Wisdom Keepers

Jacob Johns – Hopi, Akimel O’odham, US

I brought this group together because Indigenous people need a voice. Too often, Indigenous people are pushed to the wayside and viewed as flora and fauna. Our idea is to merge ancient wisdom with the current contemporary activism. The systems that are in control right now have failed us. Capitalism is destroying the planet. Colonization is destroying the planet. We must rise out of these ashes of what we used to know as the natural world.

Humanity itself needs to find ways to reconnect with each other and the planet. For so long we’ve been taught that we are separate from the elements and separate from the environment. And this itself is a symptom of colonization. And in order for us to decolonize globally, we have to return back to a global family.

We’ve been working across time zones and across languages, bringing together Indigenous wisdom keepers to pool our minds together and build consensus about guidelines and policy.

[A year ago] in New Mexico I went to a prayer gathering to try and stop the reinstallation of a statue of a conquistador. [Someone] pulled a gun out and shot me in the chest and I died. 

A council of spirits examined my life. I had to sign on to a new life contract. They instructed me to continue this work where we are trying to unite the world. I came back into my body and was so thankful to be alive… but was in the most extraordinary pain. A medicine man told me to stop taking the pain medication and feel the pain for its full force, embrace it and shift it from being a negative experience, into a celebration where I could focus on it being a positive thing.

I think it’s metaphorical for our planet… these ends of ecosystems, this destruction, is the most pain that the Earth has ever felt. But as the old world dies, a new one is created.

So often we are bombarded by negative focusing on the destruction, and it’s rare that we get together as a global family and discuss what the future will look like. When we think about the future of the planet we cannot have despair. We have to shake off all the negative energies and start seeing the pain for what it is, a rebirth process that we can all be a part of and co-create together.

People don’t realize that we are around so much abundance and so much joy and so much peace and love. As we come together, we start to speak the same words and we think the same thoughts because our heartbeats are pushing with the same energy, just as if, your heart was beating mine and my heart was beating yours.

WHAIA  – Maori, Aotearoa, New Zealand

I’m a Maori woman. I am a sonic weaver, sound healer and frequency carrier for nature. I’m also a mother and I’m working with my global Indigenous family, bridging wisdom into policy. 

The message that I have for the leaders making all these important decisions for us as a human race and as a global community, is that we really are reaching a hand out to you to come and be with us, come and sit with us Indigenous people, to meet us, with our ancient wisdom, to allow us to show you what it feels like to have a relationship to something bigger than yourself.

And hopefully that opens you up to something more than you could have ever imagined. I know it’s sometimes hard to understand that a rock or tree has a personality or feelings, but to us, this is such a real relationship, and if we can share that with you to help build a bridge between each other, then I feel that we could be stepping in the right direction as far as being on this planet.

My work is to wake us up, to bring the spirit alive, to remember who we are and remember why we’re here. To enjoy this human life and each other and the gifts that it brings.

We can be good ancestors just by simple things. Respect, kindness, manners. Gifting. Intimacy. Support. Seeing the needs of someone else. We can be good ancestors by sharing. We can be good ancestors by widening the doors and opening our arms. We can be good ancestors by guiding those who are lost. We can be good ancestors just by simply living a good life.

And as Indigenous people, we are out in the environment. We are on the frontline of the forests of the shore and the sea. There’s a lot of heavy discussions… and if I can bring in something that can spark an emotion, which is what I really feel we need to be touching on when we’re making big decisions with climate change, then perhaps we might actually get closer to advocating for what we truly need in this world.

We are about bridging the head to the heart of policy…  bridging Indigenous wisdom into the hearts of those who may never have been touched. By our ways, by our customs, by our connections and our relationships with our environment and with nature.

Bodhi Patil – International ocean advocate

Representing young ocean leaders from around the world, I feel called to bring the voice of the ocean. We must accelerate intergenerational collaboration. Young people and elders coming together in new technologies, skillsets and solutions to address the ocean climate gaps financially, governmentally and in other ways. And what we’re doing on the ground is really linking up a lot of small scale coastal communities. Mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass, other ecosystems that are rich carbon stores and incredibly important for biodiversity.

And as we continue supporting grassroots ocean solutions and Indigenous scientists in their communities, we’re building a coalition of global governance, global institutions and NGOs because we know that it’ll take everyone on our side to heal the oceans, restore her health to full abundance, and really make sure that there’s an Indigenous resurgence and people that are traditional knowledge holders leading the way forward.

We know that Indigenous people have skirted earth and ocean systems for over 30,000 years, and we have to learn from their knowledge and science in order to better create conservation measures in our oceans, both from the deep sea to the high seas and coastal waters. It’s going to take all of us to protect the ocean. So let’s unify and come together to also boost ocean climate finance for Indigenous peoples.

We can’t just take advantage of Indigenous communities constantly. We have to be better and make sure we’re funding Indigenous solutions. Having Indigenous scientists on advisory boards and making sure we’re engaging meaningfully with young people, the coastal communities and people that have been marginalized and on the frontlines of ocean based climate change. We’re all paddling this canoe together. 

Rutendo Ngara – Southern Africa

I am from South Africa, here to advance contemporary climate action, by taking up space where there has been exclusion. My hope here is that those voices that have been excluded may be valorized… that we’re able to sit in circle with other ways of knowing and what we call cognitive justice, the rights of different knowledge systems… that we’re able to realize that we’re all part of the same planet, we’re all part of the same present, we’re all part of the same future. And that we can co-create together.

My message to the world could perhaps be summed up in the story of a river [the Niger River]. And this river, if it were to follow the ways of the dominant paradigm, would follow the most efficient route.

But this river does not do that. It defies the idea of efficiency. It moves into the desert… It moves into a long, sinuous route, moving more than 4,140km until it eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean.

The result of this inefficiency is excellent effectiveness at creating life. It creates lakes as large as Belgium. It creates one of the greatest areas of biodiversity on the African continent. It creates that which feeds more than 40 different peoples on the continent. So this highly inefficient river, this nonlinear river that defies whatever it is that the modern paradigm says is the way of purpose, is highly efficient for creating life. My message would be, how are we more in tune?

Mindahi Bastida Muñoz – Otomí-Toltec, Mexico

This delegation has the purpose of bringing the message, the awareness so that the hearts of governments, companies, corporations and civil society open up and take into consideration the original peoples of the world, the ancestral wisdom that is what will lead us to the flourishing.

The native peoples, we continue doing the work, but we can no longer continue doing it alone. This model of excessive extraction and consumption cannot continue because it is threatening life. We have to live in the cycles of life in harmony with Mother Earth, in harmony with Father Sky.

The banks and the oil companies are extracting the so-called resources, which for us are sacred elements of life. Oil is the blood of the Earth. What exists there inside Mother Earth is there for a reason.

Our ancestors helped us, they taught us to take only what is necessary and return it to the Earth. That is why we do ceremonies… offerings. Because it is not only this material world that exists. There is the spiritual world. The deep respect for what is not seen must be taken into consideration.

Our message to world leaders, governments, corporations and every institution is that we have to unite to take care of life. You all have family and you all have ancestors. We must honor our ancestors and we must honor our family. We must honor our community. We must honor our territories and above all, honor the seeds that come. 

Because it is not only about thinking about what world we are going to leave to the generations that come, but what generations we are leaving to this planet, to Mother Earth because at this moment it is about rethinking our place in the world as human beings, as a species.

We must be more humble and live in the cycles of life. And above all, we must respect the agreements that were signed in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Desertification and the Convention on Climate Change. The agreements are very important. Mechanisms so that governments must reduce emissions, greenhouse gas pollution and not go beyond 1.5 ℃. Many species are suffering. We, the people, the communities, are suffering, we are already feeling it.

Species are disappearing, food is becoming scarce due to fires due to frequent floods, we have to return to harmony. The Paris Agreement must have legal teeth so that it is enforced.

Wanka Inti – Quechua, Peru

My name is Wanka Inti, which precisely means Solar Stone and I am a messenger of the native peoples of the Land of the Condor, in the Peruvian Andes. At three thousand meters above sea level, this nation from which I come from still maintains its connection with Mother Earth.

I come with the message of restoring our spirituality. I am the son of healers, therefore, I am a healer. The wisdom we want to convey is a message of hope, to open the energetic eyes. The first energetic eye is here, it is the one of existence, life, and being.

The second energetic eye is the eye of wisdom, knowledge. Your knowledge can be good, it can be bad. We come to restore good knowledge.

The third eye, part of the brow, are the eyes of visions, of the prediction of spaces and times. Here we have the other energetic eye of good speaking, smiling, or your sadness. You can speak to heal or to hurt. We have forgotten how to breathe with nature.

Here is the other eye, the eye of feeling. If you don’t have feelings, you won’t be able to care, you won’t be able to love.

Here is the other eye, which is the eye of action. Further down is the eye of transcendence. The eye of writing a book, of having a child, of planting trees. 

We have come to tell the whole world… heal your energetic eyes and you will be able to cleanse Mother Earth. That’s the message we bring, the wisdom of ancient peoples that I want to share with my brothers. From there, all actions arise, both to protect the Earth and to achieve immortality, which is to keep your generations in harmony with nature. Here we are, diverse ancestral nationalities, diverse people. The skin doesn’t matter, because you can have light skin but you are Indigenous.

The final message for everyone is very simple: regain the first love, regain the strength of affection. You have to feel this for more than a minute, if you want to hug someone, hug for more than a minute. Breathe love, feel love, and live life fully from the inner smile, and you will see that you will heal, your family will heal, your neighborhood will heal, the country will heal, the region will heal, humanity will heal, the whole world will heal, and Mother Earth will also harmonize with you.

Main video: Courtesy of a Wisdom Keepers Delegation
Video of Jacob Johns: Prunelle Mathet