A KOGI WARNING
From the Heart of the World showing at the Corazon
By GREG PARLIER
When we, as humans, drill for oil in the ocean, mine for coal in the mountains, dump our chlorinated waste, or diesel gas, in the river, the Kogi feel it in the heart of the world. The Kogi feel a great deal, and they want us to pay attention to what the Earth’s heartbeat is telling us.
Next week, the ancient indigenous peoples of the high mountains of Columbia are bringing their message to Northeast Florida by way of two documentaries, thanks to two St. Augustine-based organizations and the initiatives of a BBC filmmaker.
The Environmental Youth Council, a St. Augustine organization that’s focused on “[bridging] the gap between those concerned and those in action” on environmental issues, is hosting the double feature screening at The Corazon Cinema & Café in downtown St. Augustine on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
“Since the beginning, Bill Hamilton and the Environmental Youth Council have been hugely supportive of our work and a constant source of inspiration,” says The Black Line Initiative Felipe Viveros, a project coordinator who is speaking at the screening. “The vital work that the EYC is doing in Florida, protecting the rivers St. Johns and Matanzas, and the Atlantic Ocean, are an example of what the Kogi want to see happening worldwide.”
When Hamilton, a St. Augustine business owner and sponsor of EYC, saw the 1990 BBC film From the Heart of the World – The Elder Brothers’ Warning, he was inspired to get involved. Then, he met Fernando Arango, a St. Augustine resident from Columbia who had lived with the Kogi for several years in the ’60s. The two men decided to start a foundation to buy land around the lands the Kogi claim, to help create a buffer zone in the face of encroaching Columbian development.
The Sunrise Rotary Club of St. Augustine, along with some private donors, funded the Fundación Escuela Sintana y Tierra Negra in Columbia, which is working with Columbians and the Kogi to create a school and a primitive, Kogi-inspired agricultural community in the 62 acres the foundation has purchased so far.
That foundation, along with EYC and The Black Line Initiative, a London-based project started by Alan Ereira, BBC filmmaker and director of both films, are all working to help convey the Kogi message to St. Augustine and to the world at large.
The Kogi peoples are among the last surviving cultures from the time of the Inca and Aztec in Central America, living just as they did thousands of years ago, insulated from modern society in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Sierra Nevada mountain range, at 18,700 feet, is the highest coastal range in the world. Because of its unique structure in Northern Columbia, on a separate tectonic plate than the nearby Andes mountains, it’s in effect a miniature version of the whole planet, with all the world’s climates represented, according to The Black Line Initiative’s website.
The Kogi believe humanity is here to be the caretakers of the Earth, helping to foster its growth and vitality. They are the elder brothers, living in the heart of the world, and through responsible farming and stewardship of the mountain jungle they live in, and through positive meditation, and with the ancient knowledge that was shared by many now-extinct indigenous communities of the world, they keep the world in balance. The rest of the world is the younger brother, and the Kogi are not happy with how we younger brothers are treating the Earth.
After grave-robbers, amateur archeologists and coal miners began encroaching on their land in the 1960s and ’70s, they agreed to make a film with Ereira in 1990 to send a message to the younger brothers that they are destroying the homelands, and must stop.
Twenty years later, the Kogi realized their first message had gone unheeded, and again with Ereira, they made the documentary Aluna, this time ensuring that they would have more control of the storytelling.
The Kogi mamas, spiritual leaders of the tribe, know how crucial the world environmental crisis is, and are reaching out more and more through Arango’s foundation and The Black Line Initiative to the younger brothers, pleading with us to focus our energy on restoring the Earth.
Open to all mankind, the buffer zone created near the Sierra Nevada will help them communicate with anyone willing to listen without endangering their sacred way of life in the mountains.
The EYC, the first independent organization the Kogi have agreed to work with in the United States, has donated $1,500 through fundraising to help pay for the Kogi to visit sacred sites and meditate on environmental issues facing Northeast Florida and the world.
The local Environmental Youth Council has hosted marches for climate and ocean justice, fought against testing for offshore oil drilling, fought against unsustainable development in sensitive environmental areas in St. Johns County, worked with the Matanzas Riverkeeper to keep that river clean, and is involved in a lawsuit against the state of Florida and Georgia Pacific for the paper plant’s pollution of the St. Johns River. The Kogi mamas will meditate on these issues on behalf of EYC to help solve them.
Working with the Kogi fits perfectly with EYC’s mission of taking action on the biggest environmental issues of our day, Hamilton says. To the Kogi, it’s all one issue, as we are all intimately connected with the Earth, and each other, he explains.
This film screening, the first of these documentaries to be released in the U.S., will give viewers a chance to hear directly from the Kogi, and learn exactly what the tribe hopes we can do to help to restore the Earth, Hamilton says.
“The Kogi message is both current and ancient, and has in it a message of hope and a dose of ancient wisdom that has dazzled both the general public and the scientific community,” The Black Line Initiative’s Felipe Viveros says.