Story and photos by Tracy L. Barnett

REAL DE CATORCE, Mexico – They came by the hundreds from the Western Sierra Madre, native Wixarika or Huichol people on a spiritual quest, seeking to consult with the spirits of their ancestors and of the land where their world began. They came in their ceremonial dress, colorfully embroidered with their sacred symbols of the deer, the eagle and the peyote. They came with offerings they had fashioned from beads and gourds and candle wax, offerings they had made precious with their love and their prayers, as their forebears had done for centuries.

This year, however, would be vastly different from years past. This year, the sacred lands of Wirikuta lay under the shadow of an uncertain future. Vast swaths of the protected, UNESCO-recognized reserve had been concessioned to Canadian mining companies, and hundreds of hectares had been bulldozed by agroindustrial companies. This year they were responding to a call that ran through all their communities, spread out through the Sierra Madre over four states: The candles of life were dying, and they would come together there to pray for their renewal.

What was different about this ceremony – besides the context of the proposed mines – was that they would converge at the Cerro Quemado, the mountain said to be the birthplace of the sun, and perform the ceremony together, instead of coming in small groups throughout the year. Normally, each of their ceremonial centers would send its own mara’kame or shaman and delegates separately, performing a series of intimate rituals in sacred sites all along the way, each group in its own traditional way. The other difference is that we would – perhaps – be allowed to attend.

The Huichols are one of the best-preserved cultural groups remaining in the Americas, in part because their intricate and carefully guarded rituals, designed centuries ago in order to maintain a living and reciprocal relationship with nature, are only rarely opened to outsiders – or even to Huichols from other communities.

That is how it came to be that the night of Feb. 6, the Cerro Quemado came alive with the songs of more than 800 Wixarita maraka’ate or shamans and their followers, connecting with the essences of life found here and praying to their deities in an unprecedented peritaje espiritual or spiritual consultation for guidance. And that is why, for the first time, dozens of teiwaris or non-Huichol dignitaries, activists and members of the media were sent special invitations to attend the event.

The idea was that we would wait at the foot of the mountain and be accompanied by a Huichol shaman in a special ceremony throughout the night as the elders on the peak communicated with their ancestors, their deities and the “essences of life” and awaited a response to their question: What should we do about the threats to Wirikuta?

It might happen that we would be invited up to the peak during the night to join the ceremony. Or it might happen that we would wait until the sunrise, when the maraka’ate (maraka’ames) would come down to share with us the message they had received.

It was nearly sundown when I started up the mountain on horseback, along with Wirikuta Defense Front leader Carlos Chavez and his family. All along the way we passed small groups of Huichol pilgrims, making the two-mile hike up into the mountains on foot, laden with food and other supplies for the night ahead. We arrived at the casita, a round stone house at the base of the Cerro Quemado, just as the sun was going down. A phalanx of videographers lined the top of the first peak, shooting the pilgrims and visitors as they made their way up, and people were building fires, setting up tents and settling in for the night.

I waited anxiously with other journalists and invited guests, shivering in the below-freezing temperatures, to see whether we would actually be allowed to attend the ceremony. The other concern was whether the predicted rain would come during the night, something we teiwaris weren’t sure we could endure.

For the moment, we watched as the fog arose over the desert below, creating a sea of white that extended for miles across the valley, and made conversation. The word came down to us that the elders were facing a tremendous task in coordinating their ceremony with each other and that they would need space and time to connect with their deities. We were being asked to stay below.

Disappointment ran through the crowd like a current, but the night was long, and many surprises awaited.

At about 10 pm the message came down that the media and invited guests would be allowed to come up for a limited time, but that we were to stay silent and not take any photographs. We lined up in single file and made our way up the mountain one-by-one in silence.

I emerged at the top to see the ridgetop sparkling with campfires all along its spine. A brilliant full moon shone over the sea of clouds below. At the center, in the concentric circle of stones called Tatewari-ta, the place of Grandfather Fire, about a dozen maraka’ate milled about. Most wore their broad-brimmed hats covered in eagle feathers, antenna that capture and amplify the messages sent from their deities. Others were wrapped in blankets to shield them from the bitter cold. All wore their thin cotton ceremonial clothing, slim protection from the rising winds. Many had been walking in pilgrimage for days, going without sleep and very little food, and had been caught in an icy downpour in the late afternoon – a much-needed rainstorm in this drought-afflicted desert that many here believe that their ceremonies had invoked.

I huddled with anthropologists Paul Liffman and Johannes Neurath, shivering in our multiple layers of sweaters, coats, gloves and socks, and marveling at the energy and the nonchalance of the lightly clad Huichols. Soon the maraka’ate assembled and the plaintive wail of the Wixarika fiddles began to ring out in the darkness. The chants of the maraka’te rose on the wind; the ceremony had begun.

All throughout the long night these priests of ecology, as Liffman called them, sang their entreaties to the spirits that inhabit this place, an improvisation of melodies from different villages and different eras in time. They conducted their ancestral dialog with Grandfather Fire, an intermediary between the maraka’te and their deities. The sacramental peyote they had hunted in the desert the day before was working its magic. The hours passed in a blur and I huddled exhausted near a fire on the ridge, dozing for a few moments before I felt a shift in the wind. I sensed something was happening and returned to the fire to find a change in the energy.

The mara’akate had risen to their feet and began to dance, a rhythmic and upbeat shuffle of the feet, a forward-and-back movement that warmed the body and the soul. Soon the whole crowd was moving in unison, Huichols at the center, visitors on the edge. The cold began to dissipate and the joyful rhythm beat back the fatigue.

Surprised at the upbeat mood given the gravity of the situation, I commented on the apparent levity to Johannes Neurath. “Of course,” responded Neurath, who has observed numerous such ceremonies over the years. “If you want the gods to come to your ceremony, you have to make it interesting. They’re not going to come to a boring ceremony.”

At the appointed time, a calf that had been waiting on the sidelines was brought to the center and the maraka’ate prayed over him, asking him to surrender his spirit for the wellbeing of humankind. The sacrifice was quick and as gentle as a sacrifice can be. The poor beast bleated softly once, twice, and kicked its small legs a couple of times before giving up the ghost. Soon its blood was being offered along with heartfelt prayers to the five directions.

More dancing, more singing. A sense of timelessness enveloped us. I went up the ridge to the fire being tended by a group of visitors from the Native American Church and a Mexican counterpart called the Nierika Center. Sandor Iron Rope, vice president of the Native American Church and a Lakota from South Dakota who said he had come to pray with his Wixarika brothers, looked out over the sea of clouds and the yucca trees that stood out like surreal feathered sentinels on the horizon.

“They look like the Wixarika people with their feathered hats,” he observed. “They are guardians of this place.” I suddenly realized it was true; I had had the sensation of being surrounded by gentle spirits, and now I understood the reason why.

“I wonder how the deities are feeling about all of this,” I mused, looking around at the varied collection of humanity strewn over the mountaintop, observing the intensely private ritual of a reclusive people communicating with their gods.

“Oh, I think they’re very happy,” said Armando Loizaga, founder of the Nierika Center, a center for the study of sacred plants near Mexico City who has worked with the Huichols and other indigenous groups for many years.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, there was the gentleness of the sacrifice – that was a good sign. For another, we’ve been blessed with a clear night full of stars. And for another, here we all are. We were allowed to be here, and that’s a tremendous gift.”

By now the ridge was strewn with the bodies of the unconscious, Wixarika and teiwari alike, who had succumbed to the temptation of sleep. But hundreds continued to dance to the mesmerizing chants of the maraka’ate, and the moon continued its slow descent.

Finally the sun began to brighten the eastern sky, and we were given permission to photograph a few moments of the ceremony. A frenzy of photographers converged on the ring of stones and clicked madly until an irate maraka’ame shooed us away and ordered the cameras to cease. Eventually a procession began to make its way up the south ridge to a small house and an offering on the summit, where they centered their prayers once again and made their offerings.

It was mid-morning before the mara’akate and traditional leaders of the communities met in the center to discuss, in their native Wixarika tongue, the meaning of the message they had been given. And it was nearly noon before they assembled there on the circle of Tateiwari-Ta to share their vision with the world.

“They are sad, and they ask, with tears, weeping and pain, that it not be done, that they not tear out the heart, that they not take out the blood of this sacred mountain,” said Maximino Muñoz, Wixarika leader from Paso de Alicia, Nayarit.

He was translating the words of Mara’kame Eusebio de la Cruz of Santa Catarina, Jalisco, who delivered the message from the deities in his native tongue.

Perhaps more importantly, he said, the gods had entreated them at every ceremony along the way on their pilgrimage, and the same message kept coming back to them. “They asked that all the Wixarika people be united to defend this place, And they asked that all humban beings, even the person who invades or destroys this sacred place, be united with us.”

It was a strong message for a people that has been bitterly divided for more than two decades, with territorial and other disputes breeding rancor between the communities. It was also an indication, along with the decision to permit us to join them on the night of this ritual, of a new openness on the part of the Wixarika people to the outside world.

The ceremony was a trial by fire for the Wixarika leaders as well as for the Wirikuta Defense Front, the network of groups that are supporting them, said Eduardo Guzman, a judge in the desert community of Margaritas and a leader in the movement.

“Finally the word came with the coming of the dawn: They had passed the test and ended with a great unity, a great coinciding of ideas,” he said. “It gives us hope that together we can form a much stronger force to impede the destructive and damaging projects that threaten Wirikuta. I leave with a great happiness and a great sense of hope that it’s something that can be done.”

Paul Liffman stopped by to share his impressions on his way out of town. For him, the event has a broader significance, not just for the people of rural Mexico, but for the world.

“The Huichols are positioned as priests of the rain who benefit the entire world – and that’s why the mine represents such a great threat, because they are trying to be a type of ecological priesthood and everything is at stake. The fact is that we live in an epoch of planetary desiccation due to climate change, and the respect for water that is completely implicit in this ritualization of the acquisition of water of a mountain teaches us to have a relationship of respect and honor of the natural elements, which they treat as divinities. The springs are the earthly corporalization of the ancestors.

Everyone here, including those who are in favor of the mines, believes that the Huicholes bring the rain. And now it hasn’t rained in 14 months and suddenly it rains with the arrival of an unprecedented bunch of leaders of the ceremonial centers. They’ve always made the argument they are an essential link for the ecological reproduction not only of the region, but for the world.”

The sun shone on his departure and that of the hundreds of pilgrims and their guests. As I write this piece, the night has fallen on Real de Catorce and the town is silent once again – except for the gentle patter of a steady rain.

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This story is the second in a series about the historic pilgrimage of the Wixarika people to their sacred site of Wirikuta. Read the first part here. A report on tonight’s ceremony, a consultation with the Wixarika ancestral spirits about the crisis facing the birthplace of the sun, will follow.

REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosí, Mexico – Some 800 Wixarika people – 18 busloads – are gathering in the desert below are expected to descend on this tiny town within an hour and will begin the trek up the sacred mountain of Cerro Quemado, the place where they believe the sun was born. Thunder is sounding in the distance, a little intimidating for a group of open-air campers given the polar front that is expected to descend tonight. Nonetheless, the local people are greeting the rains with joy, since the last hard rain was more than a year ago – and then it was the disastrous flooding of Hurricane Alex. This time, they hope for a ground-drenching, drought-quenching downpour. And everyone around here knows the Huichols bring the rain.

Meanwhile a star-studded lineup of high-power celebrities, academics, documentarians and media notables have been arriving in this rugged colonial mountain town since yesterday. Today, Mexican actress Ofelia Medina added her name to the list of registrants, along with writer Elena Poniatowska, Ruben Albarran of Cafe Tacuba, the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and Sandor Iron Rope, vice president of the Native American Church.

Hector Guerra of Pachamama Crew, Moyenei and Roco of Sonidero Mestizo and Lengua Alerta were among the lineup supporting Wirikuta in Real de Catorce.

And last night, a lineup of popular artists from Mexico City, part of a team that has been supporting the defense of Wirikuta with periodic concerts and events, culminated a high-voltage performance in the historic restored Paz y Amor bar and restaurant with a rousing cry that was part chant, part prayer. ““Wirikuta no se vende, se ama y se defende! (Wirikuta is not to sell, it is to love and protect!”) Pachamama warriors, amor para mi gente (love for my people!)

Café Tacuba’s Ruben Albarran poses with a group of caballerangos, horsemen who make their living taking tourists up into the mountains.

Ruben Albarran of Café Tacuba, one of Mexico’s most popular rock bands, went on the local community radio station to reassure residents of the town that they were not here to protest the mine or to impede development. “On the contrary, we’re here to support the community. Our idea is to raise funds to support development projects here in the region that will provide jobs for the people without harming the environment.”

Armando Loizaga of the Nierika Center and Sandor Iron Rope, vice-president of the Native American Church

Leaders of the Native American Church, the Council of Chiefs of the Sun Dance and other indigenous leaders from the United States and Canada gathered with Wixarika leaders today in preparation for tonight’s historic ceremony.

“Our brothers have asked us to join them in prayer with the sacred medicine,” said Chief Oscar Moreno, who came on behalf of Leonard Crow Dog. Lakota spiritual leader. Like the Wixarika or Huichol people, the Lakota and many other tribal peoples in the north pray with peyote, which they consider a sacrament. Wirikuta is one of the most important ceremonial centers for the collection and ceremonial use of peyote, and the Wixarika have been the historical guardians of the sacred hallucinogenic cactus, which they say puts them in contact with their ancestors and the spirits of the land. “We are indebted to them in this holy ground because they have cared for the medicine and they brought it to the North.”

Moreno was concerned to hear the news of the planned gold and silver mines in the area. “We’re very familiar with what this means, and we’re here to pray in the hope that others will understand that desecrating sacred land is not a good idea for anyone.”

Cilau Valadez, a young Huichol artist who has been traveling in Canada and the United States, building alliances with the different tribes through the Americas, said the visit of leaders like Moreno, Anishinabe leader Wab Kinew and Native American Church Vice-President Sandor Iron Rope represents a significant moment in Native American history.

“We are fulfilling the Hopi prophecy that speaks of a time when all the original peoples from the North and the South will come together,” he said. “It means that we are one people, and that we must be recognized.”

Meanwhile, rumors circulated of a pending “counterprotest” of local residents in favor of the mine as habitants of Real de Catorce watch the proceedings with a mixed feelings. “Yes to the sacred sites, yes to mining,” read one banner hung at the entrance of the town. “Huichol brothers, support us, and we will support you.” Another one read, “Mining, tourism and sacred sites go hand in hand. We support the environment; we only want social wellbeing.”

Father Ernesto Vega Torres hears from his parishioners on both sides of the fence and worries about the future of the region, regardless of what happens. “Everything is just on hold; everyone is waiting to see what will happen with the mine,” he said. “It’s a very difficult situation.”

He pointed to a severe water crisis in town today as businesses in the city center ran out of water entirely. Two pumps broke down due to a lack of water in the wells, he said. “It hasn’t rained in more than a year; we’re in the worst drought since 1917. There was no sowing because the rain never came, so there was no harvest. People’s animals are dying. It’s a crisis, so they want jobs. But here we run into a problem, because there’s simply no water – and mining requires a lot of water.”

Volunteers with horses and burros have been preparing all week for the ceremony, carrying up the mountain a historic quantity of water, along with other supplies: 600 liters, along with firewood for 17 fires, 2,500 tamales, 30 kilos of beans, 50 kilos of coal and the stoves for cooking. An estimated 800 Wixarika are expected to arrive in the mid-afternoon.

All participants are being asked to observe a strict protocol to allow the Wixarika to conduct their ceremony without outside interference. The all-night ceremony will take place at the top of the Cerro Quemado, the sacred mountain where the Huichols believe the sun was born. They will arrive this afternoon after days with no sleep and little food, following the complicated series of activities required of all who make the pilgrimage to Wirikuta. Their rituals are meant to be a re-creation of the journey their forefathers made at the beginning of the world, and in the process, they dream the rain and the coming of the sun, and they bring the light and the rain, said Johannes Neurath of the National Museum of Anthropology, one of the invited guests.

“It’s a very unique event – something that’s never happened,” said Neurath. “Obviously they are very worried about what’s happening here; normally they are very divided among themselves. It’s very rare that they organize among themselves, and even more so that they would allow us to attend.”

Patricia Diaz, director of several documentaries about the Huichols, and actress Ofelia Medina were among the invited guests to the ceremony.

Medina Ofelia, one of Mexico’s most beloved Hollywood actresses and a longtime supporter of indigenous rights, compared the situation in Wirikuta with the Zapatistas’ uprising in 1994, which she also supported. “It’s the same struggle,” she said. “It’s for the rights of the indigenous people of Mexico, who have always been marginalized.” She was looking forward to the ceremony, not her first as she has been working with the Wixarika since 1985. She wasn’t sure what to expect, however. “They have taught us not to go with expectations,” she said with a smile. “It’s better to wait and see.”

For more information about Wirikua, see www.wirikutadefensefront.org.

REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosi, Mexico – A quiet but excited buzz hums through the streets of this normally sleepy ghost town turned tourist attraction. Hotels that languished for months are filled to bursting and people are camping on every spare piece of real estate. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of hundreds of Wixarika pilgrims from their homelands in the Western Sierra Madre – a historic mass pilgrimage to connect with the spirits of their ancestors and to pray for the renovation of the fading candles of life that reside in this place, the depleting water supply and the continued equilibrium of all life on Earth.

The Wixarika, more commonly known by their Spanish name, the Huicholes, hope to gain some insights in a historic “spiritual consultation” regarding the threats to their most sacred site, Wirikuta. The Huicholes have made their millenial pilgrimages to Wirikuta since the beginning of their history, and see it as their holiest altar of prayer, the place where they come to hunt their sacramental cactus, the peyote, and the place where the sun was born; but this protected reserve is the target of Canadian mining companies and agroindustrial businesses that see it as a resource to exploit.

This UNESCO-recognized natural and cultural reserve is also home to some of the world’s richest silver veins, exploited for centuries by the Spaniards and then left to languish – until now, when new mining methods and rising silver and gold prices have made the area attractive once again to the mining industry. But besides the cultural significance of the site, the region is also one of the most biodiverse desert regions on the planet and home to a number of endemic and endangered species.

I arrived last night in this picturesque colonial mountain town in the company of Carlos Chavez, coordinator of the Wirikuta Defense Front, and got a quick debriefing from Mercedes Aquino, who is heading up the local support effort. Tensions have risen here for the past year since First Majestic Silver Corp. announced plans to open a silver mine, with those who depend on the tourism industry at odds with those who hope to make a living from the mines.

Organizers were worried yesterday about reports that pro-mining forces were gathering and possibly mounting an unfortunate response to the event, but Mercedes was breathless and glowing when we arrived; she and several others went on the air on the community radio station to head off a possible confrontation, explaining the purpose of the pilgrimage and putting people’s fears to rest. And this morning, priests all over the diocesis are urging their parishioners to exercise tolerance and support the pilgrimage in their own way tomorrow night, praying along with the Huicholes from their own homes for water and for life.

“We explained that the Huicholes are coming here to pray for life, to pray for the water, as they have for centuries. And just as they began to arrive, it began to rain. It’s like a miracle, really.”

Like all of northern Mexico, Wirikuta is suffering the worst drought in more than 70 years; the rains never came to Wirikuta this year, and the crops all failed. Many locals are hoping the proposed mines will provide much-needed employment, despite concerns that it will contaminate and deplete the scarce water reserves. So the timing of last night’s cloudburst, and the predicted rain of the next few days, is really quite remarkable.

Organizing the support for this pilgrimage has been a tall order the Wirikuta Defense has had to fill; from the moment the Huicholes made the decision to make this pilgrimage, just a few weeks ago, it has fallen to the small, unfunded and overworked defense group to try and pull together the logistics and smooth things over in the local communities. Somehow they managed to raise most of the nearly half-million pesos necessary to rent buses, buy food and firewood and pull together a thousand other details, and now about a dozen buses filled with Huicholes, in addition to countless individual bands, are making their way here from hundreds of ceremonial centers spread out over the Wixarika territories some 400 miles to the west. Their plan is to converge on the Cerro Quemado, the sacred mountain where they believe the sun was born, on the night of Feb. 6, where they will hold an all-night ceremony of prayer.

Anthropologist Paul Liffman, author of Huichol Territory and the Mexican Nation, called the pilgrimage “unprecedented in recent history – maybe unprecedented, period.” Normally the pilgrims organize their annual journeys to Wirikuta individually, and each of the more than 500 ceremonial centers sends their own group of maraka’ames (shamans) and jicareros (guardians of the sacred sites) over the course of the year. This mass pilgrimage and ceremony is a response to what they see as a mortal threat to their culture, Liffman said. It’s also a result of the logistical and financial support of the civil society and a growing awareness of the media.

Meanwhile, Chavez takes the long view. “What we’re seeing here is a concentration of the challenges that humanity is facing everywhere,” he said. “It’s going to be extremely important that a sustainable alternative livelihood is provided to the local communities,” he said. “What we’re hoping for and working towards is a big project of restoration – this is such an important area and we can make of it an example of sustainable development for the world.”

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The unseasonable warmth had us removing layers as we scrambled up to catch a glimpse of the world from on high. Another climatic oddity in a year that was full of them. Change is in the air, for those with eyes to see: We are closing the book on a year that saw vast swaths of the American Southwest go up in smoke, millions of dollars of hurricane damage in Vermont, a monster tornado that erased big chunks of Joplin, massive flooding in Australia, the Phillippines and Southeast Asia and record-breaking heat waves in Europe and much of the United States.

My mother’s garden in the Missouri countryside was cooked before it could be harvested. Where I live, in Mexico, widespread crop failure due to extended drought pushed more subsistence farmers to leave the land for the traffic-choked cities or for a desperate, life-threatening dash for El Norte, the forbidden promise of employment across the northern border. But today, on this balmy December day, global warming seems a welcome respite from the bone-chilling cold that usually accompanies us at this time of year. So I won’t complain.

Much has been written about this turning of the ages; and no place on Earth is more fascinated with the Mayan prophecies than Mexico, birthplace of the Mayan calendar that ends this year. To me, it’s impossible not to link this prophecy with the profound changes we are facing as a civilization. I’m not speaking of Armageddon – rather, a time of reckoning as we end a cycle of industrial excess. The Mayan people I have spoken with are laughing at the notion that the end of the calendar means the end of the world. It’s simply the end of a cycle, and the beginning of a new one, they reassure anyone who asks. But in more serious conversations, they shared with me their hope, as fervent as my own, that a long-awaited shift is pending, and in fact has already begun.

“After five centuries of oppression, we’re ready for a change,” Rony, a Mayan permaculturist friend from Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, told me. “It’s the only hope we have.”

We in the global North have a much different perspective than a Guatemalan farmer. But like Rony, I stand convinced that a shift in our paradigm – our way of structuring the world, and indeed, our way of thinking – is long overdue. It could well be that 2012 will be just another blip in the ongoing march of human events: Like the much-ballyhooed Y2K, which many feared would leave the world in the dark, we might wake up the morning after and laugh.

But an irrevocable shift has already begun, and the Earth is rumbling beneath our feet. Whether or not we want to see it, our climate is changing around us, and the petroleum and other carbon-based fuels we’ve based our civilization upon are rapidly disappearing. Every barrel of oil we pump costs more – and carries greater environmental costs – than the the one before. The twin crises of peak oil and climate change, together with the economic excesses of the past decade, are feeding a third, more visible one: the financial crisis that has the global economy hanging by a thread.

What better moment to reflect on the possibilities that the transition ahead might offer us. Rather than wait until crisis is staring us in the face, let’s confront it together and plan a gradual reduction in our dependence on oil. Transition Town movements and other grassroots groups around the world are not waiting for their governments to do it; they are already immersed in the work of creating and implementing energy descent plans, reconstructing webs of relationships in their communities, strengthening local economies and building resilience into their local communities. They are envisioning a future less dependent on consumerism and more dependent on each other.

Like Rony, I don’t claim to know what the end of the Mayan calendar really means. But like him, I stand in the fervent hope that the noblest instincts of the human spirit will prevail in the transition that faces us this year and in the years to come.

I close with words of wisdom from my friend Holger Hieronimi, a Mexican-German permaculture teacher and designer:

“The change is happening today, here and now. It’s like the transformation of a voracious and predatory caterpillar, into a butterfly of many colors. It’s happening on every level, throughout the entire system, within us, and beyond us as well. It means the redesign of landscapes internal and external. It means leaving the comfortable place of security, and preparing oneself for times of insecurity, uncertainty, even convulsions, and a total reorganization of the system.

It is a change of a society of industrial growth toward a new culture that sustains life.

Instead of resisting the change, we can be creative participants and protagonists in this process, supporting our families and communities in this difficult process of transformation.”

(Read the entire essay in Spanish on his website, here.)

Happy 2012. Let’s embrace the new and let go of the old with love, hope and light. Bring on the butterflies.

We are a circle
Within a circle
Without beginning or end.

By Tracy L. Barnett
The Esperanza Project

TEMICTLA, Mexico State, Mexico – It began with a rainbow and ended with a spiral that represented life itself. The eleventh Vision Council, Call of the Deer, was spun from poetry and passion, woven with sweat and fire, and colored with laughter and tears.

Dreamers and doers from every generation and every walk of life gathered under the shelter of a gigantic blue-and-white circus tent in the sacred valley of Temictla Oct. 7-13 for the sporadically recurring event, which is simultaneously an experiment in human cohabitation, a marathon dedicated to social and personal transformation, and a celebration of life.

As is often the case in the Southern latitudes, I arrived a little late but at the perfect time. I registered at the front table and entered the gathering grounds apprehensively, not knowing exactly what to expect. An ecotopian community was once again arising with before me, sheltered under the towering white cliffs on all sides that would serve as our sentinels for the week ahead. I found my tent and got situated, clambering out to close the flap in a short cloudburst, just in time to see a rainbow arching over the camp and the stark white cliffs; a cheer arose throughout the valley, and I smiled. It was a good omen – and I was home at last.

Last year I had the good fortune to attend the life-changing Vision Council gathering The Call of the Eagle, and I felt myself inspired and embraced among a long-lost family seeking to manifest a new and more sustainable, egalitarian world. The theme this year, Call of the Deer, referred to the threatened Wirikuta, one of Mexico’s most sacred sites, home of the Deer Spirit that has guided the native Wixarika people, among others, for thousands of years.

On this auspicious week of 11/11/11, there would be a “New Fire” ceremony to usher in a New Age. And in addition to its usual lineup of educational workshops and activities organized by eight different councils ranging from ecology and health to spirituality and beyond, the group sponsored two main outreach initiatives: support of the Wirikuta Defense Front, with all proceeds to support its work in protecting the site from transnational mining and agroindustrial businesses; and also for the neighboring community of Chalmita with three days of educational workshops and activities in the primary and secondary schools and in the town square.

“We’re going beyond words, to specific proposals and actions – how are we going to live this new society that is being generated?” said Veronica Sacta Campos, coordinator of the Council on Spirituality. “It’s easy to say that things don’t work or that everything is bad – but to what point are we doing something to generate change – from our own habits to the organization of society itself?”

My first night I passed with Abuela Alas de Aguila, Grandmother Eagle Wings, at 60-something still one of the most beautiful women in the Consejo.

She was the guardian of the fire in the Women’s Teepee, a space dedicated to nurturing the Divine Feminine in each of us, and her brilliant smile endured the weeklong marathon with great stamina and grace.

In the days ahead I joined the circle of traditional elders at the ceremonial fire to learn about the Aztec history of this region, where Cuauhtémoc and his warriors fought the Spanish invaders with enormous courage and passion.

I peeked into the women’s teepee to find it filled with peacefully reclining bodies, Veronica at the center, talking each of them through their own personal rebirthing journey.

I followed the path to the eco-house of Lourdes and Guy, under construction just down the road, where a demonstration of ecological building techniques was underway.

I joined a delegation of Consejo leaders in a trip to Chalmita to visit with community leaders and watched as young Krishna and Valentina rallied the shy and resistant village children and youth into a rousing and heartwarming encounter circle in a creative physical expression workshop.

“The important thing is to open the eyes and the mind to other opportunities of how to live and how to create wellbeing,” said Helen Samuels, Consejo cofounder.

Laura Kuri, founder of Mexico’s flowering bioregional movement, has worked with Beatrice Padilla, Beatrice Briggs and others to build a strategy to protect the regional ecosystem, a “Bosque de Agua” or “water forest” whose three fragile watersheds provide the water for more than 30 million people.

“In very few meters we have a great diversity of ecosystems that talk about a great richness of species of plants and animals and cultures,” she said. “In fact we’re in one of the richest regions of the planet.”

The Wirikuta Defense Front made a passionate call to the Consejo to support the efforts to save this endangered desert habitat, a space of mystical encounter with the precolonial Divine, and activities throughout the Consejo were dedicated to the preservation of Wirikuta, with a variety of activities to follow, including establishment of an ongoing permaculture project in the region.

We learned more about Natural Time, a movement led by the late Jose Arguelles, a dear friend of many Consejo members, in the context of the dawning of a New Age. His followers and many others believe this transition has already begun with the coming of 2012 and the ending of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.

“These days there’s been a lot of talk about the transition to a New Age, the coming of 2012, understanding that the Earth has its cycles and we are passing through and manifesting the prophesies of various peoples around the world,” said Veronica. “We are at the point now where we are passing through the night, and are at the point of leaving the darkness and passing into the new dawn of humanity. It’s a moment to take advantage of to return to our connection to the Earth.”

Themes of respect for indigenous cultures, the Earth and a culture of peace resonated through the valley in a megaconcert with big-name Mexican and Latin artists like Ruben Albarran from Café Tacuba together with the Andean group Hoppo; the smooth reggae tones of Lengua Alerta; the system-challenging hiphop of Pachamama Crew and the Wixarika group Venado Azul, to name just a few among the abundant lineup.

Topping off a day and night of culture was the long-awaited movie premiere of Hecho en Mexico (Made in Mexico), a brilliant and heart-filled documentary by British filmmaker Duncan Bridgeman that included interviews and cameos by Consejo members as well as scenes shot in the Consejo itself.

On the coming of the dawn of 11/11/11, I joined a quietly gathering group around the fire in a New Fire ceremony. The cliffs echoed with the haunting tones of crystal bowls, arising along with the smoke of the old fire and the pungent scent of copal from the censers. Armando invited me to play one of the bowls and my spirit rose with the harmonic hum as I joined the players at the center. A young couple joined at the center to light the new fire, symbolizing the coming of the New Age.

“This action in this place is not isolated,” said Alberto Ruz, one of the founders of the Consejo of the 11/11/11 ceremony. “It forms part of an archipelago of hundreds of points of light that on this same day at this same hour are taking place in some part of the world.”

The Consejo was filled with personal highs and lows for each of us – such as the night when Blue Thunder, a Shoshone shaman from the north, called the rain in a powerful ceremony at the nearby sacred spring, and 250 campers were inundated in a wild thunderstorm.

But everything came together at the closing ceremony that began with a human spiral flowing through the valley, then a circle with our musicians performing at the center, then a dance of universal peace.

“Really it’s a social experiment that we do here,” said Laura Kuri, “to be able to come here and learn the ecotecnicas, the organic food, the composting toilets, the rituals, the heating of water with compost – it’s like an experiment that changes you. The people who come to the Consejo return to their homes and something happens and there’s a change. It’s very hopeful.”

Images from a moment in time that will live on for years to come….

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

MEXICO CITY – Led by a vanguard of more than 250 Wixarika elders, women, men and children in their colorful traditional dress, a colorful river of marchers filled the grand Reforma Avenue of Mexico City for four hours yesterday, ending at the residence of President Felipe Calderón.

“You are not alone! You are not alone!” chanted the marchers, some of whom had formed a protective human chain encircling the indigenous representatives as they prepared to deliver their petition to the nation’s highest authority: Save Wirikuta, the Sacred Heart of Mexico.

It was the culmination of two days of events designed to draw attention to mining and agroindustrial projects that threaten the cultural survival of one of the world’s best-preserved living pre-Hispanic cultures: the Wixarika people, better known by the Spanish name of Huicholes. Two massive mining projects have been proposed for the Wixarika’s most sacred site, and a plague of industrial tomato growers have razed thousands of hectares of fragile desert habitat in the UNESCO-recognized, state-protected Wirikuta Ecological and Cultural Reserve.

Traditional authorities from each of the eight communities represented by the march were allowed to enter the presidential complex, heavily guarded by federal police in riot gear, in order to present a letter to authorities. It was the third such letter asking Calderon to rescind the 22 concessions granted to the Canadian transnational First Majestic Silver Corp. Until now, there has been no response. The hope was that with so many eyes upon the delegation’s demands, this time would be different. Presidential representatives promised an answer within a week.

“Felipe! entiende! Wirikuta no se vende – (Felipe [Calderon], Understand! Wirikuta is not for sale),” chanted the crowd as they approached the Mexican counterpart to the White House. Plumes of smoke rose into the air from the copal burning in ceremonial censors along with chants of “Wirikuta no se vende! Se ama y se defiende! (Wirikuta is not to sell; it is to love and defend).”

Participants made their way to the front of the crowd to affix their colorful Huichol Eyes of God to the gates of the presidential complex, as feather-headdressed Aztec dancers beat a rhythm to the chants with their drums and ayoyotes, and members of the Triqui tribes, Red Road and other indigenous groups and dozens of environmental and human rights groups joined the throng with banners. The marchers made it clear that the site is sacred not only to the Wixarika but to other indigenous groups and to thousands of non-indigenous Mexicans and internationals who believe the Mountains of Catorce and the desert at their feet is one of the most important spiritual centers in the world.

Events began on Wednesday with a press conference in which intellectuals, artists and other leaders in the civil society expressed their support for the mobilization and the Wixarika delegation. Actor Daniel Giménez Cacho thanked the delgates, saying “they are teaching us to defend our house and what is ours.” In previous days, Giménez Cacho was one of dozens of Mexican actors and film personalities who signed a letter in support of the mobilization, including Gael Garcia Bernal. Top musical stars like Manu Chao and Aterciopelados have promised support, and last week, Ruben Albarran of Café Tacuba, Roco and Moyenei from Sonidero Meztizo and other artists held a press conference for Wirikuta. Roco and Moyenei accompanied the entire processon on a double-decker bus-turned-sound system, alternately broadcasting music and calls of encouragement to the crowd; at one point a pair of traditional Wixarika fiddlers played their haunting music to cheers from the crowd. The entire event culminated in a high-energy concert at the Museum of Anthropology, led by Roco and Moyenei.

The delegation was received at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the National School of Anthropology and History with open arms, food and one of two concerts sponsored by Sonidero Meztizo.

After the press conference, the multihued band loaded onto buses for a pilgrimage to the Basilica and to the Hill of Tepeyac, where the indigenous Juan Diego is believed to have seen the Virgin of Guadalupe. Perhaps more importantly to the Wixarika, it’s the ancestral temple site for Tonantzin, the powerful pre-Hispanic Earth goddess.

Another part of the delegation went to meet with officials at SEMARNAT, the federal environmental agency, to outline their concerns. And yet another group went off to do interviews with the national media.

But the spiritual high point of the two-day affair came on Thursday morning, when the Wixarika streamed into the park containing the Pyramid of Cuicuilco, the first important civic-religious center of the Mexican Highlands and a sacred site for the Wixarika. They made their way through the park to the foot of the pyramid, where there is a simple altar where the Huichol people leave their offerings. There at the foot of the pyramid, traditional musicians began to play their fiddles, and one by one, the marakames blessed each of the participants with their feathered muwiere. Time seemed to stand still as each person filed in to take their turn in front of the tiny house constructed to shelter their offerings.

“Today we lighted the candles of life and left our offerings for all life on Earth,” explained Wixarika traditional leader Santos de la Cruz in a reception at the neighboring School of Anthropology and History, the same site that welcomed the Zapatistas in their many sojourns from Chiapas more than a decade ago. “We pray not only for the protection of our heart, our veins, our life, which is Wirikuta, but for the other sacred sites in the world which are threatened, and this threat menaces all of life on the planet.”

For more information about the campaign to save Wirikuta, see www.frenteendefensadewirikuta.org.

Images from the October 26-27 mobilization Save Wirikuta: The Sacred Heart of Mexcio:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We entered Costa Rica about two weeks ago and have kept busy with various activities including many seed exchanges, events and visits to various projects. But all that will come in the next post …

This post is to share a little from the month we spent in Nicaragua, where we found really nice people and visited some interesting projects.

Nicaragua is a beautiful country with extensive coastline on both the Pacific and the Caribbean, many lakes and volcanoes. It’s a country that historically faced a strong dictatorship and had to fight a brutal civil war to end the dictatorship through the revolutionary Sandinista movement. Over the years the country has tried to recover, but poverty remains widespread, and Nicaragua today is the second poorest country in the continent, surpassed only by Haiti.

Even with a grave economic situation and violent history, we found Nicaragua’s population really open and friendly, with clear and strong political opinions and self-esteem. This year is an election year, and we saw many young people marching through the streets and holding political events and demonstrations. Lots of energy in the country …

We found this political rally in Nandaime, Nicaragua

During our visit, we visited three sustainability projects. Two on Ometepe Island, an island formed by two volcanoes in the middle of stunning Lake Nicaragua, the largest tropical lake in the world.

Panoramic view of the Island

On Omatepe we visited the Project Inan Itah, a spiritual development center with various permaculture practices and a volunteer program. While visiting for a few days we actively participated in community activities and became great friends in this beautiful project.

Another interesting project is the ecological hostel El Zopilote, which was designed using permaculture principles. The hostel’s natural buildings and organic food production make for a cool food-forest jungle experience, and is a center for backpackers to a have a relaxed and more conscious visit to the island.

During our visit to El Zopilote we had an exciting moment with their bees. On the farm they have a cross between Italian bees (very quiet, friendly) and African bees (aggressive, hardy). That is, the bees are warriors, but not brutal. We were talking to Danielle who takes care of the bees, real close to the boxes, taking pictures and talking… and suddenly we realized that the bees started flying at us! There were so many! And then someone says RUUUUUUUN!! And we run down the ravine, up the hill, around the bend, and away…. It was crazy to have that ringing in the ears, unable to look back and have to keep running! Ryan got bitten twice including once on his lip, and Danielle about 8 times. In the end we learned that we can not abuse the bees patience and we should better respect the space of our dear friends the bees who make such rich food for us, and yet struggle to survive in the jungle.

The bees, calm, as we began to observe…

Here the bees are started to get agitated…

We also participated in a community event in the town of Santa Cruz on Omatepe, where we played music and shared a little about Común Tierra…

The organizers offered some free organic seeds for the local people, and some resources on how to grow organically, natural medicine, etc…

On Nicaragua’s Pacific coast we visited Finca Las Nubes, a place where residents are trying to build a totally self-suffcient ranch and community, using various integrated practices, with the hopes of leaving a legacy for future generations.

For more photos, visit our Facebook album.

For now we say goodbye as we head out to organize our seeds… we will be trading and offering seeds tomorrow in the Feria Verde (organic market) in San Jose, capital city of Costa Rica.

A BIG HUG and we hope to see you soon!

Leti and Ryan

This article was originally published by Al-Jazeera and can be accessed HERE.

With disastrous volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and extreme storms, El Salvador is widely regarded as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to natural disasters. With the impacts of climate change complicating social and economic crises, the El Salvadorian government has recognized that national security considerations must include discussion of environmental factors, leading to the Minister of the Environment Herman Chavez to proclaim Climate Change as ‘our number 1 priority’ in February 2011. However, as Salvadorians well know, when it comes to natural disasters, some things are simply out of their control. The demise of the countries Mangrove Forests is one of these cases.

El Salvador’s Pacific Mangrove forest, the largest of its kind in Central America, covers over 20,000 hectares in and around the Jiquilisco Bay. Mangroves are traditionally considered to be a natural protection from extreme flooding and rising tides, acting as an invaluable buffer zone during extreme weather events.
Several years ago, however, local communities began noticing a strange phenomenon; the Mangroves at the edge of the ocean were dying.

A Threatened Ecosystem

The Mangrove forest is a unique ecosystem found in tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions in the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Characterized by the mixing of fresh water and salt water, the Mangrove creates specific conditions that support a wide variety of flora and fauna.

The trees have a series of stilt-like supports that extend from the trunk for increased stability and resilience. The Mangrove trees have evolved to be able to withstand change in water level caused by normally occurring tidal cycles and mild flooding, helping protect coastal areas from damage from extreme storms and tsunamis. In
recent years, however, a rise in sea level has brought the ocean waves intruding further inland than ever before, wreaking havoc on the trees and the entire ecosystem.

According to Dr. Ricardo Navarro, director of the Center for Appropriate Technologies in El Salvador (CESTA), over 30 meters of Mangrove forest has been completely destroyed by this phenomenon in the last 6 years. “With the increase in global sea level, the ocean waves are entering further and further into the Mangroves. What happens is the waves wash away the soil nutrients, leaving the trees in pure sand. So the trees die, and then all of the animals leave the area.”

All along the central coast of El Salvador there is a dead zone stretching along the beach, measuring between 10 and 50 meters. The cause? Climate Change, says Dr. Navarro.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that global sea level rose 21 centimeters in the last century. This rise is reportedly caused by a combination of glacial melting, melting of the polar caps, and the physical expansion of the oceans with a rise in water temperature, all claimed to be consequences from global warming caused by human activity.

When asked how far the tide has come in, local fisherman Adan Nahun Diaz Ramirez pointed out into the sea, past the breaking waves. “The forest extended past all of this, you can see,” he said, pointing to Mangrove stumps underneath the crashing waves. “Actually, beyond the Mangroves, there was a layer of other trees on the beach.”

With no soil structure and no life left, the newly exposed land has no protection from the ocean, which over time is encroaching further inland. Locals estimate that at least 50 meters of land has been lost to the ocean in the last ten years.

Effects on Local Communities

La Tirana is a small village of 23 families at the edge of the Mangrove. The village was populated through most of the 20th century, but abandoned during El Salvador’s civil war, when most rural areas of the country were abandoned. The town came back to life 10 years ago, when new residents moved in.

CESTA has been working in La Tirana since 2005 to develop a program called “Sustainable Ways of Life.” The program has provided the community an environmental education program, technical assistance for organic agriculture, installed water wells, and several solar panels to bring electricity to the village for the first time. The program also facilitated the creation of a vision for the villages’ ecological and economic sustainability.

“Now we have a plan for sustainable harvesting of the Punche, which limits our harvest to 5-7 dozen per day,” Ramirez told me. “But there are days when we can’t even find 1 dozen.”

Like many other rural communities, harvesting the ‘Punche,’ a local species of Mangrove Crab, is the only source of income. “The Earth here is not easy to cultivate, because its just sand, so we depend on the Mangrove,” Ramirez said. “In the last few years, it’s been increasingly difficult to hunt the Punche, and we have no other way to support our community.”

Effects on Wildlife

Just a few kilometers from La Tirana, in the mouth of the Lempa river, surrounded by Mangroves, there used to be a sand island.

The year-round island was observed to be the seasonal home to a colony of American Skimmer birds, the only habitat of its kind observed in Central America. With the rising tide, the island has almost disappeared, now only appearing during low tide. Without a safe place to rest, the Skimmer hasn’t been seen in the area in several years.

“This is clearly an effect of global Climate Change,” claims Dr. Navarro. “And the worst part of it is that there’s nothing we can do to protect these Mangroves and these species of fauna. We as a global community have to take action to stop global warming. The international agreements being discussed today would still allow an increase of up to 5 degrees centigrade through the end of this century. This degree of change would have disastrous effects around the world. What we are seeing here is only the beginning.”

Climate Refugees

Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, waves of Salvadorian refugees fled the country’s violent civil war. In the last decades, immigration has continued, as citizens look to escape extreme poverty and a series of natural disasters, including magnitude 7.7 and 6.7 earthquakes in 2001, and Tropical Storm Agatha in 2010. Extreme storms are becoming more common and more intense, leading to extreme flooding throughout the country and particularly in the Central coast area.

“If things keep going like this, the next wave of immigrants from El Salvador will be Climate Refugees,” says Dr. Navarro.

International organizations ranging from the IPCC to UNESCO are estimating that between 10 and 50 million refugees will flee their homes in the first half of the 21st century because of climate change related disasters.
Community members of La Tirana all agree that things are getting worse each year, and the ocean moving inland faster. If this continues, they may join the millions of refugees fleeing the effects of climate change, and El Salvador’s environmental and social condition will get a little more complicated.

“Fierce winds ripped huge branches off the thousand-year-old redwood, sending them crashing to the ground two hundred feet below. The upper platform, where I lived, rested in branches about 180 feet in the air … As the tree branches whipped around, they shredded the tarp that served as my shelter. Sleet and hail sliced through the tattered pieces of what used to be my roof and walls. Every new gust flipped the platform up into the air, threatening to hurl me over the edge.”
— Julia “Butterfly” Hill, The Legacy of Luna

It’s hard to say what was the most dramatic moment in that 738 days that Julia “Butterfly” Hill spent atop that platform in a redwood tree named Luna. Perhaps it was the day of that bitter storm and many others that ensued. Perhaps it was the day that a massive helicopter buzzed her tree and nearly blew her to her death with the 300 mph winds created by its updrafts. Perhaps it was the day that a fellow tree sitter had the rope he was standing on cut out from under him by “Climber Dan,” a logger hired by the timber companies to antagonize and remove intransigent activists from the trees they were trying to save from the loggers’ blades.

The full text of this article is currently only available in Spanish. I am currently seeking a publisher for the English version; please contact me at tracy@tracybarnettonline.com if you are interested.

To read the rest of the article click here:

JuliaButterflyHill-in-Magis(oct-nov2011

For the Huicholes, the region known as Wirikuta, in North-Central Mexico, is sacred; for a Canadian company it is the base of its next great mining project. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village of Real de Catorce, at the heart of Wirikuta, are divided among those who need jobs and those who see the mine as a threat. The debate grows with every day and has reached as far as Canada and the United Nations.

To see the entire article (in Spanish), download here: PDF Huicholes