We are building a global community of people, who support each other in expressing gratitude for our lives to the spirits of life. Through monthly full moon rituals, we offer thanks to the spirits of life for enabling us, collectively, to create global climate stability.
Our systemic approach supports global climate stability by seeding global spiritual practices over six continents. Six "Continental Holders,” or people with deep relationships with spirit, grow networks of local practitioners native to their continent to take on the practice of convening monthly Full Moon Rituals to attain the goal of climate stability.
“When it comes to climate change, we cannot be radical enough.”
— Sir David Attenborough
The Continental Holders: The Spirits of Life are experiencing the blatant abuse of natural systems by the human family. Through shamanic journeying, Theo Ferguson, Healing Living Systems (HLS) CEO, has been called to be the representative with two feet responsible for developing a communication system to enliven our connections with the Spirits of Life. With continuous guidance by the Spirits of Life, the Spirits of Life identify one Continental Holder on each of the six global continents. A Continental Holder is an individual recognized within their community and by the Spirits of Life as someone with deep relationships to Spirit, often a shaman. After Spirits identifies a Holder to Theo, the Holder is gifted with a “Spiritual First Aid Kit,” a complete shamanic kit used to offer gratitude and to call the Spirits of Life. Each Continental Holder performs rituals incorporating their own cultural practices to honor spirit and support their community members in expressing gratitude for their lives and call on the Spirits of Life to collaborate with Full Moon Ritualists to consider how each, individually, can engage in activities based on their talents and zeal that draws down carbon from the Greenhouse Gases surrounding our beloved planet Earth.
The three tasks Theo has undertaken are 1) to design and make the “Spiritual First Aid Kits”; 2) to travel to be present so the Spirits of Life can identify the Continental Holder to Theo, with whom she engages, ensuring each understands the tasks they are taking on; and 3) to ensure that each Continental Holder calls upon their continental communities to convene monthly Full Moon Rituals in which all offer thanks to the Spirits of Life for enabling us, collectively, once a month on full moons, to grow towards global climate stability.
What’s Wrong? And How to Address These Issues?
Spiritual
In western cultures we have lost a sense of gratitude to the Spirits of Life. For Millennia, indigenous people have never “disconnected” themselves from their places of origin. Even when their land had been appropriated by others with money and/or guns, they continue their spiritual practices of deep gratitude to the Spirits of Life. They have stayed focused on the lands of their origin, with the commitment that someday they will be able to return. We can learn a great deal from these cultures. Further, we each could grow our own personal relationships with The Spirits of Life.
Mama Tierra comes with a full complement of living systems: our sun brings warmth and photosynthesis through our food; we are just the right distance from our powerful star to enable all life on earth to thrive! We have a moon, whose monthly rhythms move our planetary waters. Forests have evolved to be whole ecosystems and habitats that create oxygen for us to breathe. They are alive!
These ecosystems can flourish when we don’t pollute them by overstepping planetary boundaries. During the Industrial Age, we began to suck fossilized vegetation from the earth and convert it into energies to move us around more quickly and to supply heat and power. We did not, however, track the impacts of these fossil fuels on our planet.
Many people—particularly indigenous people like the shamans of Mongolia—are taking on societal roles totally new to them. They are entering the political arena because their government began mining their sacred mountain peaks for coal. This was an anathema to the shamans, as their mountains are the homes of the mountain spirits to whom they appeal to aid in their healing practices.
Within a few centuries we have created GREAT imbalances in natural systems that had been in balance for hundreds of millions of years. Why? Because we had developed an economy that allowed people to glean another form of power—money. Gleaning power over others is not new, but gleaning power over planetary boundaries is, and we are becoming aware of the outcomes of these practices.
Many cultures have stories that tell of a world in balance, abundance and deep gratitude that became eroded by people who thought THEY had created the abundance, until everything began to fail. Many among all the diverse communities on Mama Tierra experience a direct relationship with a cosmological, living universe as a personal life path. Many more among us can and must open up to connections with our living systems.
Environmental
Mono cultures—80% of the 1,500 million hectares of global arable land are mono-cropped, requiring excessive fossil fuels and thus increasing climate extremes. Biofuels and animal feedlots are unsustainable—they produce financial losses and environmental degradation while cruelly abusing living beings. You are integrated in environmental systems.
Soils—34% of bare soils have lifespans of less than 100 years. Through the process of capturing carbon in the soil, we can build more organic soil matter and thus increase the carrying capacity of the soil and ensure many more harvests of nutrient dense food.
Social
Land succession, aging farmers, and expensive land costs keep new farmers from farming. Global risks include: disparity of income; global health pandemics; loss of our openness and connection to nature. Through the practice of offering gratitude to living systems we can multiply already existing movements around the globe to elevate social justice and equity.
Financial
The pernicious management practice of “maximization of shareholder value” and competition from industrial processed food producers cause both global health impoverishment and huge tax burdens on those who are the least able to bear it. The polarization of wealth increases the number of billionaires among us, who own more financial assets than many nations. When we realize “I have enough” each of us is in a position to work with those who DON’T have enough.
Governance
Challenges include disparities of income, such as vast differences between lowest paid employees and highest, and inequity in male and female pay rates for same jobs, while minimal efforts are made to establish owner cooperatives and shareholder ownership enterprises.
Technological
Tools can be powerful when they serve and are accessible to all, but not sold as an end unto themselves. We need to push aside “coolness” factors and ensure these tools are serving broad social and scientific applications.
Spiritual First Aid Kit: A Gift to Each Continental Holder
- metal template for the Spiritual First Aid Kit production
- Completed corn pattern for Don Francisco Chula Flores, Q’ero Shaman in Peru, the South American Continental Holder
- 1/6 Shibibo cloth to wrap up all items in the Spiritual First Aid Kit.
Collectively all the Shibibo cloths equal one Shibibo cloth. Collectively, all 6 Spiritual First Aid Kits=disbursal of all Kits to Continental Holders globally. - The diamond section of the tray evokes a local symbol
- Remo Drum
- Yellow Rain Interior Jacket—Interior rain protection barrier.
- Jewelry talesman gifts: Guatemala and Peru
- Rattle: Craftsman: Gene George, Navajo Artifacts
- Sage Stick Smudge
- Zipped pouch: Holds matches to keep them dry
- Can be exchanged for local feathers (inviting the evocation to “fly”/ be successful just under the protective yellow waterproof housing tied by woven bracelet with God’s Eyes used for sealing the Kit (13)
- Small white candles for Full Moon Rituals
- Rainbow braid with 2 “God’s eyes” used to close off the Spiritual First Aid Kit. Thus, the Spiritual First Aid Kit would be protected.
- Leather covered bottle of alcohol, carved and painted with shamans
- Fancy ribbons for attracting spirits of life.
- Zippered purse (red). Each system has a discrete color that of the rainbow, starting with the longest wavelength (red). Each system has the same components but two components—the Corn Tray and the purse—are unique and evoke the integration of all Continental Holders that are interconnected through the Spiritual First Aid Kits.
- The carrying case is very sturdy and waterproof. It has handles and a pouch for the mahogany drum beater. (Don Francisco’s suggestion)
- The mahogany beater. (17 & 18 follow)
After Theo returned from the trip to Mt. Salkantay in the Andies, Theo wanted to know how Continental Holder Don Francisco Chula Flores was doing with his Spiritual First Aid Kit. There were no drums in the Andes. It was too wet. Theo journeyed to Don Francisco to see how he was doing. Don Francisco was beating the Remo drum with a stick. Don Francisco used a stick to beat on the drum. That’s how drumming started: a hide pulled over a frame beaten with a stick. Ah Ha! Of course, the system needs a sleeve to “house” the beater.. Theo made ensured that any Spiritual First Aid Kit going forward would have a sleeve to hold the mahogany beater.
Zagdaa’s granddaughter and Oktyabar is holding two Spiritual First Air Kits. These were gifted by Theo, the Maker, in Ulaanbaatar on 2/16/2012 to Zagdaa and Oktyabar.
Oktyabar is Zagdaa’s daughter and is an excellent being to share in the commitment going forward to invite the gods of the mountains, or Lake Baikal to connect with the other Continental Holders to reach out and connect with the Spirits of Life to collaborate with spiritual seekers in monthly Full Moon Rituals to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG), capture CO in the soil to grow soil organic matter to cool the earth and achieve Climate Stability in Western Russia/ Eastern Europe.
After the Conference among ourselves, this future holder, daughter of Oktyabar, Granddaughter of Zagdaa, carried both Spirit First Aid Kits out into the street—it was pouring–and stood there in her pink rubber rain boots with both systems and grinned!
People creating rituals
Gratitude to Heal the Climate on the Full Moons
Who are the holders?
Gerardo Omar Marin &
Vanessa Quezada Marin
San Antonio, TX, USA,
Central & North America,
6/28/2022
What we can do together?
Gather |
Gather your family and friends on Full Moons, allowing our aggregate offering to create an interconnected global pulse. | |
Make |
Make instruments and ritual objects to honor the Spirits of Life. | |
Send |
Send your pictures of your Full Moon Event to: http://www.healinglivingsystems.org/systems-to-heal-the-climate/. | |
Host |
Host us on your organization’s website to aggregate our shared goals. | |
Open |
Open your spirit and heart and offer gratitude for your life and heal blessed Mother Earth. We serve the seventh generation. |
Offering gratitude to the Spirits of Life could be something an individual could do monthly on full moons, or daily. A shamanic councilor in Austria, Roland Urban, shared this story:
A Tibetan Healer has this practice:
When the Healer rises in the morning, he begins by heating his tea water. When the water is hot and the brew is just right, he dedicates the first cup of tea to the Spirits of Life by invoking a blessing as he pours the freshly made tea on the ground outside his dwelling.
Offer up gratitude for your life – Create an Energetic Healing Network.
What difference would it make if we collaborated together?
When a rhythm sustains, a shift is maintained. Through the performance of monthly Full Moon Ritual, a long-standing rhythm is sustained, allowing the Spirits of Life to participate with each of us as we grow our own awareness relating to our own capacities to participate in CO2 drawdown from the Greenhouse Gases (GHG). We are now at a concentration of 419ppm (parts per million) of GHG. BUT WE ARE AT WAR! Going to war for personal power is maladjusted and despicable. Nonetheless, we must continue to draw down the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere to 350 ppm. We must join the Spirits of Life in supporting all the great works undertaken by scientists, politicians, policy makers, economists and financiers, entrepreneurs, activists, spiritually minded people, artists, and all who care deeply about our planet growing in beauty and health by doing everything we can to bring the Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm!
Mountains and Sacred Spaces empower shamans, facilitators, and groups of people participating in Full Moon Rituals. The opportunity is to request the Spirits of Nature, practitioners and the whole group involved in the Full Moon Ritual to connect with the Full Moon and the Spirits of Nature to experience connectivity among each other and oneself. As Ritualists begin to feel that interrelationship they can be moved to investigate and take on ways to draw down CO2 and methane as they cultivate their focus and hone their skills.
An Environmental Defense Fund spokesperson stated: “Some living systems such as Forests net our biggest drawdowns and cover a third of all the land on earth. They provide habitat for 80 percent of terrestrial species and livelihoods for 1.6 billion people. On top of all that, they are powerhouses for carbon sequestration, absorbing as much as 30 percent of our carbon emissions. (Only the oceans can rival that.)” We must take care that in-tact forests have the energy to fight blights such as the pine beetle that have moved northward and now thrive in northern warmer regimes. They are decimating great swaths of pine forests.
We can capture CO2 and methane in the soil and enhance the soil organic matter that provides nutrient dense food for many people. Both forests and soil capture CO2. This alliance with the moon and other sacred spaces inspires us to become ever more aware of all the way we can remove CO2 and methane bound in Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and enhance the soil organic matter thus adding nutrients to the soil and enhance the nutrient value of the food we eat. The Marin Carbon Project is a leader in capturing carbon in the soil by distributing as little as ¼ of an inch of compost across range and farmland that then draw down a significant amount of carbon.
Full Moon Rituals iterate a rhythm over time. The practice of growing a rhythm of gratitude and consciousness on Full Moons expands homo sapiens’ experience to be both sensitive to all beings around us, allow us to understand the implications of 419 ppm and move us to take on our discrete roles in our respective lives to heed the call to “Be present! Be wholly engaged!” and commit to healing the world as part of our lives’ experience.
Systems to Heal the Climate’s Call
Systems to Heal the Climate’s Response
The Full Moon Healing Action Network (FMHAN)
In North and Central America, Facilitators Gerardo Omar Marin and Vanessa Quezada coordinate communication and outreach events through their organization, San Arte Healing & Cultura Clinic in San Antonio, Texas. Through Full Moon Rituals, participants ally with the Spirits of Life on full moons to grow gratitude from the human family to all natural systems in our shared goal to understand how best to draw down carbon and sequester carbon in the soil. Initially FMHAN rituals were held monthly. Subsequently, the diverse associates in Texas, California, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and elsewhere began to hold their own Full Moon Ritual events and sent pictures to Gerardo and Vanessa for HLS’s website. Some of these ritualists, whose life philosophies are not based on capitalism, found it challenging to access the necessary equipment to participate in Zoom meetings (during COVID). They choose to continue to live as their ancestors have lived for millennia in their rural homes connected to all of life through deep relationships with nature. Each participates in Full Moon Rituals and each, in their own way, sought to work on drawing down carbon—farming, growing soil organic matter. The rest of the human family can learn to be part of the land in which they live from them and develop a balance that includes deep gratitude to the Spirits of Life.
Full Moon Healing Action Network: Q1, 2, 2022
Intergenerational Strength at Fuerza Unida Women’s Garment Collective Leadership Center
Full Moon Weekend January 2022 Circle:
- Moving through Grief and Despair
- Rebuilding our connection
- Stress relief and deep restoration sound Healing w/ Gera
Community Social Justice Artists Grief Healing at the Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice
Full Moon, February 2022
With ritualist Erica Casasola & Anel Flores
Intergenerational Community Power Event
Healing ourselves to heal Mother Earth
3 phases:
- Therapeutic movement
eagle, wolf, and hummingbird dance - Breathework for nervous system repair
- Sound Healing Power up for regeneration
2 prayers song jam sessions to strengthen
Mama Earth climate healing, balance, and harmony
Confluence Park
Close to March Full Moon