By Adrián Villaseñor Gallarza

For cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and systemic change to take place, there needs to be energy available. To facilitate such a shift in consciousness, the third dimension of the Great Turning, we depend on the availability of psychic energy. This energy, however, is primarily perceived as pertaining exclusively to human endeavors. How may we mobilize inner resources in service to Life? How do we liberate such energy into its eco-psychic expressions?

Visionaries such as Thomas Berry  and Joseph Campbell suggest that it is not a matter of fixating upon the newest, “greenest” technology, but on connecting with the skillful means to psychically dethrone the industrial paradigm and magnetically connect with a life-affirming story. We know that psychic energy is nourished by myths, stories, symbols, and archetypes. In the case of the Work That Reconnects, there are a few guiding stories that take preference, one of which is the Shambhala Prophecy. As wonderful and necessary this story might be to ignite our inner landscapes, we need a variety of myths that speak to a broad eco-cultural spectrum. 

Given my cultural background, one of such essential stories is beautifully exemplified by the Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, which speaks of the unification and harmonious integration of the three Americas. Other Original stories from the continent include the Mexica myth of the Fifth Sun or the Hopi Creation Myth, in which various cycles of creation and destruction oversee humanity’s evolution. These stories speak of the intimate connection of the human family with an animate, cyclic world. The popular Mayan myth of the end of the “long count” conveys a message of fresh potentiality at the onset of a new cycle. I’ve shared elsewhere about the relevance of the Mexica teaching of the “Flower Warriors” (in xochitl in cuicatl) to cultivate intimacy with creation and harness inner resilience.[1] The various legends of El Dorado and particularly the myth of the lost city of Paititi are valuable stories that may further assist us in conjuring the energies to partake in the Great Turning, not without a necessary journey into the underworld. 

Honoring the Underworld

I want to invite you to envision the American continent divided into three broad areas: upper (North), middle (Central), and lower (South America) as representatives of a three-world cosmology found in many pre-industrial cultures throughout the world. We’re called to dive into “lower America,” the underworld, geographically, somatically, and metaphorically. At the body level, we ought to go beneath the neck, to learn from the intelligences of the heart and the gut, our intuition and so on. Geographically, we find communities and ways of living with scarce economic resources, which paradoxically are closest to the Earth. The historical repression of the “South,” of that which is “beneath,” has translated into massive amounts of pent-up psychic energy.

To honor our pain for the world, we journey into the underworld and touch with compassion the previously unavailable energy so that it may liberate and reorganize itself. This is tantamount to a shamanic journey or an initiatory ordeal that most industrial citizens are not willing or are able to embark on. Yet, in many respects, we are trained to undertake such an endeavor via the Work That Reconnects. Visiting the underworld is, of course, a metaphor that helps us honor our pain for the world in which a process of positive disintegration would unleash the freer expressions of our pain.   

Years back, I remember inviting Joanna to come to Mexico to offer an intensive WTR training. She looked back to me and just laughed. She said, “No, that’s up to you.” I took her word for it, and ever since we’ve been offering the Work in various Latin American contexts. Often, the awakenings that take place amid the various WTR participants are informed by the vibrant source of ancestral wisdom of their inheritance.

Interestingly, the underworld and its association to “death” and the “dead” is related to the realm of the ancestors. Knowing this, many of the stories and symbols incorporated in our offerings aim to honor and connect us with this deep, ancestral mind, in turn informed by the experiential revelations of participants—a virtuous cycle of reconnection.    

Ancestral Deep Ecology

The reconnective experiences of the mostly mestizo participants in these Latin American workshops can be seen as a reclamation of eco-cultural heritage and ancestral continuity. For the late psychologist Manuel Aceves, the unconscious dimension that shapes Mexican identity is intimately connected to an ancestral, pre-Hispanic mind, whereas the egoic personality is associated to the European influence [2]. This polarity is not exclusive of the Mexican identity, but it’s shared in the hybrid identities of Latin America and other regions with a considerable degree of cultural mixture. When the often repressed, but potently alive, ancestral mind finds a way to break through, it helps restore a sense of participation with the living roots of life while hinting at the possibility of psychic wholeness. In a WTR context, we may refer to this self-organizing intelligence as an expression of the deep ecology at the core of life’s web. 

As is known, Arne Naess is credited for coining the concept of ‘deep ecology’ in a 1973 article where he advances a long, deep, and relational perspective to the ecological challenges of our time [3]. Joanna’s work initially developed without an awareness of deep ecology and its core tenets, including its critique around anthropocentrism, or notions like the ‘ecological self’ or ‘ecosophy’. Soon after, a deep resonance ensued, to the point where the work of ‘despair and empowerment’—one of the earlier names of the WTR—came to be known as ‘deep ecology work’, which has endured in some communities until this day. Less known is Panikkar’s and Guattari’s work on the shared notion of ‘ecosophy’ that can enrich our understanding of deep ecology and its applications. 

 For Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010), intercultural theologist and philosopher, ecosophy has to do with listening to the Earth, perceiving Her as a living entity, and as an ultimate reference for human endeavors. One of the chief inspirations for Panikkar’s ecosophy is the Vedic concept of bhumijnana or spiritual Earth wisdom. In addition, ecosophy implies an opening to the experience of a living Earth as the harmonious participation of three dimensions: cosmos, human, and the sacred.

On his part, philosopher and psychiatrist Felix Guattari (1930-1992) developed an understanding of ecosophy as the fruit of the interactions between the environmental, social, and mental ecologies proposed earlier by Gregory Bateson. Guattari’s ecosophy would render an ethical, political, and aesthetic undertaking. This rhizomatic understanding of ecosophy is greatly enriched, largely preceded, and made presently available by the wakeful experiences of mestizo WTR participants of belonging to a living Earth.

‘Pachasophia’ or ‘wisdom of the Mother Totality’, Josef Eatermann has proposed, entails an awakening to a lived sense of relationality, correspondence, complementarity, reciprocity, and cyclicity amongst humans and creation.[4] Pachasophia, I suggest, is but an expression of ancestral deep ecology, or a participatory worldview and practice of eco-cultural belonging to the living Earth and its cosmic context (Pacha). This earthly realization of cosmic import, of homecoming, discloses a set of refined, ancestral understandings about the role and purpose of the human family amidst creation.

Ancestral deep ecology helps deepen a de-centered, rhizomatic understanding of deep ecology and the WTR. This approach celebrates the contemporary import of ancestral worldviews of the Americas, while valuing multicultural understandings and experiences in service of a more beautiful world. The flowering forth of Pachasophia allows for a potential integration between the European-informed conscious personality and the Earthly, unconscious mind. 

The Great, Golden Turning

It’s said that Paititi is the residence and temple of Viracocha, the Incan creator god. The lost city deep within the jungle is replete with gold, great wisdom, and technological advancement characteristic of the Inca peoples. The great riches of Paititi have been feeding greedy dreams of material wealth for the last five hundred years, and many unsuccessful expeditions have taken place by the colonizers ever since. Safely guarded by various trials and powerful guardians, the lost city symbolizes much more than material wealth—it is the haven of Inkarri or “Inca King,” who shall return to reinstate peace and justice in the world and inaugurate the next, golden era of humanity. Popular beliefs suggest that “Everyone’s life depends on them,” referring to Inkarri and the rest of the awakened Inca of Paititi, “because they are the ones that govern everyone’s destinies.”[5]

From the ancestral deep ecology of the Americas emerges this mythical figure, Inkarri, representative of spiritual gold, the “Earthly Sun,” and the ancestral wisdom to restore peace in the heart and harmony with the cosmos. Akin to the lost kingdom of Shambhala and its warriors, illustrative of the compassionate figure of the bodhisattva, the spirit of Inkarri is found deep within the human heart. In freeing psychic energies from their repressed, trauma-laden, industrial-driven expressions, the quest for Paititi serves as a guiding, life-affirming story, connecting us to the liberated energies of the world—the Great, Golden Turning.
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1. Villaseñor Galarza, Adrián. “Eagle, Condor & Quetzal.” A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time, edited by Stephanie Kaza, Shambhala, Boulder, CO, 2020. pp. 322-327.
2. Aceves, Manuel. Alquimia y Mito Del Mexicano: Aproximaciones desde La Psicología de C.G. Jung. Grijalbo, 2000.
3. Naess, Arne. “The shallow and the deep, long‐range ecology movement. A summary.” Inquiry, vol. 16, no. 1–4, Jan. 1973, pp. 95–100.
4. Estermann, Josef. Filosofía Andina: Sabiduría Indígena para un Mundo Nuevo. ISEAT, 2009; Estermann, Josef. Filosofía Andina: Estudio Intercultural de la Sabiduría Autóctona Andina. AbyaYala, 2015; Villaseñor Galarza, Adrián. “Ancestral Deep Ecology of the Americas.” Deep Times Journal, 2022. https://journal.workthatreconnects.org/2022/09/08/ecologia-profunda-ancestral-en-las-americas/ 
5. Urbano, Henrique. “Las tres edades del mundo. La idea de utopía y de historia en los Andes.” Mito y simbolismo en los Andes: La figura y la palabra, edited by Henrique Urbano, CBC, Cusco, 1993. p. 294.

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This article is an edited transcription of a talk given at the Gaian Gathering of the Work That Reconnects Network in November 2023.  A video of the full talk is available on the WTR Network website here.

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Adrián Villaseñor Galarza, PhD, is passionate about human transformation in service of the living Earth. Adrián is an integral ecopsychologist, international facilitator, contemplative teacher, author, and ritualist whose work weaves the psycho-spiritual study of the Earth-human relation, animist principles, and contemplative wisdom. He’s Core Faculty in the East West Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Adjunct Faculty at Naropa University, and founder of the Bioalchemy Institute and Work That Reconnects Latin America. Visit: living-flames.com for more information.