“Quartz is the seed of water” Mama Shibulata*

Mama Shibulata always told me to plant sacred quartz crystals for water to sprout, that you have to plant water for more trees to sprout, that you have to plant trees so that more birds will sprout, and so on—to go forth planting love in the world, though not just love, but a love for nature, for mother earth, which is ultimately us.

“The tropics are a thought, green in a feeling,” so the Taitas and other spiritual leaders say when they are thinking while they weave or while they work the land. When I think about the green of the tropics, I think about the damp soil, the hot land, the waterfalls, the mountains, the jungles, the rivers, the cloud forests, the snow-capped mountains, the hummingbird, the jaguar, the sacred eagle—all that remains on this planet which allows us to breathe

*(Kogi mamo, a spiritual leader for the Kogi indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta)

By Ana González Rojas