Returning home to Pachamama: being and becoming in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

‍A leap homeward, into the unknown

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In November 2017, I embarked on one of the great adventures of my life. Having left as a young girl, and having always dreamed of relocating to my native Colombia, I finally took the leap. The push I needed was a random tech job in Medellín, and although it wasn’t perfect, it felt like the stepping stone I needed to finally return to a place I had always thought of as my motherland. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but this felt like the beginning of a new life in Colombia.

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Within weeks of landing, however, the job that I thought was my lifeline evaporated. Just like that, I was back in the land where I was born, but now with no idea of what to do or why I was even here. I found myself at what felt like a cliff edge, with a decision that felt bigger than just career or geography. Having finally got back to Colombia, the question now was “do I stay?” I found myself with one foot in comfort and familiarity, the other trembling toward something deeper, more elusive.

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In time, however, I realized it wasn’t a loss (the job). It was an invitation. An invitation to surrender, and to follow the pull of my soul to a place where I would rediscover a way of living that was as old as time itself. I now know that what my heart craved was the lush embrace of the highest coastal mountain on earth, a place known as the “heart of the world” or, more commonly, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

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I could have returned back to a life of comfort in California. A part of me was tempted. I knew exactly the life awaited me there. However, something deeper called me forward. Because I wasn’t chasing success, transformation, or the idea of becoming someone else - or creating something extraordinary - I found myself volunteering with a local organization in what I later discovered was the most magical tropical landscape I could imagine.

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This place felt to me like Macondo, the town at the heart of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Landing here, I realized what I was really being drawn to was more of a dream. Just like reading Marquez, it's a simple dream but one filled with magic. This dream, for me, has been to do life without needing to achieve or force anything. It has become about experiencing the essence of this mountain, and simply being. Here and now.

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The questions of "how" and "where" lingered, casting shadows of uncertainty. How would I make this dream real? Where would I find my place in this sacred land? And, in that moment of curiosity for the possibilities of the unknown, the world seemed to offer up another opportunity. The words ”write up your job description, and it’s yours!” came down the phone line,  as though the universe opened its arms, inviting me into a world of infinite possibility. From this point on, the lessons came pouring in, not from books or mentors, but from life itself.

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Now, let me say something about this place. Beyond the stunning sunsets, what is it about the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta that seems to give life to the imagination for so many? Firstly, I now understand that the jungle here on this unique mountain overlooking the Caribbean Sea is over 170 million years old. With hundreds of rivers pouring down from the 18,700 ft summits into the sea only 26 miles away, this is a place of unbelievable biodiversity and natural abundance.

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Unlike other areas of the Caribbean coast, the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada were largely able to avoid the very worst of European contact and colonization. Due to the scale and complexity of the mountain jungle - as well as extraordinary resilience - the Kogi, Arhuacos, Kankuamos, and Wiwa have continued to live in a similar way here since they arrived in the area over 4,000 years ago.

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Maintaining some of the oldest cultural traditions and knowledge systems found anywhere in the Americas, they live with a profound connection to the land and the more-than-human world within which they are a part. For them, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the epicenter of our shared human relationship to Pachamama, the feminine god of the earth, and they are the guardians of this mountain with responsibility to care for the natural balance of the earth.

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When the heart is open, we learn from the land

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So, it’s now been years since I returned to Colombia and found my way to the Sierra Nevada: so what have I learned? Firstly, it has been in this place that I have learned to appreciate life’s small moments, and to see abundance where before I saw scarcity. In this place, I am constantly reminded that life gives back when you approach it with an open heart. I notice here that when I generously give - my time, my energy, my love - I receive exactly what I need back.

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Gratitude has become my companion here, guiding me through each step of the journey and reminding me, when I slow down enough to notice, just how much there is to be thankful for. It is also here that I learned to say yes more. To life, to opportunities, to the unknown. When I have prioritized saying yes, the treasures of the universe seem to have unfolded before me, almost as if reciprocity is a natural part of the cycles of nature. One that we’ve so often forgotten.

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This experience hasn’t always been easy, and fear has often knocked at the door. But each time I said yes with an open heart, I seem to have stepped deeper into a world where abundance has been real, where community is genuine, and where love is the foundation of everything. In other words, I have stepped into a world defined, enriched and directed not by “me” but by nature herself. I think this is what they mean when they call this place the “heart of the world”. It is true everywhere, but here it is so clear: nature is the home and the teacher.

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These learnings have extended to my relationships with others too. No longer is love a concept of possession or control but connection and shared experience. With this, love has started to show up in various new forms. Romantic, platonic, and perhaps most importantly for me right now, with myself. Never without its shadows, heartbreak, sadness, and loss have taught me that love needs vulnerability and the risk of pain. But through it all, we become stronger, more resilient beings embracing the unavoidable truth that all things must end.

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The cosmos is forever unfolding, and when we let go of attachment, we find freedom. When we allow things to come and go, we discover a deep peace that was always there, waiting beneath the surface. For me, what this place has taught me, is that it's the resistance to this that causes many of us so much pain, so often. For me, surrounded and held by this lush, life-filled jungle, I now no longer hold those attachments so dear. The hopes, fears and expectations, of myself and of others, are put into their place by the natural rhythms of this place. It is to these rhythms that I have learned to let go.

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In essence, this is the great learning of this journey. I have learned to let go of the need to control, grasp, or conquer, or the idea that happiness is somewhere else, in some other time. Life, with all its emotions, is something we are meant to experience in each moment, exactly as it is. For me, it is remarkably simple. The sun rises and sets, the waves come and go, the trees grow and wither, all without the need for validation, without striving. The natural world is a constant reminder that life is meant to flow, and not to be forced. Life is not something to be solved. In its purest form, it is already complete.