The Kogi Myth and the Feminine Principle

In Kogi thinking the role of the feminine is fundamental to the status of women and their position in society and to the harmony and balance of all of life.

THE KOGI MYTH OF CREATION:

First their was the sea,
everything was dark.
There was no sun, moon, people, animals nor plants.
There was just sea everywhere.
The sea was the Mother.
She was water and there was water everywhere.
She was the river, the lake, the sea- and She was everywhere.
She was called Gaulchovang.

The Mother was not people nor anything,
She was Aluna.
She was the Spirit of what was coming
and She was Thought and Memory.
The Mother only existed in thought, in the lowest world,
in the deepest part,
alone.

KOGI COSMOLOGY is complicated, and often poses problems for the Western mind, yet one thing is clear - before there was anything at all, there was the Mother.
The Kogi believe that the source of all life is Gaulcovang. Gaulcovang is the Great Mother, the origin of all things, occasionally referred to as Spider Woman.

THE GREAT SACRED MOTHER, Gaulcovang appears in various guises of Her own creation, she dreams, her dreams and her thoughts create herself, as Spider Woman and as the Mother of Fire or the Mother of Snowfields.

In the above quote, Gaulcovang is equated with Aluna, but She is not always seen as directly related with this concept. According to the "Law of Origin" of the Kogi the concept of Aluna, is the belief that all reality is created by thought and that every object or being has both a physical reality and a spiritual essence all originating in thought. The highly trained ritual priests; the spiritual authorities - the Mamas, communicate in the aluna dimension through ritual and meditation. In their communion with the aluna world, the mamas focus on maintaining the ecological and spiritual equilibrium of the "Heart of the World" the home of the four indigenous tribes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, the Kogi, Kankuamo, Wiwa and the Arhuaco.

Other references describe Gaulcovang as a beautiful naked woman with long black hair, who sits upon a black stone at the bottom of the sea; or as an invisible force floating upon the dark primeval waters. Still others say that, on the earliest mythic time level, the Mother appeared in the shape of a huge black serpent and that She encircled the sea. The Mother also appears as a huge black bird that laid the cosmic egg.

In whatever form She envisions herself to be, it is She who gave birth to manifestation by thinking it into being. "She was creator and teacher. The Great Sacred Mother gave us what we needed to live and her teaching has not been forgotten right up to this day"

Given this emphasis on the importance of the feminine, how does the role of women manifest in Kogi society? There are basic labor divisions: women spin cotton, but the men weave it. Once woven, the women and the daughters make the clothes and bags they carry. The men also make the pottery. This is an agrarian society and the men clear, break and prepare the ground, but it is the women who sow, harvest and prepare the crops.

"Women are accustomed to bear children, men are not. When women sow, the stalk of the maize bears two or three ears, the root of the yucca bears two or three baskets and everything multiplies in proportion. This is because the women know how to bring forth, and know how to make the seed bring forth also"

RECIPROCITY between the indigenous men and women is further indicated in that a daughter may inherit from their mothers the land owned by her. and the sons from their fathers. These possession rights are protected by laws as interpreted by the traditional authorities and law of origins.

In practice,women's views directly influence the day to day running of society. Women rule the house, the domestic arena and influence public affairs,although it is the men who ultimately decide through their ability to divine guidance in the Aluna.

IN MARRIAGE, long term monogamy is the ideal, Marriage for love is complicated by esoteric demands of their belief system. Certain lineage orders must be balanced for the good of society as a whole and arranged marriages allow this balance. This is to satisfy the natural order, as taught by the Great Mother. When partnerships fail, divorce among the Kogi is simple: a woman simply switches her allegiance to another man and indicates this by accepting a piece of meat from him. If their is separation without a new relationship either for the man or woman, the balance is destroyed, since neither can perform the others work according to their law of origin and the reciprocity necessary for maintaining the balance is lost.

THE BALANCE BETWEEN MASCULINE AND FEMININE: Yuluka means the process through which balance is achieved. This balance is the reason of life, and must be achieved within the individual, within society and within the world. Principally it means the balance between the feminine and masculine principles. The idea of the balance between the masculine and the feminine runs through the whole of Kogi life. They would not build a bridge, a hut, a loom or construct a path that winds through the village without the masculine/feminine principle being explicitly represented in some manner. In constructions such as a hut, some pieces of timber are represented by the masculine and others the feminine. If a path bisects a village, one side will be masculine, the other feminine. During weaving, a thread spun with a right-hand twist is masculine, the threads of the warp, which open to receive the shuttle, are feminine.

The sun in its path across the sky bisects it into one side that is feminine and the other, which is masculine. The Poporo, used only by men, has its masculine and feminine parts. Men and women are not simply people, they are the embodiment of principles. The harmony and balance of the world is constructed out of the partnership of masculine and feminine, the dynamic process of weaving on the loom of life. All Kogi life is built around the complementarity of male and female.

SACRED FEMININE: The Kogi view the earth as all that is the sacred feminine - flields, lakes, caves, lagoons (some representing her womb) where they leave offerings to bring harmony and renewal and fulfill the law of origin to give back in gratitude of what is received.

THE KOGI - "THE MOTHER, did not only create the physical world, but shaped and peopled aluna, creating a Mother and Father for everything that exists. Life is meaningless without procreative energy. Whatever is alive must have a Mother and a Father"

THE METAPHYSICAL WORLD: The Kogi perceive life in many things which are in our understanding inanimate: any object which has purpose and meaning in the world has a metaphysical form in aluna, and therefore must be sustained by a balance of sexual forces, by its own Mother and Father.

The result of this consideration and contemplation of the feminine, is that "Woman is the focal point of the Kogi culture since their central deity is the Great Mother.

SECRET SCIENCE OF THE KOGI: "Younger Brothers" how is it possible that you have no knowledge of the Law of Origin that was given you? We see through a secret science how to take care of, to protect and conserve the wilderness of nature, as much from the spiritual level as from the traditional plane. This is the manner in which Mother Earth was left to us by the Creator of the World. This is why we continue looking for a way to give her more strength, to advance in conserving our territory where the ground and subsoil, the fauna and flora exists. If we remove the strength from Her how will we live? She is being debilitated and the sun will cover itself, when this happens we will all die"

"All our thoughts are dedicated to looking after our territory. In the whole world, you are paying for water, energy everything. You the Younger Brothers were also left here to take care of the Mother, not to exploit her. Hopefully you will learn, listen and take this message to be analyzed"

THE EYES OF THE MOTHER: "Why are the Waters, the Rivers the Lagoons and Snowed Mountains sacred? The Lagoon is like the eye sight of the Mother. With the sight of the Mother we work, and take care of the forests, the little rivers and gorges. It is like the eye-sight, the workers of the service that take care of all of nature.
The Mother of the water is the one that takes care of us"

"The Mother Earth was left to us. We continue to look for a way to give her strength, We are very worried about the water, this feels very painful, we are not proud of what we are seeing. We are worried as we watch Her the Mother drying out"

Here are nine principles I offer:
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF LIFE - THE ORIGINAL INSTRUCTIONS:
1. To live these minute by minute.
2. To take responsibility - reciprocity; spiritual offerings to the Mother.
3. Preservation
4. Shift our consciousness - align with higher vibrational energies.
5. To build a new spirit - new mind - new body.
6. To manifest and to dream consciously.
7. To preserve and communicate with the living earth.
8. To solicit earth wisdom
9. To open to spiritual technology

Eight principles to manifesting the New Paradigm:
As co-creators it is our determination to be responsible
1. To envision
2. To manifest
3. To dream
4. To focus
5. To vibrate as one with the highest most distinct divine principles
6. to voice, tone, sing and attune ourselves vocally with the living Mother.
7. To recall our original instructions - to become.
8. to recognize and to align with the Divine Self.

TO HARMONIZE LIFE:

"The origin of illumination - enlightenment - peace- love - compassion - forgiveness is ever present we need only to step into the flow"