Pagbubuo sa 2025 at Paghahain sa 2026

Hello there.

It’s been a slow start to the year, and I’m easing into it with my regular fare of existential questions, and perhaps I’ll get to that in another post. For now, I really just wanted to pause and look back at the past year in a way that I haven’t yet. And share more about what I have (or don’t have) for the year ahead. 😄

At the start of 2025, I had set whole-making / integration or pagbubuo as an intention for the year — showing up for all of me and what I could be when leaning into all the different parts of me.

And though I’ve had this Substack since 2021, and the @pagbubuo handle on Instagram since 2022, it wasn’t until the end of 2025 that it felt like I’d had my first real taste of my “pagbubuo” since I started these (even though I’m also certain I’d had a similar feeling of integration maybe 8 years before).

It felt like I was everything, everywhere, all at once.

I honed and shared my facilitation practice in different venues and formats. I collided different friendship multiverses. I deepened my relationship with food together with farmers, activists, chefs and creatives — as an eater, researcher, storyteller and advocate.

2025 found me sharing my Pagbubuo facilitation practice more publicly — integrating expressive arts in my favorite gatherings this year: my Likha Ginhawa Poetree Walk; my capstone presentation with TAHI; Creating Brave Spaces at Mess Studio; the Ecosystem Leadership Program with Presencing Institute; Mindful looking and making with Curare Art Space; my Daluyan circle for space-holders; the International Design Conference on designing for collective flourishing with DTI-Design Center of the Philippines; Ugnayan at Likhaan at Likha Library with Karina Abola; Luto Likha Linang for Hapag Ugnayan Potlucks; a team development workshop for CDAP.

I could name a favorite gathering or two, but I also recognize that each of these moments played a role in contributing to the whole of my current practice. I’m grateful for it all. ☺️

Sharing here some of my notes and reflections on facilitation from the past year:

I’m not what I’d consider a “foodie”. (But at least I have a claim to fame among friends as a salad queen / salad sensation. 😆)

There’s much I don’t know about the food industry. There are many Michelin star restaurants I haven’t eaten at. The truth is, I generally don’t like eating out. I like eating at home. But also, I wouldn’t say that I know a lot of recipes. I don’t know a lot of fancy cooking techniques or cookware brands. I don’t like it when cooking is too complicated. I don’t like measuring. I measure mostly so I can tell someone else roughly how to make a thing I made / am making. There’s much I’ve yet to learn about our heritage or heirloom ingredient varieties, their historical origins and ways of preparing. I don’t identify strictly with any particular diet — vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, keto, paleo, etc. I don’t know enough about my “macros”.

Maybe I downplay what I do know, but that’s also because I know I have much, much more to learn.

In spite of all that, I do know this: food is essential in my life — as a source of nourishment, joy, memory and connection — not unlike you, I imagine.

Apart from that, I also see my food choices as an expression of solidarity and a vote for a future that is regenerative, healthy and just — even when I don’t always make the choices that move us towards that future.

My learning journey started in the early 2010’s after learning about some of the benefits of a more plant-forward diet on the planet — channeling some of that energy to conversations we would carry out with the Muni community in the years that followed. In 2016, I became more conscious about health impacts of food when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, but also, maybe still not as much as I could have been. I’ve had an imperfect practice with how I source, prepare and consume food, but I continue trying to make better choices when I can.

At the tail end of 2023, I reconnected with Char Tan and Mabi David of Good Food Community. My time abroad in 2018-2019, followed by COVID in 2020 diminished my sense of community and conscious living, even when I tried to keep it alive. I’m glad I reconnected with Char and Mabi, and they’re who I really have to thank for my reconnection with community and the food space in the past two years.

In 2024, we had our Food Today, Food Tomorrow visits, our visits to farmers and peasant organizers turned political prisoners at the Correctional Institute for Women (thanks to Gen Inumerable), conversations and workshops at Good Food Sundays and elsewhere, and Mabi and I hosted a little meal prep sesh at home with some badass bitches using Good Food produce. These have all been really meaningful, humbling and expansive experiences.

2025 was a progression and branching out from the year before, through @hapagugnayan — where I shared thought snacks on food, farming and connection. Our 2025 activities were supported by the Connection Through Culture grant from the British Council.

Because of this grant, Mabi and I were able to connect virtually with Max and Sally of The Bare Project — like-hearted creatives in the UK, who shared in our curiosity and solidarity with women farmers. It enabled Mabi and I (along with other women creatives) to visit Nay Virgie and the KCFA and MASIPAG community in General Nakar, Quezon, and Nay Miriam and the women farmers of KASAMA-LR in Lupang Ramos in Dasmariñas, Cavite, to learn more about their lives and their experiences as women farmers.

We culminated it all with Luto Likha Linang: A potluck of food and creativity with 6 women farmers from Quezon and Cavite, and ~40 women creatives mainly from Manila — which was such a soul-filling and generative gathering; “one for the books,” as one guest described.

Apart from Hapag Ugnayan, my 2025 food-related highlights also included Gulay Pa More Sagada (I sadly missed Gulay Pa More: Hapag at Himagsik because I was down with some kind of flu at the time, but it looked like an amazing lineup!) and watching Bloom Where You Are Planted, both of which added to the desire for food justice that had already been germinating in me thanks to Mabi and Good Food Community.

I really felt like Gulay Pa More really highlighted the farmers and the ingredients, and that the activities encouraged us to connect with food together, in a way that felt very organic and grounded. I look forward to the other Gulay Pa More iterations to come in 2026. 😄

Finally, I also ended the year with Terra Madre Asia Pacific in Bacolod, which felt like both a reunion and an introduction — to friends old and new; to chefs, creatives, entrepreneurs, farmers and advocates; to Filipinos from all over the country, the world and other international guests. It was an amazing feat to put together, and it was such a great learning and connecting event in so many ways. In some ways, it was something past me would have probably aspired Muni to become like.

While it touched on some farmers’ issues, rights and advocacy, I also hope it could be more of a platform for that in its future iteration in 2027, lest it be perceived as elitist. Nevertheless, seeing the interest and support it garnered makes me hopeful that there are more and more people with whom we can grow in meaningful solidarity towards truly good, clean and fair food.

* See photos from these events in this Instagram post.

My learning process in my food advocacy has been gradual, and the changes in my lifestyle have not been too exacting. I’ve had an imperfect diet (it’s not as mindful for the body and the planet as often as I’d like or as some may think), but perfection has never been the goal.

If I waited until I could do everything perfectly, I would never try.

Similarly, my facilitation practice is also something dynamic, evolving, and constantly humbling, because there’s always something for me to learn about the practice of holding space and the people that I get to hold space for and with.

My goal is to continue learning — increasing my body of knowledge and lived experiences, expanding my perspectives, connecting with unexpected others, and trying to be better everyday without beating myself up when I’m not as good, clean or fair as I aspire to be.

Continuing from the progression of my 2025 pagbubuo, I prepare for offering — or paghahain in Tagalog — in 2026.

So much of the past two years, and pockets of my “past life”, and our day-to-day living is dependent on food. And I really want to treat everything I do with food this year as an offering.

What do I mean by this?

Paghain ng pagkain, ideya, oras, pansin, at buong sarili.

More mindfully creating meals at home.
Hosting potlucks of food and creativity.
Bringing back a tradition of hosting friendship mashups at home.
Connecting people through food.
Connecting people to food.
Creating content or art inspired by food.
Learning more about Filipino food and uncommon ingredients.
Deepening my solidarity with those working towards regenerative and just food futures.
Writing a food journal and logging my meals — for health, reflection and insight.

Basically making food – learning about food or creating inspired by food – a part of my daily devotion (as a non-religious girlie).

I forget where I first heard this thought. It may have been on some podcast where James Clear guested, or perhaps with Adam Kahane, but when I try to look up the quote, Pavarotti comes up. LOL 😆 2

So anyway, here’s the Pavarotti quote:

“People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.”

That tracks.

Devotion. Hain. A giving of one’s self to something or someone.

Discipline involves the consistency of a routine, and setting yourself and your environment up to help enforce that discipline. It is a commitment to showing up.

Devotion, while seemingly like discipline, feels (to me) more like a gifting or offering of one’s time, energy and talent towards a particular object of devotion. Yes, it is a commitment to something that is one sees as core to one’s identity or role – a devotion to family, to one’s country, or to one’s church / religion (if you’re the type) – and so to align ourselves to devotion is to align ourselves closer to our felt identity, or the identity we aspire for, in service to others.

James Clear talks about the strength of identity-based habits to help sustain our motivation to continue a particular habit.3 And I see the link between devotion and identity.

When we see ourselves as something, we are more devoted to the practice and continuing nourishment of that identity — good or bad.

If I see myself as a facilitator, then I be facilitatin’ — I will find opportunities to practice that, I’ll sign up for workshops that help me develop that skill, I’ll read books, listen to podcasts, I’ll create events that allow me to practice, and I’ll constantly call myself that — to myself and other people.

If I don’t really see myself as an artist, I probably won’t have the same devotion to continue practicing, learning, and developing my craft in the different ways possible. I’ll shy away from opportunities; not declare my intent.

And so this year, while I acknowledge that we contain multitudes (and can be everything, everywhere, all at once), if there is one identity I want to lean into more this year, it’s that I want to be the person who connects people with / through / to food.

I’m still finalizing some things I’ll be running very soon, but I can say this much — I’ve got the following things pinned down:

• February 22 (Sunday) 2-5PM - @hapagugnayan Latag sa UP Diliman, Quezon City

• March 14 (Saturday) 2-5PM - @hapagugnayan Burda/Tela Tambay sa Mess Studio, Atrium Makati

These will be snack-sized sequels to the Luto Likha Linang gathering we held last October 2025. We’ll have conversations over food (or about food) while making things related to food. More info in the coming weeks, and will post them on IG!

I’ll also be sharing a resource for reflecting on your year ahead, which has helped me begin to figure out and break down what I want to do this year, and essentially, how I want to spend my days. More on that in my next post, and you can expect to read more writing from me again this year. 😉

That’s all for now!

Cooking up some ideas,
Jen Horn | @pagbubuo

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