There is no life without thought

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

I was so delighted this morning to find this incredibly fascinating eKos diary over at GOS (by FishOutofWater)… what a welcome respite for me. I’ll probably be snooping around all day, looking for more info and background about the Kogi, located in northern Colombia in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

The Kogi are the last surviving civilization from the world of the Inca and Aztec, and their cities are untouched by our world. The mountain they inhabit is an isolated triangular pyramid rising over 18,000 feet from the sea, the highest coastal mountain on earth. It is on a separate tectonic plate from the Andes, and its unique structure means that it is virtually a miniature version of the planet, with all the world’s climates represented. The mountain is quite literally a micro-cosmos, a mirror of the planet on which every ecological zone is represented and in which most of the plants and animals of the planet can find homes.more

The diary is well sourced, full of links, and there’s quite a few video’s to see, I’m still watching. I figured I’d post about it here so y’all can try to catch up! It’s right up our alley, DharmaKids. lol. I’ll update with more thoughts or links as I go along. I’ve pretty much decided to devote my blog day to this.  Please add or embellish at will in comments.

When the priests, or Mamas, speak, they immediately reveal that their reference points are not of our world. They refer to the Spanish conquest as if it were a recent event. They talk openly of the force of creation, or Se, the spiritual core of all existence, and aluna, human thought, soul, and imagination. What is important, what has ultimate value, is not what is measured and seen but what exists in the many realms of meanings and connections that lie beneath the tangible realities of the world, linking all things. The nine-layered universe of their cosmology, the nine-tiered temple where they gather, the nine months a child spends in its mother’s womb are all expressions of creation, and each reflects and informs the other. A hill can also be a house, the mountains a model of the cosmos. The white hats worn by Arhuaco men also symbolize the snowfields of the sacred peaks. The hairs on a person’s body echo the forest trees that cover the mountain flanks. Every element of nature is imbued with higher significance, so that even the most modest of creatures can be seen as a teacher, and every feature of the world mirrors the whole. NG

And they have some warnings for the rest of us.

In 1990, there was a documentary film produced by the BBC, The Heart of the World (google video, 53:26, not embeddable).

The Kogi say that without thought, nothing could exist. This is a problem, because we are not just plundering the world, we are dumbing it down, destroying both the physical structure and the thought underpinning existence. The Kogi believe that they live in order to care for the world and keep its natural order functioning, but they recognized some years ago that this task was being made impossible by our mining and deforestation. In 1990 they emerged to work with Alan Ereira, making a 90-minute film for BBC1 in which they dramatically warned of our need to change course. Then they withdrew again.

Now they are working on a new film, Aluna.

But now the Kogi have summoned Alan Ereira back to say that we did not actually listen to what they said. We are incapable of being changed by being spoken to. They now understand that we learn through our eyes, not our ears. In the face of the approaching apocalypse, they have asked Ereira to make a film with them which will take the audience on a perilous journey into the mysteries of their sacred places to change our understanding of reality.

Okay, I admit it. There’s a little bit of hype and promotional flavor to some of this. I’m actually not real big on whoodoo new agey stuff that tends to over-romanticize, or sometimes exploit…. but that’s partly why Im looking for more info here. (NOTE: FOoW’s excellent diary has a strong focus on environment/ecology, not the new ageyness.) I have to glance away for a second to get past the marketing hits, but what I find especially encouraging about this project is bolded here:

In the face of the approaching apocalypse, they will take us on a perilous journey into the mysteries of their sacred places to change our understanding of reality. It is a journey encountering the dangers, the terrors, the power of the force that they perceive as driving reality, and which is now being torn apart and about to be released not as benevolent life, but as savage chaos. This is an epic tale in which the struggles of other-worldly heroes, invoked in fearsome masked and costumed rituals, are interwoven with the contemporary crisis. They intend to show that their work has visible and measurable results, that they really are taking care of the entire Earth.

They have even trained an indigenous film crew to work alongside the professionals, so that what the modern film crew cannot see may appear to the camera. The Mamos (spiritual leaders) understand that they have to do this because humanity is wantonly destroying sacred sites for profit. They want to show how and why the resulting eruption of chaotic cosmic energy causes climate change, epidemics of new diseases, geological instability and a relentless increase in murderous conflict.

If the Kogi are right, then modern humans have to change how they perceive the Earth itself, and how they try to engineer the future.

A few more tidbits…

LinkTV has an interview with the British filmmaker Alan Ereira here.

Although the Kogi are unique (literally) in South America (as sole survivors of the Spanish invasion/conquest), there are certainly other indigenous peoples with similiar messages…. see here for starters. heh.

Im really curious how the initial connect happened between these isolated people and the BBC filmmaker. Back in a bit…. finding more cool stuff.