Geraldine Patrick Encina, A Journey with the Wind

Geraldine Patrick Encina is executive director of Earth Timekeepers, an organization that promotes a way of living in sync with natural cycles, inspired in the ancestral philosophy of time-space and calendars, especially from Mesoamerica. Raised in the Canary Islands from Chilean parents with Scot-Gaelic and Mapuche ancestry, she settled in Mexico twenty years ago to start a family next to Mindahi Bastida. They have two children, Xiye and Danzaki.

1.What was your upbringing like? Where did you grow up, and how did your early experiences of life inform what you do now?

I was raised in Gran Canaria, one of the islands of the archipelago off the coast of Morocco. Together with my sister, we would go to the beach every single day, both in the summertime and in the school season. My connection to the sea, sand, Sun, and sea-life was profound, and it was enhanced thanks to the practice of Yoga that my Mum instilled in us. In that state of mind, she would bring to us the consciousness that we are all connected, and she would read to us poems of her grandfather who was raised with the Mapuche love for nature.

At the age of seven, while feeling the gentle breeze by the seashore, I started to wonder how I could take kids my age on a journey about how the wind came to be created. I came up with a story about the Lord of the Wind, in charge of sending out to the four directions the gasp that was blown by the creature of Mother Earth’s whose birthday it was on a certain day. There were two siblings (a girl and a boy) in charge of keeping close track of the onomastics that were shown in a special calendar that they had in their bedroom, and they would go to collect the animal or plant to be celebrated so to take it in a special vessel to the Lord of the Wind who dwelled on a very long and flat cloud in the deep sky, together with his helper beings.

2. Can you tell us about your work and research in Mesoamerican Timekeeping? What makes you passionate about this cause?

When I met Mindahi (whose name means Lord of the Wind in Hñahñu-Otomi, one of the most ancient languages in Central Mexico) it happened at the top of a hill in Quito, Ecuador. He was leading a beautiful ceremony for us, young environmental leaders coming together from every bioregion of the West Coast of the American continent. He was guiding us so that we would connect deeply with Mother Earth and ask her for forgiveness as we kneeled, touching her grassy, moist skin. That ceremony connected him and me to the next one, two years later, at the Otomi Ceremonial Site in Temoaya, Mexico State. There, he told me “You see how we greet the four directions, and the heart of Father sky and the heart of Mother Earth, and our own hearts, at the center. How can it be, then, that anthropologists and archaeologists say that our conception of time and space is not orderly enough, because our calendars cannot stay on track with the solar year, and so keeps lagging one day every four years forever?” That question echoed in my mind when I was studying Ethnoecology of ancient cultures in Mesoamerica, where the understanding of time-space philosophy and practice is of the essence. Why was a 360-day part of the 365-day calendar divided into 18 twenty-day segments called Zäna (‘Moon’ in Hñahñu-Otomi) or Uj (‘Moon’ in Yucatec Maya), and how did those 365 pa or k’iinoob (‘day’, respectively) enable the year-calendar to stay in sync with the Sun? These became two central questions in my postdoctoral research at the Ethnoecology Lab of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). As my studies advanced, new questions arose: Why was there such fascination around Venus and its multiple appearances at dusk and dawn? And why did governors of most prominent dynasties have to guise as Deity GI (Venus) to re-enact the installation of orderly time-space as happened in Creation time, precisely on a date when evening Venus was in its first rising, preferably with the new Crescent Moon? 

I have come to learn that the observance of Venus, Moon, and Pleiades were—and are—crucial to forecast weather conditions and prepare the community accordingly: cornfields, waterways, and wetlands are extremely susceptible to rainwater regimes. Unfortunately, the capacity to develop agroecological and ecological strategies based on those observations is something that very few communities can do with certitude nowadays. This reduces the resiliency of the socio ecosystem as a whole, so it becomes more vulnerable to extreme weather events—which are becoming more frequent as ocean surfaces and the atmosphere accumulate more heat.

Working with colleagues from communities in the Yucatan Peninsula about the Original Maya Calendar has been mutually enriching. They, as Yucatec language and culture teachers and chroniclers of their regions, are being able to refresh the ancestral memory and knowledge about natural events characterizing the seasons throughout the year cycle. For instance, according to scholars of the Maya and school books, twenty-day month Kéej (‘deer’) has no fixed articulation to a specific time of the year—as neither do the rest of the Maya months. On the contrary, when using the Ethnoecological framework I have developed, local promoters of Maya culture have come to understand that the role of month Kéej is to mark with precision the opening of March Equinox, which, according to bioregional lore, is the time when the newborn deer ‘spring’ to life. When they are able to link the long-forgotten Maya months to an actual event in their ecosystem, three things happen: they come to realize that seasonal patterns have been around for thousands of years, which explains why month name ‘deer’ made as much sense back two-thousand years ago as it does now; they recover a sense of pride for the intellectual product of their ancestors, i.e. the Maya calendar, the Ja’ab; and they become more open to talking about the problems they are facing now due to climate change and the ongoing destruction of their delicate ecosystems as a result of unsustainable projects. Re-signifying time-space as a practice is empowering local people in the Yucatan Peninsula to protect and defend their territories.

3. What else are you currently working on and advocating for?

 I have always advocated for the healing of biocultural territories. Whether in Chile, Mexico, or other countries in the American continent, I believe that territories can be healed when human communities are permanently cultivating their spiritual connection to the land that hosts them. This kind of practice is only possible when the cultural philosophy of time-space is well known and has been maintained. It is a philosophy that has given symbolic meaning to time-space entities to the point that they are considered the legitimate caregivers of mountains, caves, forests, creeks, springs, wetlands, and seashores. It is them to whom we, as mere passers-by, owe respect and acknowledgment, and we express it by giving payments or spiritual food at their dwelling places. This mostly means music, songs, flowers, fruits, and incense, being delivered at certain times of the year through pilgrimage and traditional ceremonies. 

Ever since 1492, when the Otomi-Toltec cycle 13 Reed was closed and a new one commenced, that philosophy was shattered: it was literally burnt to ashes, and its holders were brutally eliminated. The Elders said that Father Sun would depart, and that no light would shine for the People of the Corn for a long time; that during all that time ceremonial centers would remain covered, books hidden and sage people quiet. Five hundred and twenty years later, in 2012, as we entered a new 13 Reed cycle, we knew that the Sun would start to shine: right now, the People of the Corn are awakening to the dawning of Father Sun. All of us who are living in (not ‘on’ or ‘off from’) Turtle Island— the same turtle land that the Maya conceived in their creation story, when thirteen lordships were installed—have the responsibility to advocate for the healing of biocultural regions and territories. Whether our family’s root is deeply sunken in these lands or whether we have only recently been welcomed to them, we must be sure that all our actions are enabling the healing of rivers, lakes, and oceans, the restoration of forests and jungles, and, most importantly, the protection of sacred sites and holy grounds by the local people themselves. 

4. Is there a personal, spiritual dimension to your life and work? Is that practice important to you?

I have always been very connected to the four elements of life and to the fifth, which, to me, is love-light emanating from Great Spirit. I try to stay connected to Great Spirit at all times; for this, I pay attention to the small details that moments bring. Every moment unfolds teachings—sometimes difficult to interpret due to our short-sightedness or because expanded information is veiled to most of us. Nevertheless, just like we can train ourselves to remember dreams—or fly in them—we can train ourselves to capture those instants that make life experience more meaningful. To me, it’s not about an individual achieving control over life events, people, and processes, but about a collective person developing the mastery of flowing like water in a stream, where moments—time-space entities—are those multi-colored pebbles, stones, and rocks that add mystery to our passing-by in this life. It’s a passing-by which “is not for long, just for a little while”—as an ancient Otomi-Toltec phrase reminds us when talking about human being’s humble and impeccable existence. 

As we see the rage with which the four elements are acting in the wild and in urbanized areas, it may feel impossible to honor them, because there are so many emotions related to their destructive manifestation. However, it is more than ever that they need to be honored as living entities, as entities with consciousness; it is more than ever that we need to humbly see that they are doing the work of purification and release of toxic human behavior that we humans never did for thousands of years. For Catholics and Christians, Jesus’s main mission was to release toxic human behavior in the (past and forthcoming) history of humankind. For earth-based religions, elements are the ones playing that role. Each religion, in their own framework, has come to interpret the deluge that happened back some eight thousand years ago. Among very ancient cultures, the myth of a naturally-occurring event that shakes humanity’s consciousness and shifts human behavior is essential, and it can cycle back. My interpretation of Jesus is that he came to remind people they should equally love friend and foe, and that we should love, honor, and protect all mother figures, including nature and Earth. If today’s Christians focused on that basic mandate instead of whether salvation is achievable after having sinned, Earth would not have gone through the vandalization, exploitation, and desecration that has led her to the severe condition of instability that she is in today. Her atmospheric and ocean chemical composition and temperature, her geological and plate tectonics configuration, and her ecological and biological conditions are all evidence of a kind of involution that the universe had not yet registered. To many readers, Earth is not a ‘she’. Vanguard environmental lawyers pretty much have committed to represent Earth and nature as a legal entity or as a person. I, as many colleagues and young adults, am eager to support new court cases where rivers and other ecosystems come forward to demand their rights to exist and thrive. Surely, if and when they are in all their splendor, ecosystems would help mitigate the destructive effects of phenomena caused by greed-led human activities. But, ultimately, the only thing that humanity should be doing now, is to save herself from herself. And that is done by loving one another, loving life, and loving the biggest, unconditionally loving mother of all: Mother Earth. 

5. Your daughter is a prominent young climate activist. What did you teach her about conservation as a child, and what are you learning from her now? What advice would you give to someone hoping to instill those values in their children?

There was not much that I had to teach Xiye. She brought to my consciousness the principle of love when she was in my womb. In a dream, she said to women members of our family: “You must love yourselves and love others, it is what humanity needs most at this time, and you must do it mindfully.” She was raised close to the family food garden and cornfield, participated in a traditional dance called ‘Cuantepecos’ at the yearly Fiesta of her community, and loved to “teach herself” to cook next to Grandma and to weave ‘Tule’ next to Grandpa. She went to a few public schools and, half-way through middle school, we made the effort to send her to one that enhanced the kind of Earth-based values and practices that we instilled at home. Four significant practices there were: to take on the responsibility of being a water protector; to give thanks to the people harvesting the vegetables, fruits, and cereals and cooking for lunch; to do Yoga and have music-making sessions, and to listen with empathy to every classmate's feelings and emotions in a circle whenever they needed it. 

Cooking next to Grandma while listening to her life story, taking long walks in mountains and forests, observing the kind of unconditional dedication earth-people put so that life may continue unfolding and thriving; those were precious moments that we as parents intentionally enabled in her upbringing. Children learn from example. To live life with commitment, responsibility, and in service for Mother Earth requires that children enjoy connecting with water, earth, fire, and air in a sacred and loving way—and also in a reciprocal way. To thank them for their nurturing is as essential as to acknowledge plants and animals for their giving themselves in—to us or other beings in the web of life. Those small rituals are usually very well taken by children as they grow. I would advise people to put aside the fear and burden that brings the thought of an unlivable Earth, and to offer children these sacred moments of authentic connection to Mother Earth and her most pure expressions of love for her kin. So be it.