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Our #PinayCrush this week is Kaye Penaflor, a Toronto-based yoga instructor, host/producer of @livebreatheyoga.tv, founder of yoga lifestyle brand @kaye.yoga, and principal dancer for contemporary neo-Filipino folk dance troupe @hatawto. We chatted with Kaye on hellapinay.com about her experiences as a WOC in the wellness industry, the importance of representation and inclusivity, and how her heritage has influenced her practice. And if you're in Manila, be sure to check out one of her workshops with @fringemnl on 2/11, 17, 18, 20, and 24 - like learning her own special program Pineapple Flower Yoga, which combines Filipino folk dance movements with an empowering yoga practice 🍍🌺 link in bio (at Poblacion, Makati)

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OK @slayrizz closing the @chromat show!! Never thought we'd see models walking to a song in Tagalog at NYFW sooooooo dead rn #Repost @slayrizz: !!!!! SUPRISE!!! I Closed off the show for @chromat #aw18wavvy 🏄🏻‍♀️🏝🌊💦This is unreal!!!! Got the models strutting to words like “ #walanghiya “ and #MABUHAY 🇵🇭 🙀 Only at a @chromat fashion show !will they give you this type of diversity, empowerment and FUN!! Thank you to all of the Chromat staff , All my new model friends and most of all thank you @beccamccharentran for always seeing it for this lil #Slaysianmutha from day 1 💓 #salbaheseason

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#GetLit: Make 2018 A Year of Emergence

And just like that, the first month of the year is over.

I hope you’ve spent the last month reflecting on the past year’s feels and struggles, a critical process as we face another stretch of months ahead. Because as fly Pilipinxs in the diaspora - especially in the age of Trump - we need to strengthen our resolve and look to each other for love and support.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about the necessary tools we need, as artists, healers, changemakers. Some of the questions that came up when I was putting this list together were:

How do we take care of ourselves, our communities, and our planet, as we struggle to thrive in our respective spaces?

How do we navigate a constantly shifting society that gives us mixed messages?

And how do we transform our pain and our traumas and heal with resilience - and help others heal as well?

One of the lessons I learned last year is the practice of emergence: that how we live, how we relate with our communities, and how we take space on the planet are intrinsically interconnected. It wasn’t until I finished adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (AK Press) that I realized I was functioning disjointedly - which may have explained the onslaught of frustration and burnout in many aspects of my life.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve long carried the idea of changemaking borne out of my own struggles as a queer, immigrant Pilipinx. I’ve also been fortunate enough to find spaces where I could harness pain, anger and trauma into something transformative for myself and other people. The work is hard, but beautiful. You get to build with fierce community organizers whose energy and sense of justice is empowering. You become a witness to the liberating power of collective action. And at the end of the day, even though your bones are tired, you know you can lay in bed and continue to dream of a better world.   

That’s where I was for several years, until I found my own heart and spirit weary. Suddenly, I started feeling detached, disconnected. My hair started falling out. Friends and family would assume I couldn’t make it to certain events so they didn’t bother inviting me (which hurt, a lot). My work felt compartmentalized, and I was different things to different people. Many times I wished to be in two places at once, my heart in some other place my feet weren’t. I couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed, so I kept pushing. Over time, this feeling of disjointedness crept up and I caved in.

I’m still in a weird limbo as I write this, but what I’ve discovered is that when you make room for what you want to happen, it all comes to fruition. Clarity that was once elusive comes to the forefront, as long as you treat yourself with patience and gentleness. Slowing down works wonders, and in the process of making art, writing, changemaking, or anything worth pursuing: sustainability is key.

And what a joy it is to find strength in literature, especially the kind that nourishes, equips, and empowers you. Below are five books I’ve lovingly compiled that ask the right questions; the critical ones we need to be asking as we endeavor to create and make change.

   Emergent Strategy: Shifting Change, Changing Worlds (adrienne maree brown)

Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.

  The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century (Grace Lee Boggs)

In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times. From her home in Detroit, she reveals how hope and creativity are overcoming despair and decay within the most devastated urban communities.

  The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Julia Cameron)

The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron) is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today - or perhaps even more so - than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work.

  The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha)

Long demanded and urgently needed, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. This watershed collection of stories and strategies tackles the multiple forms of violence encountered right where we live, love, and work for social change and delves into the nitty-gritty on how we might create safety from abuse without relying on the state. Drawing on over a decade of community accountability work, along with its many hard lessons and unanswered questions, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind.

  How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)

The Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the anti-racist and women's liberation movements of the 1960's and 70's. In this collection, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to black feminism and its impact on today's struggles.

 These are only some books that I hope can guide us as we usher in a new year of sustainability with the things that we care most about. If you have any other books to add to this list, feel free to share them with us below!

Pia Cortez

INSTAGRAM - WEBSITE

PRONOUNS: SHE/HER

Pia Cortez is a Bay Area-based community organizer and the creator of Libromance, a blog dedicated to book reviews and literary features with a queer Pinay immigrant perspective. She believes in the power and beauty of the written word: how stories stretch time and transcend boundaries, how books simultaneously challenge and console, how reading becomes an act of resistance. Pia hopes to transform reading from a solitary pursuit and turn it into a tool for community-building, a catalyst for ruckus-raising. When she’s not currently reading the world, she’s experimenting with #booklooks, a play on books and fashion.

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BIG MOOD Courtesy of @hellodarakatrina #tgif

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#AquariusSeason The gorgeous @angeloumae by @rgzgcreative

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All my fave colors 🌈 beautiful B'laan weaving at Lamlifew Village Museum and B'laan School of Living Traditions courtesy of @fashionable_filipinas (at South Cotabato)

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How I feel waking up in this tropical weather everyday 🌺 Courtesy of @leynabloom

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One of our fave models @dara._ in the new @marcbeauty Shameless foundation campaign Photo: @charlottemwales MUA: @hungvanngo

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Are you a wellness practitioner or holistic health advocate? Maybe you’re an herbalist looking to create herbal products, or a yoga teacher looking to teach independently. Regardless of what kind of holistic practice you’re engaging in, there are a great handful of matters you must take into consideration when make the choice to grow passion into business. Check out @ominbloom's step-by-step guide to bringing your wellness biz to life - the right way - on hellapinay.com now!

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Foliage feels @jesych in super cute @tattumundo designs by @betsy.cola @keeshuuu and @darlingkink

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EXPECTATIONS. Your turn! Courtesy of @magickmoods via @indijam

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For whatever reason, February is deemed the month of romantic love - and what it reminds me of most is how our culture's fixation on it is staggering; how in subtle (and not so subtle) ways, our worth in others' eyes is measured not by our moral character or our accomplishments, but rather on the "success" or "failure" of our relationships. Some bullshit, most definitely. So this month, I'd like to focus on self-love - the real kind, not just an *inspirational quote* or something intimidating and impossible you see everyone else thriving at on your feed, another apparently effortless thing you're failing at to feel bad about; but the messy rollercoaster of healing from a million voices telling you from the time you're old enough to remember that you're not good enough and you never will be - including, possibly, your own. Check out this month's Letter From the Editor on hellapinay.com now ❤💋💌 . Photo of @pilipinuh by @ruinedfilm

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Our #PinayCrush this week is artist, arts educator, and community organizer Camille Hoffman. Born in Chicago, she graduated from CCA and Yale School of Art and now currently lives and works in New York. Taking inspiration from the Philippine weaving and Jewish folk traditions of her ancestors, along with traditional landscape painting techniques, she explores the interconnectedness of her personal identity with American colonialism, environmental policy, and contemporary pop culture using materials connected from her everyday life. In her current solo exhibition Pieceable Kingdom at @madmuseum, Camille presents new mixed-media artworks that offer meditations on Manifest Destiny and its latent representation in the romantic American landscape. She has shown throughout the U.S. and in Europer and is currently artist-in-residence at @wavehill in the Bronx. (at Museum of Arts and Design)

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"Last week, I felt triggered hearing the racist declaration of D. Trump referring to sacred land as 'shithole countries' and those who live there as unwanted. The truth is that people come to the U.S. to seek 'better opportunities' in order to survive in a colonized and capitalistic world; because their own homelands have been ravaged by foreign powers and foreign corporations that destroy and strip away natural resources - without giving economic support to their communities." Check out @jahel_umi's latest reflection "Re-Membering and Honoring Motherland on Colonized Native Soil in the Time of Trump" on hellapinay.com now Photo by @le_ciudad

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Monday feelz courtesy of @anavictoriaaaaaaaa Photo by @laaapavi

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@inadominicaslayy channeling the legendary Grace Jones for some major weekend look inspo in @mega_magazine

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Our #PinayCrush this week is Cynthia Alberto, an artist, weaver, weaving activist, teacher, and founder/director of the Brooklyn-based weaving studio, @weavinghand. Her personal work as a fiber artist bridges traditional and contemporary weaving: drawing inspiration from ancient communities of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Cynthia honors the artisanal process of weaving while using unconventional materials to create expressions of form, structure, and function, often addressing themes such as femininity, age, and beauty as it relates to our culture today.  Inspired by her studio practice and teaching, Cynthia continuously explores diverse relationships between weaving, healing, inclusive art, craft, and sustainability. In 2014, Cynthia developed "Weaving Together," a series of ongoing collaborative weaving events that focus on healing the community and create interpersonal relationships through the act of weaving together. She is a recipient of numerous awards and has been featured in the Cooper Hewitt Design Dictionary and conducted lectures and workshops at places like Pratt Institute, FIT,  and Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture. You might have also caught her recently as a guest on @bambambaklava's show on @viceland! Cynthia is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology with a BFA in Textile Surface Design and exhibits her work worldwide. (at Weaving Hand)