Ïe cho
Our ‘living well’ is Ïe cho (good path); it is being aware that we are all part of Mother Earth.
It is devoting our life as human beings to uniting with the territory we inhabit and in which we’ve been sown.
Ïe cho is taking care of the territory.
It is taking care of our relationship with birds, the wind, the earth, water, fire, trees, plants, stones, our ancestors and all the spirits that walk with us.
It is taking care of our family, our traditions, our memory. It is forgiving the past and making peace with it.
By living Ïe cho we realise that a development model that is against life has been imposed on us. Mining, dams and extraction of hydrocarbons destroy mountains and lakes and at the same time, peoples and their memory are destroyed as well.
In order to live in accordance with Mother Earth, she enables us to talk to and learn from medicines, food, the practice of weaving, offerings and the spirits of the territory, which also live in us.
Ïe cho is resisting in community, making our relations balanced in reciprocity and common-unity, and learning together from difficulties.
Walking Ïe cho is understanding that when we become earth again, out body returns to our mother.
We need to walk Ïe cho in order to understand it.
Have you said we, Indians, will not go to heaven because when we die our soul also dies, or goes to the Páramo and becomes a deer or a bear? [Question taken from the confessionary included in the anonymous manuscript N° 158 (17th Century) at the National Library of Colombia]
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Learn more
- COLECTIVO DE EDUCACIÓN PROPIA PEDAGOGÍAS ANCESTRALES
- CONA – Pedagogías Ancestrales on Facebook
- Fundación Zaquenzipa: wellbeing from ancestral thought (includes Spanish-Muisca dictionary)