An interview with Ivan Sawyer, founder of Voices of Amerikua, on Sacred Earth, his new series on Indigenous Ecology

After 32 days of pilgrimage, the Wixárika Caravan arrived at the National Palace in Mexico City. The march began on April 25, 900 kilometers away in the Western Sierra Madre. Since that time, they have been asking for an audience with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to request restitution of their stolen lands.

In a place where there is love, joy, and sadness….. I am the comforter.
But I also know how to love, cry, and rejoice when it’s my time, in every season I become beauty.

Like vegetation on a burned grassland, Mexico is seeing a growth in community resistance movements in defense of local territories, of life and of Mother Earth. This growth is taking place under innovative formulas that include the rescue of culture and the intervention of art, communication, and the solidarity of urban sectors, including communities of […]

On the night of March 18, 2022, a full moon rose over the Cerro del Quemado, the mountain known to the Wixárika people as the Birthplace of the Sun, to reveal an unforgettable sight. Hundreds of Wixaritari – elders, youth, children, mothers and fathers with babies in their arms – encircled the concentric rings of […]

Ancient stories are responsible for giving continuity and direction to the human adventure on Earth, connecting the community with its sacred center. For the elder Wixáritari brothers and sisters, the desert plateau in San Luis Potosí, México, known as Wirikuta, is the cosmic origin, the foundational center that organizes the spiritual ecology of the world. […]

True, legitimate, deep environmentalism is, above all, a luminous act where the human being gives himself body and soul to the defense of life. It is luminous because it lights flames of hope in a world of darkness. Pablo Alarcón Chaires was an exceptional environmentalist whose career left a trail of light. His very arrival […]

I was witnessing the first stone in a long-term project that seeks to restore and regenerate the desert in what many have come to call the “botanical garden” of Wirikuta. And as I watched this dream come to life, I was reminded of the symbolic Candles of Life, renovated every year in the pilgrimages carried out by the Wixárika people for whom this land holds a central place in their cosmology.

As the year draws to a close, I pause to wish you all a happy Solstice season and reflect on what we’ve been able to accomplish this year: the publication of 70 stories in English and 51 in Spanish, together with our first transmedia series, a bilingual film and three related articles and the presentation […]

The Supreme Court of Mexico announced two decisions that protect the human right to corn biodiversity — banning permits to sow genetically modified corn in Mexico. That right was challenged in court by the transnationals Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer-Dupont, and Dow Agrosciences.

Huehuecóyotl, Tepoztlán, Morelos — My first meeting with Maestro Antonio Velasco Piña took place during the launch of his best-known work, Regina: 2 de Octubre no se Olvida (Regina: Oct. 2 will not be forgotten), which took place in the auditorium of the El Sótano bookstore, located on Miguel Ángel Quevedo Avenue in a neighborhood […]

Diana Negrin Diana Negrín is a geographer, writer and professor who works between Mexico and the US. Negrín’s multidisciplinary work focuses on the intersection of social justice, ecology, arts and culture. Negrín helps run the Wixarika Research Center, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Wixarika autonomy and preserving their art and culture. Follow her at @geo.grafiando […]

When it rains in the high plateaus of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, the dampened earth releases a scent that showcases its unique biodiversity. During the rainy season, greasewood bushes, mesquites, yucca and a wide variety of cacti flower and give their fruits, while the locals plant their cornfields that grow according to the nourishment they […]

I met Juan José Uxamuire “Katira” Ramírez 10 years ago this coming February. I had just come down from the mountaintop of Cerro Quemado, the Birthplace of the Sun, along with about a thousand other pilgrims, gathered there in a historic all-night ceremony to pray for the salvation of the sacred desert of Wirikuta from […]

Esperanza is the Spanish word for hope. The Esperanza Project offers a special blend of hope-based media – one that gives voice to those heroes and heroines who are quietly changing the world from the ground up. Many, but not all, come from countries that we in the North don’t often pay attention to, from people […]

Three of the greatest battles that humanity is fighting are: The Covid-19 pandemic; The climate crisis, which increasingly threatens the survival of the species; and Gigantic areas of GM soy, corn, cotton and glyphosate, the poison that accompanies them, planted in blood and fire by six powerful agri-food corporations. To give the reader an idea, here is […]

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 […]

GUADALAJARA, Jalisco, Mexico — Yesterday I went to the papelería around the corner, owned by my neighbor Alejandra, to pick up a few office supplies. “How are you going to celebrate Día de Acción de Gracias?” she inquired, using the Spanish word for our uniquely United Statesian holiday. I hadn’t thought about it, really. There […]

We recently sat down (at a distance) for an interview with Paola Stefani, producer of the movie Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians. Together with the director of the film, Hernán Vilchez, and with the collaboration of the protagonist, Wixárika Mara’akame or spiritual leader José “Katira” Ramírez, and with the approval of the authorities of two […]

As I write, Venus is rising in the East on a day that portends so much. According to our traditions here in Mexico and many other places, the spirits of our dead are here among us still. I seize the moment to send up a prayer to all who are listening: Please, share your light […]