Center for Babaylan Studies
The Center for Babaylan Studies (a 501(c)(3) organization) focuses on Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices with specific focus on Babaylan discourse and Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology).
The mission of CFBS is to connect with resources and to facilitate the relevance, cultivation and promotion of Filipino indigenous wisdom in an age of globalization through:
Exploring and developing Pakikipagkapwa (deep interconnectivity), Kagandahang Loob (Wholeness of Being), Pakikiramdam (Deep Empathy)
Organizing conferences, workshops, retreats, concerts and events that bring about deep appreciation for Filipino Indigenous Spirituality
Creating and maintaining an online archive of spiritual, social, cultural, historical and other materials relevant to our vision
Fostering learning groups and collaborating with other organizations who share our vision
To facilitate decolonization processes rooted in Filipino Indigenous Spirituality, Wisdom, and Beauty
We envision that our events and projects will bring together:
Key resource persons from the Philippines on Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices;
Babaylan/culture-bearers in the US whose life work is informed by the babaylan tradition;
Babaylan-inspired scholars who address the sub-themes in the stated vision;
Babaylan-inspired teachers, healers, warriors, priestesses, and visionaries whose life work is
centered around indigenizing the Filipino self;
Persons who recognize decolonization as a spiritual path;
Persons who consciously work on the sycnretic integration of non-indigenous elements into Filipino spirituality;
Persons whose expressions resonate with being indigenous or indio-genius.
Leny and the Center for Babaylan Studies
Leny Mendoza Strobel is one of the founding mothers/signatories of the Center for Babaylan Studies together with Omehra Sigahne, Letecia Layson, and Baylan Megino.
Leny stayed on as Project Director from 2009 to 2018 and was mainly responsible, along with the all-volunteer core group, in visioning and organizing the International Babaylan Conferences, workshops, retreats, symposia, and other events that seeded and tended to a flowering of practices of decolonization and re-indigenization among Filipinos in the diaspora.
Sonoma State University, where Leny is Professor Emeritus of American Multicultural Studies, was the institutional home of the Center for Babaylan Studies until her retirement in 2018.
