The spiritual authorities from the
Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa tribes came to upstate New York from
Columbia, South America because they had to.
The leaders, called Mamas, are chosen before they
are born and raised in the dark for the first nine years, to communicate with "ALUNA", the thought process that
shapes and maintains reality, the source of life and intelligence. They say that without thought, nothing
exists. We are destroying the
earth by what we think and what we have created as a result. The Mamas believe it is their mission
to care for the earth, which has become impossible due to our amputating,
eviscerating and plundering her resources. They see the profound disaster we
are unknowingly creating.
These tribes are the only surviving
civilization from the world of the Inca and Aztec, untouched by Spanish
conquest. The mountain they
inhabit, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which
they call "the heart of the world" is an isolated triangular pyramid rising
over 18,000 feet from the sea, more than three miles high, the highest coastal
mountain on earth. It is on a separate tectonic plate from the Andes, and its
unique structure means that it is virtually a miniature version of the planet,
with all the world's climates represented. The mountain is quite literally a
micro-cosmos, a mirror of the planet on which every ecological zone is
represented and in which most of the plants and animals of the planet find
home.*
When the snows stopped and the river
reflected this, the Kogi knew that their mountain was "ill." They became
profoundly frightened by what we are doing to the world, with no understanding
of the forces which we are unleashing. So in 1990, the Kogi
decided that they, the Elder Brother, needed to talk to us, Younger Brother.
They invited the BBC to film on their mountain: "From the Heart of the World, The Elder Brother Warning." Despite
the film being shown repeatedly in the '90s around the world, the message was
not heeded.
In the beginning of May, 2011, the Mamas left
their mountain to meet with the elders of the North American indigenous tribes
in upstate New York at the Menla Mountain Retreat. This 320 acre private nature preserve cradled in a valley in
the Catskills, under the stewardship of Tibet House and Robert Thurman, friend
of the Dalai Lama and first American ordained Tibetan monk, is propitious for
the gathering. To recover the earth, the Mamas of the tribes of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta, whose mission it is to activate sacred sites, has called
this meeting to empower indigenous peoples to do likewise.
Day one begins with opening ceremonies around a
fire on a big lawn, where each North American tribal elder presents gifts and
himself to the Mamas, while 100 or so of us others, mostly white people, form a
large circle around them, standing, observing for hours. One of the elders
criticizes the Kogi for their behavior of spitting into the circle. Ashamed by
the disrespect our elders give them, I realize how culture can be so provincial
and ignorant.
The four Mamas, young to old, beautiful to oddly
shaped in face, all thin and rather small, dressed in simple white shirts and
short legged pants, without ornamentation, listen to their translator, seeming
very humble. The only oddity is
that they keep putting a stick in their mouth and holding a pear shaped gourd
that the Mamas twist their sticks in. It reminds me of lemon sticks. As a kid, we would suck on candy lemon
sticks (like candy canes without the hook) with porous centers stuck into
lemons. What are the Mamas
sucking?
Later I learn that all adult Kogi men chew coca
leaves, which they have planted, the women have gathered and the men have
ritually toasted in a temple for chewing. Making the lime gourd is an elaborate
undertaking and the botanical nature of the stick has significance. While
slowly chewing some twenty or thirty toasted leaves, the man will wet the lower
and slightly pointed end of the stick with saliva and insert it into the gourd.
Withdrawing the stick, he will put the adhering lime into his mouth. Lime is a substance that helps the
mucous membranes in the mouth absorb the alkaloids in the leaves of the chewed
coca.
This constant process of chewing, stirring and licking allows for
communication with spiritual forces of nature, summoning their aid, listening
to Aluna, the Mother. (I am told that Kogi listen to the Mother by a process of
divination, which keeps them in balance and their world in order. Having
written two published divination kits, I am truly curious.) So while the North American elders
offer stories, feathers, stones, rocks, banners, the Mamas chew and suck and
listen to Divine guidance. They
carry and use their gourds wherever they are.
During the meeting, which occurs over the next two
days inside a building where the sun and the new buds of an awakening May lay
outside our purview, we, the Younger
Brother, sit on the perimeter in observation, frustrated, with our own
questions about 2012 and spiritual activation, while the North American tribal
elders continue telling endless stories of past tragedies, plummeting their ego
feathers in verbose etiquette, following their protocol. Compassionate, we wait to listen to
the Kogi, who wait to speak, who suck their cocoa sticks. I wonder what they
hear? The weekend is over and the set program has not begun.
Following, privately, I apologize on behalf of a
continent for the rampant ego of our people, and mention to the translator that
there were many pressing questions from the white folks on the outer
circle. He says the Mamas are happy. The tribal leaders are being
empowered to do what they know and what is needed. As for the Younger Brother,
it is our job to clean up the mess we made.
The Shoshone Elder, the only one who mentions the
polar shift, tells me that he and the other elders had prayed at Yellowstone
when the scientists said an earthquake was imminent. The Elders together
activated a release that prevented the quake. It was one of several
examples where the scientists believed it was coincidence, yet the Elders knew
that praying to their ancestors and to Mother Earth's sacred sites would make a
difference. I think of the Sundance and the Rain dance and the many ways in
which native peoples knew, and in many cases still know, how to talk to and
activate nature. Satisfied that the Mamas are accomplishing their mission, I
leave to return to my life in the concrete city that chokes the earth.
Here, detached from sun,
moon, stars, oceans, trees, birds, stuck in my head, off balance by all the
information ingested about polar shifts and the subsequent blanking out and the
predicted reset button of amnesia, fear in the pit of my gut, the idea that I
might not make the vibrational leap, might be in the wrong place at the wrong
time, spins me in despair and confusion about the path I am on, or perhaps more
to the point, the intersection I find myself in, once again, as I have been
here before, on this traffic island with dying grass and no beauty, impossible
to cross safely over, past all the whizzing whirl of mental traffic to get
anywhere. Emanating from my
confusion are the many roads, no, highways leading to the many places calling
me, from shouting demands, seductive suggestions, reasonable transactions,
agreed upon responsibilities. I, like Rodin's sculpture The Thinker, am
paralyzed, except for a washing machine like twirl of thoughts, obsessions,
questions, old paradigm garbage. I
could unquestionably die here.
(Ironically, according to Drunvalo Melchizedek the
Kogi don't think we are asleep like the Hindus and Buddhists do when they speak
of lack of conscious awareness; rather the Kogi think most of us are dead,
without the necessary life force.)
There was a time in an altered reality when I
begged the Divine to help me become conscious. The Archangel Michael who holds
a shield of light and wields a sword of fire pierced my heart with that sword,
instantaneously clearing my head, opening my eyes to the real and burning out
disease for my higher consciousness to prevail. I dive back into my heart now
to recall that memory, as this is the reality I need. And there I radiate.
The fire of the earth coming through my perineum to the heart, clearing my
throat, head, rising into my crown and on the exhale bringing me back to the
heart, by-passing the theft of the mind. I land in my body. As I breathe and
feel the light of protection creating an egg in which I reside, it comes to me,
that the way to begin is to claim my body as a sacred site. My yoni is as
sacred a site as my heart and in that yoni, if I were to consecrate and awaken
it, the wisdom of how to transcend my weight on this rock in the middle of this
dead grass circle of confusion, would not only be apparent, but the transport
would be easy….. if only I were to fasten my seat belt of trust, balance in the
center point of my sacred site in the heart, listen and follow the Divine
guidance without doubt and questioning.
* from the wesbite
www.alunathemovie.com
Image by tribalinknews, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
