Remagination Lab and Magpie Alchemy Launch Experiences and Handcrafted Products Rooted in Radical Love, Intergenerational Healing, and Community Care
Collaboration led by and for Filipina Americans Offers Collective Rest and Reconnection to the Sacredness of the LanD
Unceded Miwok and Pomo Territory/Sacramento, CA - January 22, 2024 - Remagination Farm and Magpie Alchemy have teamed up to offer Pa/Hinga — private sessions focused on collective rest and reconnection to the sacredness of the land — which debuts on February 11th, 2024 with a virtual event. This unique collaboration, rooted in community care and Pinay (Filipina American) sisterhood, includes small batch, handcrafted healing products that will be available to purchase online after February 11.
“ As Pinays whose families have been displaced by U.S. colonization and now find themselves in white-settler-colonial America, we have long been taught that rest is unacceptable. Resting is often met with a lot of guilt and shame because this is a culture where labor and hyperproductivity are not only expected but also celebrated. Our Pa/hinga Project aims to support our community in uncovering the deeply ableist and dysfunctional ways that intergenerational trauma rooted in multiple forms of colonialism shows up in our bodies and offers tools and strategies for collective healing.”
Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and Jamie Cardenas at the Remagination Farm (Photo from Magpie Alchemy)
Pa/Hinga: An Invitation to Rest
Through Pa/Hinga, Dr. Robyn Rodriguez of Remagination Farm and Jamie Cardenas of botanical-based apothecary Magpie Alchemy aim to uplift radical love through collective rest in the Filipinx/a/o community.
“Hinga” is a Filipino term for “breath.” “Pahinga” is a Filipino term that can be translated as “taking a breath” or also, “rest.” This series is an invitation to move away from individualistic (and overly consumeristic) practices of self-care toward community care. Pa/Hinga is also an invitation to explore ancestral medicines as they are found in the earth as well as collective, reflective processes that facilitate intergenerational healing.
Pa/Hinga sessions will include a variety of healing modalities such as sound healing, art therapy, guided journaling, and/or collective book reading and discussions. Robyn and Jamie will also offer specially formulated care products such as:
“Kup Kup,” an anti-inflammatory, mineral rich soak for long covid that includes baking soda, citric acid, magnesium, immortelle, and moringa.
A rest balm that includes moringa/marunggay, ginger, lemongrass, and CBD, all ancestrally-significant plants that remind Jamie and Robyn of matrilineal care and healing during times of fatigue and sickness.
“Tabi Tabi Po” Amado Khaya Healing House Cedar Hydrosol, an ancient medicinal water. “Tabi Tabi Po,” which can be loosely translated as “Excuse me,” is a phrase many Filipinos are taught that they must state when entering an area— typically in a forest — in which folkloric spirits may be living. Not asking for pardon, it is believed, can result in a person suffering some kind of malady. The use of the honorific, “po,” is meant as a gesture of respect.
“The handcrafted community care products I’ve formulated in collaboration with Robyn are a form of deep re-membering of ancestral wisdom and brilliance using the magic of plants. We wanted to celebrate the magic of plants in all of their different preparations as tools for ritual care. These plant-based products are like a warm hug, inviting us to pause and connect with ourselves and each other through the senses. They also invite us to reflect on how we can ask for permission from and be in right relation with the land that we are visiting for rest and play.”
Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and Jamie Cardenas on the Remagination Farm (Photo from Magpie Alchemy)
Building Pinay Sisterhood and Collaboration
Pa/Hinga builds upon and expands on the HINGA Limited Edition line by artist SAMMAY and Magpie Alchemy, which was inspired by Sammay’s short film Hinga. Hinga honors the sacred grief and resiliency of the Bay Area Filipinx/a/o community at the height of the pandemic through movement prayer, spoken word, and performance ritual.
As much as Hinga addresses loss and healing in the broader Filipinx community, it was ultimately anchored in the transition of Robyn Rodriguez’s son, Amado Khaya Canham Rodriguez and its impacts on his chosen sibling, Amihan, whose spoken word piece reflecting on Amado’s passing is one of the centerpieces of the film. Hinga also marked the initial connection between Robyn and Jamie.
Pa/Hinga expands upon Pinay sisterhood and collaboration, one that began with Jamie and Sammay and now continues on with Jamie and Robyn with the vision of engaging other Pinays and BIPOC women.
The Pa/Hinga Sessions are deeply inspired by Tricia Hersey’s book, Rest is Resistance (Little, Brown Spark, 2022) and her work as founder of the Nap Ministry. Hersey is a Black poet, performance artist, and activist who continues to be a prominent voice for the call for collective rest. Beyond Hersey, Jamie and Robyn have felt called to support collective rest for members of the Filipino as well as the broader BIPOC community, especially activists and artists at the frontlines of social justice.
Jamie Cardenas in a Magpie Alchemy workspace (Photo from Magpie Alchemy)
Registration for Private Pa/Hinga Sessions
Jamie and Robyn will publicly launch their collaboration at a virtual event the weekend of Lunar New Year on Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 3:30PM PST. At the event, they will debut pre-registration for private, collective rest sessions to take place at the Amado Khaya Healing House beginning in 2024. Robyn and Jamie encourage group sign-ups of up to six people. Whether it is the staff of a non-profit organization, a group of (chosen) family members or some other collectivity, small groups are highly preferred and encouraged. Individual pre-registration for rest sessions may also be considered, but small groups are highly encouraged. Jamie and Robyn are especially interested in helping facilitate the collective rest sessions of those who identify as “Pinay,” at least in their inaugural set of Pa/Hinga Sessions. As they continue to hold space, it is Robyn and Jamie’s intention to extend invitations of collective Pa/Hinga to other women of color. Ordering information for specific Pa/Hinga products will also be shared at the event.
Self identified Filipina/x can pre-register for Pa/Hinga sessions here: https://forms.gle/3WwRkjqVCnEXPR617
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About the Remagination Farm — Principles of sustainability and regeneration inspire the Remagination Farm, founded by Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and her husband, second-generation Hmong refugee and nature expert Joshua Vang. The farm intends to implement intergenerational farming techniques that draw on the owners’ Hmong and Philippine ancestry, along with local Native American indigenous land knowledge. The Remagination Farm, spanning 8 acres of land, is located in Lake County and will be the site for in-person learning opportunities offered by the School for Liberating Education, a service of the Remagination Lab.
About Magpie Alchemy — Magpie Alchemy is a labor of love, created in 2016 as a response to the ever growing need to reclaim our family’s health, spiritually, physically and mentally. What started out as an apothecary that specialized in handcrafted personal care products has now evolved into a deep re-membering of ancestral wisdom and brilliance using the magic of plants.
Whether it's through the familiar Filipino plants and herbs that our ancestors used, we celebrate all of the magic of plants in all of its preparations. Whether it's for its healing properties, its sweet aroma or the plant’s strength used for fiber, we have used Magpie Alchemy as a tool for self discovery and self determination.
We also use the magic of plants to help our clients find home in their bodies. Our formulations are made with deep research and love in hopes of connecting our community back to their senses. Something as simple as taking the time for yourself as a radical act of love – to sit with your senses and explore and rediscover yourself. Through the warming touch of working a balm into your skin or through the pleasure of exploring a familiar aroma like Guava or Sampaguita. It has been the greatest honor of taking care of all those we are in relation with.
About Jamie Cardenas — Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas is the heart and hands behind Magpie Alchemy. It is through their own journey of chronic illness, generational trauma and disability that she shares the gift of their own lived experiences, their family’s ancestral wisdom and the deep research of these plant medicines that she shares these preparations and formulas. Or what we consider, “Plant magic.” Jamie Cardenas is a first generation Filipina-American and Ilokana. She is a distiller, natural plant dyer, weaver, potions maker, kitchen witch and cultural worker. She comes from a line of stewards of the land, of healers and storytellers. She shares her gift of plant medicine from her Grandmother's ancestral knowledge in the hopes of supporting her community with healing, fortifying and celebrating their skin, and helping them stay in touch with their body and senses with the magic of plants. When she's not making medicine or in front of her big Mama Indigo Vat, you will find her re-membering to find space for joy in the form of cooking for her loved ones, dancing and singing with her family to Soulection or through roller skating.
About Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez — Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez is a professor emeritus of Asian American Studies at UC Davis. Not only is she a widely published researcher and a highly sought after speaker, she is a long-time community organizer. The loss of her 22-year old son Amado Khaya while he was working to serve indigenous communities in the Philippines, prompted Dr. Rodriguez to make the bold choice of realigning her life’s work of nearly 2 decades and liberating it from the confines of academia through the services she offers in the Remagination Lab. Moreover, she and her husband decided to carry on Amado Khaya’s commitment to indigenous rights and climate justice by taking on the role as land stewards, along with their younger son, at Remagination Farm.