humansofnewyork:

This is the Mayan Holy Man (plus translator) referenced in the previous post. I think he was speaking all day, so I only caught a portion of his message, but here’s what I heard:

“When the Mayans cut down a tree, they pray not only to the guardians of the tree, but to the guardians of the animals that sought shelter in that tree. Now, more than ever, we need to pray to the guardians of nature. The Spaniards misunderstood these ceremonies and called us polytheistic. This was a mistranslation. But we believe that nature must be guarded. Sixty years ago my grandmother told me that we would have to pay to drink water. And now this is coming true. We are buying water, and we are eating chickens that are so filled with chemicals that they are killed 20 days after they hatch. These are not natural animals. Now more than ever, nature must be guarded.”