Drinking from the Same Dark: Remembering the Deep Well

During the driest months of the year, we gathered for longer hours in the sole deep well in our neighborhood. My body still dwells on the closeness of damp backs, wet hair, detergent bar shampooed feet, air mouthed with bubbles, and sitio stories between generations. We waited with our hearts, recognizing each other’s real thirst. No one hoarded.

Everything is Golden (2018) by Marrz Capanang

My weight waited on the surface of an upcycled galonan. Obviously, a time feeler, I sat listening to the ambient sounds: the rope and bucket moving up and down, the plastic pails hitting each other, and the voices from many throats. I also reveled in listening to the splash of water.

Water did feel abundant because it was free, and more importantly, it was shared.

This well was my first lesson in a power that does not trickle down from glass towers but bubbles up from the parched earth. The "well-logic" of my childhood remains my most radical compass, particularly in a landscape like the Philippines, where the divide between the gated and the dispossessed stands as one of the widest in Asia. It taught me that true power is found in the capacity for reciprocity. While the modern economy measures success by the height of one’s walls and the exclusivity of one’s faucets, I have seen a more resilient abundance in the sitio. This communal dignity flourishes when we acknowledge that my neighbor’s thirst is as real as my own.

I’ve tried to carry the ethics of those long days into my work with Kikik Kollektive, but the current art world often operates on a much colder frequency. When our small team of four was selected for one of the biggest art events (opportunities) of our lives, we hoped for a moment of collective pride. Instead, someone we knew, an older, established figure, tried to dismantle the opportunity behind our backs. Luckily, we were made aware by someone who cared. Without knowing that we “know,” she pretended to want to connect with us. Of course, we declined.

It wasn’t the first time we’d seen this kind of insecurity masked as authority. Years ago, a famous artist I deeply respected spent his energy attacking us on social media with all caps comments – accusing us (without ever meeting us in person) that we, Ilonggo artists, allowed ourselves to be used by a paint company. When we initiated a genuine dialogue, he vanished into evasion. Out of humor, I told my teammates, "Perhaps, we start using tapulanga sap to paint murals, haha."

It is a strange irony: those who have reached the highest levels of achievement are often the ones most terrified of making space for anyone else. In societies like the Philippines, defined by massive economic gaps, hoarding power goes beyond money; it is a fundamental refusal to recognize the dignity of those standing beside you.

These encounters with ego left me wondering why the summit of one's career often looks so much like a desert. If achievement requires us to gatekeep the "light" and occupy the center of the stage alone, then perhaps that light is a form of isolation. I find myself returning instead to my own journey: Drinking from the same dark.

In the deep well of my childhood, there was no hierarchy of visibility; there was only the shared, cool darkness that we all leaned into. To drink from this dark is to move toward a quieter, more grounded presence. It is a shift in how we belong, an entangled community where our survival is woven into the land and each other. This is where a different kind of agency begins, one that finds its resonance in the rhythm of staying present. The wounding caused by those at the "top" is a symptom of their own disconnection; they are afraid of the dark because they have forgotten how to share it.

But for us, the dark isn't a void; it is the site of our deepest belonging.

In the glare of the spotlight, we are often forced to perform a version of ourselves that is separate, sanitized, and easy to consume. But in the cool, unlit spaces, at the well or within the collective, the ego loses its grip, and the boundaries between us begin to soften. Here, we don't have to be "seen" to be real; we are real because we are entangled. While the gatekeepers of the art world fear the dark as a place of invisibility or failure, we recognize it as the place where the stories are kept, where the water is found, and where we finally stop competing for a limited light to bask in a shared, limitless resonance.

It has been so dry and hot these days. Sometimes, to honor the deep well of my childhood, I remove my footwear, pour some water over my feet, and close my eyes.

The fathers are topless, all bubbled up with detergent soap. A grandmother rinses her apo’s newborn clothes. Children move through the water without shame. Moss keeps everything cool. We do not ask who deserves more. We lower the bucket, wait for our turn, and listen for the sound of water returning.