“Love to the Earth”

Ashaninka woman basking in sunlight. Credit: André Dib

Unfortunately, American History is laden with numerous atrocities inflicted on Indigenous peoples by thieving, overly zealous, and pious European/Christians. So when I read a recent article in Scientific American by anthropologist Carolina Schneider Comandulli about history on the verge of repeating itself, I became alarmed. But instead, I found in the article an account of an Indigenous people whose way of life in the Amazon should be taken as a model for how to survive the impending global climate catastrophe.

The complete article can be accessed at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-amazonian-indigenous-group-has-lessons-in-sustainable-living-for-all-of-us/

I offer you the following words in italics by Ms. Comandulli:

Last July a premonition persuaded the Ashaninka Indigenous people of the western Amazon basin to undertake a great traditional expedition. Divining that this could be their last chance to enjoy peace and tranquility, more than 200 Ashaninka from the Sawawo and Apiwtxa villages alongside the Amônia River in Peru and Brazil, respectively, boated upstream to pristine headwaters deep in the forest. It was the dry season, when the river waters were clear and safe for the children to splash in and the night sky starry for the spirit to soar in. There, in the manner of their ancestors, the Ashaninka spent a week camping, hunting, fishing, sharing stories, and imbibing all the joy, beauty and serenity they could.

A month later the Ashaninka got the news they had been dreading—a road-building project they'd heard about months earlier was moving forward. A logging road from Peru cut through the Amazon forest to reach the Amônia River in August 2021. Fearing an assault on the region's biodiversity, Ashaninka Indigenous peoples and their allies halted the loggers' advance with their bodies. They subsequently established a surveillance outpost by the illegal road to guard against further attempts by outsiders to extract the region's natural wealth.

This borderland between Brazil and Peru, where the lowland Amazon rain forest slopes gently toward the Andes foothills, is rich with biological and cultural diversity. It is home to the jaguar (Panthera onca) and the woolly monkey (genus Lagothrix), as well as to several Indigenous groups. Its protected landscapes include two national parks, two reserves for Indigenous people in voluntary isolation and more than 26 Indigenous territories.

[To ward off encroachment from big business,] the Apiwtxa Ashaninka adapted, responding to the intensified assaults with increasingly sophisticated and multifaceted resistance tactics, which included seeking allies from both Indigenous and mainstream society. Most significantly, they devised a strategy for the community's long-term survival. The Apiwtxa designed and achieved a sustainable, enjoyable and largely self-sufficient way of life, maintained and protected by cultural empowerment, Indigenous spirituality and resistance to invasions from the outside world. “We live in the Amazon,” said Apiwtxa chief Antônio Piyãko at the July gathering. “If we do not look after it, it will vanish. We have the right to keep looking after this land and prevent it from being invaded and destroyed by people who do not belong here.”

I was well aware of the devastation that the Global North's hunger for oil, minerals, timber and other resources wreaked on forest peoples. I found the Ashaninka remarkable, however, for their penetrating analysis of the assaults they faced, as well as the farsightedness with which they devised responses to them. They were not “modern,” in that they did not seek a state of development modeled on a Western ideal of progress and growth that many aspire to but only few can reach. Instead they were exceptionally “contemporary,” in the sense of finding their own solutions to present-day problems.

What kind of life did they want to live and how would they achieve it? They surveyed their territory and their experiences, looking “inside us at the worst of all the bad moments we had faced, so that we could reflect on the changes we had to make,” Benki recalled.

Ashaninka chieften by a sacred kapok tree. Credit: André Dib

At Apiwtxa, the day revolves around living—bathing in the river, washing clothes, tending crops, fishing, cooking, repairing huts and implements, playing. By the time it draws to a close, everyone is tired. The villagers eat dinner just before sunset, after which the children might enjoy a storytelling session before going to bed. Some of the women spin cotton; the spiritual leaders, mostly men, sit under starry skies to chew coca leaves in silent communion. Among the Ashaninka, a great deal of communication happens without speech, through subtle shifts in expression and posture. We would go to sleep by 7 or 8 P.M., waking up early to birdsong and other forest sounds, feeling deeply rested.

The Apiwtxa hope to open our eyes as well—to reach out to us with their message of unity and interrelatedness of all beings. They believe that a spiritual awareness of the underlying unity of creatures shows a way out of our epoch, marked as it is by ecological and societal crises—a time that is increasingly referred to as the Anthropocene. This geologic era derives from the relentless expansion of humankind's destructive activities on Earth, impacting the atmosphere, oceans and wildlife to the point that they threaten the integrity of the biosphere. The anthropos least responsible for the Anthropocene—people inhabiting the land in traditional ways—are suffering its worst consequences, however, in damage to their environments, livelihoods and lives.

Connections, half a world apart.

On the morning that I was writing this blogpost, we had our twin granddaughters out to Merry Mount for what is being called, "Fun, Farm, Fridays". At a wonderful moment, I looked up to see that the twins had downed their hobby horses and, facing the west, had begun a meditation. I was able to quickly grab my phone and take the photo below. When asked what they were doing they responded, "Giving Love to the Earth."

In conclusion, I find the Apiwtxa’s way of life in stark contrast to and greatly preferable to our “modern” world of power grabbing, that results in the ravages of war, the destruction of our planet, and the possible road to dystopia.

May we "live and let live" in a manner that brings "Love to the Earth".

Joy and Eva in a meditation bringing "Love to the Earth"

CPW