The ambiance of the room grew cozier — harmonious as we listened to the soft vocals and compositions of Rasa Javedani who had written the fitting words to the melodies that were then sung by Shakeel Shaan and myself. The audience of old friends grew emotional in the atmosphere and we found it hard to hold back tears. The song we chose to sing that night was one to express our love for the friends gathered that day, the friends who had left the Kashmir valley three decades back. Today I welcomed them for the first time on their return to their home of Kashmir.
It took twenty-eight years for such an historic reunion to happen. We had spent our teens together, enjoying school and college life and now we had the chance to recollect a time that we remembered as being full of joy, unaware of the divisive atmosphere that was brewing and which we in our innocence could not foresee.
The turmoil that erupted in Kashmir was sudden and spontaneous and with fewer communication vehicles in those days our group couldn’t contact each other. Unfavorable conditions of the time forced many Kashmiri families (Pundit, Muslim and Sikh) to migrate far from their homes. It was ten years before we were able to trace one another after this abrupt departure, all that while yearning to reconnect, especially to be together again in the homeland. The idea to come together was sparked by a phone call and Rajesh Raina and I were determined to make it happen.
Enter L to R: Childhood friends, Shahnawaz and Rajesh Raina initiated the reunion. Shahnawaz works in the tourism sector in Kashmir and continues his work in supporting young people in reconciliation and social and environmental work. Rajesh Raina (on right) heads up an important news network of India. a caption
Even now as the situation in Kashmir is still ripe with violence and strife, such simple happenings as the reunion of a group of friends raises hope for others, hope of peace in the valley. We must be able to imagine peace, to remember what it feels like.
We were inspired by a youth initiative in Kashmir called Ripples. It was an idea that came from the wish to see peace in my valley once again. We believe that by bringing together those who longed for peace it will awaken the memories of a time when this vast area was the meeting ground of different spiritual traditions and people lived together harmoniously. We want this feeling to spread. Along this journey we met with the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a network of peacemakers led by women working for harmony and reconciliation. These women had been organizing and facilitating similar interactions and meetings between divided communities for many years and they took a deep interest in Kashmir after their first visit. It reignited some hope in me and we began to work together, mostly with young people, helping them create spaces of expression for their development. They had grown up amidst tension and conflict and had to know there was another way. We organized programs together with GPIW and invited some of these aspiring youth to come and dialogue with us and ask them what it takes to become true community leaders.
Although there had been many peace efforts by various organizations over the years, we felt our reunion was unique — at the very least it was an emotional one. Some of those who had migrated were scared to return, imagining their old homeland will feel unfamiliar and the people harsh with them. To their surprise they experienced the same love and affection from their friends in the valley as in the past. During our days together we visited old favorite places, ate our traditional Kashmiri foods, danced and sang. We sailed on Dal Lake for which Srinagar is famous. When it was time to take leave it was with tearful and moist eyes, visibly expressing the admission of their wrong perception about the reality. The truth is that the majority of the people of Kashmir still keep alive the real Kashmiriyat pluralistic values of simple and harmonious living.
In the Sufi spirit of friendship, the lyrics to the songs were intended to evoke the love and affection in our hearts… “oh friends your place and your glimpses are in our eyes always and your space is always here, which you have to fill by coming back to your homeland!
These feelings lingered as everyone left. They left knowing that the Kashmir of their youth had not died and there was hope for a future without violence and fear.
Whales were very much on my mind. I had just returned from a dialogue in Japan that included a discussion on the impact of pollution and climate change on the communities of life in the oceans and was preparing to go to Poland for the United Nations Climate Conference. I had also just read an article on how the US administration had just approved the use of sonic cannons to find oil and gas reserves in the Atlantic, up and down the coast, a devastating decision for marine life. My heart ached for what these animals would now have to endure.
While on route to Poland, I had a dream, one of those dreams that is more vision than dream. I saw myself standing by the window in my Manhattan apartment looking out over the East River when I saw a beautiful large whale quietly and speedily swim up the river until it stopped just in front of my building and stared up at me. All I could do was whisper, “I see you. I hear you.”
This was the dream that followed me to Poland and haunted me as I walked through the hallways of the conference wondering how to bring the voices of the ocean into a meeting that would help determine whether life in the ocean lived or died. There was one session on oceans, which I did attend, but sadly it made no mention of the whales, the dolphins and other marine life. The main message to come out of that panel of marine experts was that the scientific organizations studying the oceans are now cooperating, whereas they had previously been working in their own silos. Well, a good first step, but the audience was not satisfied. When a member of the audience pressed them on why more action was not being taken, the response was that action will only come from the bottom up, not from the top down. The UN can do its studies, bring the best scientific minds and data to the fore, present the predictive models, and then — and then, if the governments don’t act, there is not much more these officials can do. All they can do is warn, which is what the United Nations Secretary General just did when he flew to Poland to try to encourage some progress. If we don’t act, we are on a suicidal mission, he said. At the same time, UN officials continue to appeal to civil society, which is why they let so many of us into these annual climate conferences. Again and again we are encouraged to pressure our governments toward concrete and meaningful action. In the US, for the time being, that means at the local level – our state and city governments that are part of the “we’re still in” movement.
A few months ago, I attended the Climate Action Summit in San Francisco and there much time was devoted to oceans. The presenters shared that too little attention and funding has been applied to researching the oceans, and in fact we understand very little about them — not very comforting. But one thing was made clear — the oceans determine the climate. If the oceans die, we die. Human life depends on the health of the oceans, and the oceans now are not very healthy.
So there was the dream, and the warning, and the positives and negatives of COP 24. Whatever is decided at the end of this climate conference, we will know that the responsibility partially rests on our shoulders. We must speak now not only for the human species, but for all who inhabit our precious planet.
I will remember the whale who appeared and appealed to me. I will continue to see and to listen.
Elizabeth Asch is an artist and animal communicator who has been working with Earth’s ancient species—the whales, elephants, and horses, among others in the animal kingdom—studied with the highly regarded animal communicator, Anna Breytenbach. According to Breytenbach, human and animal communication is not only possible, but also ought to be encouraged as a method of reestablishing the bonds between humanity and other living beings. If people would approach animals to confer with them from a position of respect and mutual acknowledgement as beings who share in this state of existence and in this place (Earth) as a home, perhaps we could reconnect, mend, and cooperate in the fundamental ties between all diverse life.
Below, Elizabeth Asch shares a written reflection from an expedition to the waters of the Caribbean island of Dominica where she swam with the largest mammals in the world—whales.
* * *
Picture a battered, 30’ motorboat on a vast, flat sea, hot sun and blue sky overhead. Several miles distant is the small Caribbean island of Dominica, whose mountains hold the only visible clouds at their peaks. Motor turned off, all six men aboard hold one hand up to shade their eyes while scanning the horizon for the white spouts of water which signal a surfacing whale. Not knowing if I will recognize such a plume, never having seen one in person anyhow, I instead use my internal body radar; while tuning in to my instincts, I slowly turn my body to see if I can feel a pull in any particular direction. A feeling in the pit of my gut tells me to stop and I too raise my hand to my eyes to see, and sure enough there it is. Two of the men see it too and, pointing arm extended, shout “Blow!”
Today is Day 3 of our nine-day expedition. I am accompanying three researchers whose life mission is to decode the clicking language of dolphins and whales. These three passionate men travel the world to record and film sperm whales, or as they are known in French cachalots, the largest of the hunting whales. The size of a city bus, or even a double-bus, the cachalot swims from the surface down to eight thousand foot depth. I learned to free dive in order to take this trip and the deepest I have gone is a mere 65 feet.
Before leaving I offered to write an article telling what the cachalots have to say about peace for my friends at GPIW. The last couple of days though, I have just been getting to know the whales and their beautiful home. Until this trip, elephants were the largest animal I have played with and I remain impressed by their size and the vastness of the landscape in which they live. The endless, blue ocean home of the cachalot is a whole new world for me and I’m still adapting.
I connect with a large male I call Bruno. One good place to start a conversation with a fellow predator mammal is eating, so he has been showing me food and hunting. He shows me a nearby ledge in a cold, mostly dark part of the ocean where giant squid and other large fish hang out. While one or two sperm whales churn the water with their powerful tails, others swim along and scoop out the animals to eat. Still others swim open-mouthed, and in fact at one point while I am in the water swimming about thirty feet down, Bruno silently appears directly behind me. I can feel some Presence and although I believe I am alone in the water with my human friends, when that body radar tells me to look back all I see at first are big, white things which turn out to be the teeth in his open jaw. I laugh aloud because I know this is the whale who has been explaining cachalot hunting to me, and here he is to demonstrate. I am certain he isn’t planning to eat me, he’s just showing me how it’s done. After I notice he dives as silently as he appeared.
When I ask Bruno about peace he shows me more scenes of living in the water. When I ask other whales, they show me the same thing. I think maybe they are dodging the question, or maybe I didn’t ask it clearly – – he thinks we are still on the mundane.
I ask about war and they show me scenes of individual whales fighting, like Moby Dick. This is warfare maybe but not war. They say they don’t make war. They did something like it millions of years ago in their evolution, but they don’t do it anymore. As a species they have forgiven us for driving them close to extinction back when whale oil was humans’ main fuel, although there are always some humans who find ways to provoke some individual whales and get killed for it. But retribution as a species? Not their concern.
Finding no answer from the whales about peace I ask the elephants. They seem to sidestep the question too. Elephants and whales are the largest mammals of their two elements, land and water, and some people say the most evolved. Perhaps they just don’t know about peace, perhaps it is so natural to them that they can’t address how it is done. They both seem to evade and avoid us humans as best they can, and especially when we aim to make war with them. In response to my query, my elephant friends show themselves out on the savannah like they are every day, aware of each other’s presence, and grazing, grazing, grazing and dozing, enjoying the beauty and bounty of their home.
I ask birds, insects, and fish, and any wild animals I can think of, and still no answer. Can it be that, as folks always tell me, “You ascribe too much intelligence to the animals. They don’t think like we do. They don’t have the mental capacity” for big questions? I am intrigued. I know this isn’t true, and yet all I get in response is the feeling inside of how it feels to be one of their kind, living in awareness of the other ones nearby, and in their beautiful homes. Over and over, in the water, in the sky, on the land, underground, my only answer is scenes of life, of family, of just being.
Finally I ask my horse friend. Ginger has been my guide for thirteen years. I tell her my dilemma. About how I arrogantly offered to write about whales and peace, and how I am completely stuck. No whale nor any other species has answered my question, “How do you keep peace, what can my people do to find peace?” I show her the responses I have and she laughs at me.
“You have your answer. That is peace,” Ginger tells me. Peace comes from within and only from within. It comes from each and every one of us, at every moment. Look for the awareness of peace within yourselves, and feel it in those around you. From there it spreads and spreads and spreads. First you feel it in yourself. Then you feel it in those closest to you and you begin to feel it in other the individuals from other species who are also nearby. Inner peace for yourself connects you to all humans. Then feeling it in other species connects you and your species to your fellow beings, and to the planet. This is how it spreads and spreads.
Find the silence within. Connect with the peace in others. Moment by moment by moment, now and now and now.
Dr. Doudou Diene is an intellectual, and a man of deep spiritual wisdom and full of life’s experiences. He was the former UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from 2002—2008 allowing him to travel to many parts of the world to witness first hand injustice, suffering and at the same time the power and beauty of those who promote healing and unity. Here he delivers a short and powerful message when asked what would he like to say to young people at this moment in time.
This past March, the Global Peace Initiative of Women organized a five-day retreat in Costa Rica with 20 young ecologists and environmental activists from different regions of the United States. Mentors from various spiritual and indigenous traditions guided the program in exploring the convergence of spirituality and ecology, as well as the intersectionality that must be taken up in addressing the multifaceted, global crises beyond climate change. Participants met to discuss the shifts in consciousness and relation to the Earth through a long-eschewed spiritual lens, in the context of the environmental movement in the United States.
This was one gathering in a series of meetings (see highlights of last year’s Costa Rica gathering here) with young people around the world that GPIW has organized over the last few years. This initiative grounds its efforts and expression in the idea of Mother Earth’s essential sacredness, as well as in the cultivation of inner wisdom or self-awareness as a means of healing and restoring bonds with both the natural world.
Participants of the “Inner Dimensions of Climate Change” retreat — opening day at the Earth Charter International headquarters in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Earth’s biodiversity, including the cultural diversity and vitality of the global human community, manifests as incomprehensibly complex systems in motion. These systems are fundamentally deserving of respect, care, and awe. Reciprocity and mutual flourishing, two elements often found among coexisting species and communities in the natural world, in a way represent the crossing of thresholds that embody any healthy living system. En route to transformation, may we first and foremost seek the paths toward harmony and shared prosperity by learning to face inward—not selfishly, but instead as liminal beings whose inner dimensions illuminate a collective source of wisdom, so often unseen and inaccessible in today’s world of distractions and artificiality.
We were honored to be joined by Pacha K’anchay, a young Kogi leader who traveled from the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Colombia to deliver his people’s message. Trained in the teachings of community elders, Pacha kindly imparted profound wisdom unto the group on the opening evening. His words, and those of Mindahi Munoz, a resident scholar at the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, are translated into both English and Spanish below. As you read, consider how you yourself might recognize the animate, dynamic essence of the natural world. Perhaps you may let that energetic force flood your individual mind, if only for a few moments, as one living, beating, breathing being among innumerable others.
Top row, from left to right: Mindahi Bastida, Pacha K’anchay, and Geraldine Patrick.
“Eagle and Condor”
English
Pacha K’anchay:
From the lands of Central America, where the beaks of the condor and the eagle unite, we meet here, offering a tribute to the ancient and ancestral peoples who walked on this land.
Which today, as spirits, provide food and are the nature of this land. They are the songs of birds, and they still live in the sounds of our waters, and they still have a community.
And this spirit has allowed many beings to learn, to unite in knowledge, and today, there are many ways of wanting to join with nature.
We are here to make a call to the conscience and to the heart of all human beings, so that we can once again synchronize our heart with that of Mother Earth’s.
From the things that are real, from forgiving the person next to us, and from understanding the time in which we find ourselves, it is time to unify ourselves among our peoples.
It is time for nations to understand that millenary wisdom was left on Earth for humanity to uphold herself.
And we were given forms of thought so that in each territory there would be peace and balance and harmony among the beings that live there.
From the heart, we send a message to all the beings that can see this message, that from your heart you may feel the need for a transformation, to protect life, to unify with nature.
Many today have spiritual faculties, and the thought is growing; others, from the reason and with scientific faculties, can aide so that nature, our Mother Earth, continues and lives for a long time.
From our heart we have come here to give thanks for life, to unify ourselves with the essence of thought.
We are in the time of prophecies where the Sun sends his messages and the Earth manifests her changes.
We are in the time of birth pains, moving towards a time in which we reconnect with our interior.
The prophecies of our ancestors are fulfilled today. The prophecies were told so that today, we who are alive in this historic moment, may again synchronize ourselves with the Earth and with the Universe.
From the peoples of South America of the lands of the condor, from the people of the eagle.
We also lift up unity to Tibet, the Himalayas, to the great territories found all over the planet to unify ourselves in the heart of Mother Earth for life.
This is how, here today, in nature, among family and among the hearts of the people, we send to you, from our heart, all the strength to unify ourselves in this web of life.
From the heart of the lands of the eagle and the condor, Abyayala, in the center of what is now called Costa Rica, we raise this call to the unity of the peoples for life. HAYAYA
Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz:
Greetings! We greet you with our hearts from the lands of the central highlands of Mexico, here in Costa Rica.
I greet my KJUADA, Pacha K’anchay. Eagle and condor, here in these millenary lands.
The time of our voice has come, our time has come.
Nothing and no one will speak for us any more, nor will they sit to discuss what they will do with our peoples, with our territories.
The dawn is approaching, the birds are saying so. The quetzal will return to these lands and to others.
We also want to greet the distant lands: the dragon and the Phoenix, because one day we will join them, also.
We send this message because we all have something to contribute.
Human beings have created the problem, and now we are going to create the solution, together, in a process of unification where we learn ‘to be’ in this ‘collective way of being’.
In the ‘way of being’ from which we departed many times over the past seven thousand years.
The dawn is approaching, and we are in a process of transition. We are here for the new dawn.
MOXINGUINTINI KJUADA MOXINGUINTINI KJU. KJAMADI. Onward with everything, with life, for the life, and for life.
Español
Pacha K’anchay:
Desde las tierras de Centroamérica, donde se unen el pico del cóndor y del águila, nos encontramos aquí ofreciéndole un tributo a los pueblos milenarios y ancestrales que caminaron por acá.
Que hoy, como espíritus, brindan alimento y son la naturaleza de esta tierra. Que son los cantos de las aves, y que aún viven en los sonidos de nuestras aguas, y aún tienen comunidad.
Y ese espíritu ha permitido que muchos seres aprendan, que se unan en conocimiento, y hoy aparecen muchas formas de querer unirse más a la naturaleza.
Estamos aquí para hacerle un llamado a la conciencia y al corazón de todos los seres humanos, para que podamos nuevamente sincronizar nuestro corazón con el de la Madre Tierra.
Desde lo real, desde perdonar al que tenemos al lado, y desde comprender el tiempo en el que nos encontramos, es el momento de unificarnos entre pueblos.
Es el momento de que las naciones comprendan que la sabiduría milenaria se dejó en la tierra para que se sostuviera la humanidad.
Y se nos dejaron formas de pensamiento para que en cada territorio hubiera paz y equilibrio y armonía entre los seres que ahí están.
De corazón enviamos un mensaje a todos los seres que puedan observar este mensaje, de que de corazón sientan la necesidad de una transformación, de proteger la vida, de unificarnos con la naturaleza.
Muchos hoy día tienen facultades espirituales y el pensamiento va creciendo; otros desde la razón, con las facultades científicas, pueden aportar a que la naturaleza, nuestra Madre Tierra, continúe y perviva en el tiempo.
De corazón aquí hemos venido a agradecer por la vida, a unificarnos con la esencia del pensamiento.
Estamos en los tiempos de las profecías en donde el Sol envía sus mensajes y la Tierra se manifiesta con sus cambios.
Estamos en el tiempo de dolor de parto hacia un tiempo en donde estamos volviendo a conectarnos con nuestro interior.
Las profecías de nuestros ancestros hoy se cumplen. Se dijeron para que hoy nosotros, que vivimos este momento histórico, podamos sincronizarnos nuevamente con la Tierra y el Universo.
Desde los pueblos de Sudamérica de las tierras del cóndor, desde los pueblos del águila.
También elevamos la unidad hacia el Tíbet, el Himalaya, hacia los grandes territorios que se encuentran en todo el planeta para unificarnos en el corazón de la Madre Tierra por la vida.
Es así, como hoy aquí, en esta naturaleza, entre la familia, entre el corazón de los pueblos, les enviamos a ustedes, desde nuestro corazón, toda la fuerza para unificarnos en este tejido de vida.
Desde el corazón de las tierras del águila y el cóndor, el Abyayala, en todo el centro de que hoy llaman Costa Rica, elevamos este llamado hasta la unidad de los pueblos por la vida. HAYAYA
Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz:
Saludo! Les saludamos con el corazón desde las tierras del altiplano central de México aquí desde Tepantí, desde Costa Rica.
Saludo a mi KJUADA, Pacha K’anchay. Águila y cóndor, aquí en estas tierras milenarias.
Ha llegado el tiempo de nuestra voz, el tiempo nuestro.
Ya nada ni nadie hablará por nosotros ni se sentarán a discutir qué harán con nuestros pueblos, con los territorios.
Ya se acerca la alborada, los pájaros están mencionando. El quetzal volverá por estas tierras y por otras.
También queremos saludar a las tierras lejanas: al dragón y al Fénix, porque un día nos uniremos también con ellos.
Enviamos este mensaje porque todos tenemos algo que aportar.
Los seres humanos ahora hemos creado el problema y ahora vamos a crear la solución, juntos, en un proceso de unificación donde nosotros estamos aprendiendo a ‘ser’ en este ‘ser colectivo’.
En ese ‘ser’ que muchas veces se desvió desde hace siete mil años.
Ya se acerca la alborada, y estamos en un proceso de transición. Estamos por el nuevo amanecer.
MOXINGUINTINI KJUADA MOXINGUINTINI KJU. KJAMADI. Adelante con todo, con la vida, para la vida, y por la vida.
This year I decided to retreat along the bank of the River Nile, to connect and communicate with the conventional energies that travel and circle the planet.
River Nile originates from Lake Victoria in East Africa and travels to the Mediterranean Sea before it joins the Atlantic ocean. From there it circles the planet and returns to Africa by conventional means. All along this journey it carries much wisdom and holds the secrets of the planet.
I was prompted to retreat along the Nile by the visit I had to the River Rhine in Europe, where I was invited to attend as a special delegate to the UN Climate Change Summit COP 23 in Bonn, Germany. I was there as a spiritual mentor and facilitator of a program organized by GPIW called the Inner Dimensions of Climate Change, a retreat and dialogue for young ecologists from Europe.
At the United Nations portion of the program, I heard nature complaining that her voice was not effectively represented, and her wishes and desires were not included in the resolutions. I believe that the UN secretariat should endeavor to invite more wisdom keepers from different parts of the world and prepare a special forum for them to share-out what nature tells them should be done to solve the climate crisis, and the future of life. However, I was gratified by the effort made by the industrial nations to reduce carbon emissions and to examine several other environmental dangers.
On the part of Europe, nature revealed that the European spirituality has the most comprehensive data base for nearly everything on earth. It’s on record that the social events, political decisions, and the scientific discoveries that took place on the European continent, greatly changed and transformed the planet in the past and in present times. As revealed by nature, Europe’s responsibility is the spirituality governing space, and Africa’s responsibility is the spirituality governing the land. Space symbolizes Europe’s energetic nature in a light, intelligent, fast and radiant spiritual system, which are qualities that give it a transformative value. Therefore, because of its transformative potential, Europe will be a key player in the new eco- evolution and transformation, hence Europe should work hard to reconcile and rehabilitate its ecological mistakes and to groom able and competent spiritual leaders to face new ecological challenges.
Lack of able and competent spiritual leadership is the greatest problem humanity faces. The divisions and competition reigning within the spiritual world and their desire to dominate and control man, has disabled man to unite and to solve the ecological demands required of him. Many communities today that passed through colonization had faced spiritual manipulations or social indoctrination of their cultures and values and now find it extremely difficult to identify their sacred spiritual chiefs. In this regard, some “unidentified” chiefs are completely lost/hidden to the society, while others that are recognized are classified with witchcraft or evilness and need to be protected from discrimination.
The way to overcome this problem is for the different traditional leadership at community or regional levels to collaborate so that the cosmic energies of oneness and conscious awakening can work together to reactivate the healing energies in nature, in order to awaken the sacred leadership that disappeared in the past to rise again in those communities. The community leadership we see in many indigenous communities today are either elected or appointed or inherited leadership, but the world needs sacred value holders – the men and women with the ability to tap into the secrets of nature and hence protect and guide their communities and the world. But because of the fear held by the civil and religious leaders of losing their social influence and leadership status, they are using their positions now to suppress and demonize the very leadership the world needs due to the ecological demands of the time. New measures should be taken to formalize matters of nature instead of leaving the big questions about natural systems and manifestations to be answered by civil or religious personnel who may not be the legitimate representatives and wisdom holders of these natural systems.
The manifestation of the new ecological evolution appears to rise through the young people, but it’s our collective responsibility, young and old, to reconcile the past with the present eco-systems as fast as possible, so as to reduce the magnitude of calamities that befall man through natural disasters for his lack of ecological action and disobedience to supreme nature.
New revelations given to Chief Tamale Bwoya
In my retreat meditation, I received the following messages from Supreme Nature:
“People should follow the messages I share regarding the environmental problems on the planet. If science is the cause of the ecological destruction, I will reverse it.”
“I have given several messages of warning and guidance to mankind, but people have chosen to challenge these.”
“I will weaken the greater nations and raise weaker ones so as to neutralize supremacy.”
More secrets about the upcoming ecological evolution were revealed as below:
An introduction of new values into life on Earth, as old ones are being gradually withdrawn. The new measures will limit human authority and pressure mankind to accede to the requirements of nature. For example, man will not have the power to manipulate the new ecological concepts for economic, social or political gain. There will be a new spiritual energy present that will shift our ambitions and enhance human consciousness toward a more positive and higher purpose of life. (These new conceptual values seemed to give Mother Earth some relief, because in my visions, I saw her tears dry out. This transformative action according to Nature is already gradually taking place).
Life did not originate here on Earth it was transferred from elsewhere in the cosmos due to ecological circumstances. It is revealed that since the time life emerged on Earth, it has undergone three fundamental ecological evolutions: T
1.This first evolution did not take place on Earth, but took place in the spiritual realms.
2. The second evolution saw the introduction of physical life on Earth. While life on Earth has undergone different states of social and ecological developments, the conceptual values of Nature have remained the same.
3. The third evolution is the one we are currently in. The first and second evolutions will be evaluated for trial. Both spiritual and physical life will be cross examined. Harmful actions will be condemned and any values that led to the manipulation of life will be withdrawn and higher values introduced into life.
According to observations of the ecological developments and the spiritual evaluation of climate actions taken on earth per continent, Nature indicates that Asia will rise up as a world power and will take up the ecological obligations to lead the planet through this third evolution. However, Europe will be a major ally because of its great contributions in the second evolution. Africa and South America will make strong economic and social partnerships. Finally, Nature calls on the chiefs to become more practical. To come out of their hiding places and explore the magnificence and completeness in which the world was created. The cosmos has multi-dimensional applications that are untapped and are needed to help heal the planet. It is only the sacred spiritual chiefs that have access to these mysteries from Nature.
Mother Earth is calling on you, as her tears are drying up in the hope of the new ecological transformation. The introduction of new values will require the help of the sacred chiefs to oversee and guide the world into conscious science, politics, social and economic policies that humanity and nature need for ecological sustainability.
As the big nations endeavor to reduce carbon emissions and other industrial dangers on their own continents, the same programs should extend to other vulnerable continents. We now see pharmaceutical and big industries closing down in the industrialized continents only to be transferred to the continents supportive of ecological work. We are making the same mistake because the equation remains exactly the same everywhere on the planet. No matter where the environmental danger is placed, whether in Africa, Asia or in Europe. We should help other continents cultivate their own development that is aligned with their ecological values instead of suffocating new wisdom and civilization that is rising up on these continents that is supportive and sustainable for all of life. Nature said, “This world was put into the hands of the chiefs” – this was the revelation given to me by Nature in Laikipia, Kenya in 2012. Please endeavor to open the social barriers because the duty to govern the world was mandated to you, Spiritual Chiefs, by the Divine Authority. Life was not created in the institutional spaces defined by places of worship but in the wilderness, in nature, in the forests and the mountains themselves. Therefore, come out of the institutions to receive the creative wisdom and instructions that you will need to move into the new evolution on Earth.
Protect the children, new born pups, the young shoots – every form of budding life!
Beloved Great Grandmother, the Ancestral, please help the children, new born pups, the young shoots — every form of budding life!
Beloved Great Grandmother, the Ancestral from whose womb we all are born, whose fragrant silver hair falls long and thick. When I reach to touch it I feel Your timeless hands caressing me as well, here, where I am, always between Your big warm arms … where I know You listen to me and so I speak to You. I have none of Your powers but, like anyone else, I can be the one to call on You and ask for help:
Beloved Great Grandmother, the Ancestral, please help the children, new born pups, the young shoots — every form of budding life!
I feel within me their birth and the joy of life that they bring I also feel the pain of those many who suffer … because of us, human beings. Upon this generous mother planet we have to be guardians in service to Life but it is not so yet; alone, even if I see the tears of others and mine, I am not yet able to do so much.
For this I ask You:
Beloved Great Grandmother, the Ancestral, please help the children, new born pups, the young shoots — every form of budding life!
On this beautiful mother planet are too many children, pups, seedlings, who have no protection or food or pure water — don’t have what they need to grow healthy; but even if it were only one who suffered, it would still be too many. All life deserves protection; and even if it were only one, I pray that they can have the comfort of love, nourishment and protection from all visible or invisible dangers:
Beloved Grand and Ancestral Grandmother, please help all children, all new born pups, the young shoots — every form of budding life!
We humans have lost our common sense and have moved away from wisdom but with your help, oldest Grandma, we may come to remember what our every cell knows about love.
May we soon mature to the time when we are able, like You, to care for all forms of life, care for one another, to protect and honor the Earth with dignity and human respect for every being of Nature and for the Water, and for the Air and Fire and Space. May our thoughts, words and acts be peaceful and loving towards everyone and everything…
EMAHO !
(Prayer by Doju Freire at the request of M. Marstrand)
FOR THE GLOBAL PEACE INITIATIVE OF WOMEN RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS
GENEVA, 5th/10th OCTOBER 2002
Kuki Gallmann
SPEAK TO THE EARTH
I come from Africa to talk for the ones who have no voice and who are always the unsung victims of any war.
I talk for the living creatures with whom we share this planet, the ones which we have abused, polluted, raped and wounded to the core.
I talk for the remaining forests and for the small lives that they protect; for the seas and oceans, for the birds and the butterflies. And for the wise elephants, patient witnesses.
I talk for the savannah and the ancient, unchangeable hills.
I talk for the springs of fresh water that give life and for the great herds that once roamed the plains.
I talk for the rare, ever more endangered people who still live close to the source of all things and who still know how to speak to the trees and the animals that make up their world. Whose knowledge, and respect of their living environment, guaranteed their own survival.
I talk for children of Kenya – the ones who live on the edge of the valley of the Great Rift, from where we human beings all come from – who have, like all world children, a right to a Future of which unsustainable development, its pollution, and creeping deforestation, is robbing them for ever.
This is our mother Africa; our mother Nature; our mother Earth.
This peace meeting was conceived a while ago, but its timing is dramatically crucial.
A few people are at this time unilaterally deciding to take measures that will unleash a monster that we shall be unable to control; that will affect us all – the entire world – and the still unborn children of our children.
A war where there will be no winners.
Whose main victim will be our planet. and the children who will inherit an unmanageable world. The children who cannot yet vote, but whose voice must be heard.
But we can do something about this because it is our planet, we uphold democracy, we vote for life and for peace and such decisions have not be taken in our name.
Margaret Mead once said:
“A group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’
It was never more true.
Over forty years ago , in 1964, Carl Jung wrote:
“As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized…No voices now speak to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it has gone the profound emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.”
To find again this connection with the Earth is what people need and what they must look for:
These days we realize that the true monuments, cathedrals , temples, mosques, synagogues are not man-made.
They are the ones made by the timeless hand of nature; of the divine which is infinite, and beyond, and above us.
With the giant, far too rapid steps on the world of technology, Humankind at large has lost the link to the crucial fact that we come from the Earth, we go back to the Earth and we owe the Earth respect.
We must understand that we are behaving like hooligans, destroying common property, a common heritage that does not belong to any of us as individual countries, even if physically situated in one or the other part of this planet:
Because, as Maurice Strong, the founder of UNEP once told me, “planet Earth is like a spaceship, traveling through the Universe with a limited, finite amount of natural resources, that we all share”.
If development does not go hand in hand with conservation, if we continuously find short cuts to bypass the laws that we have once made, we are all lost.
Indeed we shall be tomorrow’ fossils, and this tomorrow is not millions years from now. Extinction are real: they do not happen overnight, but what we are witnessing worldwide are signals that a global catastrophe is closer than we want to think – if, wrapped up in day-to-day, we think about it at all.
We cannot continue this trend any longer, but shall we? We must take responsibility.
Only a generation ago no one could imagine that what we had taken for granted, fresh air, clean water, predictable seasons, sufficient rains and sunshine in the Summer, a pristine natural world – could be tangibly changed in our lifetime, to show a suicidal pattern of that incredible world spread decline that our carelessness, short sided greed have brought about.
The slow death that we are inflicting to the Earth in a thousand ways generates spasms that affect us all:
Floods and droughts, famine and disease, ravage not just the valleys and the plains, the rivers and the oceans, but the cities and the villages. Global Warming and melting of glaciers, Earthquakes and hurricanes, tropical storms, unmanageable fires, are great equalizers, destroy the living forests we have forgotten the powers of.
Just look at the news: hurricanes in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Porto Rico Texas, Florida, We call them familiar names, Irma, Katia, Maria, The planet is showing its power.
We must be wise enough to remember that the Earth, the spiritual and natural world, is unconquerable and will always have the last word.
It is our responsibility to do everything we can to protect and nourish what has never been easier to destroy.
To join forces, and show the world some sense.
We need to return to simpler and more spiritual ways of life, to true values, to the conscious respect towards what surrounds us and of which we are only temporary tenants.
This is the true crusade without which there can be no peace and no future.
We must all find our journeys and our quests.
I, myself, have traveled a long way through the paths of the mind, trying to come to term with losses that seemed too hard to bear. I have been trying to fill the silence of my familiar voices, and have learnt to listen to the voice of my soul.
In the course of my journey I have learnt many lessons.
There was time, as a child in Italy, when “ I dreamed” of Africa.
My dreams became a reality when I moved to Ol ari Nyiro, a vast estate on the Laikipia Highlands of Kenya, over thirty years ago, and a nightmare when first my husband, and then my son, died tragically there.
Then, it became a vision.
In most people’s life there is, sooner or later, a moment in which one feels at a dramatic turning point. A moment of truth, when the sense of our existence and the meaning that we should give it, is suddenly startlingly clear.
This was for me the time in which I looked down at the open, dead eyes of my son, and there I saw reflected the sky, and the sun, and the hills and the leaves of the tree above us.
The world had come to an end for me only.
The world – Nature – went on as ever.
The sky in Emanuele’s eyes, was the sky of Africa. This was the key.
In the weeks that followed I walked alone along the valleys and Savannah of my home in Laikipia, and one evening I stood looking down at the cliffs of the Great Rift, at endless vistas of volcanoes and hills and lakes.
There was something awesome and sacred in its majestic beauty, the ineffable feeling of being in a cathedral of the spirit, which could absorb my grief, and everyone’s grief, into a healing and transforming embrace.
Something that went beyond life and beyond death, because it was eternal.
In that moment I saw myself in the years to come becoming involved in the great movement to do something about our planet: the great quest, the final crusade to actively preserve and restore the natural world.
I had the intuition that to ensure its survival was more important than anything else, and making a positive difference to the environment and to the living creatures within it, with the means at my disposal, became my quest, and my mission.
I understood that what we call death is only the end of a stage, it does not need to be the end of a relationship with someone we have loved.
As a mother I had felt as if nothing would ever again heal my wounds: but I had been wrong: what remained was the magic of Africa, the purity of the landscape, its natural peace and tolerance, the aristocratic elegance of the African animals, the compassion and gentleness of the people.
All this was healing, inspiring, worth the sacrifice.
It went beyond life, and beyond death, because it was eternal.
I understood that what really mattered in the end was to have learnt that lesson, and accepted what I could not change, while concentrating on changing what I could.
Like many of the militants in the environmental crusade throughout the world, I deeply felt “the immense longing not just to protect, but to rejuvenate the Earth.”
I understood that the real voyage of discovery does not consist in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
So I started The Gallmann Memorial Foundation, which deals with preservation of natural resources, sustainable and creative use of the environment, education and community service.
I saw that one can make a difference in the outside world if one can make a difference for oneself.
And recalled the words of Chief Seattle:
“The earth is our mother.
What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.
Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.’
Rev. Doju Dinajara Freire leads a ceremony along a river bank
Honoring The Lineage of The Ancestral Feminine
Oh Great Ancestral Mother,
Of my Grandmothers, and of all Mothers,
That with love have nursed their own,
That have taken care of my mother, daughter, and all my children,
As well as my sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends,
Women both known and unknown,
The kindhearted and the malicious alike,
That have taken care of those who know how to pacify
To be serene and happy and rejoice sincerely for others and themselves,
And those who are unable to do so, prisoners of their own suffering – mental and otherwise – that blurs the light of their hearts,
That have likewise taken care of my grandparents,
My father, brothers, uncles, cousins, friends,
Men both known and unknown,
The kindhearted and the malicious alike,
Those who know how to offer protection,
To be serene and happy and to sincerely rejoice for others and themselves,
And those who are unable to do so as prisoners of their own suffering – mental and otherwise – that blurs the light of their hearts,
Great Ancestral Mother who always cares equally
For all animals and plants, forests, mountains and caves,
Rocks and crystals, water, air, fire,
All beauty and all food,
For the body and for the spirit of all of us,
Your daughters and children,
I invoke you, and I invoke all mothers,
My mothers and relatives,
Please show me yourselves, luminous, here and now!
May You be blessed and honored by me and all beings
At every moment and everywhere in life!
I bow and touch the Earth, as a witness to my heart and my love for beings,
Learned from You and from the ancestors of my mothers, and fathers,
As you taught me to pay respect to Life!
Speak to me about You,
About you all,
Please tell me what you want me to know,
Now my listening has grown deeper,
I can feel your warmth in the eloquent silence of the Earth.
I am here.
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