The Amazon for our kids
by Gonzalo Salinas
The amazon rainforest is unlike anything else. It changes your life forever. Believe me. After you visit the Amazon rainforest you won’t see the world with the same eyes. The Amazon river begins as a small freshwater stream that comes from the perpetual snow covering the peaks of the Andes. The small brook continues between mountains, runing down the uneven terrain until arriving to join the jungle rivers. Then after being fed by many medium size rivers, that little stream of water becomes two huge rivers: The Ucayali river and the Marañon river. They become one river at the south of Iquitos: They become the majestic Amazon.
The Amazon
The amazonian basin becomes the Amazon rainforest. It holds secrets that can help the people of the western World to see beyond this modern life of insanity and trauma. Right now, as I write this article, many people are flying from California , New York or Florida, to the healing centers in the amazon, where they immerse in traditional shamanic ceremonies where they heal severe addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder and all kind of illnesses. They come back with testimonials of miraculous healing that are unexplained for the technical and super expensive western medicine but absolutely normal for tribal-shamanic medicine from the Amazon.
The amazon holds many secrets. Plants that cure … that have been the source for some of the west’s biggest medical breakthroughs. But many believe the plants heal in ways that western medicine can not, that there are tribes that can teach us the way to connect with nature, with so many animal species on the verge of extinction, in an ecosystem that is a fundamental reminder of the beautiful planet we are part of.
The Amazon rainforest is aproximately 2 200 000 square miles: you can fit almost a hundred times the state of Massachusetts on that area. And it is fundamentally at risk. Being cleared at an alarming rate with little protection. Some scientists estimate that almost 9000 square miles are destroyed every year.
The Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the oxygen on earth. It is often called the “lungs of the planet.” By destroying it we lose one of the most powerful sources of sustenance, healing, and life-giving oxygen.
The amazon right now is in horrible danger. What kind of beings we are, that we are destroying our own house, our own ecosystem. The amount of species that inhabit the Amazonian basin is larger than any other ecosystem on planet earth.
Lumber production, illegal gold mining, the depletion of the soil by agricultural communities pressured to chop pristine rainforest to cultivate, and the cattle ranchers are a few of the many factors that are negatively affecting the amazon rainforest.
Connection to earth.
The ManKind Project is a values-driven community: Emotional Authenticity, Personal Responsibility, Leadership Mastery, Empowered Mission, and Supportive Community.
Part of Supportive Community states that “we care for ourselves and the generations to come, we create a place for men from all walks of life to learn and teach in a safe, respectful, challenging, and inclusive peer-network.”
For many MKP men, caring about the generations to come and living empowered mission means working to change the way human beings connect with the Earth The Amazon rainforest is a human matter, it is a concern to every human in the World.
We might think the Amazon is too far removed from our lives, “I have nothing to do with South America” or “I’m more concerned with my day by day.”… But it’s not so far away. The amazon rainforest helps you every day: not only with oxygen, and sweet water, but also producing medicine you may be consuming, the furniture you may be sitting on, some of the specialty organics you may be eating. It doesn’t take that much exploration, you’ll find something in your life that comes from the amazon.
At the following link there are many ideas on how you can help to preserve the Amazon.
Our kids deserve to receive a planet where they can live a happy life, a place where they have choices, where they can breathe healthy air. They have the right to escape at least once or twice from the insanity of western civilization if they want, and go to places untamed to connect with nature. We can’t deny that chance to them. We were very fortunate to receive a planet that is still beautiful, let’s give them a planet in condition.
No matter where you come from, no matter where you live, the Amazon rainforest is a concern for the entire mankind. As the environmentalist Wendell Berry said: “The earth is what we all have in common.”
Gonzalo Salinas is an Assistant Editor for the ManKind Project Journal, a publication of the ManKind Project, a nonprofit mentoring and training organization offering powerful opportunities for men’s personal growth at any stage of life. Salinas studied Literature in Lima, Peru at San Marcos University, and has been living in the United States since 2003. He lives in Miami, FL. Salinas is committed to his own personal development, and to spreading the word about the vision and mission of the Mankind Project.
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
