Bringing Prophecies to Life: Indigenous Leaders Converge at Mayan Pyramids
Over 250 Indigenous representatives and allies unite to forge Sacred Covenant at Palenque’s ancient ceremonial center. It was a scene that could have played out a thousand years ago, or more. Amid a cluster of ancient Mayan temples, a rainbow-hued assemblage of Indigenous elders and young leaders formed a ceremonial circle. They looked on as […]
Call of the Turtle: LIVE Mini-Vision Council on Sunday
The Call of the Turtle, a Mini Vision Council Sun. Aug 7, gives a small taste of this south-of-the-border phenomenon that has transformed lives and communities throughout the continent.
Wixárika Invitation Inspires 'Mirror Altars' Around the World
It is that time of year again, when, since time immemorial, the Wixárika people are preparing their offerings. The candles of life, the chaquira gourd bowls, the God’s eyes, the prayer arrows. They are beginning to retrace the arduous journey of their ancestors, carried out every year in sacred reciprocity for the gift of life. […]
Bathing in the Wisdom of Forests
In ancient India, so the story goes, a king facing acute depression stopped his carriage for a breather in a forest full of tall tropical trees. While walking among their giant roots the king noticed the trees’ silence, their quiet steadfastness, and their offer of refuge from the harsh world of human affairs. He felt […]
Defending the Birthplace of the Sun
It’s been a decade now since Mexico experienced its Standing Rock moment. It was the native Wixárika people—better known internationally by their Spanish name, the Huicholes—who galvanized a global movement with their call for help. In the north-central state of San Luis Potosí, one of their most sacred sites—the Birthplace of the Sun—was being readied for […]
Caravan of Unity 2020: A Personal Perspective
This weekend the Unity.Earth Peace Caravan, which has defied racial and political division and pandemic to create a wave of unity across the nation, will come to a close on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. after a series of heart-opening performances, presentations and sharings by leading artists and leaders of the New Thought and […]
Uncertainty, crisis, collapse: The (necessary) bardo into a new life
Overnight, the daily life of the majority of the inhabitants of this beautiful Earth-home has vanished, leaving us in a kind of transitory reality between the old and known and the new unknown. After I asked someone how she was doing a couple of weeks ago, she replied: “Mmm, not very well. The most serious […]
In this time of great awakening, as a small microorganism humbles us to take this Great Pause, Earth Sky Woman wakes within each of us — Sacred Woman, Man, and Child. She is the bridge marrying Earth and Sky, She ignites within us the Holy Alchemy of the Sacred Human — at once mortal and divine.
The Incarnation is the Beginning of the End of Patriarchy
In the Christian tradition, we are at the threshold of a new Advent. As Pope Francis has suggested, we are not living an era of change but a change of era. This meditation explores this “change of era” as a radical transition from the patriarchal culture that has prevailed since the inception of human history to a new culture of solidarity and sustainability. Such a transition offers hope for a renewal of humanity as an indispensable response to the ecological crisis.
From Sunset Strip to the Sierra Madre to a Nobel nomination
As the founder of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and a lifelong advocate for their cause, Susana Valadez was chosen by an Amsterdam-based nonprofit, the Drugs Peace Institute, to represent the indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) people, whom the group nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts in favor of a sociable, ecologically friendly and peace-promoting use of mind-altering substances.”
Many Standing Rocks: Three Years and Still Fighting
The third anniversary of the Water Protectors movement at Standing Rock passed by quietly earlier this month. With the pipeline construction industry booming across the U.S. and Canada, Donald Trump seeking to bulldoze the cancelled Keystone XL Pipeline through more than 800 miles of unceded Lakota treaty territory, and at least nine state governments working […]
“What will become of us when we go to Wirikuta and can no longer find the tutuu (peyote flower)?” – question from a participant in “Let’s Talk About Hikuri,” a series of dialogs organized by Pedro Nájera and Lisbeth Bonilla. (photo at left: Antonio Moreno Talamantes, from Naturista.mx, some rights reserved – CC BY-NC) This […]
Visionary gathering brings regenerative development to Caribbean shores
All the pieces are beginning to come together for the XV Vision Council – Guardians of the Earth “Call of the Water” gathering. This year, the itinerant ecovillage and high-impact social movement has set its sights on Mexico’s Caribbean coast near the border with Belize. The gathering is set for the shores of the magnificent […]
By Tracy L. Barnett For Global Sisters Report This article was the first in a 12-part series on the Web of Life ecospiritual retreat in Darien, Panama, and the many interconnected environmental issues that it touched on. In the tiny country where a slice through the Earth connects its two greatest oceans, Maryknoll Sr. Melinda […]
From Death Squads to the Web of Life
By Tracy L. Barnett For Global Sisters Report In February 2017, while researching the impact of hydroelectric dams on the rivers and rural communities of Panama, I happened across Melinda Roper, a Catholic sister who had played a part in history as the leader of the Maryknolls at the time the four American churchwomen were […]
Left: Weni Bagama, a deputy in the Ngäbe-Buglé Congress and leader in the fight against Barro Blanco, heads for a meeting in the comarca capital of Llano Tugrí. Below, Döegeo Gallardo and Göejet Miranda paddle home through the dead zone that was once a shady, fish-filled river. (Tracy L. Barnett) Story and photos by Tracy L. […]
By Tracy L. Barnett STEELE, N.D., Dec 8 – We only made it 70 miles from Oceti Sakowin Camp in Standing Rock when a whiteout and fierce winds forced us to seek refuge in this tiny town, where the Kidder County Ambulance District and a wonderful EMT nurse named Mona Thompson took us in like […]
San Antonio Missions preserve Native American history in Texas’ first World Heritage Site
Story and photos by Tracy L. Barnett For The Washington Post Two weathered gravestones sit in a small, dusty rectangle in front of the grand Spanish church at the heart of the nation’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, the San Antonio Missions. I’ve been to Mission San Jose many times — to attend the lively […]
The Call of the Sage: The seed has sprouted
Left and above: First Encounter, Vision Council: Call of the Sage – Teopantli Kalpulli. By Laura Angélica Almazán The call of the caracol has called us together once again. The family has reunited one more time to continue with a mission that started more than two decades ago, and gets more and more relevant every year. The […]
El Llamado de Quetzalcoatl: Materializando la Visión
Por Tracy L. Barnett Traducido por Angélica Narákuri TEMICTLA, México – Si alguna vez hubo duda de que Quetzalcóatl vive, esa duda fue disipada en una luminosa, húmeda y brillante semana en el corazón de México. Aquí en Temictla, un valle sagrado, una pequeña ecoaldea y un centro de retiro espiritual en el borde de […]
The ancestors must have been smiling as a small procession representing the element of Fire, dressed in red and white, made its way through the crowded city streets of the Guadalajara historic center, beating an ancient rhythm with their ceremonial drums and trailing the smoke of copal from their saumadores. Traffic and shoppers stopped […]
Eagle and condor meet in visionary gathering of souls
CHALMITA, Mexico State, Mexico – Long before the sun appears over the towering white cliffs all around us, this temporary village comes to life. The guardians of the ceremonial fire are stoking the flames for the temazcal; the kitchen crew is chopping and peeling and stirring; smoke is rising from the women’s tipi. Suddenly the […]
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