Ayo-Ayo?! Come and join us as we learn how to make Lana at Tahanan Studio on Saturday the 17th of August from 10am-2pm.

Lana is a sacred healing coconut oil that our people have used for generations in ritual, medicine, and cooking too!

In this workshop, we’ll imbue our Lana with our intentions (Diwa/Spirit) and choose a selection of tanom/halaman/plant allies: Ginger (luy-a), Lemongrass (tanglad), Guava (bayabas), & Moringa (kamunggay/malunggay) as we move through the elements of pressing and pounding herbs (Yuta/Earth), milking and extracting coconut milk (Tubig/Water), cooking it all together (Kalayo/Fire), and setting the medicinal oil (Hangin/Air).

We’ll be sharing ancestral frameworks around herbal medicine, plant allies, animism and Hilot (Traditional Filipinx Medicine) as we make Lana from scratch. There’s no need to have any experience in herbal medicine, you don't even need to be Filipinx! After this workshop, you will be able to take home some Lana with you, as well as experience some ways our kin still use Lana in healing and ritual throughout the Archipelago. All you need to bring is your own jar (200ml roughly) and healing spirit.

About the Facilitators

NAWA SYBICO or GAT NEYA KILAW SA KALASANGAN (Hilot Binabaylan of Diwatang Kilawneya) is a first generation Bisaya immigrant settler living on Mumirimina and Muwinina country in Nipaluna, Lutruwita (Hobart, Tasmania). Their practice revolves around ancestral technologies such as herbalism, somatics, astrology, and death care. Through these healing arts they weave together a decolonial and liberatory practice, by embodying holistic and non-linear ways of problem-solving for inhabiting neo-colonial space. Their anti-oppressive practice centres marginalised communities as an organising strategy for confronting inter-generational burnout and trauma inside of social movements. Nawa acknowledges and honours their mentors and the lineages they carry.

ARGO THEOHARIS or GAT TISEDEL SA YUTA (Hilot Binabaylan of the Diwatang Deltise) is a first generation immigrant settler on Jagera & Turrbal country in Magandjin (Brisbane, Queensland). Their ancestral lineages hail from Greece on the Paternal side and on the Maternal side Sibuyan Island, Romblon in the Visayas of the Archipelago known as the Philippines. Their Lola (Maternal Grandmother) was a practicing Arbularyo on our island, and people from across Romblon would travel to her for ritual and healing. It’s this lineage that inspires Argo to explore how our Indigenous ancestral medicines and philosophy can be used to address ongoing histories of colonial violence & oppression.

Photo Credit: Vader Fame