By Pooven Moodley
Edited by Maura Stephens
How did an international human rights and environment lawyer end up receiving counsel from sacred energy points on the planet?
This is a strange and true tale of what we do not see, which is all around us, what influences and guides us. We have glimpses of understanding that perhaps the planets, the sun, the moon, mountains, rivers, and the ocean have some influence on our lives. As I travelled from the courtrooms into a journey to sacred sites I realised I understood very little about myself and the cosmos. The mathematics, physics and biology, geography and history I learned in schools and universities was so rudimentary compared with the fullness and richness we learn from sacred sites and cosmic teachings. The journey continues to unfold.
I was born in South Africa during the repressive system of apartheid, which was brutal. My great-grandparents were put on a ship from Chennai to Durban in the 1860s to work as slaves on sugar cane farms as part of the British slave system. I was on a hit list when I was a student, where each assassin had a list of 20 activists to kill. As activists, we were prepared to die for the cause of freedom, justice, and equality. While many of my fellow activists were killed, I somehow managed to evade death.
When we collectively managed to end apartheid there was some time for celebration and hope. It quickly dawned on me that struggles are never-ending. I became a human rights and environmental lawyer and worked with communities across the globe, from women in Africa fighting for their right to land, to first nations people in Australia trying to stop an expansion of mining on their territory, to Amazon communities defending their territories from illegal logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction.
While there were several victories along the way, I realised that there is a tsunami of rights violations and extraction. In order to turn the tide I contemplated the question “What are we missing as activists?” As part of this inquiry I regularly heard the voice of struggle icon Steve Biko in my head: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
Guides in Many Guises
In 2019, as my own life was in complete turmoil, I had to go through the fire to figure out who I am, where I come from, and why I am here. Every weekend for the year while I was in Cape Town, I climbed Table Mountain (originally named Hoerrikwaggo). I was guided to a cave by two eagles from the mountain. As I sat and meditated in the cave during that year, I started to receive many messages and guidance about the coming transition on the planet and some key things that needed to be done. At first I thought I was making this up. I soon realised that what I was receiving was information I had not read about or even consciously thought about.
I was receiving a few streams of knowledge. I will share two here.
The first was about key energy points on the planet, the energy grid and the science in terms of how they work, how they are connected to other parts of the universe, and what to do with them. I was shown that I would meet people from various traditions from around the world and we would, together with the guardians of the sacred sites, work on the energy grid of the planet to shift the frequency of the planet for the great transition.
I wondered how this would unfold. A few days later I received an email inviting me to a global sacred site gathering with peoples from various traditions around the world that would take place three months later. When I shared some of what I’d received at the gathering with people there,like the Kogi in Colombia, they indicated that they’d received very similar guidance.
During the subsequent five years, we varied peoples have been working at sacred sites with the energy of these sites. Initially we felt we would do something to these sites, but quickly learned that these sites are doing something to us. The knowledge transmitted from these sites is vast in the aspects of energy and frequency, interconnectedness of everything, vibrations of unconditional love, the process of moving away from the breaking point of separation to unification, and what we need to do to find our way through the great transformation on the planet.
The second streaming of knowledge was about the time we are currently in on the planet and the need to gather as people. This relates to each one of us having a certain gift and holding a certain piece of the puzzle in terms of us as wisdom keepers from ancient and modern times, activists, artists, and more. In 2020, as Covid made its waves across the planet the gathering of people started in a deep and accelerated way.
What emerged was the Earthrise Collective, providing a convening space for weaving ancient wisdom with modern science, activism, and alternatives to the current paradigms. We are a collective of wisdom keepers from remote forests and mountains linking up with activists to learn, share, and navigate a pathway through the turbulence we find ourselves in now.
We are at a point of uncertainty on Planet Earth, a breaking point of separation and disconnection. Great environmental shifts are taking place as we head closer to the 1.5℃ mark considered a key tipping point by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This, intersecting with the rise of artificial intelligence, is creating a situation of greater unknowns.
These ills, along with the conflation of wars and conflicts, loss of trust in politics and systems of governance, and the continued rise of patriarchy, injustice, and inequalities are creating a “perfect storm” which will shake the fundamentals of everything we believe in and the way we perceive and experience the world.
Internally in many humans there is an acceleration of anxiety and depression and a feeling of hopelessness. We are going through a cycle of destruction and rebirth as part of a massive transformation on the planet.
As long-standing systems are being challenged, we are yearning to remember more ancient wisdom and to bring forward knowledge from the forests, mountains, caves, and cosmos to guide us through to the next era. This has been foretold through prophecy from various traditions and also confirmed by climate science and what we are experiencing and witnessing ourselves.
As I started understanding and interacting with sacred energy points across the planet, I realised that we use a very limited amount of our potential as we limit ourselves to the identities that we have created for ourselves, and which society has shaped. I came to the realisation that if we walk lightly and silently on the Earth there is an infinite amount we can learn. Part of the process of learning is remembering, and part of the process is tapping into the infinite potential and knowledge.
Parallel Passages Full of Potential
Sacred sites are all around us. Once we open ourselves to the energetics, we open ourselves to our own greater potential.
Recently 300 people with brilliant ideas were invited to do an Atlantic crossing that traced the primary route used for the slave trade from Africa to the United States of America. Our range of people included billionaire philanthropists, people working in artificial intelligence, indigenous elders, scientists, musicians, artists, lawyers, and others. What became clear during the journey is that we are not going to be able to “fix” the world without first going through our inner journeys to deal with our traumas and egos and the “baggage” we carry. Unless we do this we will be creating the next phase of humanity with the old patterns and unresolved issues which lead to conflict, fear, and hatred. We need to create alternate ways arising from a deeper understanding of natural laws and frequencies — and from a place of love.
As a lawyer and social justice activist I have been able to apply what I learned from sacred sites in a practical way. A recent example is going to court to stop Shell from doing oil and gas drilling in a 6,000-square-kilometre range on the Indian Ocean along the East Coast of South Africa. As we were holding a ceremony with wisdom keepers and activists among the sacred sand dunes along the ocean, the idea emerged that we should argue in court that the ancestors of the indigenous and local communities along the coastline are in the ocean and if Shell blasts the oceans for eight months non-stop, as planned, it would have a massive impact on the whales and dolphins and disturb the ancestors.
As this argument was being made in court together with the usual arguments of environmental impact and communities not being consulted, the Shell lawyers laughed. But the judges took it seriously. The communities won the case, and Shell was stopped from causing this harm. They also lost on appeal.
The connection between the sacred sites, wisdom keepers, and activists was key to going beyond human law and to shift towards natural law and natural justice.
Together the communities of the Sarayaku Territory deep within the Ecuadorian Amazon and the More Than Human Life initiative of New York University are advocating for Kawsak Sacha. This is a concept of the forest as a living being and the recognition of its spirit, which, while invisible to most, is a big part of the Kichwa people’s innermost selves.
As part of sacred sites and ancient wisdom there is a convergence of human rights and rights of Nature, and now a more interconnected framework that shifts the understanding of humans not just as part of Nature but humans as Nature. After several decades of struggle we collectively pushed for the United Nations to adopt a new human right: to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment . This was officially adopted by the General Assembly in 2022. It brings together the idea that you cannot separate humans from the rest of Nature.
People working with sacred sites are tapping into knowledge which is bringing forward ideas to shape the trajectory out of our current intersecting crises. As we continue protecting the rights of people and planet, we have also been called to create a pathway where humans move away from inequality and injustice to a place that is not only sustainable but allows us to co-create and thrive.
Germination and Harmonic Evolution
We launched the idea of Sacredversities during the 2023 global gathering of the Ecoversities Alliance, believing that knowledge gleaned from sacred sites can guide our journey as we move through the sixth mass extinction event into a flourishing future on Earth.
Each sacred site has taught me very particular lessons and opened access to various knowledge systems. At Inzalo ye Langa (birthplace of a millions sons) in South Africa, one of the oldest stone circles in the world, I understood the true nature of energy and how to work with it — both within myself and within the cosmos. For we are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in us, and we are the cosmos.
In front of the Sphinx at Giza in Egypt I was shown numbers and started to understand their true nature: Zero being the nothingness from which we come . . . he dark matter out of which the cosmos is manifested with the light which is one and the duality which splits us to have an expanded experience as two . . . the trinity creates, preserves, and destroys . . . the four worlds . . . and the five elements. The numbers went on to infinity and beyond. That evening, while we were holding an all-night ceremony in the Great Pyramid, I was in the king’s chamber. I was shown a sequence of numbers, and then another, and it continued the whole night. I recognized that these are frequencies and learned how they work and how to shift from one frequency to the next, and why this is important during the great transformation on the planet.
At Mount Shasta in California I was taken through a process where I lay on the snow. I could hear my heart beat loudly. I then started to hear a second heartbeat even louder. I was shown that this is the heartbeat of the Earth. As these two were beating separately I was led through a process in which they started to synchronise and beat as one. At this point I felt an explosion of unconditional love and truly understood and felt what it is like to be in total alignment with the energetic flow of the planet.
At Mount Kailash in Tibet I was taken through a process of understanding where I come from, why I am here at this time, and what needs to be in place for the great transformation to take place on the planet as we move from one era to the next. I was also taken through processes to understand how to access and work with sacred energy, how to go through a unification process within myself, with others, and with other parts of Nature.
Deep in the Amazon jungle I learned the reality of the truth of where we are at this time on the planet and what will happen during the great transformation.
Ultimately each one of us is a sacred site. As you journey deeper within yourself you will recognise and respect even deeper the sacredness with you. In the place where you live, find an ancient tree, a cave, a rock, a mountain, or a river or ocean, and continue to spend time there and connect. You will get to deeply understand and feel the energetics of the place, and as you sit silently or walk lightly you will feel the connection and find the sacred places in your area you can connect with. Given the interconnectedness of everything, it will show you how your area is connected energetically to the rest of the country, planet, and multiverse.
We should see these places as ecoversities because they hold knowledge through time and space. There is the spirit of these places and the energy that we may not ordinarily pay attention to. People deeply connected to the land, the ocean, and the skies have accessed knowledge for thousands of years by aligning structures to star systems, planting food during particular alignments and cycles, and living with the spirits of sacred sites. We all have the potential and the ability and the tools. We can uncover this if we continue to go on our inner journey. Sacred sites accelerates us energetically and deepens our understanding.
The unlearning process at sacred sites starts with the appreciation of multiple paradigms and ways of learning. Learning from a mountain is a very different methodology than learning from a teacher in a classroom. It opens up a process that goes beyond our mind and beyond the senses which we use on a daily basis. It shows us the full potential of who we are and what we are connected to and can access. These sites hold memories, energy, and knowledge that has been stored for thousands of years. We can access this within our DNA.
Protecting Pathways to Renewal
It has been a deep part of my decolonising journey as I understand the ancient wisdom from different traditions and also from sacred sites across the planet. It is important to ensure there are some protocols in place. Respecting the site is a fundamental principle. As you develop a relationship with a site you will learn how to ask for permission to enter the site. Protecting sites is a key part of the work that needs to be done.
Many of the sites are under constant threat from extractive projects like mining and oil and gas, for development type projects like housing or where indigenous and traditional communities are kicked out of their forests in the name of conservation or protection. Many legal, human rights, and environmental organisations I work with across the globe are doing their best to back up communities who are protecting these sites. They are also biodiversity hotspots and play a key role in terms of the energetics and for the transformation and future of humanity, as we are in the sixth mass extinction event.
The Earthrise Collective is bringing forward the knowledge that has been held by people from various traditions and ancestries across the planet to protect these sites; this is both part of activism and part of a process to create a pathway through the intersecting crises and turbulence we are facing; we know, based on prophecy, climate science, and lived experience that this upheaval will accelerate over the next years. The energy of the sacred sites we work with will contribute to the shift in frequency within us and across the planet and will open up the space for us to continue to create.
We have what it takes to live in an interconnected way where people and planet thrive. We are the planet!
Pooven Moodley is an International Human Rights and Environmental Lawyer from South Africa. He cofounded the Earthrise Collective: Ancient Wisdom, Activism and Alternatives and works at sacred energy points around the world.
