By Kamal- Carlos Alberto Hernández Vélez
Disconnected Humans
As a species, we suffer from “Ecological Alienation”, mistakenly believing that the planet, its microscopic life, oceans, plants, animals, climate, and the cosmos work on a level different from humans. This disconnection is also present in many religious dogmas, where nature is said to be created by a Lord who gives humans “dominion”. The negative effects of these beliefs grow more critical each day.
In light of this, we can ask ourselves what is helpful knowledge, what should be left behind, and what is in need of being updated. Some of my answers to these questions have been influenced by my experience with native traditions from indigenous communities of Colombia.
Sharing Questions & Answers
Recognizing our own misconceptions is key when planting new beliefs and behaviors in our lives. This is why I want to share some questions with you, so we can together scan ourselves.
Please consider answering these questions for yourself and them with me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Let’s build together!
▪ ¿Can you spot a personal or community belief that contributes to ecological alienation beliefs or practices?
▪ ¿Can you identify the origin of these beliefs or behaviors? ¿Where did you learn to behave like this?
▪ ¿Have you changed a specific behavior in the past to become more connected with the planet and her ecology?
▪ ¿Is it possible to integrate a foreign indigenous concept or practice of another culture to our urban/modern livelihoods?
▪ ¿Can you imagine a specific action that adds richness to your life and contributes to a more Integrated Human Ecology?
Behind these questions stands a thesis about the origin for our current ecological crisis: ecological alienation comes from the loss of cultural richness, opposed to the structure we see in traditional ecological knowledge TEK (1).
This can be shortly described as the profound empirical human knowledge about the functioning of the ecological relations with the world due to profound observation and/or the experimentation of past crises. We do have TEK already existing in our Sufi community and still we can enrich that knowledge with new sources.
SAM and HIK clearly put us on the right track by inviting us to grow, harvest and cook meals together, and by reminding us that “nature is the only scripture which can enlighten the reader”. As good teachers do, they show doors and practice simple day to day needs/chores as deep practices. They shared their teaching in the different communities they lived in, which may share some characteristics of what we have experienced in ecovillages and other cultural immersion.
I have enjoyed hearing stories of our friends who lived with SAM, also when learning new ceremonies and practices of native traditions that have evolved and survived for thousands of years, still alive in our communities. This is why I want to share this next story.
Indigenous Livelihood
I had the amazing opportunity to live for one year with a multiethnic indigenous tribe at the Colombian Amazon forest. Here I share a glimpse of the local practices and beliefs.
Among these tribes, star constellation knowledge is key for season recognition, ceremony schedule, and story reminders that contain directives for social norms, taboos and human regulation for using the forest and interacting with other beings.
The Yapú community holds 270 humans, belonging to 14 tribes of the eastern Tukano language family that currently live in the Colombian Amazon in the Vaupés department. They refer to themselves as different families linked to different origins: Umurecoomaja or Tatuyo (sky people), Waimaha (fish people), Tukano (tucan people), Ecomaja (healer people), among others. Their conception of life includes the acknowledgement of the invisible world with whom they relate, specially to ask for permission to enter or hunt in special territories (Fig1. Maps of Colombia, Vaupes and Yapú village).
Even though all tribes have different specializations in particular knowledge of the forest, they all share a common myth of origin. They all were transported by an ancient Anaconda from the Amazon river mouth to their actual territories. This mythical snake worked as a canoe that emerged from the milk lagoon where life originated, thrived, and expanded. They transmit this information in ceremonies where young apprentices receive details and repeat the story narrated by an elder historian, who describes the adventures, territories, rivers, and species that can be found in migration from Brazil to Colombia.
Figure 1. Colombia, Vaupes department and aerial view of Yapú community.
Study History with the Help of Plants
This origin story is narrated in a three day ceremony where traditional dances and songs are performed in a ritual consumption of Yagé (Banisteriopsis caapi preparation mixed with Psychotria viridis), local Yopo (Nicotiana tabacum) and mambe (Erythroxylum coca mixed with Cecropia sp ashes). The mambe and tobacco are commonly used at night time, to discuss daily events. It is used to center and cool the mind, and create an openness of the ear-heart-mind-tongue for the messages to be properly received. In special times of the year, particular ceremonies are co-created where all the community participate to narrate their origin story, create social cohesion and organize the world. One of these ceremonies is known as Yurupari (B), which configures a fundamental celebration in the traditional ecological knowledge of many tribes in the Amazon region.
The ceremony scene is intense; apart from the entheogenic plants and chicha (fermented fruit beverage), no food is consumed. Detailed stories of origin are told, chants and dances performed by a long line of dancers who hold percussive dancing sticks that mark the rhythm when hitting the floor a few centimeters apart from their feet.
If you think of any of these details for too long while dancing or follow any thoughts for more than a second, you will trip. “Life is a dizzy state, you must learn how to live life without being dizzy”. This is a common saying that resumes many of the cultural teachings. As the ceremony develops you learn to find a space of centeredness, emptiness of the self-occurring at the same time with the noises, crowdedness and tiredness. Find this place inside yourself and you will learn how to stay in the eye of the storm.
Yurupari ceremony performed in Yapu 2012. Local historians recite an extensive narration of their origin and migration story from Brazil to Colombia, in a three-day ceremony where dancing, chanting, and sacred plant consumption organize and promote the transmission of personal and communal teachings. I am to the far right of the picture.
Tools, Ornaments and Food Calendar
Yapu ceremonies, houses and ornaments are made from plant and animal species including monkey hair, jaguar teeth, coca leaves, tobacco and entheogenic vines. Their knowledge of where to find, how to grow, and how to use these organisms is organized in oral knowledge, but it has also been organized for external inhabitants in a visual representation known as a traditional ecological calendar. This circular calendar can be navigated from the outside of the circle to the center or from the center toward the exterior.
The communal house or maloka is the center of the calendar representing the human place. The subsequent circles found on each level contain information of sky constellations, fruits and animals abundant on each season with their respective names. Each season has a local name also presented with occidental names of the months.
We can learn from this. Such a calendar is a compilation of what we humans might aim to achieve. We are part of an ecosystem cycle of regeneration and production, where a part can be harvested seasonally. Such a map (calendar) outlines visually for us what can be sustainably harvested, and when. And at the same time, it shows us what must be left undisturbed, and when. In modern times such a map would demand that we have full knowledge of markets, local farms, product and species origin, and harvest procedures including fare trade with human workers. ¿Could we create annual calendars that outline for us the local sustainable food available each month for each of our communities?
This calendar is a resume of the ecological process of the forest and at the same time marks the human events, meetings and gatherings. Different groups specialized in fruit or animal harvesting spend many days collecting each species and their preparation for human communitarian consumption. All families invest their energies sharing their knowledge and receiving others. The teachings are transmitted through action, giving the participants specific and strong messages of interdependence. Rain, water properties, fish reproductive cycles, hunter’s skills, cooking knowledge and social commitment to share, are all one ecological dynamic. 
Traditional ecological calendar of Tukano tribes in Colombian amazon. The circular calendar shows the different animals and plants that can be harvested each season marked by local star constellations.
We may think this is only a possibility for jungle tribes and not a form that can be found in New York, London, Bogota or Sao Paulo. False.
Wherever your life occurs on this planet, interdependence is happening. You depend on water capture by ecosystems, you use modified natural materials, you eat animals, plants and depend on a complicated social network to survive. The difference might be our deep ignorance of ecological relationships with our surroundings. The study and practical use of biological knowledge should be our main interest if reintegration with ecology is our goal.
References
A. Berkes, F. (2017). Sacred ecology. Routledge.
B. Rodriguez, A. A. M. (2012). YURUPARÍ, MÁSCARAS Y PODER ENTRE LOS PIAROAS DEL ORINOCO. Espaço Ameríndio, 6(2), 46.
Recommended literature:
✔ History & Human Evolution
- Yuval Noah Harari Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. Random House.
- Charles C. Mann. (2005). 1491: New revelations of the Americas before Columbus. Alfred a Knopf Incorporated.
- https://www.youtube.com/user/cultopedia. Diana Uribe.
✔ Sacred Plants
- Hofmann, A., & Rätsch, C. (2001). Plants of the gods: their sacred, healing, and hallucinogenic powers. Healing Arts Press.
✔ Standing in the “eye of the storm”
- https://www.sufischool.org/practises/lataif.html?fbclid=IwAR2eow1p-VZDD0cuFr0UIHBHYo6shl4drh_GuGbsdDJWqmURVLH3K2qeGPI
✔ Connect with communities
- https://unanuevaecoaldea.ofirion.com/node/add/business?fbclid=IwAR1zPpzQX6UxV98QCNALPhiitfgXicO2naoEcZeTHp4WHVV0Jzbh8sbzrCc
About the Author: Kamal- Carlos Alberto Hernández Vélez
https://biocarlos.carbonmade.com/
Born in Mexico; raised in Colombia; passionate for earth natural history; studied biology, anthropology and conservation.
Mentored in dances by Sophia Fiba Silvia Murillo; Sufi guide is Darvesha; member of Sufi Youth Council.
Thankful for editing contributions to Darvesha MacDonald, Bryn Morgan and Sofía Silvia Murillo.