Amaguaya-2000-Ecuador

Amaguaya-2000-Ecuador
Hello, WS-people. I just returned from a 4 days visit to a 
peasant-indigenous intercultural meeting called Inty-Raymy (in quechua 
language Inty=sun, Raymy=road). This was a celebration of the solstice, 
when 
different communities dance, sing and share the collection of corn and 
other 
fruits of land. It was done ahead of the 22d of june due to laboral norms.
Thousands of persons came from rural areas around Quito; you can not 
imagine 
all the varieties of dressing-costumes, rythms, dances, ways of preparing 
food, and renewed traditions that got together. I enjoyed the hospitality 
of 
an indian family, where the mother, at her 73 year of life, and ten 
sons/daughters, stills start her working day at 5 or 6 in the morning, with 
the help of all people at home.
If you want to understand these days events at Ecuador, you must know that 
prior to the so wished political change, they are rebuilding their inner 
sense of self-determination and dignity through cultural meetings with 
grass-root participation and the recovery of the wisdom from their 
ancestors. They are helped by many people from the urban centers, but main 
control of this process is in the hands of grass-root communities.
I was present at a ceremony called the Return of Atahualpa, the ancient 
leader that tried to recover lost balance for them. Accompanied by shamans, 
kids, young males and females, elders and mothers with one baby on her back 
and one three years old kid in her hand, Atahualpa took a sacred bath at a 
mystical pond, as a signal of the need to have a clean body-spirit 
connected 
to nature, liberated from resentment, prior to action, and also to remind 
all of us that water, which runs over-ground or under-ground  must be kept 
clean for all of us, because it is the blood of pacha-mama (mother earth), 
and it is also part of our blood. In shamanic words this is called a 
"limpia", a cleaning.
All this is just to remind you that global change will need not only a 
systemic view (indiands have it, although from a different logic when 
compared to Occident), but also grass-root people, full of clean 
intentions, 
and self-confidence to build a new world and a new balance.
In another moment I heard this sentence: "You have cut our trees, have 
stolen the fruit of our work, have polluted our waters and winds, but you 
will never cut our roots".
So for a few days I put my theories and yours inside the box of silences, 
and just observed, listened and learned from them. I hope that occidental 
minds will not interpret this as populism, nor as anti-scientific 
bla-bla-bla. They will publish a web-place with pictures of this 
experience, 
when I get it you will receive it.
Thanks, Emilio



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