By Juan Carlos Rocha Pardo
2024 started with great power as the Colombian sustainable settlements gathered for the 17th Call of the Mountain (“Llamado De La Montaña”) which took place in a cloud forest in the Andean mountains and joined around 300 persons from Colombia, Latin America, and the world. This itinerant event, which has been traveling around Colombian sustainable settlements since 2006, was hosted by Red Kunagua, a strengthened network of farms covering 80 hectares of forest cared for by its inhabitants of 34 families and 100 people of all ages.
For 4 days, those who listened and responded to the call of the mountain established a temporal sustainable community, sharing practices, experiences, knowledge, expressions, and clues useful for the exciting and challenging adventure of exploring a regenerative way of life.
The Guaguardia, a Kunagua’s child group trained on first aid, logistics and mountain guide, led the indigenous and Afro representatives, activists, NGOs members, researchers, artists, farmers and ecovillagers along the mountain, to join the diverse activities spread in different reserves, such as building a yurta, learning green banana preparations and syntropic agriculture, visiting the ecobricks house and permaculture farms, practicing non-violent communication, performing a maya ritual, universal peace dances and quirruni, the Andean yoga, among others. The event ended with a fifth day for the CASA Colombia assembly (Council of Sustainable Settlements of Latin América, Colombia)
The afternoons were designed for dialogue and reflection, and people got together in thematic circles to prepare collective action in local, regional, national and continental sceneries, following the Visions Council methodology.
The drums sang loud as is Kunagua’s style. The Children made an outstanding circus presentation, the result of an interdisciplinary process of alternative education held in Kunagua’s Forest School; and all community got together in the Sumapaz Caravan, a solemn, joyful, and inspiring act made by 40 Kunagueros from all ages, a delightful mix of music, dance, handcrafts, recycling, ritual, and work, designed carefully to proclaim the Rights of Nature.
The entire event was a ceremony on behalf of the Coyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil, a Mexican adventurer, artist and activist who started the Rainbow Caravan and traveled around 17 countries of Latin America during 13 years, planting seeds that became ecovillages, eco neighbors and festival, many of them in Colombia, such as the Call of the Mountain, one of the most persistent events of the Global Ecovillage Network, that next year will light the fire in the Musurrunakuna Indigenous Community, at one of the gates of the Colombian amazon jungle, a supported project by the EmerGENcies program, that helped to rebuilt the community with permaculture principles after an avalanche happened on 2017.
More about the Call of the Mountain and Red Kunagua at: www.llamadodelamontana.org y www.redkunagua.gaia-union.com
Follow along at @llamadodelamontaña @redCASAcolombia @ReKunagua
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