we look at culture, and when we talked about this earlier, I said that culture is how people adapt to environments, right? So there are, that's why we have so many different cultures, because different communities have adapted to different places, they have their, they have their own ways of knowing. So the more we learn from other cultures, the more we're able to fill in the gaps of what it means to be human. The mistake of colonization is to flatten all these cultures into like a monoculture and it erases so much knowledge that we could learn from each other. There are so many words, ways of knowing, wisdom that we can learn from each other. And that goes to like cultural appreciation as well. We see a lot of these traditions, especially ways of thinking that just because it's foreign does not mean it's useless in Filipino, you know, experience. For example, like, as you mentioned, feminism, liberation psychology also, also, which was developed in South America. These are all aligned with the, the Filipino, Filipino psychology, with what we want to do. So how do we learn from these systems? How do they apply to us? What does it make sense, how does it make sense for our experience? My tradition where I, the studies that I took seriously when I was in graduate school was in transpersonal psychology. And transpersonal psychology is something that emerges from Euro-American tradition of behaviorism and, you know, psychoanalysis. But transpersonal psychology is so applicable to the Filipino experience of the self moving outward. So if I look at the Filipino experience, it is transpersonal. In fact, I wrote a paper on it and it was published in Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Filipino psychology is a transpersonal psychology. And see, you see, even though it's, it doesn't emerge from Filipino intellectual history, it's useful in understanding our own ways of knowing.  

Niralli: Wonderful, I have to look up that article now. In closing, what would you like to leave our audience with today?  

Carl: Yeah, I would just say that, this is a very exciting time in the world, because social media has allowed us to communicate across vast differences. There is a danger that we censor each other, that we restrict information, that we peddle fake news and lies, and that we are inundated with things that don't matter, with things that overwhelm us forcefully, because they want us weak and pliable and easy to control. It's important for us to discern and decide what matters to us, to see it as part of our everyday experience, to preserve, document traditions within our families, within our hometowns, preserve and document experiences, anecdotes, ideas, just in case, you know? And I hope it doesn't come to some kind of destruction, but that can help us form a map that we can share with each other. The work is towards cross indigenization, which is that potluck of ideas, where we can share with each other and learn from each other, not as something that's forcefully flattened, but as something that is vibrant, diverse, and loving, you know, and caring.  

Niralli: Thank you so much, Carl. It's been such a pleasure. I really want to thank you for your work in bringing this Filipino Indigenous wisdom out into our community, into, you know, putting it in English so that so many of us that need these perspectives can receive and absorb that wisdom. Really, I think we need so much more of this kind of intercultural dialogue and, yeah, just thank you for your book and for being there with us.  

Carl: Thank you for being open to this discussion.  

Niralli: Such a pleasure. I feel really inspired and enriched and I'm looking forward to actually revisiting your book and spending some more time with some of the psychological concepts and going deeper with them. Thank you.  

Carl: Thank you. 

Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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