ALDEA FELIZ
Introduction
Welcome back to Community Resilience, a podcast created in collaboration with the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project, facilitated by the Global Ecovillage Network. I’m your host, Eva Goldfarb, inviting you to gather around the fire as we explore resilience adaptation and transformation in our time of deepening polycrisis. Today, we are joined by Yaluka Kankurua, president of Casa Latina and Latin America’s regional representative of the Resilience Project.
Yaluka lives in Aldea Feliz, a 17-year-old ecovillage in the center of Colombia. She is a part of Casa Colombia, Casa Latina, and now the Network Stewardship Circle, or NSC, of GEN. Yaluka is a sociocracy trainer and also a promoter of the rights of Mother Earth.
She has written a short book about the pedagogical strategy used to promote the rights of Mother Earth, which translated is called Community Living Aulas for the Mother Earth Rights, available to download at the Casa Latina site.
Interview
Eva: Hello, Yaluka. Thank you so much for being here with us today. How are you doing?
Yaluka: Fine, thank you. Here from Aldea Feliz in Colombia, with a beautiful weather that is rainy. It was a little bit too much sun before, so the rain is good.
Eva: The rain is resilient. I wanted to start by letting the listeners get to know you a bit better, understanding who you are as a person and how you’ve made your way to the Casa Latina Network and to the Resilience Project in general.
Yaluka: Okay, so I am Yaluka. I am from Colombia and I do live in an ecovillage, a beautiful one that is called Aldea Feliz. Aldea Feliz, that means happy village. So in our name is our big purpose. We think we deserve to live a happy life. Something like the indigenous of this part of the world say, we really try to make that happen for us. So I am an ecovillager. I am a network weaver. I have been related to Casa Colombia for 10 years, working as a member of Casa Colombia. I was selected representative in the Casa Latina Network as a Colombian. And after a few years of working in the Casa Latina Network, I was elected president of the legal figure that we have to work. So I am right now the president of Casa Latina. And as Casa Latina, I am part of the NSC spiritual engine. So being in all these places at the same time, that is the same thing. Anyways, I heard about the project of the Resilient Project. And as I am a researcher too, but I do my research now in the rights of mother earth. I heard, so as Aldea Feliz, we went into the contest, but we were not selected because there were other groups in Colombia that have a different vision. There was not enough spots for everybody. But at the end, Aldea Feliz, as Casa Latina, we were with this project. So I get involved with it. So I decided to ask my loved ecovillagers if they want to do the project. So then they say, yes, they want to do everything. But it has not been as efficient as I wish. But anyways, we have been working on that. We have a specialized group because we decided not to reunite all the assembly of Aldea Feliz to follow the process. We decided that we make a group that do all the things and then ask for consent for the results. That’s the way we are doing here. So we have our beautiful five people group of Resilient Project. And we have been working on like wishing this year we have more commitment in the way that we can finish our lessons, of course, but make this grow, look for more organizations to fill the process to do it and maybe to share.
Eva: Perfect. Sensing more into your individual motivations and takeaways, what are some of the benefits you’ve gained since getting involved with the network on a national level and since participating in this project?
Yaluka: But two different things, because, yeah, getting related with the network for me is a way of living. It’s maybe because of my personality, but I like to connect. I am involved in a lot of projects and almost in everything. Like sometimes I’m just observer, but I try to get to know everything so I can, yeah, connect. And here in Colombia, we have like a craving for this kind of researchers and this kind of things. Like now the Colombian, we call cocina, kitchen, the circle, the central circle in Colombia of the Casa network, because Casa also means house. So it’s the Casa, but it’s the house. And the kitchen is where we cook all the things. And the people in the kitchen, they are telling me that they want this. So I have to find a way to have make this happen in Colombia, like get a group of villages and then make them have the process, live the process because it’s beautiful. So for me, the process is like a very open awareness. Like, wow, I never thought about that before. Some things that we were supposed to be thinking because we are eco-villagers or whatever. We decided to live in another way. So we came here and we build all this, but then we still have some practices of the world that don’t allow us to get to think different. So this process has been beautiful because of that, because it brings questions, points of view, terms of reference, you know, like a lot of information. And I want to tell you also that we translate everything to Spanish. Yeah, I would like to share, because thinking about doing the next step, because even in Aldea Feliz, we have a lot of English speakers. There were some people that were behind of the work because they couldn’t read. I’m going to send you the link in the Casa Latina big folder. We have all everything translated in Spanish.
Eva: Thank you so much. Can you pick out a few examples of what you were talking about? Some of the topics that really made you more aware of either things you weren’t doing or things that were outside of your view.
Yaluka: Yeah, a few things. For example, the beginning, we start looking at our history, you know, how has the history came. And in that moment, we realized that we have a cyclical, that it was not a timeline, that it was like a spiral line. So we drove it. This happened here. And then in a few years or something will happen again. We can see that there’s some feelings or things that we have to realize or take care that happen again and again, until we just find out what is needed to learn in there. That’s one thing.
Eva: Beautiful. Do you think that these themes that you kept coming back to were particular to Aldea Feliz? Or would there also be some lessons in there for the wider community if you feel like sharing what they were?
Yaluka: Maybe it’s everybody in the world. I don’t know. But Aldea Feliz and for sure me, that I have found another path related to the big path of the community also. It’s like, oh, my God, I keep doing things. But we improve. It’s not that we are in the same place that when things happen again, it’s like a confirmation that we have learned something, things like that. That’s have been amazing, like looking the way we evolve. For we always think like, oh, we have a history or we have like 17 years of work together. But then it’s not that because we are not the same people. We are not the same place. It’s different. The trees are bigger. Whatever is like everything is changing. But it’s the purpose of Aldea Feliz, the big heart in the middle is clear and improving, like growing, expanding. It’s like that. That’s beautiful. But at the same time, because after that we have system models, the personal and interpersonal connections and things. After that, when we start talking about those things, we realize that we never think that something wrong is going to happen. It’s like we live the happy life and then things can happen. No, this is another big realizing thing about this project is like, no, why don’t you think about it? It’s not bad thinking that something bad can happen. And that was also so like very touching for a lot of people here like, geez, what if? And then what if everything we don’t have any backup system of any like the other thing that we have for real is each one of us, you know, like the really big heart, the social structure, the ability of making decisions, the love, infinito love that we have here that makes us go through difficult times and go through because they are in the part of the physical things. Now we are improving that. Now that’s another good thing. I think that we thought about it and then I start thinking how to fix that up here. For example, this year, the expansion of the Aldea in terms of food sovereignty, because we don’t have enough. It’s something that happened here. We don’t have enough space. So because we are taking care of a forest, we don’t have lots of place to grow food. So we we were always looking for food and in other places. But now this year happened that we start a group with different peoples of the mountain to grow food for everyone in different places that are not us. We are making the abonos. But then we have the place to do that for for all the system, the big system in here, because we cannot plant. So we are making compost. Yes. So that’s beautiful, because then now we are making sure about that at least. So water, better energies, what is not very good. And also we keep having this problem with the plastic that I think with the nearest of the food, it will change more.
Eva: This is always the earth shattering reality that ecovillages are also learning to be better, more sustainable, more eco-friendly. For those of you listening, I have a few dear friends out there that were really inspired by the trade system that you’ve set up with the nearby villages in terms of exchanging food to help with this sovereignty. So please correct me if I’m wrong. But from my understanding, every ecovillage project or cooperative that participates takes two crops or two products that they then produce for everyone and share among the group. So you were sharing that you do compost or fertilizer to help build soil. And I remember Camilla telling me you also grow coffee. And I find that such a beautiful solution to not having enough land. So just wanting to make sure that is shared.
Yaluka: Yes. Not only that we produce one thing, but we go together and grow in one big place. Now we have corn and zucchinis and lots of food. It’s like, wow. Amazing.
Eva: You also mentioned the social structure and how this was a big part of your community feeling resilient with each other. Love absolutely is at the center of that. But I’m wondering if you can share a bit about what social structure you have in place that gives you confidence that you can overcome future scenarios.
Yaluka: It’s a long process, but we integrate sociocracy since 2014. So we have a long practice in sociocracy together with the learning of nonviolent communication is the base. We spiral of energy that grows until that puts your having, your creation, your capacity, ability of doing, your heart, your voice and your vision together in yourself like first me. So I am able to recognize what are my feelings. How do I do the things I do? Why I do it? How do I love? What is my word saying? How can I envision my future through that? And after I came here with my vision, then I find the others that have the same vision and connects through here, through something outside of me. And then together we get together and think the vision together and speak it. Say, okay, together we think we’re going to do this. We put our hearts, our action, our ability of doing and our all ourselves in that. The process in the first spiral is my inner process. And that’s a nonviolent communication that I prove when I’m going to share my vision with somebody else to share. And then in together, then it starts in the word circle that sociocracy first step. Then the second is the word that says what you really are going to do, not what you should think, what you think anybody else has to do or something. And put your heart and your actions in the collective purpose that is used in the sociocracy way. And it works perfectly because when we come to the group, we already have fixed what is wrong with us. Wrong, no? It’s like something that it makes me angry or I don’t like that or they don’t take me in or whatever. All the feelings around all the fears. So when we start working or when we have a circle, we are ready for that. We can sit, each one of us can sit in the circle and be there for all of them, the others. So we are accountable. We are sure that anyone that says something, it’s going to do it. It has to be something very weird. So people cannot do what they say, but things happen because we can trust. And it also takes the responsibility on the individual. You really have to want to do what you say.
Eva: And I love this. So you’re not throwing a lot of ideas into the group. You’re really just bringing your heart and you have this pre-attunement before coming into group work. Thank you very much for sharing. If you have any resources for people to work through this inner spiral, be it for their intentional community, neighborhood, family, that would be wonderful to share as well.
Yaluka: I was writing a document for the university. It’s difficult, you know, in the academy to let somebody say that I have a theory from myself, from my experience. I have had a lot of problems with that because I always try to share. In the university, the teachers were like, who are you? Why do you think you can do that?
Eva: Yes. The education systems I have also found are one of the barriers to building resilience on a wider scale. I also love, I found a quote from you somewhere. I translated it to English, so I’m hoping it does it justice. But it says: “ I am, I think, I do, and I live learning to teach”. And I love this. Thank you for sharing it. Are there any other barriers that you have encountered through your work with Alde Feliz at building this resilience wider? You talk about in formal education systems, but I’m wondering if you’ve also found it with municipalities or with your local community in any way, kind of barriers to this expand and consciousness on a larger level?
Yaluka: Something that makes us stop is good. And the horizons were another, was another wonderful, because we don’t have a clear view together. So that’s what a good thing to happen. See, so we needed to change our structure. It’s difficult when you have the idea that has to be in a way. So, but it’s beautiful that we have been doing whatever we want. Like all structures are so difficult to change. And we just know that everything are changing all the time. No, it’s changing. See, it’s only like we can do it. I think that’s strength in that.
Eva: I love this visual you started us out with, which is the process where the historical spiral of Adea Feliz, starting with the heart in the center. And then you notice repeating patterns as you continue to spiral, evolve, adapt, grow. I’m wondering if we can look at a few of those points on the spiral, maybe starting with one happiness or a period of harmony, of ease, of pure love that maybe showed up several times throughout the years and what the environment was like to welcome this period.
Yaluka: Let me see the beautiful times this year, the children of Adéa Feliz that have lived more than half of their lives here. So they are 14. They have lived here seven or more years, 14, even 13 and 12 and 10. We decided to give them the quality of eco-villagers and the possibility that they decide to be an eco-villager and stay here and pay the rent or whatever as an adult whenever they like to. But it’s the final result of a big loop of making the children the center of our being. When we decided that, it opens a loop. And this year was like, okay, we can do this ceremony to let them know that they can be eco-villagers whenever they want and they don’t have to pay anything to be an eco-villager in Adéa Feliz costs. If you want to be an Aldea Feliz person, you have to come, live, pay and whatever. But they don’t because they are the seed of our future. So it’s the same that when we started the school. We started the school, it changed it in a loop, changed it and become something bigger that is now full of people of the mountains. Then the other way when our children just get out of that because they are too big, different people leaving that dream that we have before. And now we have to build the one for these big guys. But it’s beautiful because it’s like, makes us realize that we are doing what we said we were going to do the children in the center.
Eva: That’s beautiful. And have you noticed any patterns within your community conflict? Any exterior elements that were affecting it or lack of security, purpose, work?
Yaluka: We have a very stable outside world. It’s too much. No, like I read sometimes in news or something and we don’t even notice that. We have a good relation with the government of the place. We have a good relation with the neighbors, with the town. So we cannot feel that’s like the political things or big changes happening outside. We cannot in the pandemic. We have the same life almost that we live here. It’s like because, yeah, we are in a bubble, but really connected with the land around and connected in the Internet with the world. But that doesn’t affect us. Not something that we say, OK, pandemic was for real because we didn’t go outside the Aldea Feliz, but inside we were the same. No, never use a mask. We were hugging each other every day, like the normal, beautiful things of living. We had them. The things that moves us, they always come from within, like from inside, from our necessities of living and feeling. And something that we have learned that also that I’m not sure if I can say that for all of the families, because everything else I have said, we have talked about it. But this feeling now in me is that we are an example of the world. Sometimes I think that some of these very painful situations between us, it’s calling like a big healing, not only for us, but for our families and the world. Sometimes I think that we are just healing the world through ourselves, because a few years ago, for example, all the traumas that exist, we have them. Not all the same person, but all of us together, because when somebody or between two happen things, then all of us, we are related and we can feel that and then we get involved and then it’s deep things. But there’s nothing that we couldn’t handle. Everything has made us a strongest group. I have, for example, me, I have been in through anger and feeling like everybody’s telling me lies and like not those things that come from my history that I need to learn. Then somebody here show me. But then at the end, that’s what I need to live so we can be where we are right now.
Eva: We all have put our skin in the process. And that’s for me really how you build group resilience. You move through these feelings, periods of hardship, big transformations together as a loving unit. And after going through really hard times with someone, it makes it feel a lot safer to move into an uncertain future with them. You mentioned as you were talking about the closing of the spiral of the school, this act of ceremony of giving an initiation to the kids. And this is one piece from my perception of Aldea Feliz that I really see strong is ceremony and particularly ceremonies with the land. You spoke at the very beginning of our interview about rights of nature. And I’m wondering if you can talk a bit about your individual and communal practices of connecting with the land, connecting with ceremony, building spiritual resilience.
Yaluka: I think it’s the most beautiful learning about being here for me, for example, in these 10 years I’ve been here. Realizing that connection with Mother Earth is not a cuckoo thing. When I came here, I realized that that was real. That was not something weird with me, hearing the birds, because I hear it. I can hear the call. Something special makes me go and think and I have seen a lot of things because of that in my life. So that connection with nature in Aldea Feliz, I think everybody has it. I don’t know why I think that. But that makes us put some sacrality in everything. That’s one thing, like the heart of everybody here. But also we have this house, we have a tribe house that is a maloka or a kuzmoy, whatever you want to call, is made in the way that our ancestors of this territory made them.
Like sticks together and it’s round and have the spire in the center. So there we have had all kinds of ceremonies. Yeah. The basis of this territory, we have take them. So it’s natural. And everything, everything we do as a circle, a world circle, we open giving thanks and presenting ourselves. It’s like natural. Here I am, mother. Come in peace. So talking about what we are doing in the land and this relation with the land is sacred. We open like saying hello to the east, to the west and to the north and to the south and to the sky and to the mother and to the heart and to everything. That’s something that is in us.
Eva: This has also changed my life since going through a morning practice of gratitude.
Yaluka: I think it is really transformative and something that can be implemented no matter where you are on the planet. But relearning this great connection with the planet. It’s the sacred life, honoring the sacred life every day, every time, every time we get together. It’s important for us to take care of this situation like, okay, are together. Let’s put our hearts together in a circle with all the hearts and say thanks.
Eva: I’m curious how this ceremony, or if the ceremony has had to adjust at all to difficult times, what this resilience looks like for Aldea Feliz, if maybe the harvest isn’t good, you don’t have an abundant lunch, how this act of singing and the gratitude maybe would help overcome challenges, if that makes sense.
Yaluka: I am sure that we can go through an ayuno, how do you call that when you don’t eat?
Eva: A fast.
Yaluka: A fast, yeah, I think we can go through a fast. We have a lot of food here, we have a lot of water, but we have think about that, like not recently, no? After we started with this and now we are studying emergencies and thinking about insurances or things like, we never ever think about that before. I think that we can go through everything, for real.
Eva: That’s beautiful and it’s really nice to hear that this project has opened a lot of conversations in Aldea Feliz.
Yaluka: Yes, that’s beautiful about getting involved in things like this, because we cannot know everything, of course.
Eva: It comes back to the gift of community in general, that you are presented with a lot of different mirrors and can go through these really deeper ways of knowing yourself and then when you expand out to a global situation, you start to hear stories from other parts of the globe that are already facing some of these hardships and again.
Yaluka: Yes, I know. I know. Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty. What can we do? It’s like so painful here reading about, I don’t see things because that make me feel that very bad, but I can read things about the war, about the immigration, about this. It’s like, oh my god, it feels so painful, but then I look around and if we can help, here we are. No, it’s like, I don’t know what other way more than living this and going out and spreading the world. Talking about that, reading, writing about that, going through a lot of things because of the university and the rights of nature because that’s a big cause that covers everything and resilience also.
Eva: This is my tool for resilience is being Team Earth. It helps me move through a lot of the hardships of humanity.
Yaluka: Yes.
Eva: Thank you so much. I would love to pull some advice from you if you have any words of wisdom that you would like to pass on, what you think eco-villages or Aldea Feliz specifically can help share with the wider world. You do a lot of work through the university. Are there some key takeaways that you would like people to leave today with?
Yaluka: Hmm, from Aldea Feliz, the learning is that, that I explained before, is our real learn is that our value as persons comes from the knowledge within. Our ability to be accountable for people comes from sitting in our place with all our truths. Whatever we are is what is needed. Sometimes we want to be different or do some things. No, we just have to be. That’s the magical thing about these synchronicities of the life that puts you in the right place in the right time at the right moment. Because the only thing that the life is asking you is to be alive, to be a flow of life that allows life to be. And then when you are ready and you can have your vision clear, then you can unite your vision with others that have the same vision or close enough to get together and say, OK, is this so we can together follow something, doing everyone whatever is in their heart to do. But doing it, the learning is to hear yourself, to learn your needs, to learn your feelings, to embody whatever is going through you. Yes, because for governance, for self-governance, for sociocracy to happen, it has to be previously self-governance. So it cannot be like a big governance in the world if each one of the persons embodies their strengths and their ability to do whatever it is. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s singing, sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s cooking, sometimes it’s a planting, harvesting, whatever, but doing it with the heart.
Eva: We only have a few minutes left together, and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but if you feel comfortable, I would love to end with a little meditation where you could maybe help our users come find some of these questions that would start the journey of how to find this connection with the self.
Yaluka: It’s easy. It’s easy. We are like a beautiful light, no? Our body is light that vibrates not that fast as light, but that’s why we can touch ourselves. And we have at the bottom, like we have seven chakras, seven colors in our body that comes out. So we can start like feeling our legs and remembering that we are a body that is our first territory. And everything that is in that body is everything you needed, you need. It’s everything. Nothing else matters. Not even the clothes.
Your body and everything in that makes the body exist. So realizing that power of being alive in this land, you can get your energy come up and without fear, connect with your ability of manifesting. That is your creation, your womb in the woman that we have, this womb where children are created light, but everything else is created the same way. It’s the power of your water in your body and in the world. Also the waters of the feelings and the emotions that when you can put them in purpose of creating and creating whatever you believe, because create in Spanish is creer y crear, creas lo que creas. But in English, you create what you believe, then choose your beliefs through your feelings and let the energy go up and become yellow, yellow as the sun, yellow as your belly and realize that everything that you do is changing the world. Everything like washing a plate or having a big meditation, whatever it is, actions is what changed the world. So everything you want to manifest have to go through an action that if you let goes up, becomes green and open your heart enough to live in the consciousness that abundance is there for you to share without fear. So when your heart expands, then the energy of the air goes to the sound, the sound, the ability of the words to create the world again. So we have this open, so we have to speak the truth, say what is real and say only what you love and are able to do or create. Responsibility with our voice, speak the truth and let the energy goes up to your mind and vision. Vision is like the possibility of creating with images, words, imagination that connects us with the big camp, the big energy camp of the feelings of the thoughts of the world, because all the world is a lot of thoughts together. So when we find our vision, then we are able to feel that vision that opens our seventh chakra and let us move through the world connected with people that thinks the same things or almost the same. So the possibility for you to find your tribe is to connect all your energies in one and be aligned yourself. So that’s the way you move around and then you find the others that can connect with you in the different levels and be there.
Eva: Thank you so much to you, Yaluka.
Yaluka: Bye, thank you.
Outro
Please remember that English is not the first language for many of our guests. Thank you, Yoluka, for your help translating the materials into Spanish. You can find these resources in our show notes at ecovillage.org/resilience podcast. Join us again next week as we continue the conversation over what it means to be resilient in our time of deepening polycrisis.
While you wait for the next episode of Community Resilience, we invite you to explore more about the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project by visiting us online at ecovillage.org/resilience.
Leave a Reply