✦ Artist Story + Path
As a diasporic Filipina artist with Romblon, Tarlac, Umpingan, and Cavite roots, she honors the indigenous Philippine babaylans. Respectfully, she frames her work as modern babaylan-inspired (as contextualized by Leny Strobel) and feels aligned with the concept of tu-aw, an ancestral manifestation of an untrained balyan as Balyan Zaldy Pinang from Pandapan describes in documentary Babaylan (2023) Dir. Louie Bryan Lapat. Through her research and practice in art, culture, and history, she weaves multiple disciplines into a visionary path.
Kelsey’s chronic experiences with dysautonomia (pre-syncope), a neurally mediated condition that brings her to the edge of consciousness, have become a metaphor for in-between states —physiological, emotional, and spiritual. While her right palm holds a rare Simian line, a single crease merging the heart and head line —marks her embodiment of intense emotion and perception as one. Much like the tutubi (dragonfly), which moves between water and air, Kelsey navigates these liminal realms to transmute insight into art and practical tools –a balancing dance of emotion and pragmatism.
Through intuitive guidance, rituals, readings, and visual storytelling, she offers a safe and creative space for others to explore their own dreams and inner connections —with courage, love, and curiosity.
✧✧✧
To reclaim my colonized body is to listen to my ancestors. It is to weave myself with the world that’s been given to me, and to shift it —to grow from it and take action. From reading the stars, bodily markings —palmistry to moles —cross-cultural myths, folkloric narratives, and dreams suggest the connections of time and essence of spirit. I’m opening up many partial truths that together create a perplexing course, I’m in tune now.
Re-birthed from my Saturn’s return in Pisces, I’m now going deeper, committing to go beyond what’s constrained to a finite conventional space (physical, digital or cosmic) —to nurture creativity and love. I have changed my relationship with self worth and trust as I’m called to share my gifts. I welcome you to my artistic journey of remembering while releasing any shame, fear, or guilt through the process; a personal and collective healing.
I am honored to continue the work of my matrilineal inheritance passed softly through my grandmothers, whose lives carried the suppressed memory of the Babaylan.
On my maternal side, Cleopatra, a theologian and wounded mystic from Romblon (Visayas), self-published her visions filled with her drawings and fragmented religious writings titled The Ultimate Days. Though ungrounded, and dismissed by colonial frameworks, her gifts left their mark.
My paternal grandmother Anita, a singer, teacher, and folk herbalist from La Paz, Tarlac (Luzon) shared her devotion through jasmine garlands, food offerings, and ancestral ritual. She created her own beautiful sanctuary through earth-bound gestures of love for her family.
Neither were named Babaylan in their time –but through their dreams, rituals, and quiet resistance throughout their resilient lives, they kept the spirit alive. I continue to walk this path to expand from their practice and to lead with my heart.
BOOK A READING