E.A.R.T.H.S GUARDIAN

[Ziggy]

E.A.R.T.H.S GUARDIAN

According to Mapuche tradition Ruka Pallin is the ancient spiritual guardian of Mother Earth. They say he lives in the volcano near my home here in southern Chile. From there they say he watches over both the inner and outer worlds of Earth, protecting both the spiritual and physical places of this planet. When he sees injustice, hatred and destruction, it is said he uses all the power of natures weapons to fight back and restore peace and tranquility to the land of the indigenous Mapuche.

This summer Florencia and I made a trip south. We drove down to port city of Hornopiren, put our car on a boat a crossed over to the southern landing in the Park Pumalin.

http://www.parquepumalin.cl/content/eng/index.htm

In 1991, North American Douglas Tompkins, a long time visitor to Chile since 1961, bought the Reñihué Ranch with the idea to set aside 42,000 acres of evergreen temperate rain forest from possible exploitation. In the intervening years The Conservation Land Trust has added another 700,000 acres in nearly contiguous parcels to comprise the Pumalín Park.

This amazing piece of paradise created by hippies for hippies and the rest of the world to enjoy is something special. From the moment you step on it´s soil, you feel the energy that surrounds you. At its southern port, a very cool organic restaurant, offers you some tasty local dishes and all the information you need to really enjoy the park.

You have so many choices from here, you can go north and explore the many campgrounds in Pumalin Park North on foot, you can take a boat to the nearby islands and see an unbelievable collection of animals and vegetation, or you can head south through the park on a very well maintained gravel road. We headed south, passing many choices of waterfalls and campgrounds easily accessible by from the road, they did such a nice job of letting you in to the center of the park while preserving this natural virgin environment.

One of the main attractions on this road is one of the last remaining protected groves of Alerces trees. Some of these trees are over 3000 years old. As you meander along the path, though the grove, passing each tree bigger than the last you notice how undisturbed this area seems, though it receives over 10,000 visitors a year. In the center of the grove is what I called the Grandfather of the Alerces tribe, obviously the biggest and oldest of all these ancient trees. He looked a little tired (I guess 3000 years of living might do that to you) so I ran some energy into him and heard him crying, I felt his strength and his desire to protect his family from the wrath of man, I let him know that they would no longer be striping bark from his children to make boats or cutting them down to be burned as firewood. I told him he was now protected by some very cool hippies who loved him very much.

We camped for a few days on the white lagoon. I have been in some of the nicest parks in the world but none compared to this one in the feeling I had of peaking in on virgin land and being allowed to enjoy it without have an ill effect on it, the bathrooms, with running water, like the park itself were well taken care of and cleaned twice a day, the camp site we had was on the lagoon and cost us $9 a day. We shared the site with so many animals who seemed to enjoy our presence and were so comfortable with us being there, we felt as if we had made friends for life. I got down on my knees and prayed everyday for the hippies who made this place happen and had been able to stop the cutting and killing that was sure to destroy this place if they had not intervened.

As we drove out of the park to the south, I was stunned because it was as if every tree on the planet had disappeared. Signs of destruction were everywhere, old sawmills, new sawmills and an ox cart pulling the last few remaining trees down the road to be cut into firewood.
We entered the city of Chaiten, a desolate looking place, with signs of clearing and construction everywhere. It reminded me of southern California during the boom construction period, when bulldozers were busy removing everything old to build something new.

The only hippy looking place in town was the Pumalin Park office and restaurant next door. We were planning on entering the southern gate of the park to see the glacier there and do some more camping and wanted a little more info. The lady in the office must have recognized us as fellow hippies because she showered us with posters, bumper stickers and information from the park and also about stopping the insanity, as she called it, the local administration were planning for the area.

The mayor, who was a self confirmed mortal enemy of this tree hugging bunch of environmental wackos from the park to the north, had single handily closed the entrance to the park near his town by chaining its gate and instructing the local police to remove any campers found there. He said it was because the park was not sanitary. Truth was the park had not received its sanitary permit because he was the one who controlled it. He was also one of the spearheads of the new movement to bring progress to the area by damming all the rivers in the mountains nearby to make a hydro dam. The local administration was pushing forward the building a new harbor to help thousands of new settlers reach this area. Chaiten would as the mayor put it, lead the way to bringing civilization to this remote area and find a way to rid itself of the influence of these tree huggers to the north.

I could not help but feel the extreme pressure that was building here from these two super powers, on totally different paths, colliding along the border of this park. One wanting to protect Mother Earth and the other wanting to tame Mother Earth. It was a sad time for us and we left felling disappointed in the way the people who lived though this were suffering from the conflict.

A few days ago something very terrible happened. The volcano Chaiten dormant for thousands of years and not considered by any to be a possible problem, blew its top, sending ash 10 miles into the air and leaving all the area covered in several inches of toxic ash. They have had to evacuate the entire city and are not sure it will be possible for the residents of Chaiten to ever return to the area. This is really a tragedy and I feel deeply sad for the human lives effected here. It is clear Chaiten, will not in the near future, be a city of progress and there will be no damming of the rivers nearby for now. This has also deeply effected the park of Pumalin, the animals living there and the area around it. The Grandfather of the Alerces tribe may be one of the only ones to fully understand how this area will recover from this tragedy, for I am sure he has faced many challenges in his 3000+ years.

Sometimes man is not in control of his destiny. Sometimes nature chooses mans course and he must accept that. To some Ruka Pallin may not be real but the essence of his story is. Man must live on the road nature provides for us. For when we think we make the roads, she lets us know we are wrong.

With love and healing for all the people of Chaiten and Pumalin I ask you all to join me in a prayer that nature will restore her blanket of love to those who lived here, where ever this tragedy leads them.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1314939,00.html

This is from a news story

Wednesday 7th May 2008
Chaitén Volcano, Chile
On 6th of May the eruption at Chaitén volcano in Chile intensified with the eruption column reaching an altitude of 30 km (100,000 ft). This makes the eruption possibly the largest since Pinatubo in 1991. The nearby town of Chaitén could end up buried, like the Roman city of Pompeii following Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. Volcanic ash is already 5 feet deep in some places. Volcanic material from Chaiten's last eruption measured up to 2 m (6 feet) in places. During a helicopter overflight on 6th May at 10:00 hr, observations showed two explosion craters on the northern side of the dome had merged to form a single crater with a diameter of 800 m. Lava is rising in the crater but has not yet spilled over. There have been no reports of pyroclastic flows. So far, Chaiten has emitted only a few thousand tons of sulphur dioxide. In 1991 Mt Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines emitted 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide in 1991, and caused a brief period of global cooling.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN11453175
_________________
Touch Everything
Attach to Nothing
Shaman Ziggy
C.E.O. (Concerned Environmental Officer)
H.E.A.L. (Heal Earth and Life)

[Lyndell]

I'd heard of this on the news, in fact, I watched a bit of the evacuation and felt the oppression of it all. Little did I know. I looked at the video's of the animals, those wonderous trees, the views of the park....! Oh my, oh my!!!! The loss of it!
Thank you for the insight, Ziggy.
L