11/24/2020
Beautiful and important message
A message from the elder Mamos of the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Madre de Santa Marta en Colombia in light of the COVID-19 transformation.
“The mother earth is giving birth. A new energy and another way of thinking will soon arrive on Earth. Like any woman when she gives birth to a child, she feels a lot of suffering. The disease that has touched humans is that suffering. There is a lot of pain and it may still increase. But in the end, when everything has passed, because everything comes to pass, there will be a new life.
How it will be depends on us. Mother Earth always speaks to us. It is not just now that she has suddenly started talking. No. She has told us for years that she is sick, but we have become deaf. The point is that we stick to an idea that she is different from us, but the reality is that we are just another component. Along with water, earth, minerals, air and stars, we are all one being. Neither has a privileged place over the other. So when we get sick from the water, we get sick from ourselves.
The mother is the one who feeds us, who allows us to drink, breathe and thanks to which we can build our roof. But what have we done with these other parts of our being? We have made them sick. We have commercialized the land with mining and we have put a price on water. We have lived too long focusing only on ourselves as humans. We declare human rights, but we forget the rights of the rest of the Earth. Now is the time for us to think about whether that system is going to save our lives.
Governments and people are taking action. They have sent us health protocols that we must follow. Even here in the Sierra we are taking care of that physical part. But we cannot think that this is going to be solved only with physical control measures. To shape that new life that is giving birth to the Earth, we have to listen to nature and transform ourselves.
Mother Earth sent us to think for a while. She has sent us to the house of reflection. In the Sierra, this is equivalent to what other societies call prison. When someone commits a crime we send them to rethink the issue in solitude. This is not a scolding, or a confinement, as the prison is, it is only a space of introspection. After a while, when leaving, the person has to deliver a message with the route that he will follow to correct his actions. The problem is not fixed by the authorities, nor the bosses, the problem is fixed by whoever created it.
While the mother is giving birth, we are in that house of reflection. It is our time to think about a proposal for change because the way we have lived so far has only made us sick. So we are in that moment of silence, where each person, each family, each cultivation and each government has been sent by the mother to think to change her ideas, her system of governance and of commerce. Today, we are realizing that money is worth nothing if there is no food, if there is no water and if there is no health.
We all must reflect. Even we in the Sierra who live by barter have forgotten some knowledge such as the use of medicinal plants. So it is time to transform ourselves to welcome that new life. We need to make a profound change.
Perhaps many people are thinking that they will return to the same normality. But that will not happen. Some may return to their jobs, to their routines, but many will not. And it feels scary. And you experience the pain of death. But that suffering can only lead us to life. In the new world, selfishness must disappear. We all have to cooperate and dialogue. The authorities cannot continue to govern alone, decisions must be coordinated with the peoples. No more dialogues from a few. We are compelled to achieve our reencounter with each other.
This disease only affects humans. From there our reflection must start, the mother has sent us to think only us. We did evil, but we ourselves can find the way to cure. The material and immaterial components of the mother are aligning in a delicate harmony, from the oceans, through the Earth to the universe and give new life. We may not yet understand that process. So we must listen to and cooperate with each component of the Earth.”
