DEFEND THE SACRED

106 The Female Revolution In contemporary societies, the female aspect is almost completely absent. Throughout history, female knowl- edge has been virtually eradicated. Luckily, we are now becoming aware of this in different places around the world and are starting to remember original female knowledge about life. We need the memory of this knowledge and we need schools to pass it on. The Earth is a living organism. You cannot divide her. Recently, the political authorities of Colombia wanted to divide our land. We fought against it and won recogni- tion for our land as a holy land. This is a great spiritual and political success. Colombia has existed for 200 years. But we have lived there for over 12,000 years. Every coun- try has a deep history, including the countries of Europe. Part of our task as activists is to remind ourselves of our own history. We have to learn from the last 300 years. To- day’s system of exploitation of people and Earth is based on a hierarchical, pyramidal schema. But when all tribes regain their position in the circle, we recognise each other. We must rediscover that deep, sacred mem- ory that individual nations still have with the land and the Earth. We have the choice: either we continue on the path of self-destruction or we choose the birth of a new con- sciousness that respects the Earth and all life in and on it. Another part of our job as activ- ists is healing. There is so much to heal, in ourselves too, if we want to create peace. The deepest wound of the human being is the wound in love. To protect ourselves from re-wounding, we have developed a mistaken way of building relationships with others. So, people today are sad and lonely. There is no love. All destruction and all violence comes from this lack of love in our relation- ships. Today, we not only need schools for female knowl- edge, we also need schools for a different erotic life and for healing in love. Love teaches us to become receptive to our relationship with the Earth, the sun, other people. When I came to Europe for the first time, I cried a lot. A deep historical and existential wound opened in me. I believe that every person who comes here into this sa- cred circle must have the time and space to cry and to heal historic wounds. Slavery, war … all this needs heal- ing. Only then can we talk about the future together. Our movement must be a joyful movement. We must redis- cover that joy and invite love into our lives; the healing power and energy we want to give to the world. If we do not go through this healing process we will become a movement of sad people who are in pain. It is not just about the healing of individuals, but about the healing of humanity as a whole. Any activist who wants to defend the sacred must check with him or herself: ‘Where am I? How am I connected to all the difficult situations we are in? How do I work on it?’ Basically, it’s always about our relationship with the Earth. For 7000 years the sacred meaning of Mother Earth has been systematically denied. To bring back a sense of the sacred we must include the sacred memory of seeds. When we taste the seeds of sacred plants, we come into contact with 10,000 years of their history. It was the wom- en who collected and cultivated these seeds 10,000 years ago. This is how agriculture, the first culture of the Earth, came into existence. This culture has allowed us humans to settle. This is a special aspect of life that is barely noticed today. Instead, our historical literature is full of wars and destruction. The Earth was desecrated when man moved to possess her as if she were an object, a thing. We Indige- nous people do not believe that you can own the Earth. The land is not our property. Property is just an intellec- tual concept that is supposed to make people feel safe. The truth is the other way around. We humans belong to Mother Earth, along with all other be- ings. In our tradition as Indigenous peoples, in our souls and social consciousness, every species and every being has the natural right to live and be nourished. No other being, no government and no institution has the author- ity to deny any other being the sacred right to life. We have to honour and study these traditional laws again. The laws of the modern world are androcentric, patriar- chal, capitalist, materialistic, individualistic, racist, vio- lent. These are laws that justify possession, exploitation and violence, laws that are disconnected from the source of life. We work for the vision of a just, sustainable, peace- ful world. We want to introduce a new ‘nation’ for peo- ple who want to stand up for their rights, who want to be creative, who care for their environment and who respect nature and life. These people should learn to cooperate. Diversity among people creates peace. Diversity in nature creates sustainability.

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