Resilience Through Creative Play

by Giovanni Ciarlo of Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage, Mexico

Fifty years ago, a group of young people from 8 different nationalities got together to travel like a family of gypsies around the world. In their early 20s, some with young children, and all together with limited funds, we were determined to form a tribe, visit faraway lands and discover new cultures. Most had a college education, but all had turned our backs on traditional careers. We were bonded by our strong inclination towards artistic expression, from music to dance, poetry, film, photography and theater.

When we arrived in India, we had a collective epiphany: we could continue to travel and earn our way by offering theatrical performances based on legends and songs from the lands we had visited. We realized that through our presentations, we could discover new cultures while supplementing our meager economy, and at the same time offer something of value to the people we encountered. Our early performances were in public spaces and schoolyards and were welcomed with enthusiasm by our audiences.

Soon, our small but talented band, self-named “Illuminated Elephants,” traveled to Mexico and North America and became known for its street performances and socio-ecological messages of peace and environmental awareness. Our converted school buses served as homes, communal spaces, and transportation for our then 30-person touring theater group. Later, in a naming ceremony conducted by a Native American medicine man, we were given the tribal name “Kilokagan Knilaxi,” which means Small but Powerful Tribe in his tribal language.

The mid-70s was a time of unrest and crisis worldwide as we learned about the environmental damage from nuclear energy, war, and climate change. We joined the youth protest movements globally and focused our performances on social and environmental activism. After several residencies in intentional communities in Northwest USA, we made a pilgrimage to the ancient Maya city of Palenque, in southern Mexico. During this experience, we realized that it was no longer sustainable to live in buses and travel as we had, and we felt inspired to settle in Mexico and create an ecovillage with arts and ecology as our guiding principles.

We found a magical land and purchased it with money from any source we could think of, mostly from our theater productions. We called our village Huehuecoyotl (Old Old Coyote), the same name given to the land by its original owners. To build our homes, we funded the architect fees with a theater piece: a graduating ceremony in which we each received an architectural degree and were empowered to design and build our homes with local natural materials and techniques. It was at this time that we came up with the tagline “Ecology is Art” and used our power of creativity to build a resilient community of artists and ecologists.

From pairing art and ecology we learned about the limitations of conventional approaches and the value of thinking outside the box. It also invokes a child’s view of the world that renders it both aesthetic and spiritual. Creativity taught us how to expand our capacity to deal with complexity.

For example, in the early days of our ecovillage development we were unsure how to build a cistern large enough to supply our 14 houses with rainwater year-round during the 7 months of drought typical to the region. The solution came in the form of a collaboration, or rather a realization. Using the natural landscape plus a little ingenuity, we waterproofed three sides plus the floor of a massive rock formation above the ecovillage. We only needed to build one additional wall and a cover for it to hold 400,000 gallons of water, which would then be distributed by gravity to all the houses. No need for electricity or big expenses to build the cistern, just creativity, hard work, and learning to read what the natural environment had to offer without damaging the ecosystem.

We learned that creativity is a valuable resource when addressing the question of alignment to purpose, connecting to nature and to each other. Without creativity we cannot survive. We take to heart the motto often heard in GEN circles: “If it isn’t fun, it is not sustainable.” Creativity connects us with each other and nature through playfulness. It gives us the strength to be fearless, courageous and selfless when facing challenges.

There are many other lessons learned from this combination of ecology and artistic creativity. We were also able to better understand the underlying patterns and dynamics of our bioregion, and use that knowledge in ways that regenerate the natural environment while adapting to climate change. The spirit of ecology as art gave us the resilience to face many scenarios since forming our ecovillage 42 years ago, from conflict transformation to building common spaces out of natural materials. The focus on art, ecology and creativity has proven to be resilient resources for our ecovillage to this day. It makes us appreciate the sacredness of all life.