kinaiya/han ; kapwa is medicine
In trying to trace a Bisayan philosophy for climate change, I realized the woven thread of relations between one’s individual personhood & the forceful patterns of ‘nature’ that power the planet. —Khokhoi
Kinaiya in Bisayan languages refers to ‘one’s inner or innate disposition,’ or ‘one’s behavior or personality.’
Kinaiyahan is the Bisayan word for ‘nature’ or ‘natural environment.’
More specifically, it is ‘kinaiya’ with the -han suffix, indicating ‘the place of’ (like kapéhan [‘place of’ café/coffee], internethan[‘internet spot’]) - locating where the source of internal force - where ‘nature’- comes from.
Whereas Western philosophy cultivates nature vs. nurture debates, the Bisayan concept of ‘kinaiyahan’ positions ‘nature’ as the place where essential inner forces engage in improvisational dance with the elements, finding compositional coherence in patterned process. In this way, nature is not something we change; it just is, a force becoming.
But how does our inner kinaiya exist in a time of extreme kinaiyahan? Our current kinaiyahan or ‘place of nature’ is shaped by corporate extraction, capitalist abstraction, and state-military institutional violence. How does this shifted kinaiyahan reflect in our kinaiya, in our personalities as possibilities of inhabited personhood & patterned emergence?
In this Kapwa Circle, we turn to Bisayan philosophies of ‘nature’ to explore our inner kinaiya in embodied meditations & our outer kinaiyahan in movement practices, transforming internal processing into emerging patterns, and tending to moments where we act with conscious care & gentle reprogramming.
Bringing together Yoga, Meditation, Butoh Dance, Ritual Theater, and Hilot Healing Arts, we invite Pilipino kin & care-makers to commune with ilahang kinaiya kag atun kinaiyahan (their inner self & shared place of nature), activating movement in memory of collective struggles for nature defense across the archipelago.