Join us in Hopi Land, March 16-21, for an immersion experience in the Hopi Way of Life you’re unlikely to find on your own. Once again, I’m honored to sponsor this rare opportunity hosted by Hopi Wisdom Keepers Charlene Joseph, Harold Joseph and others. You’ll be touched in surprising ways as to what really matters, positively affecting your daily life long after you return home.
With Charlene and Harold Joseph, Hopi Wisdom Keepers, and Carla Woody, Spiritual Guide and Author
An Immersion Experience in the Hopi Way of Life. Co-sponsored by Kenosis and Kenosis Spirit Keepers. A portion of tuition is tax-deductible.
Join us to learn from traditional Hopi Wisdom Keepers in their home villages of Shungopavi and Moenkopi in northern Arizona while they share who they are as First People, the original commitment they made to the Caretaker of that land — and some of the ways they carry out these spiritual responsibilities.
Our journey emphasizes lifeways and places of great spiritual significance handed down by Hopi ancestors, as it has been for thousands of years, still living today on First, Second and Third Mesas of the Hopi Nation. Visiting ancient villages of Old Oraibi, Walpi and hidden petroglyph sites, we explore the traditional Hopi way that holds the world together.
Our journey is timed to potentially attend a day dance. The Katsinas having engaged in ritual in the kivas and danced all night, often emerge during the day to offer blessings to all beings and prayers for fruitfulness.
The group size is limited to maintain respect and the intimate nature. A portion of tuition is tax-deductible to help preserve continuity of Indigenous wisdom traditions through the initiatives of Kenosis Spirit Keepers, the nonprofit extension of Kenosis. When you travel with us you directly help support Indigenous traditions.
For detailed itinerary, tuition, bios and how to register, go here.
Registration discount until December 16. Registration deadline February 27, 2023.
Register now to hold your space! For questions, call 928-778-1058 or email cwoody@kenosis.net.
Once I made a true commitment to my artwork, to reach into deeper recesses of myself, to somehow translate what I found there onto a surface, I noticed something interesting.
Whenever I would see an artist post their unfinished painting or sculpture on social media and label it WIP, shorthand for work in progress, it grated on me. It serves as a constant reminder of western societal norms: the pressure to worship at the altar of “progress”. To produce…quickly and consistently in a prescribed way…to set goals rather than hold intent. Prior to social media, perhaps I wasn’t consciously aware of what I rebelled against, but now it’s all too visible in so many ways.
It also brings to consciousness, a choice to be made at any turn. To paraphrase my first spiritual teacher Américo Yábar, are you acting for an audience…or are you an actor for the Infinite?
I had my first glimmer of understanding in my early 20s. First of all, I was working in a white male-dominated field in a bureaucratic environment. My boss charged me with a small project. I remember nothing about the content but do remember the process. It had creative elements and potential strategies toward the given outcome. I was intrigued and diligently went to work on it. But when he didn’t immediately get reports of my progress, he became more and more anxious, probably thinking he’d made a mistake choosing this very young woman for the task. He then attempted to micromanage me, which never works with me. I pretty much blew him off except to say I’m working on it. When I did give him my detailed recommendations, strategies in place, well before the deadline, he didn’t hide his shock.
He was a good boss and treated me well, but clearly, he knew nothing of the creative process. It requires space and a willingness to step outside time, to incubate in the underworld, before the final outcome surfaces. Now this was a minor incident in the scope of my life. But somehow, it’s remained vivid in my memory as a major teaching where creativity takes center stage.
Where the WIP term is concerned, I felt quite validated toward what I’d already long determined after watching a 2021 interview of Eric Maisel , a psychotherapist, creativity coach and author of more than 50 books, for an audience of artist members of the Cold Wax Academy. In essence he said, “The idea of progress is a trap. The Transcendentalists named ‘progress’ as the central metaphor for America. The icon was an upward spiral.”
What a set-up. As if unknown territory, frustration and being lost isn’t part of the process, too. That, by the way, is how we learn and then continue to expand beyond what we know…by stepping off the beaten path. I used to call it my love-hate relationship with painting—until I didn’t. Maisel went on to say, “Just do the next right thing.” Primarily that means stepping outside the progress paradigm and into yourself. Make yourself available to what comes through.
That began to happen for me when I fully realized that creating art had become a spiritual practice, an extension beyond my morning meditations. By that time, I’d had a daily meditation practice for 30 years. And just like that practice, it took some time for deeper channels to open in this different context. But one day it just happened. Something else entered, which is impossible to explain logically. There was an exchange, an ongoing silent conversation, and I was suddenly taking direction from the painting…or something beyond it…as the most natural of occurrences.
I titled the painting My Magdalen Heart. Some months later I happened to be in the gallery where I showed my work at the time when an older couple entered and started making their way along the back wall. Soon the woman came to me with tears in her eyes, asking if I was the artist. She told me the painting had spoken to her. I didn’t doubt her. She went on to say how devoted she’d been to Mary Magdalen since childhood, having so many stories. It was emotional for us both. My Magdalen Heart now lives in New Mexico where, as the owner wrote to me, her presence commands the room.
Several months ago, I learned of Peter Kingsley’s body of work. It would be remiss of me not to mention him here. I have been slowly making my way through his books, there being so much that rings true for me. Sprinkled throughout his writings he exposes “the western myth of progress” trying to shake us awake, directing us back toward our origins. Those we forgot long ago as a culture, but remembered and still lived by traditional Indigenous peoples. In Catafalque, on Carl Jung and his Red Book, he uses Jung’s own words to describe the progress myth: “cult” and “illusion” relating to the obsession and fragility, the state of affairs we’re collectively enduring.
I’ve learned over time to create space around my artwork, to ignore outside influences attempting to break through what I consider sacred space. These days working a piece to completion may take months. I’ve learned to be patient and trust what comes as it does. I’ve lost the angst around painting that used to wait in the wings, its cue to appear when I didn’t know what to do. Instead, I know it’s gone underground for a while to be sorted out and willingly let go.
I usually have a sense of what narrative I want to convey before I start painting. Early this year I began a series called One Mother as an invitation to re-member ourselves and our collective foundation. When I started the second work, it quickly diverged from the Arizona forest image I used as a prompt and took on a life of its own. I went with it. After some weeks I realized the landscape seemed awfully familiar but quite different from what I started with, nowhere around here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and whatever was directing my palette knife wasn’t giving any hints. I have a rocker I keep across the room from my easel. I hang out there a lot, gazing at my work to get distance and another perspective. I knew something significant was missing from this piece but no clue as to what. Then one day two things happened in quick succession. Suddenly, I recognized the landscape as that below the cliff at Serpent Mound in southern Ohio. An instant later, superimposed on the painting, I saw a snake slithering along a large rock at the creek’s edge, the cosmic egg in its mouth.
The Wayshower, detail.
This outcome was not in my human mind, and it was only by being willing to stay with the process, to surrender and have the silent, sometimes intermittent, conversation was the unfolding delivered. And for that I have no words. But I do know it’s not progress.
Revelations in Process was first published in Illumination on Medium in November 2022.
Many of you know I recently returned from a personal journey – immersion in the little known Matsigenka way of life and time in deep jungle…profoundly transformational for me. The community has graciously invited me to bring a small group.
– Carla Woody
It is a privilege to sponsor this special program focusing on sacred traditions linking the Q’ero and Quechua peoples of the Andes and the Matsigenka of the jungle. I offer you an intimate opportunity, unlikely to be found on your own — with the intent that we are all transformed and carry the beauty home.
We begin in areas outside Cusco wiith Doña Vilma Pinedo and Q’ero paq’os — traditional Wisdom Keepers and mystics — who usher us into the world of the Andes, an alternate reality of life-affirming choices.
Q’ero Despacho. Photo: Carla Woody.
Then we transition deep into the rainforest to the pristine, wild surroundings of Matsigenka homelands. We experience how it is tolive harmoniously attuned to the environment, creating natural medicines and traditional arts, consuming foods provided by the rainforest, and taking in oral history informing the Matsigenka world view.
This is a journey of ayni — sacred reciprocity. We sit in ceremony of all these traditions, become an allyu — spiritual community — honoring all that sustains the planet and our own wellbeing. We come together with blessings, prayers and share the daily activities of all pilgrims.
We will be a smaller group than usual with respect to the Matsigenka village capacities. Though small, their hearts are open and wish to receive us in generosity just as our Q’ero friends and Dona Vilma Pinedo do.
Detailed information including itinerary, tuition, bios, and how to register is on the program page. I’m truly honored to bring you this rare opportunity.
Register now to hold your space! Registration deadline July 21. For questions call 928-778-1058 or email info@kenosis.net.
I am privileged to bring you such a special opportunity. Join me and accept my invitation for this Adventure of the Spirit…and know that you are supporting continuation of the invisible, sacred threads that hold the world together.
A friend recommended A Pilgrimage to Eternity knowing how much the Camino de Santiago meant to me—my walk and the aftermath, what I learned about myself. I confess I thought I’d be wading through a lot of historical minutiae reading this book. But I was pleasantly surprised, moved and entertained.
Timothy Egan’s mother was a progressive but devout Catholic. After her passing, he decided to make the pilgrimage on the Via Francigena, an ancient route actually older than the Camino de Santiago by about two hundred years. It begins in Canterbury and ends in Rome. The Via passes through England, France, Switzerland and Italy, a length of 1100 miles.
Egan self-identified as a “lapsed” Catholic. One reason for his undertaking such an incredibly testing journey was the sheer physicality of it. But there were two other reasons. He really wanted to get to the bottom of how early Christianity—whose tenets were love, gender equality, charity and little dogma—transitioned to what it is today. He also wanted to reactivate his own spirituality, and see if he could find those original core precepts in action in the present-day Catholic Church.
This is Egan’s account of his own personal pilgrimage. By his very reasons, it included a fine examination and accounting of where the Catholic Church fell from its early grace. The Inquisition, murders, sexual abuse, bias and politics are already commonly known. But this writer fills in the gaps and pinpoints specific immoral deeds, contradictions, greed and subterfuge— often told with wickedly irreverent, biting humor. He doesn’t cut them any slack.
He came into the pilgrimage already carrying his own personal grief and strikes against the Church, which are relayed in the book. One had to do with Father Patrick O’Donnell who lived across the street from his childhood home, back then a 31-year-old priest. Egan’s mother welcomed him, a frequently invited guest. The priest was charismatic and considered a Pied Piper with kids. We know this familiar story. In 2002, a Spokane paper broke the story of dozens of accusations against the priest for sexually abusing boys across his priestly career, and how he’d just been moved by from one parish to another when things got too dicey. When Egan’s grown friend read the news, trauma came flooding back…what he’d kept secret. He subsequently took his own life.
Egan takes the Church to task about their fear of women’s power and sexuality: “Sex got stuck, just like those clerics who were never able to move beyond the boyhood trauma of arousal. The best women—Mary the mother of God, Joan the Maid, and Brigid of Ireland—were [made] virgins. The best men—Augustine, Jerome, and Benedict—renounced sex.”
He goes on to talk about Pope Gregory VII’s edict in the 11th century against clerical marriage. This when nearly half the clerics had wives or mistresses. There’s a lot more on that subject. But you’ve got a taste.
Here’s an accounting of high shenanigans I hadn’t known. When in Geneva, Egan sought out the repository of a special, preserved document issued by the pope—a “passport to paradise” of which who knew how many were sold. The purpose was protection from hell. The cost of the document depended on how many years the buyer wanted to reduce their time in purgatory. They could do so for themselves or a deceased relative. The fee lined the pope’s and clerics’ pockets. Thus were palaces built and feasts laid out…while peasants gave what money they had to the Church and their families went without enough food. The practice came to a halt after Martin Luther made a public exposé of this and a plethora of other instances of vast indulgences and greed by the Catholic Church. So began the advancement of Protestantism.
Along with informing us of the Church’s misdeeds, the author shares his experiences. This one is quite remarkable. He visited the crypt of Saint Lucia Filipini located in Montesiascone Cathedral in the town of Montefiascone, Italy. She died in 1732 at 6o. Her body remains incorruptible. On his visit, Egan looked closely. Her eyes were half open. Shooting a number of photos, he zoomed in and observed “a slow but discernible movement. The eyes are opening wider, to a half oval.” It jolted him with a sense of direct connection to the saint, the body. The next day he returned to the crypt. The eyes were completely closed.
He introduces us to the Abbey of Saint-Maurice along the Great St-Bernard Pass. Yes, the one with the rescue dogs. Perpetual prayer and chanting has endured 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for centuries. These days the monks who perform this duty are known as the Sleepless Ones. A site for contemplatives, there’s a draw for retreat.
Why truly would someone, and particularly the author, want to make such an arduous pilgrimage on the Via? “Wonder is a simple virtue. Like childhood, it’s grounded in innocence, taken for granted until it’s impossible to reclaim. One of the reasons I’m on the VF is to see whether I can maintain my wonder of what could be, while never forgetting what was.”
Now I’m dreaming of doing it myself. Well, maybe a truncated version at least.
A Pilgrimage to Eternityis available wherever books are sold. I checked mine out from our local library.
This book review first appeared in the publication Illumination on Medium.
I had an invitation from an art docent group to speak about my work a few weeks ago. Since I’m a narrative artist, the subject was art as a form of storytelling. Their preferred method was a PowerPoint presentation — a format I hadn’t used in decades — with real life examples displayed so they could encounter them up close and personal.
How to best represent my art? Going back 35 years, long before it became a conscious outcome, each of my pieces had a story behind them. They came from my experiences. Initially, they centered on villages I’d wandered through and trails I’d followed through forests, particularly in Europe.
Later, it was more about what came from sacred sites, ceremonies and people who populated Indigenous lands where I returned over and over, conveying in some way what had touched and changed me, deepened my understanding of what matters in this life.
I’m quite clear about my personal evolution over the years — changes I chose that placed me on another track entirely — but I hadn’t realized how it affected my artwork as well. How could I have missed that? I’m like anyone else. I’d gotten so immersed in the day-to-day I hadn’t realized what was evident. Creating that presentation became a gift. It caused me to stand back and pinpoint how I got from there to here. In that moment, I became the observer, not the artist. Each of those pieces were part of a history that generated a visual story. I used the same strategy on myself — in the context of art — that I facilitate with others who want to consciously create a transition in their life.
In being our own witness, rather than being in it, things become apparent. It helps us make decisions. It serves as momentum to veer off a beaten path, to move through a threshold with intent. It naturally gathers energy that provides courage and reinforcement.
So that was my first decision. If these folks really wanted me to relay how art could tell a story, they were going to get a retrospective peppered liberally with how I’d progressed as an artist, what influenced me, and finally what was behind each image in the PowerPoint.
That decision took me to another level. I became aware that, over the last decade, creating art had become integral to my spiritual practice. For me, that means there’s an excavation of sorts that occurs in the process of creation. My intent is to express something deeper than a surface level image and initiate an evocative response from the viewer. To do so, I require myself to go deeper.
During my talk prep, I came across a quote from the writer James Baldwin.
The purpose of art is to lay bare the question hidden by the answers.
I’d written and taught of this before, although I hadn’t considered art when I did.
…Like an unconscious mantra held in the mind, we ask a question in any given moment. In asking the question, the answer naturally comes to us. Therefore, in holding the thought, we ask the answer. This is the paradox that guides our lives.
We cannot ask a question for which there is no answer. Our minds can’t conceive of such…Through some fluke of determination when our minds can conceive of a wider reality, or at least have some inkling of acceptance, that conception will generate answers beyond the questions. This opening will then move us into new experiences through the wider framework of the mind—and we wonder how we got there.
I noticed there was increased depth in my art when I made a simple adjustment about five years ago. I sit in the same place every morning when I do my early morning meditation practice. I learned long ago that energy builds up in a physical space when I return to it over and over with such intent. It becomes a natural segue, an anchor or portal through which I easily enter a meditative state. Energy lingers there—like a booster rocket—the same as when I close my eyes in a certain way, signaling readiness for a shift from ordinary reality, a surrender to non-ordinary reality.
The simple adjustment I made was this. I began to bring whatever piece of art I had in process and placed it within direct viewing distance from my meditation spot. Then when I opened my eyes, still in a deeper state of being, a communication started to occur. A communion of sorts. No, I didn’t experience discourse with my ordinary ears or eyes. But something happened. I formed a much greater connection and knowing. The artwork came to life and had its own expression. The piece itself became my guide in how to express its deeper nature.
Of course, you can do the same for any context you wish to explore…whether you place a physical object as I did…or project some representation—via visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory manner—of what you wish to consider.
Having heard that so many of us had a challenging 2016…in any number of ways…and since we’re at the start of 2017, I wanted to offer you a rerun of this article I wrote a few years ago. It speaks of following energy, perhaps in a way you haven’t considered. And shares with you an annual tradition of mine⏤featured at the bottom⏤I’ve kept since I discovered it about five years ago. I find meaning and inspiration for the coming year in this way.
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Several years ago, my friend Hilary Bee, a professional intuitive and spiritual teacher in the UK, told me that I have a strong inner navigational system guiding me. Over time, I’ve learned to trust it implicitly—even when the next step is obscured from my vision.
I call this navigational system intent, and it produces a high frequency of energy. I recognize completely when it’s communicating a path I am to take, choices to make. I’ve learned to recognize the energetic language. Equally, I’ve come to know over time when I’m straying from the path, or it’s time for an evolutionary change. A totally different level of energy accompanies that alert—and a nagging feeling something isn’t right. Of course, taking that fork in the road may initially produce chaos until order—and realignment—produces a deeper order.
I offer you this poem by C. P. Cavafy and then a caveat.
Ordinary people know what’s happening now,
the gods know future things
because they alone are totally enlightened.
Of what’s to come the wise perceive
things about to happen.
Sometimes during moments of intense study
their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound
of things approaching reaches them,
and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
the people hear nothing whatsoever.*
While I agree with Cavafy in that the majority of people may be completely unaware, or at least ignore signals, you have an opportunity always to live according to the wisdom of the gods. It’s a fine-tuning process but completely available to you. It requires that you pay attention and then the courage to deviate from any beaten path, sometimes to follow what you can’t readily see.
Here’s a rather dramatic example from my own life. Several years ago, I sponsored two back-to-back programs in Peru. During just one spiritual travel journey the energy is always strong from ceremonies, resident energy in sacred sites and more. With an additional one under my belt and little break between, the veil between the worlds had grown quite thin for me.
After the last group left for home, I was sitting in an Internet café in Cusco. It was the time of Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun, which transforms this usually placid former Incan Empire capital into masses of revelers, huge numbers coming from other locations. I knew that many pickpockets came from Lima to take advantage of the tourists during this time. Consequently, I took precautions. I carefully sat on my coat with my passport and money secured in an inside zipped pocket while I focused on email neglected for several days.
I had been at it for some time with people at computers on either side of me coming and going without any real attention on my part. But then I sensed something, noticing only the color green in my peripheral vision, and went back to my emails. Then again, slight movement out of the corner of my eye. A loud internal voice—not mine—said, Look down! I followed suit. My coat was hanging open, the inner pocket unzipped with passport and money gone!
Literally with no thought in my mind and seeing nothing to go after, I was out of my seat in a split second and onto the street thronged with thousands. Instead of raising a cry with no information to relay, something caused me to turn immediately into the small travel agency next to the Internet café. My hands had a life of their own, clamping onto the arms of two men standing just inside the agency, waiting in line. In a loud authoritative voice I stated, “My money and my passport! My money and my passport!”
They faced me then with shock on their faces as I continued to make the same demand. Both struggled in my grasp; my hands had become pincers of steel. Travel agents and other customers began to turn and get up from seats. The two men managed to turn me toward the entrance in their efforts to be free. One finally managed to duck out the door saying something to the other one, who slipped out of his jacket, leaving it in my hands.
Dropping it, I started to go after the pair but heard a woman’s voice saying, “Are these yours?” She held my passport, money pouch and the green jacket. I thanked her, as well as the others who had risen to aid me. Then I returned calmly to the café and resumed my correspondence.
That night I had a dream: Someone gifted me with a puma.**
As we entrain with a higher vibrational frequency, light energy doesn’t allow us to doubt or contract in fear. It is supreme and grounded. It has peripheral vision. Salk’a—as they call undomesticated energy in the Andes—induces clarity without thought, compassionate detachment and the warrior’s action. This is a state of being we can maintain.
I have a personal tradition. Either during winter or in the first days of spring I seek to remind myself of this Salk’a journey and store further inspiration for the long haul. I want to offer my tradition to you: Watch another of Cavafy’s poems, Ithaca, beautifully set to the music of Vangelis and the resonance of Sean Connery’s voice. This one I fully ascribe to.
********
“Poem by C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992.
**Known as puma in Peru, we also know this sleek animal as jaguar, cougar or mountain lion. In the Indigenous Andes, it represents how to effectively navigate the Kaypacha, or Middle World, the one we walk in our everyday life.
I came across the inspirational short Invisible Wings when it was first featured on Karma Tube in 2015 and have watched it several times since. It touches a soft spot in me. It opens my heart, and I feel the flow of my own life moving through me. It generates reflection and gratitude…all channeled through the words of a 65-year-old tea seller named Vijayan against visually beautiful backdrops.
His use of the metaphor ‘journey’ in the film is important as well as the way he validates it. A bona fide journey isn’t over smooth ground but fraught with challenges along the way. If we meet those obstacles eye-to-eye, it encourages our growth, nurtures the spirit and frees our dreams…to manifest. If we don’t, it harnesses the soul.
All this from a man many may overlook: the owner of a small stall in India where he pours tea, his wife Mohana working beside him. They appear to have little in the way most would see them. But Vijayan carries a dream— to travel the world, to open his heart and mind to other lands and ways of living—and his wife shares that dream. They have traveled the globe. Even though, at the start of their marriage, she’d never been out of her own hometown.
It takes courage to face the Unknown, to step out of your comfort zone. But the comfort zone so quickly widens when you do…no matter that others think you’re crazy or try to hold you back. There is so much beauty to be experienced when you ignore those who remain in the corral.
Whether you take the initiative to make life happen or sit back and let life happen to you, it’s a choice—even if you don’t think the latter is. And while the title of this tribute to Vijayan and Mohana is called Invisible Wings, the wings any of us wear are visible and how we wear them: fully extended, clutched to the side, or somewhere in-between. Others easily see them if they pay attention. And we ourselves can feel them.
Nothing is more valuable than the felt presence of your own unleashed spirit, intimacy with family and friends…and a life fully lived…however you travel. I’m sharing this little film here—short in time but saying so much—with intent that it brings to you the sweetness and consideration it has for me.
The Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the coast of Colombia were not as well known 20-plus years ago as they are now. The documentary From the Heart of the World had received critical acclaim and enjoyed extensive showings in the 1990s. By the time I wrote a review in 2008 the film had become difficult to find. The DVD was gifted to me from one of my readers. I’m sharing this review again for those who are not familiar with the Kogi or weren’t able to see the film before. I recently discovered that it’s now freely available on You Tube. Its sequel Aluna is available on Netflix.
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From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brother’s Warning Documentary Film by Alan Ereira Produced by the BBC
This compelling documentary filmed in 1990 is about the Kogi of Northern Colombia who call themselves Elder Brother, descendants from the pre-Columbian Tairona. It contains a clear message to Younger Brother ⎯ westerners ⎯ about the havoc we’re collectively creating and how we need to take care of the world. The Kogi live high in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a microcosm of the world containing a range of climates from glaciers to jungle — and it’s dying.
Elder Brother warns that the underlying network keeping the Earth in place is being torn apart and they want the whole world to listen.
The Great Mother is the mind inside nature… [With your mining] You are taking the Mother’s heart… She is being stripped to pieces… You’re bringing the world to an end. This looting will destroy it… We are not mad at Younger Brother… but you must learn.
The Kogi believe their role to be caretakers of the world.
If we Mamas didn’t do our work, the rain wouldn’t fall from the sky. The crops wouldn’t grow.
They spend much of their time in ritual and prayer. They live sequestered, virtually unreachable, yet knowledge of the state of the world comes to them. How can we not hear their message?
There’s also an amazing similarity to me between the Kogi of Colombia, the Q’ero of Peru and the Lacandón Maya of the Chiapas rainforest of Mexico that echo similar sacred beliefs, teachings of respect and some common experience. All three left their original homes and isolated themselves about four hundred years ago with the coming of the conquistadors. To me, there’s an uncanny resemblance between the traditional clothing and even some facial characteristics of the Lacandones and the Kogi.
In alignment with one version of the Condor and Eagle prophecy, the Kogi speak about Younger Brother being given knowledge of the machine and sent away across the sea from the Heart of the World (where Elder Brother lives). Of course, Younger Brother later returned and infiltrated the Americas. The jungle at the base of the Sierra Nevadas has been destroyed much as the Lacandón rainforest has been decimated.
Elder Brother is separated by altitude as are the Q’ero who have managed to keep their traditions largely intact. However, the Lacandón jungle didn’t prove dense enough to keep others at bay. Hence, their traditions are suffering near extinction.
I want to direct you to the Tairona Heritage Trust which contains history on the Tairona and Kogi. For folks who have worked with the Q’ero, you’ll be interested in the article on the use of coca in South America, also used by the Kogi in ceremonial function and otherwise.
View From the Heart of the World streaming on You Tube.
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Aluna: Produced and directed by Alan Ereira
Some 20 years after The Heart of the World was released Kogi Mamas initiated contact with their friend Alan Ereira living in the UK. They were worried. Younger Brother hadn’t heeded their warning. The state of the Earth was in ever-increasing danger. They asked their friend to help them put together a film. Speaking about Younger Brother …
We are incapable of being changed by being spoken to. They now understand that we learn through our eyes, not our ears.
The film traces the Kogis’ journey to lay 250 miles of golden thread from the mountains to the coast, showing the interconnection of the natural world to the devastating environmental impacts at the hands of Younger Brother. Indeed, in this film they are showing—not telling us. All but a small percentage of the dialogue is in Kogi. There are no subtitles. None is needed for us to understand the clear message.
If you would like more, Alan Ereira generously shares his intimate diary here.
My attraction to read Into the Magic Shop was generated through Krista Tippett’s On Being interview called The Magic Shop of the Brain with neurosurgeon and author James Doty, MD. I had no idea who he was. But sincerity flooded his voice as he spoke about the need and effects of compassion. To have a medical doctor speak in this way is so unusual⏤given the hurried, sterile treatment patients in this country normally receive. When Krista asked him to speak of the ritual he underwent prior to neurosurgery, he had me. Rather than having a nurse prep the patient in the operating room he does so himself. After the patient is anesthetized, he shaves the surgery site himself, saying it connects him to the patient as a human being and grounds him in the procedure he is about to take.
From the book:
It is a ritual I do. And as I slowly shave the head, I think of this precious little boy and go over every detail of the surgery in my mind. I cut off the first bit of hair and hand it to the circulator to put in a small bag for the boy’s mother. This is his first haircut, and while it’s the last thing on his mom’s mind now, I know it will matter to her later. It’s a milestone you want to remember. First haircut. First tooth lost. First day of school. First time riding a bike. First brain surgery is never on this list.
What were the influences that made James Doty who he is today with an outlook and behaviors so unusual in his field? He was born into a troubled family where he received no support. He felt alone. He had low self-esteem. But one day he wandered into a magic shop and found his saving grace in an elder named Ruth who was visiting her son, the owner of the store. She saw something in this boy and invited him to return the next day and every day for the next six weeks. She promised to teach him.
…I know how to turn a flicker into a flame. Someone taught me and now I think it’s time that I teach you…It’s going to take a lot of work and you’re going to have to practice the tricks I teach you even more than you did your thumb trick. But I promise you, what I’m going to teach you will change your life…
This is James Doty’s memoir and includes a long learning curve as many spiritual journeys do…because he neglected to include one of the most important teachings Ruth gave him. Ultimately he remembers but not without many trials. And when all her teachings finally took hold, the most powerful magic happened.
Today Dr. Doty is the Founder-Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education⏤of which the Dalai Lama was an original funder⏤and clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In many ways Into the Magic Shop reminded me of an all-time favorite book: Illusions by Richard Bach. I always held that the story must be true; Donald Shimoda must have been a real person. I longed for it to be so. But Into the Magic Shop is…without a doubt.
I highly recommend this book. Available on Amazon and elsewhere in print and e-book.
In any journey there are times that stand out. Those moments are such that we hold them close, call them up periodically…to experience them all over again. They’re precious. Usually it has to do with points that exhilarate or stir in some way. But sometimes it’s at completion when pausing…to take stock and appreciate.
Janet Harvey has participated in my spiritual travel programs three times and alludes to more. We’ve now been back from the recent initiation journey coming on three months. It began in Bolivia and moved deep into Peru, all the way down to the jungle, before ending in Cusco. Yesterday Janet sent me a poem she wrote. As I read it, I was immediately back in Manu at Pantiacolla Lodge sitting on the cabaña porch listening to the night sounds. With Janet’s permission I share her poem and hold you catch even a bit of that balmy night and a taste of the rainforest.
Janet Harvey is a family mediator and chaplain who nurtures her curiosity and wellbeing by immersing herself in daily adventures and periodic spiritual journeys. She explores the dimensions of experience through photography, drawing and writing.
The Lifepath Dialogues offer an invitation toward embodiment of all that is life-affirming and the deeper meaning of sustainability. Themes are drawn from books "Calling Our Spirits Home" and "Standing Stark" and 20+ years as a conscious living mentor leading spiritual travel journeys with Indigenous Wisdom Keepers serving their communities, group and individual programs. Carla specializes in working with people who seek to live through their deeply held values. For more info see the “About” tab. The author may be reached via cwoody@kenosis.net. Follow this blog by becoming a fan on the Kenosis Facebook page.
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Topics here are meant to open conversations and self-reflection. For more information, go to the "About" page.
The Lifepath Dialogues 
