All over the world, there are indigenous people and other people of heart fighting to preserve the sanctity of sacred land. (And, really, all land is sacred, is it not? Someone once said, “There is no sacred and unsacred; there is only sacred and desecrated.”) I was truly blessed to meet one such warrior of the heart recently in Ecuador.
My friend and I visited yesterday with an indigenous elder. Rosa is short and warm, but muy fuerte (very strong) and very passionate. What is she passionate about? Saving the sacred mountain on which she and her ancestors have lived for a very, very, very long time.
The mountain (extinct volcano) is green and lush and gorgeous. It is home to animales, pajaros, y insectos. (Animals, birds, and insects.) There are lobos (wolves) on the mountain. And two condors (which are critically endangered) built a nest on that tribal land. Condors are sacred to the natives of South America as eagles are to those in the North.
(The rest of this is very important, but not for the faint of heart. The conversation took an unexpected turn. Proceed with caution.)
As happens over and over again all over the planet, the ricos (rich ones) want to build on the mountain. Because if it’s beautiful, that’s “obviously” a great place for a luxury hotel and condos, right? So Rosa and others of her family and community have been fighting. They are resisting with everything they have because this mountain and the plants and animals and water are muy sagrados. (Very sacred.) And the rich and powerful have been fighting back.
First they fought in administrative ways. Even though Rosa has legal documents showing that her family has lived on their land since the early 1700s (and she knows they go back at least as far as pre-Incan times), the ricos have been issuing titles to the land right and left. To non-native people, of course.
Rosa, et al, continued to fight, and the ricos and their ilk got more violent, horrifically so. Rosa’s mother-in-law was found dead, with her arms cut off at the elbows and her legs cut off at the knees. I’m pretty sure this was meant to intimidate Rosa and the others. But they did not give up the fight.
Later, her nephew was found dead, bent over, naked, and raped. The evidence was clear on the backside of his body. Years later there was a trial and the magistrate ruled that he died, not from a violent attack by others, but of suicide.
A few years later, five people attacked Rosa herself. She held them off for one-and-a-half hours. She sustained two broken eardrums. But she has not given up the fight.
Rosa has the heart of a lion. She is a powerful leader in this fight. Because she knows that saving this mountain from desecration is of the utmost importance. Other tribes have begun to join with hers. Their will is strong and the fight continues. Because this mountain is muy precioso and muy sagrado.
Many of us know of similar stories. It happens all over the world. Those who love and respect our Mother Earth are a threat to those who want to rape and plunder and profit from her.
May we all have the courage to fight for what is right.
And bless Rosa and her family and the mountain and the animals, birds, insects, rivers, and fish. Bless this precious, sacred Earth.
Cover image: Notice how the buildings are creeping ever higher up this sacred mountain. Rosa and her people live on the other side of this mountain. Everywhere the fight is the same. Respect the land and the ecosystems of that land, or profit from that land, no matter the cost to the flora and fauna.
