I just returned from the Amazon rain forest where I was joined by 25 people from Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, and the US. Our international group learned from the Indigenous Amazon people there about creating a human presence on this planet that will foster environmentally sustainable, socially just, and emotionally and spiritually fulfilling life-styles, communities, and nations — in essence a world future generations will want to inherit. It was an amazing trip, filled with magic, inspiration, wisdom, and love.

We were in Ecuador where Pope Francis had recently spoken about the importance of connecting with nature and acknowledging the responsibility we all share for stewarding our species through these times of challenge and opportunity. Right after we returned, a group of powerful Islamic leaders and scholars met in Istanbul and issued a declaration that was very much in line with the Pope’s. The messages from the Christian and Muslim worlds — worlds so often at odds — speak to the same truth. It is a truth that has been reiterated by Amazonian and Indigenous people around the world for generations; it can be summarized as follows:

“We humans have the honor of inhabiting a Living Earth. It is a fragile space station that has no escape shuttles. We must love and care for this Living Earth.”

During the next months I will take other groups of people to learn from Indigenous elders, teachers, and shamans in Colombia and Guatemala. The Kogi and the Maya, like the Amazonian people, are committed to helping human beings across the globe fulfill the ancient Prophecy of the Eagle and Condor, to rise to new levels of consciousness.

This Prophecy most likely originated in the Amazon thousands of years ago, but Indigenous people in Colombia and Guatemala and around the world foretell similar events. The prophecy says that deep in the mists of history, human societies decided to take two routes and become two different people: the Eagle people and the Condor people.

The Eagle people, according to the prophecy, are mind-oriented, industrial and related to masculine energy, often identified with science and technology. They have been the explorers, the colonists, and the aggressors in the records of history.

The Condor people are intuitive, creative, feeling, and related more to feminine energy. Indigenous people have usually identified with this path, as they prioritize the heart above the brain, and mysticism over rationalism in their cultures.

The prophecy says that for many years these two paths would not cross at all. Every five hundred years there is an era called (in Quechua, the language of the Andes) a Pachakuti. According to the prophecy, during the Fourth Pachakuti (about 1500), they would come together and the Eagle would be so strong as to practically drive the Condor into extinction – but not quite. And we know that, following Columbus, this is what happened on many continents. However, the Fifth Pachakuti (about 2000) would create a portal for the Eagle and Condor to fly together in one sky, to mate and create a new offspring: higher human consciousness. Some say that this offspring is represented by the quetzal of Central America, the Mayan bird. In any case, this new consciousness, it was foretold, would bring together the heart and mind, art and science, male and female. And we see that the reality of this new progeny is being realized, in workshops, books, and teachings all over the planet.

The Prophecy foretells of a time of powerful reconciliation and alignment between the two paths, the two peoples. We will become one people with a shared purpose, bringing the different aspects and strengths of each together for greater power and passion.

As I look around the world, I see that people are waking up, realizing that we are much more the same than we are different. We have the same need for basic human rights and the same need to give our children a sustainable, just, and spiritually fulfilling future. Is it really so difficult to join our neighbors in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and other areas of the world in restoring the health of our planet, this tiny, fragile spaceship that we all call home?

On this past trip to the Indigenous people of the Amazon, our group felt the reality of this awakening, this prophecy, very strongly. In the December trip to the Kogi of Colombia and the January one to the Maya of Central America we will delve deeper and deeper. The Eagle and Condor will fly together and we will rise together, as one, to a higher level of consciousness and commit to taking actions that will fulfill the Prophecy of the Eagle and Condor.