Chaski Fest Danbury

Chaski Fest, a public event held by a regional chapter of the environmental organization, World Conscious Pact (WCP), came to CityCenter Danbury earlier this month. (Saturday, May 9.) I was lucky enough to be able to perform alongside the members of Western’s Drum Circle Club, which was invited to the CityCenter stage amongst a roster of various artists. Throughout the day, I visited several other organizations that had set up booths on the green.

“Chaski” is a word from the Andes’ Quechua language, meaning “messenger.” As noted on WCP’s website, “Traditionally Chaskis were trained runners who would deliver important messages throughout numerous Andean empires. Today Chaski Fests are worldwide gatherings of conscious artists and activists who want to carry the message of preserving Earth’s resources and ancestral wisdom.” Given that definition, I think “chaskis” may be quite important in this day and age, especially considering the current circumstances surrounding Earth’s climate and ecology.

Danbury’s Chaski Fest featured a variety of artists and activists, from poets to dance troupes to rock bands and solo acts, interspersed by calls for environmental protection and activism on behalf of the rights of nature. Among the groups and individuals to take the stage was the aforementioned WCSU Drum Circle Club (lead and advised by Dan Mustin, who works in maintenance at WestConn and is an expert hand drummer), local performance poet Atom Rush and his band, Irish and Polynesian dance groups, indie-folk soloist Nicole Jean, and representatives from Connecticut’s Ecuadorian embassy.

Subsidiary groups set up tables on the CityCenter green, one promoting sustainable composting and a striking down of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (or TPP, an economic treaty which is widely agreed to have detrimental effects on the already beleaguered climate system), another where participants could learn yoga from ISKCON members (colloquially known as Hare Krishnas), and one or two stands selling arts and crafts.

Sienna Arpi, a volunteer coordinator working with World Conscious Pact Northeast, reaffirmed Chaski Fest as a “conscious gathering of environmental activists and artists.” Arpi, whose family is from Ecuador, holds environmental issues and cultural preservation close to her heart. She notes that Ecuador is one of the most biodiverse and culturally diverse nations in the world, and enshrined in its constitution is recognition of the “rights of nature.” It is the first country to give recognition to such a liberty, and WCP hopes to promote similar amendments in different countries.

Noted in Chaski Fest’s pamphlet, distributed to participants and attendees, are eight such rights of nature. Briefly, they encompass the recognition of the legal rights of the environment, the protection and free distribution of water resources, the protection of agricultural land and products from pollutants, unnecessary violence, profiteering from the suffering of “men and animals thought (sic) trade, consumption, and entertainment,” reducing the consumption of meat and the detrimental effects the consumption of meat has on the environment, the preservation of original seed stock and prevention of biological patents, informing consumers of product components and ingredients through honest labeling, and the “proper respect for all native communities and their natural surroundings, belongings, culture, autonomy, thinking, and development.”

As Ms. Arpi notes about the collective environmental, ecological, and climatic issues currently facing the world, “we are the last generation that can do something about this.”

If you would like more information on Chaski Fest, WCP, and environmental activism, please visit http://worldconsciouspact.org/.

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