WEAVING IN OUR WHOLENESS: Honouring our Cultural Strengths
I have been reading about T’nalak, a sacred cloth woven by the T'boli people of Lake Sebu, Mindanao, in the southern Philippines. Woven traditionally by women of royal lineage, T’nalak patterns come through dreams, guided by Fu Dalu, the spirit of the abaca plant. These women are called dream weavers. They do not copy designs from books or charts. Instead, they carry thousands of patterns in their memory, passed down through their maternal lineage, guided by their ancestors, and blessed through rituals.
What was fascinating to know was that the weaving process is not only a craft, but it also comes with specific rules to maintain spiritual harmony. One of these practices is that weaving is often suspended during times of dispute or conflict within the community. This is because the weaving process is deeply connected to the spirit of Fu Dalu, and disrupting the community's harmony can be seen as a form of disrespect to her. It also underscores the belief that the spiritual realm can be affected by actions and events in the physical world.
The T'boli people use specific colors with symbolic meanings in making the T’nalak. White (natural color of abaca fiber) represents purity, red (derived from various plants) signifies blood of ancestors as well as life and energy, and black (derived from a type of bark) represents the soil and the connection to the land.
Each motif in T'boli dreamweaving carries deep symbolic meaning (such as protection, fertility, or prosperity), reflecting the T’boli's reverence and connection to nature and spirits. For example, the star symbol represents the connection between heaven and earth, while the crescent moon symbolizes the cycle of life and fertility.
Guided by the goddess Fu Dalu, the dreamweavers are bestowed the designs through their dreams. Men’s role in the creation of a T’nalak is also crucial. They are the ones responsible for planting, stripping abaca fibers, and assisting in various aspects of the weaving process alongside women. A T’nalak cloth can take up to a month of uninterrupted work. Yet its value far exceeds its time. It is used in ritual offerings, exchanged in barter, and worn during sacred celebrations. It is not just fabric—it is inheritance, ceremony, story.
WHY THIS FASCINATION WITH T’NALAK?
I see so many parallels with the metaphor of weaving and our lives.
Let’s imagine our lives as a weaving.
The warp threads are our cognitive strengths—steady, underlying patterns of our brain and body. These are the quiet ways our nervous system takes in the world, processes information, notices patterns, and tunes into rhythm. They are not always visible to others, but they are foundational. Our sensitivities, focused attention, and ways of perceiving, behaving, and communicating—these are the bones of our tapestry.
The weft threads are our character strengths—the choices and values we bring into our days. They are interwoven as we go about our day-to-day lives. For example the compassion we share in conversations, the courage in making decisions, and the creativity in how we approach challenges. These threads form the rhythm and direction of our days. We choose them, again and again, as acts of remembering who we are and as a compass on who we aspire to be.
But it is our cultural strengths that bring color, texture, and ancestral patterns to our fabric. These are the stories told around kitchen tables, the lullabies passed down in dialects, the rituals that mark transitions, the quiet codes of respect, resilience, and relationships. They hold the wisdom of those who came before us and the dreams of those who will come after. They are our pulse of belonging, connecting us to the past, present, and future.
RECOGNISING AND HONOURING OUR CULTURAL STRENGTHS
Here is a list of cultural strengths that I gathered (and I am sure there are more!). Read through them and ask yourself, “Which cultural strengths do I recognise in myself?”
Adaptability and Improvisation - Rooted in diasporic or oppressed contexts, many cultures embody “making do” with limited resources—a strength of creativity, flexibility, and innovation.
Agency and Autonomy - Honoring individual freedom, self-direction, and the right to choose one’s path.
Art as Expression and Healing- Music, dance, craft, weaving, or visual art as practices of cultural continuity, protest, healing, and storytelling.
Celebration and Joy in Community- Festivities, dance, and food are not peripheral, but core expressions of gratitude, resistance, and connection.
Collective Orientation - Emphasis on interconnectedness and shared identity. Achievements are shared as family, tribe, or lineage, not hoarded as individual merit.
Communal Care & Reciprocity -Emphasis on mutual aid, caregiving, and the ethics of “giving back.”
Cyclical Time Perception -Time is circular, tied to nature’s rhythms, seasons, and ceremonies.
Deep Time / Ancestral Time - Decisions are made with the past and future generations in mind. Understanding time as inherited and relational across generations. What one does now affects the well-being of many generations ahead (seven generation thinking).
Direct Expression / Radical Candor - A cultural strength of clear, assertive communication—speaking truth without evasion, often as a form of care or integrity.
Hospitality and Generosity - Welcoming others as family or kin. Often enacted through food, space, and time-sharing, a reflection of relational abundance.
Imagination and Dreaming- A cultural capacity to dream into more just, liberatory futures. Rooted in ancestral guidance, collective rituals, and visionary stories.
Intergenerational Wisdom - Learning that spans generations, often through apprenticeship, shared living, or community mentorship, rather than only through formal institutions.
Kincentric Ethics - the natural world is seen as kin. Rocks, rivers, animals, and trees are part of one’s extended family
Linguistic Worldviews -Language holds values and ways of seeing. Many cultural strengths are embedded in untranslatable words
Naming and Renaming as Power - Names carry energy, history, and identity. To name someone (or reclaim one’s name) is to affirm their place and story.
Oral Tradition & Storytelling - Valuing wisdom passed through stories, song, poetry, and spoken word. Honours experiential learning, memory, and relational understanding.
Place-Based Knowing - Knowledge is rooted in the land, ecosystems, and geography—“knowing where you are” as a form of wisdom.
Playfulness and Humor in Hardship - Humor, teasing, or playful engagement is used to diffuse tension, cope with adversity, and maintain community bonds.
Polychronic Time Orientation -Time is fluid and relational. Tasks and interactions are layered; people come first before schedules.
Relational Decision-Making - Decisions are made in consultation with others, considering communal impact, valuing consensus and harmony over individual gain.
Resilience Through Resistance - the strength cultivated through surviving colonization, diaspora, systemic exclusion. Rooted in creative adaptation and cultural preservation.
Respect for Elders & Ancestors - Deep reverence for those who came before; ancestral guidance is seen as a source of strength, responsibility, and belonging
Reverence for Nature - Seeing the natural world as kin, not as resource. Embedded in Indigenous land-based knowledge and ecological stewardship.
Ritual and Ceremony -Use of symbolic practices to mark transitions, express grief or joy, and bind communities. Creates coherence and collective meaning-making.
Silence as Communication -Silence is not emptiness—it can be a sign of reverence, reflection, disagreement, or solidarity. Often misunderstood in dominant cultures.
Spiritual Grounding - integration of spirituality or spiritual cosmology as part of everyday life—connecting to something greater, whether nature, ancestors, or the divine.
Time Integrity - Reflects respect, accountability, and presence. In communities where punctuality and time awareness are upheld, arriving on time is more than discipline—it’s a practice of honoring shared agreements, showing care for others’ energy, and embodying trustworthiness in relationship.
Volunteerism and Civic Engagement - Stepping into collective responsibility through service, advocacy, or community action.
Honouring our cultural strengths
SOME THINGS TO PONDER ON
Too often, strengths are viewed through an individualistic lens that overlooks the relational, ancestral, and spiritual roots of our essence.
But what if we widened the lens?
Cognitive strengths highlight how our brains uniquely work. Character strengths illuminate our virtues. Cultural strengths, however, remind us that our wisdom is not solely our own—it is inherited, shaped by place, people, and collective experience. To truly see a person’s brilliance, we must see all three.
This is what I mean by the living loom.
WE ARE THE LOOM.
Our bodies, our breath, our memories.
And our cultural strengths—those patterns of care, generosity, reverence, and rhythm—are the dreams we carry. Your songs, symbols, ancestral stories, and relational values carry important histories. They are not lost. They are not broken. They are waiting to be honoured.
What are the patterns you carry?
What textures show up in your daily rituals?
What motifs are waiting to be reclaimed?
And can you name them, not just as traits or preferences, but as inheritance?
PRACTICE THIS: Mapping Your Strengths
Intention: To help individuals reflect and reconnect to their strengths
Materials: Large paper or template with three intersecting circles (Venn-style), colored markers, and reflection prompts.
Step 1: Label Your Circles
Circle 1: Cognitive Strengths (e.g., hyperfocus, divergent thinking, emotional sensitivity, pattern recognition)
Circle 2: Character Strengths (e.g., gratitude, honesty, courage, forgiveness)
Circle 3: Cultural Strengths (e.g., reverence for elders, time as cyclical, relational decision-making)
Step 2: Map Your Strengths
Write or draw examples of your strengths in each circle.
In the overlapping sections, write strengths that intersect (e.g., “my persistence is rooted in my ancestors’ survival”).
Step 3: Reflection Questions
What cultural practices or beliefs have shaped how I view time, success, or rest?
Which of my character strengths are deeply rooted in family or cultural teachings?
What changes when I stop seeing strengths as individual traits and start seeing them as collective inheritance?
IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:
You, dear weaver, are not just making a tapestry. You are the loom. You hold the tension. You balance the threads. You carry the wisdom.
In every moment, you are weaving wholeness.
And every tapestry—bold or subtle, messy or precise—is worthy.
Dear readers,
How was this for you to receive? Let me know in the comments or send me a private message. I am curious, how is this piece landing for you?
A small request and a nudge, if this piece gave you something to think about, please do share it with a loved one. Engage in conversations with them around their cultural strengths and see where the conversation flows from there!
In kapwa,
Lana
Thanks Lana. The Dream Weaving process is beautifully described and really felt like it honours the culture that birthed it.
I also love your list of Cultural Strengths. It made me curious about how you arrived at them - where did they come from, did you have a process for discerning them?