Earlier this year, I spent just over two months working as a photographer in Huejuquilla el Alto, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, for the Huichol Center for the Arts. I lived in a house adjacent to the Huichol School, funded and run by the Huichol center, which also doubled as a stopping point/ceremonial ground for groups of up to thirty Peyoteros and their families, on their way to or from Vision Quest/ceremonial hunts. With many years of groundwork and the building of a great bond of trust and mutual affection between the Huichol Center's creator, Susana Valadez, and the local Huichol population, I was eventually given the opportunity to document the entire staff (both Huichol and Mexican) at the Huichol center, soy farming classes, portraits of local Huichol families, a Huichol religious ceremony, and the entire collection of Peyote induced artwork (in the form of intricate yarn paintings), by an amazing Huichol artist, Gonzalo Hernandez.

Many of the photographs were only allowed to be taken because of the assurance of both Susana and myself that the photographs would only be used in proactive projects or grant proposals for the Huichol Center and thus would be beneficial for the Huichol people themselves. It was because of my status as Plenty volunteer, and Susana Valadez's trust in the Plenty organization that I was allowed to witness and document a small yet invaluable portion of an indigenous community whose traditional ceremonial lifestyle is being threatened daily and from all sides. With all of those varied and colorful experiences, however, what I remember most and what nearly brings me to tears every time I look at it, is one of the last photographs I took in Huejuquilla of a young Huichol girl, no older than ten, staring right back into the camera, seemingly through the camera, with wide, bright, innocent eyes, as if to say you need us as much as we need you.

Besides helping the Huichol people create and market their art, the Huichol Center offers health education and a school where the Huichol kids learn and use their own language as well as Spanish. The center is documenting Huichol culture and history, along with its art and spiritual understandings and traditions. Plenty has long believed that indigenous peoples have treasures immensely more valuable than the gold, diamonds, uranium and oil that outsiders have been killing them over for centuries, and that it's not an exaggeration to say that the survival of our planet and species depends in large measure on a mutually beneficial and cooperative partnership between the original peoples and so-called "modern societies." We need to develop very energetic fair trade among us, where knowledge, skills, vision, and sustainable technologies are shared.