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The World of the Kogis
The Caribbean coast of Colombia surged with a power and presence that was raw nature in its freeborn design. The light of the full moon cast my shadow westward down its sandy shores. I faced inland, my attention drawn to a lightning storm high in the mountains. Diversity in its extreme, I looked upon the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This ice-peaked mountain range is the home and sanctuary of the Indian tribe called the Kogi, descendants of the ancient Tairona tribe. The inhabitants of the mountains have a name for their home, to them it is a sacred place, it is 'The heart of the world'.
The roar of the turbulent ocean behind did little to soothe my feeling of anticipation. Tomorrow’s sunrise brought with it the start of my 'walk' into the Mountains with a man named Mama Santos, a Kogi Priest. He had said to me,' Tomorrow we go up', and it was so.
My journey took me over high mountains and through sparkling rivers, while my soul had similar mountains to conquer and stepping stones to find. This scared ice-peaked mountain taught me many lessons. It seemed the mountain possessed a consciousness with which it guided yet disciplined, nurtured yet punished. It hummed with life and whispered of death. One respected the mountain, even without knowing entirely why. I sensed an air of authority, much like that of the sea, with its passive reproach reminding the unenlightened of its elemental power.
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