Spirit Boat Building

By Jason Serafino-Agar

Commissioned by Kularts to build a full-sized Spirit Boat for the Lakbai Diwa project Jason Serafino-Agar shares his experience and insights in this three-part blog.

Spirit Boat building in progress. Photos by Jason Serafino-Agar and Alleluia Panis.

Water, Waves, and Flow

I've always had a strong affinity for water. It started with fishing with my Dad and Lolo then, later, surfing in the ocean and some river kayaking when I lived farther inland. I'm a Cancer, water sign, and can relate to the emotional nature of water. When Alleluia approached me about the project, I was interested in the concept. I was thinking about how we build boats to carry us to some destination. Through a combination of water, wave, and human effort, boats traverse to some destination of our choice.

It’s a different kind of project for me. I don't readily identify as an artist or a boat builder. I do see myself as a maker and love getting into a state of flow when I am building something tangible. Usually, it's a bicycle or a bicycle related project. However, I find the process of visualizing, experimenting, building, fabricating and adapting deeply absorbing and renewing. For a few years, I taught yoga, and in the yogic tradition, Dhyana is described as the meditative practice and state of being relaxed while keenly aware. Modern neuroscience has recently discovered Theta waves on the frequency of 4-8 hertz where the brain is in a creative, relaxed, yet alert state. I think those are different ways to describe the same deeply rejuvenating, creative state of relaxed alertness that I refer to as flow.

At the same time, the process is collaborative. I build for a bit, then check in with Alleluia, and she shares the parallel evolution of the programming like how dancers might move using the boat which influences the construction. In this way, building the boat itself is an exercise in improvisation like a dance or theatrical scene when one person makes an offer and another person listens then responds to build upon it or take the idea into another direction. It is very different than following a top down edict to build a set product that someone else has designed to meet a specific need. Yes, that can be useful, however, this project is meant to engage people in a different way.

Lakbai Diwa, Disaporic Spirit Boats made in the Philippines. Designed by Carlito Camahalan Amalla, PhD of the Manobo Tribe and made by Pampangan Master Carvers, brothers John, Doy, and Ronald Yumul. Photos by Carlito Camahalan Amalla.

I think the idea of a Spirit Boat is powerful because, for me, dreaming at it's core is about practicing agency and unlearning learned helplessness. Looking back over our collective Filipino and world history of colonization, I think that we all have some version of conditioning that is built to either keep us alive, through following along and assimilating into a power structure, or keep us from overthrowing that system. Resma Mennaken writes about the 10,000 years of atrocities that people, who are now white, identified and experienced before they shared their mistreatment with black and brown bodies. In some Filipino circles, there is broad mention of the "Colonial Mindset" in reference to racism, classism, and trauma (and more) that has become internalized.

Dreams and Reflections on the Path of Decolonization towards Healing

When we dare to dream, nap, and practice self care that truly supports our healing, wholeness, and capacity building, objections may arise. Yabang mo? (who do you think you are?) Ano ba ang problema mo? (What's your problem?) and Walang hiya! (You have no shame!) may be heard from others or more likely from our own thoughts.

I think that all of these phrases have a real survival value for individuals in an environment where people are not allowed to speak about their grief, express their deeper issues, or have space to rest and recover. In other words, when there is someone else occupying your land, trying to control you, ration your resources and organizing to keep you from determining your own collective future, these phrases might keep you alive. On top of that, installing a deep sense of shame in someone is another incredibly effective way to undermine and sabotage people's sense of agency.

American author Brené Brown has written a great deal in a very accessible way on the relationship between shame and judgement and how destructive those patterns can be. First, we judge ourselves, then immediately transfer that judgement to others. I think it works well to keep people fighting themselves and tearing each other down vs organizing and creating better habits, systems, and broader structures. If you look at the doctrine of Original Sin in the Catholic Church, it's the ultimate way to message that everyone should feel bad about themselves, but then some chosen people can be a little bit better/superior and thus are entitled/burdened by a responsibility to take land, resources, and lives from savage, ignorant, lazy, or morally deficient (in other words scapegoated) people who either need saving, punishment, killing, or education by the morally superior to fix society. It's a very effective way to acquire the moral right to mistreat other human beings and take resources.

Wars of conquest need these justifications and we have a long backlog of those old stories in our minds and bodies that need metabolizing in order to be transformed. All of this is to say that dreaming, ritual, and movement in connection to ourselves can be a powerful antidote to colonization. It can also be scary. It can also bring up feelings and past trauma and even inter-generational trauma. Researchers in epigenetics have found that trauma experienced in laboratory mice can persist up to six generations.

Revolutionary Dreaming

In this evolving Spirit Boat project, the boat is part of a larger event that may involve a ritual, dance, the elements of water, air, earth, fire, dance and movement. The boat itself reminds me of a bird and a fish and has an incomplete, skeletal, and ethereal look. It is in human-scale and made in a way that is approachable. It's not carbon fiber, it's rattan and mostly hand-tied and hopefully it will inspire people to think that they can build their own as well. It did that for the 13 year old neighbor already.

That vision is a dream in and of itself. If people go a step further, to place a dream of something they would like to create, or accomplish or heal, that is another level. Their dream might be entrusted on a journey alongside the dreams of others. What if someone writes their dreams down, tells another person, make plans and puts it into their schedule and does a little bit each day? What if?

One of the most dangerous, subversive, and necessary acts right now is dreaming of a more connected and loving world and setting up our lives to make progress in that direction each day. Ya bang mo! Who do you think you are? What's your problem!!?? There's no time to rest, you're lazy. You're self indulgent. Given where we are with our climate crisis/opportunity, dreaming of better ways to care for ourselves and our children is a matter of survival.

My Lolo and father were born in the Philippines and coming here, their focus was on assimilating , surviving, and attaining their version of the "American Dream." That dream is deeply interwoven with not questioning capitalism. It is more clear than ever that racism, classism, our climate crisis, and record levels of mental health issues/suffering are what we get from capitalism. Ibram X. Kendi does a great job of mapping the layers of this in How To Be An Antiracist. What is important is that dreaming of a better world is even more important now. If we can get closer to understanding the experiences of others and dream of solutions that will address their struggles as well, then our solutions will be even better. For me, it takes deep empathy, internal work and boundary setting to extend compassion to "others" like white supremacists, however, lasting solutions involve walking up from the dream that "those people are the problem." I believe we all carry a part of the problem and also a part of the solution; and that is empowering.

When people come together to dream with focus on our community structures, relationships and human needs, grounded in love for oneself, then the world looks different. Take a trip, take some time do meditate, to move your body and breath, to build something and a structure that can carry your dream. Dream of some structure that can bring you and those you love to a new place. It might not be a boat, it might be helping out at Hummingbird Farm in Crocker Amazon Park. It might be an affinity group over zoom that creates the safety you need to heal or play. What will you do with your one beautiful, precious life? What is your dream? What does it look like, feel like, taste like, smell like and when will you be enjoying it? What is next to make it happen?

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