If you want to see something really inspiring, watch and listen to Patricia Gualinga, an Achuar woman from the Ecuadorian rainforest, talking about how her people are standing firm on the frontlines of the siege of the forest by multinational oil extraction companies.

Listening to this indigenous activist, you see shades of all the millions of indigenous peoples around the world who lived in harmony with their environment, respecting and sustainably stewarding their lands.

To say that this balance was altered when the Europeans began their voyages around the world is not to blame or guilt-trip.  It is simply to speak the truth.

To say that the European Enlightenment period, which gave us Manifest Destiny, “I think therefore I am,” the closing off of the commons and the capitalist drive to resource exploitation, was actually a time of deepening darkness, is simply to pronounce the self-evident.

While we contemporary heirs to this 500-year history may be individually blameless, collectively we have been bystanders who have followed the paths of least resistance and allowed the destruction of our planet to proceed apace.

The Pachamama Alliance, on whose behalf Patricia Gualinga spoke last week, is an unusual partnership between Euramericans and these South American indigenous survivors, warriors who are defending the great Amazonian rainforest, the dynamic lungs of the Southern Hemisphere, against rapacious encroachers.

We need another alliance like this between the peoples of the far North and those Euramericans who know that destroying the Canadian boreal forests would be equally catastrophic.

The Pachamama Alliance has developed a powerful model of collaboration across the boundaries of nationality and race in the service of a higher vision of earth-based spiritual activism.

This is a vision that needs to grow exponentially in the coming years.

For too long we have been held captive by the media-induced trance of relentless growth and consumerism.  It’s time to break the spell and allow the pendulum of human evolution on this planet to swing back to balance.

To do this, we need to listen to new voices, heed new calls.  We Euramericans have had our shot at leading the world our way.  It has been a disaster.

It’s time to cede the stage to our indigenous sisters and brothers, and try following their lead for a change.  This is a whole new level of Deep Green Resistance, based on creation rather than destruction.

 It’s time to co-create a new story with the indigenous peoples of the planet, who still know how to live harmoniously with the natural world.

Listen to the Pachamama story, and then it’s up to you–what comes next?  What role will YOU play?