VISIONS OF THE CALL OF THE CONDOR
There, where the chilly wind blows through the beautiful landscape of the sacred valley of the Incas, surrounded by the Veronica Mountain, we find ourselves in an opening of the earth, where the wind spins round and round, taking the message of the condor toward distant points of the sacred valley.
In this text we will look at the work done by some of the people who were the main actors of this living work of art....although I know that many more people participated than I have mentioned in this article, and I am grateful to all of them for allowing this marvellous event to take place, I will only refer to some of them, as it would be impossible to talk about everyone....
The convening was fantastic, as noticed this event reached thousands of addresses all over the world, thanks to virtual telepathy alias the Internet, a tool which used positively succeeded in the miracle of putting the beings from all the addresses in touch with each other, so that the rainbow warriors could arrange to meet, in the most sacred valley of the Incas during the equinox.
The arrival: the first meeting point was in Cuzco where the town was filled with the joy of all the pilgrims to the Condor; the greetings and hugs filled the environment with a friendly energy. The Caravan passed through the streets, the songs and dances of the earth mixed with the colors of the rainbow, which is such a normal sight in Cuzco, it was like arriving home.
Aguascalientes: we arrived to this town by train and we stayed in lots of different hostels; this small town is at the feet of Machu Picchu. We started the work and coexistence in the school, in the main square, in the auditorium, the people were very grateful that the Caravan and the Guardians of the Earth from all over the world, were interested in them and not only their historical monuments, they felt included in the Call of the Condor and showed us their dances and songs....the encounter has begun.
Machu Picchu: the majestic town of Machupichu opened its doors to the guardians of the earth. We all met on the top very early to greet the sun of the equinox together, this sunrise was a sight that touched the spirit of everyone who was present. The ceremonies, blessings, circles, rituals, dances, songs and other spiritual events started to take place in the whole ceremonial center, for the first time in many years Machupichu began to vibrate again in a spiritual tune, in all its senses. Our Italian friends Mauricio and Sandra Conmeno commented: We have visited Machupichu many times and this is the first time that we have taken Machupichu. The guards recognise us as the group of Mystics, there is magic in the air and everyones&Mac226; faces and hearts are filled with extasy.
Camp Verónica: at the site of Km 82....The landscape has an absolutely marvellous natural beauty, with the Veronica at the end covered in eternal snow, waterfalls and streams of water, the birth of the river and the watershed of the Urubamba that flows into the Amazon....and there on the other side of the river with a two kilometres opening into a desert of mountains, is Camp Veronica and a cattle pasture, where the camp of the Call of the Condor was set up.
The weather: bitterly cold at night, very hot during the day, rain the first days and above all very windy all the time. The cloudless nights were a really enigmatic sight as the southern sky is a different sky. The Milky Way stood out with a light highlighting its path very clearly.
The Caravan: The host team of the caravan and voluntiers did an intense job. I can only be very very grateful to them for all the work that they did for this event: Alberto Ruz, Liora Adler, Jayson, Penélope, Heidi, Alejandra Balado, Doris, Dora, Fabio, Tito, Pablo, Nami, and the volunteers group Natalia, Sayboni, Say, Jorge (Cali), Mireya, Carolina, Fernando , Nico, Linikunda, Mary, Mario, Anik, Paco, Miriam, Eduard, Irma, Kid, Steven, Gnomo, Alesa and some other ones.
I would also like to thank the Mexican group who helped with the work and who started preparing the camp weeks before: Odin Ruz, Deva Baumbach, Helida Scian, Kena Acosta, Arun Ruz and Jupiter.
Registration and welcome: those who most helped with this were the group from Peru, Virginia, Sam, Cristine, Mariane,Verónica, Pacha, Mae, Roció, together with support from Bertha Wilhem (Vision Council) , Kailash and Linda from Ecovillages. This whole group did an amazing job as each person has a different background and a particular way to deal with, and this group worked in a very kind and unimposing way with the participants.
Documentation: Various cameras were used in this occasion in order to cover the event and a sensational group worked together. We videoed the ceremonies, plenaries, circles, workshops and other activities, this was complemented with hundreds of interviews of those who participated in the event. I am sure that the video of the Condor will be incredibly moving and of an incredible quality. The main protagonists were: Jayson, Marti ( from Ecovillages), Gabriel Zapata , Eugenia Higland, Alejandra Cerdeño (from the Vision Council) and others whose names I don&Mac226;t remember.
Health: The work here was intense both day and night, as many participants visited this area. The quality of the treatment of our Mexican traditional doctors was fantastic, this area was always full, people wanted, desired to be cured by this team of wise and warm traditional doctors, the healings, massages, adjustments and preparations of micro dozes and potions (prepared personally by them) cured the ill in a natural way. The local doctor (allopath) who was also there tried to learn from the many and varied healing techniques that this team practiced. The team is Carlos Gomes, Eduardo de la Garza, Angélica Flores (Vision Council).
Spirituality: The full experience of the Call of the Condor was a spiritual one, the elders from all over arranged to meet in the Condor. The environment filled with blessings, ceremonies, salutes to the sun, temascales, workshops and much more. Kathy Sartor (of Huehuecoyotl) was the facilitator of the council, she did a subtle, strong and harmonic job of coordinating the elder meetings, attending to their particular needs, dominating egos, thus allowing the voice and heart of everyone to be heard. The support devotion, love, happiness and hard work of grandma Margarita. Who was always surrounded by young people keen to listen to her wisdom and teachings, was an essential part of this area.
Facilitation: Beatriz Briggs shone like a star in the Council and her smile managed to bring order to the thousands of different ideas that flow with the Condor. She met with the organizing committee every day at sunrise to see, maintain and resolve everything that was required for the event. During the day she coordinated the great plenary, gave a workshop on consensus and coordinated the facilitation team that supported every council. She was like a spinal column that allowed everything to happen with a natural order, and permitted all the activities to have their own space and for all the voices to be heard.
BIOREGIONAL REPORT
PLENARY: The team worked together in the support of the Ecology council in the Big Plenary: Laura Kuri, Fabio Manzini, David Haenke, Nelson Denman, Alberto Ruz, Christopher Wells and Beatrice Briggs, worked to spread the bioregional voice to the whole group (700 people) in the plenary. We talked about the bioregional definitions, bioregional movement, history, how to define the Peruvian bioregions, and some other topics, with live music and songs.
BOOK: We also presented the first bioregional book in Spanish, the one that just came out „Bienvenidos a Casa, Vivencia y Pensamiento Bioregional‰ (Welcome home, Bioregional Thought and Living). We distributed the book among people, that are leaders of alternative movements in South America, and soon we will put it up in the AYOTL webpage, available to anyone in PDF format.
BIOREGIONAL WORKSHOPS: We worked in smaller groups during the workshop sessions in the ecology council.
- - Renewable Energy, by Fabio Manzini this was attended by 50 people and we realized there is al lot of interest in this topic (the only electrical energy that we have during the congress was Solar Power).
- Bioregionalism Introduction , by Laura Kuri
- How to organize the congress and the bioregional movement in any area. by David Haenke
The result of this participation was wonderful, because we realized that there are a lot of people in Peru doing a lot of things to restore their land and culture, but these efforts are individual efforts so we worked with them to set up the „FIRST BIOREGIONAL NETWORK OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES‰ after the introduction of Bioregionalism in the event, the bioregional network of the people of Peru had 73 participants, they already made a lot of compromises and started to set up a working agenda by regions. So I think this was the most important achievement of the „Call of the Condor‰.
PERMACULTURE: This workshop that was coordinated by Nelson Denman and Odin Ruz, the Permaculture was attended by 80 people and they visited the local green gardens and had the opportunity to see the antique water systems made by the Inca culture centuries ago.
MANIFIESTO: Fabio Manzini, David Haenke and Alice Klein, worked to set up the „Manifesto Bioregional del Condor‰ a great document in which there are captured some of the Ideals of the voice of the Condor. Including the words of different leaders that participated and share their wisdoms Jose Arguelles, Miyo, Alberto, The rainbows, Marcelo (brazil), Jose (amazonas), Nelson, Axel, Erik, Giovanni and others.
SOCIAL MOVEMENT: Lucia, Luciano (ecovillages) and Mario (Social economy) from Uruguay with others had a wonderful agenda with these topics as there are many different social needs to attend and manifestations. In this area the people from South America are really teachers in social movements, as the history of their bioregions was been. They start with social economi.
CHILDREN AND SPECIES: Chris Wells did Bioregional work with the Kids through the All Species Project during the event. By the last circle the kids arrived in customs representing the species in a happy way.
ART AND CULTURE: The work in the Council of Art and Culture was very rich and Giovanni did a great job, there were many artists and also many different kinds of cultural manifestations, it was a big effort to give the space and cover all the necessities that every different kind of manifestations needed, here Giovanni did a miracle and every person had a place, a time, a space to show their art and the support to do it. We also had the presence of local people with their traditional music, dances; also people from the jungle came to share their dances, chants, and art, and talked about their bioregional problems in the rainforest. Every night was showing a great picture projection by Albert Bates (Ecovillages). This was a whole week of daily events at night and the council coordination during the day time.
ECOVILLAGES: This Topic was also one of the principals ideologies that where very strong during the Condor, the great group of ENA and GEN people (Lucia, Marti, Massimo, Jonathan) gave a felling of HOPE to the hole congress, their vision of a ecological and communal way of living and all the examples that we could saw, shoe to the rest of the participant that the answer and the acting for a new world is in our hands and home. Thanks to Albert Bates, Linda, Kailash, Lois Arkin from USA Marcelo, Luis and Guillermo from Brazil, Giovanny, Katy, Bea, Laura and Fabio from Mezoamerica, Pato, Veronica, Felipe, Enrique, from south America and to the rest of the participant in the Ecovillages.
The Call of the Condor has been a great event, and one the principal goals was to show what is the Bioregional movement, what has been doing and this was done very well. Now the Bioregional seeds are planted in South America and we hope that they will grow strong enough to keep spreading this way of thinking and acting.
Thanks a lot to all of you, who supported the Bioregional movement to keep it growing all over Turtle Island.
Hope for the Earth.
Laura Kuri, AYOTL