“I sometimes talk to scientists,” said a leader of Alaska’s Tlingit peoples, “and they compartmentalize things, put things in boxes and disconnect them, and doing so promotes disharmony and imbalance.”

The ceremony, in which the participants asked for forgiveness from Mother Earth, is intended to help explore situations in which traditional expertise can create a more balanced world.

“Our grandfathers taught us to have an integrated vision,” said a Nahuatl healer. “The important thing is to look for balance. We should take care of what does not belong to us, for the future, because it is only ours temporarily.”

link (AP News)–>

In this video Wade Davis, National Geographic’s Explorer-in-Residence, gives an incredible talk at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) about the shrinking diversity of human cultures and the dizzying array of human thought on this planet.

Having lived with dozens of indigenous cultures, many far removed from our own, Wade has returned with exquisite photography and stories which are almost mythic in their intensity. From tribes that cannot see the difference between blue and green to a discussion of that most potent of hallucinogens, Ayahuasca (“It’s like being shot out of a rifle barrel lined with baroque paintings and landing in a sea of electricity. It’s a complete dissolution of reality…”), Davis leads us on a truly incredible trip (in every sense of the word) through a planet that is rapidly losing its contrast.

Were you aware, for example, that half the languages that existed when we were born are now not being taught to children (and thus effectively dead)? Half?!

This might be the most significant thing you’ll watch this year. And TED is something I’m still barely scratching the surface of; a resource of unimaginable consciousness. In a sense it’s really most indicative of what Evolation is about— a collection of the greatest ideas present at this moment in time. I urge you to check it out.