1. SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH Julio Monsalvo alta_alegremia@yahoo.com.ar

2. Testimony of gratitude I owe my gratitude to the Native Peoples from Northern Argentina, my country, because from them I have learnt the most beautiful and important things of my life. I learnt to teach not through their speeches but from sharing day-to-day life with them

3. What do I feel are the most important things? The list I would write to express another way of seeing and changing the world would have to be long. In this International People’s Health University course, to all of you, the People’s Health activists, I am only going to address one thing that truly refers to spirituality. It is about a sense of belonging to the Earth. To belong to the Earth is to feel she is our Mother, the giver of live. The Native Peoples taught me that everything has a spirit. The Earth, water, air, plants, animals… everything has a spirit.

4. How did they teach me? Through dialogue, intercultural dialogue. Intercultural dialogue has allowed me to grasp the values, the essence, of these cultures. To discover another culture is to discover one’s own. And this is how, through learning the value of feeling part of the Earth, the value of a sense of belonging, I discovered the lack of value in the culture I was born into, which on the contrary, sees itself as “the owner of the Earth”. It is not only the sense of ownership, but something deeper which has created this sense of domination: the feeling of being outside Nature. From seeing Nature as a “resource department store”, the descent into exploitation, accumulation and profiteering is but a short step way. It is lunacy not to ask oneself “who are we?” Nature is present in the trees, the rivers, the animals, the seas… and us, the human beings, who are we?

5. Anthropocentric Paradigm or Biocentric Paradigm?

6. Anthropocentric Paradigm The western paradigm is centred in Man. Our entire belief system says that it is Man, macho, as this culture has subjugated Woman: this is called an anthropo-centric paradigm. A paradigm is a group of values, ideas, and conducts accepted by a community. “This is fine and is not discussed.” This is why young generations grow up surrounded by a “landscape” that is “normal”, which we don’t question, and we blindly follow. And this is the most beautiful thing that I unlearnt thanks to my time living alongside the Native Peoples: I unlearnt the anthropocentric paradigm and now feel the biocentric paradigm as my own.

7. Biocentric Paradigm A paradigm centred in Life, in respect for life and all ways of living. This means a different way of feeling and thinking. To feel and to think that I am part of the local ecosystem where I am at any moment and where I am in my life. I am as important as a fish, a bird, a tree, a shrub, a four-footed friend. The feeling that everything has a spirit grants us a different relationship with ourselves, with other human beings and with all life forms. Feeling this Life-centred paradigm as my own brings me Peace and Happiness in my internal surroundings. “Happiness” is the feeling of joy boiling in my blood; the joy of being protagonists in a World Revolution in Protest for Life, for this other, centred paradigm. The People of the World who resist the dominant culture which exploits, excludes and extinguishes, reveal a spirit of celebration for life. With internal Peace and Happiness, we have the energy to continue with this World Revolution in Protest.

8. For the Health of All the Planet (including humans) People’s Health Activists: the message of spirituality that I share with you is what I unlearnt and learnt living alongside the Native Peoples. The Health of the People is the Health of the Planet. I feel the same strong passion about the deaths caused by social injustices, by wars, by the ecocide that our dwelling has been subjected to. Here is just one example; the fierce deforestation that so much damage causes. A powerful warning is the accelerated loss of species; the loss of biodiversity. Our beautiful Blue Planet is a living organism and we are living inside its life.