Posts Tagged ‘Peru’

What Gives You Hope?

26/07/2012

Grafton Pond, NH

“The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
Alfred Lord Tennyson

I started Mountain Spirit Institute in 1998 when we led our first trip to Peru, with the basic mission “to facilitate a deeper connection to the natural environment, each other and ourselves.”  Since then it has become ever more apparent how we need “nature time” more than ever. It’s good to see people out on the trail, and in kayaks these days, but National Park use is down in the U.S, and technology competes for the breath of fresh air. We just offered a presentation last night in a small town in New Hampshire called “Get Outside While You Still Can.” The piece below echoes a lot of what we covered in our presentation, and why we started MSI.

 By Eric Utne,
Founder, The Utne Reader

As I’ve said in this column before, I’m afraid it may be too late to avoid the devastating effects of global climate change. (more…)

U.S. Gov’t Returns Stolen Art/Antiquities To Peru

14/07/2012

The United States government on Thursday returned to Peru 14 pre-Columbian and colonial art pieces that had been stolen or looted, according to Radio Programas. “These pieces of art that have been recovered are part of our cultural legacy as a nation but, of course, they belong to all of humanity,” said Harold Forsyth, Peru’s ambassador to Washington D.C.
The objects include nine Cusco-school religious paintings, from the 17th and 18th centuries, that came from Peru’s southern Cusco region, a whistling pot from the, Read the rest of this story…

The Uncontacted Tribe

03/02/2012

The Mashco-Piro

Survival International Releases Photos Of Uncontacted Tribe
From: Andean Air Mail and Peruvian Times

Survival International, the London-based indigenous rights group, has released up-close pictures of a family of the uncontacted Mashco-Piro tribe, known to live in the Manu National Park in in the Amazonian basin in south-east Peru.

The Mashco-Piro are one of about 100 uncontacted tribes in the world, according to Survival. “Today’s photos are the most detailed sightings of uncontacted Indians ever recorded on camera,” Survival says.

Survival says sightings of the Mashco-Piro have increased in recent months. “Many blame illegal logging in and around the park and low flying helicopters from nearby oil and gas projects, for forcibly displacing the Indians from their forest homes,” Survival says.

“But the danger of contacting tribes who choose to remain isolated was reaffirmed by the recent death of an indigenous Matsigenka man,” Survival says. Nicolas “Shaco” Flores had left food and gifts for the Mashco-Piro for some 20 years. However, he was recently killed by one of the tribe’s arrows. “In this tragic incident, the Mashco-Piro have once again expressed their adamant desire to be left alone,” wrote Glenn Shepard, an anthropologist and friend of Flores.

Leave well enough alone

Shephard says in a post on his blog that the Mascho-Piro are likely descendants of the Mashcos people, who in the late 19th century were “massacred and displaced” by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald.  “Surviving Mashcos, including a group speaking a language similar to Piro—hence ‘Mashco-Piro’—abandoned their gardens and fled to the forest, subsisting on game and fruits and vigorously avoiding all contact with outsiders since then,” explains Shephard.

“First contact is always dangerous and frequently fatal – both for the tribe and those attempting to contact them,” says Stephen Corry, Survival’s director. “The Indians’ wish to be left alone should be respected.” Anthropologist Beatriz Huertas says authorities need to implement preventative measures to avoid similar incidents in the future. “Contact could happen at any time,” Huertas was reported as saying.

More about this article here..

Jagger Visits Peru, Talks Environment

18/10/2011

Rolling Stones Front Man Mick Jagger Arrives at Machu Picchu
by Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES

British rock star Mick Jagger arrived at the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu on Thursday, as part of a trip to Peru that has included a sit-down with President Ollanta Humala and a visit to an eco-lodge in the jungle region of Madre de Dios.

The front man for the Rolling Stones, Jagger travelled to Machu Picchu by train from Cusco and was expected to climb Huayna Picchu, the picturesque peak that overlooks the ruins, on Friday, state news agency Andina reported. Read the rest of this story..

Indigenous Rights Supported by Peru President

09/09/2011

Humala at Bagua Convention

Humala Signs Prior Consultation Law During Jungle Ceremony
by Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES

President Ollanta Humala enacted the prior consultation law on Tuesday during a ceremony in the north jungle town of Bagua.

The bill was unanimously approved by Congress and has been strongly supported by international and national rights organizations. It is intended to ensure that Peru’s local laws are in compliance with the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169.

The convention requires the State to consult indigenous people prior to adopting administrative and legislative measures, as well as investment projects and development plans, that could affect their communities.

“This law has the objective of [promoting] development for native peoples, of the Amazonian communities and the entire region,” Humala said. “That is the spirit of this law.”

“Today we have taken an important step in the construction of a nation, the construction of a republic,” Humala added.

Ex-President Alan Garcia rejected a similar prior consultation bill during his recent term, expressing worries that the legislation would provide veto powers to indigenous communities that could deter mining and energy projects.

Humala and members of his Gana Peru party have said the new law will help address the more than 200 social conflicts in Peru that have impacted projects in the extractive industries.

The president’s signing of the law in Bagua was a clear sign Read the rest of this post…

Gold’s Glitter in Peru

15/08/2011

The surge in the price of gold brings wealth and unrest to Peru.
From Reuters: Katharine Jackson reports

Click Image to see Reuters Video

Also see our earlier post on Barrack Mines in Huaraz, Peru.

Leaders Meet in Peru over US Irresponsibilty

08/08/2011

Peru's new President Humala

A Topsy Turvy World:
The more I read, the more it’s looking like the world is indeed being turned upside down. The southern hemisphere is looking better all the time. In addition to the article below, also check out : Chinese investments in Peru to reach $10 billion in five years and Fitch Ratings sees Peru’s economy growing over 6 percent in 2011

South America Unites Against “Irresponsible Debtors” in the North
By: Mario Osava, Inter Press Service

North American Funny Money

Default, insolvency, fiscal irresponsibility, debt crisis and similar terms form part of the vocabulary used to describe countries in the developing South in the 1980s and 1990s. A decade later, the world seems to have turned upside down.

The “irresponsible debtors” are now in the industrialized North, and the countries of South America, victims of the “lost decade” of the 1980s and the subsequent financial crises, are now working hard to protect themselves against contagion from the crisis in the United States and Europe.

A meeting of economy ministers in Lima Thursday Read the rest of this story…

Peru: Social Conflicts & Environment Linked

03/08/2011

Peru's Enviro Minsiter Sr. Giesecke

Environment Minister says tackling social conflicts is “urgent”.
From Andean AirMail & Peruvian Times

Peru’s Environment Minister Ricardo Giesecke said Monday that tackling social conflicts in the country will be an “urgent” task in his portfolio, state news agency Andina reported. Social conflicts sky-rocketed during the Alan Garcia’s administration.

When Garcia took office in 2006, Peru’s ombudsman – the Defensoria del Pueblo – reported about 80 social conflicts in the country. Towards the end of his term, which wrapped up last Thursday, there were over 200 social conflicts, of which an overwhelming number are related to socio-environmental issues in the extractive industries.
In addition to delaying projects and investments, the conflicts have cost numerous lives and cost millions of dollars in collateral damage Read the rest of this story…

Corn & The Advantage of Backwardness

02/07/2011

Machu Picchu, Maize and the Advantage of Backwardness
June 30, 2011 by Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES
By Nicholas Asheshov
Special for the Machu Picchu Centennial –

Maize

Machu Picchu and the Inca Empire were the creation of an import from Central America, maize, and a dramatic climate shift that turned the Andean highlands from inhospitable wet-and-cold to pleasant, as it is today, dry-and-warm.

For more than half a millenium before this shift the high Andes had been miserable.  With the new dry-and-warm, starting around 1000 AD, a backwoods tribe, the Incas, put together the new climate and technology breakthroughs and by 1500AD had produced the world’s most go-ahead empire, heavily populated and larger, richer, healthier and better organized than Ming Dynasty China and the Ottoman Empire, its nearest contemporaries. Read the rest of this story…

Water, The Great Mystery

04/06/2011

Water, Check it out.

Austrian Researcher Alois Gruber states in the movie, Water – The Great Mystery, by Hopscotch Films, “At the level of thought, a person who thinks negative thoughts is polluting his own water of which his body is 75-90% composed, and giving it a negative charge.”  The movie had my attention.
The film’s narrator continues, “As it records new information, water acquires new properties yet its chemical composition remains unchanged. The structure of the water is much more important than the chemical composition.

H2O

The structure of water means how its molecules are organized. Water molecules join together into groups which are called clusters. Scientists *theorize that these clusters work as memory cells of a

certain sort in which water records the whole history of its relationship with the world as if on magnetic tape.”

Water's structure in clusters

“Of course remains water, but its structure, like a nervous system reacts to any irritation. Modern instruments have made it possible to record the fact that within each of the water’s memory cells there are 440,000 information panels each of which is responsible for its own type of interaction with the environment. “

Molecules coming and going

Marc Chaplin, Professor and Laboratory Chief of London University says, “If you consider a cluster as a specific group of molecules, then it can only survive a short amount of time,  but if you consider it as a structure, whereby molecules can leave and other molecules come in, the  cluster will survive in effect, for a very long time. Water can record and store information, like a computer memory.”

H2O has "memory panels"

“Basically water has photographic memory and you can imprint it with very subtle energies, even from 10,000 km away”  says Professor Rustum Roy, of Penn State University, and Member of the International Academy of Science.  “Does that mean remote communication can happen between human beings who are structures essentially composed of water?” asks the film.

Subject A in Russia

“In Februrary 2005 a professor and colleagues conducted an experiment  to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis that remote communication between people is possible.  Two people were 10,000 miles apart, one in Moscow, the other in South America. The “virtual brain” of the experiment’s participants showed with EEG’s and EKG’s as well as other systems being monitored.

Subject B in S. America

Suddenly the two people had tuned themselves to the same wave, synchronization of areas of their brain, breathing patterns, and pulses. The theory is, liquids in the body carry out an information transmission system.”
The book the Secret Life of Plants was one of the first early works exploring and describing the reactions and relationships of plants to external stimuli in their world.  The author hooked up house plants in his office to a lie detector machine and to his surprise saw the plants react to his thoughts, regardless of whether he was in the same room or not, or the same city for that matter.

Subject A & B's synchronized scans

Dr. Masaru Emoto, author of “The Secret Life of Water”  was also interviewed in the film. Emoto, in his experiments, exposed different water droplets  to different thoughts, words  and intentions.

Water Crystals presented with Bach

These words and thoughts were directed at droplets before they were frozen, then images of the resulting water crystals were captured on film. The stunning results, such as  “beautiful” or “ugly” depended upon whether the words or thoughts were positive or negative. Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water.    If you ‘re not familiar with his book or images, one of which is included here, check it out.

This led me to a logical conclusion from my shamanic studies in Peru, where the Inca and Quechua concept of Ayni, (reciprocity) runs throughout the mountain cultures in the Andes.

Q'ero Priests in the Andes

I learned to give words and form to what I had intuitively, (and most likely all of us have) had  known all my life from growing up in woods of New Hampshire, and later, mountain guiding in the mountains of the world -  that the mountains, streams and rivers, and other natural features give off a certain energy, and that we can interact with them as we would a person.  We can exchange energy, ask for support from the mountain, or lake,  and give back that support through emotional prayer, conservation protection and simple acknowledgement of the mountain’s energy and presence.
This might sound silly to the western logical mind, but the indigenous cultures who lived closer to the land knew and lived this life, and many still do, on a daily basis.  The western mind  is too busy, the channels are too clogged with data, to recognize the subtle signals that come from the old oak tree or the master mountain on the horizon.
The people of Cusco have twelve main “Apu’s “ or Mountain Spirits around their city, two of which are named Ausangate, Salkantay, Each main mountain or other geographic feature has its own characteristic such as male or female, strength,  allowance, introspection etc.. and the spirit of Ayni pervades all interactions with these mountain spirits.  As a side note, when I named our organization Mountain Spirit Institute in 1996, I had no awareness of the Andean “Apu’s”.
I took what I had learned, and melded it with my own intuition and experiences. When back in the U.S., I started to give more form to my relationships with the surrounding mountains and water features in my hometown of Sunapee, NH.  I started to see Mt. Sunapee in a different light, and in fact, took a job as a ski patroller mostly because I wanted to interact with the mountain energy on a daily basis. I wanted to, protect it, be in on the mountain, feel its power, and ask for strength from it as well.  Now that I think about it, maybe when Catherine Busheuff and I decided to move forward with those early meetings at the library, that later turned into the Friends of Mount Sunapee, maybe part of the seed that led to the mountain’s protection that exists today, came from those early interactions.  Many individuals have since carried forward  with their own passion to protect the mountain from abuse and over-development. I hope to think I may have had a small part in that.

Communication w/Lake Sunapee from NZ's Lakes District

I also started relating to Lake Sunapee in a different way as well. While I always felt the water was in my bones, this film, and Emoto’s book, gives me some credence that the water memory from where we come is actually part of us.  So after seeing the movie, I spontanisouly  meditated on the waters of Sunapee from here in New Zealand. I started feeling the healing power of the waters of Lake Sunapee, even though I’m down here on New Zealand’s south island,  very long way away. I could feel the exchange of energy, of love and gratitude.
So what’s this all mean – from the shamanic studies in Peru, to experiments in Russia to meditation and communication with a body of water in New Hampshire from New Zealand,  from one water body to another body of water? It means, at least to me, that we can interact more with trees,  mountains, rivers, lakes and each other on a level far deeper than conventional society believes. Traditional societies know about this connection, and its knowledge may just mean we learn to survive as a species.
I started Mountain Spirit Institute because I feel I can contribute to helping people reconnect to the natural environment, each other and a deeper connection to themselves by setting the stage for powerful transformative experiences. This film is an affirmation that I, and our board of directors are on the right track. Visit our website for more information on our core values, and our mission, and do see the movie!

Water's structure as important as chemical make-up

Chapters of the movie Water, The Great Mystery, include:
The Structure of Water
The importance of water,
Dead and Heavy Water
Natural and Artificial Water
The Effect of Water on the Body
Water as the Medium
The Power of Faith
A Water Crisis
Nature Disasters
Love and Gratitude

* While I didn’t look for footnotes to the research mentioned in the movie, nor check into the science, I decided to write this post to share my personal experience of the movie, and in life.

There was much more fascinating information in the movie than I was able to include here. Do see it to learn more about agriculture, hydro power, our public water supply and one of the world’s most pristine water supplies in Brazil.  All images are screen shots from the movie and are intended and used for review purposes only.


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