Chumash Elder Speaks on Healing Humanity and the Climate

Art Cisneros is a Chumash elder and firekeeper. The Chumash are the original Native peoples of the south-central California Coast. Art holds the sacred space for their annual Tomol crossing to Limu on the Channel Islands. In 2014, he undertook a series of ceremonies focused on healing humanity’s relationship with the climate, responding to the ongoing drought and extreme weather, prayers that he shared with the people at the Great March for Climate Action LA Launch on March 1, 2014 in the Port of Los Angeles.

ART CISNEROS – Chumash Elder + Firekeeper from Ayni Communications on Vimeo.

Profile: Art Cisneros
Chumash Elder Feeds the Sacred Fire

By Leslee Goodman, Published in the Santa Barbara Independent

Art Cisneros is a Chumash elder and firekeeper. He is of Chumash descent on his mother’s side and Mexican descent on his father’s. Though his roots in Santa Barbara County go back tens of thousands of years, Cisneros isn’t focused on the past but rather on the present and the future. Technically retired, he works passionately to unite humanity in caring for “our Mom”: planet Earth. Striving to live up to his Chumash name, “Earth Man with a Good Heart,” he holds fire ceremonies and tells about our need to heal our relationships with ourselves, the Earth, and each other.

It is Cisneros who builds and tends the fire that burns on Santa Cruz Island (Limuw, as the Chumash call it) during the tribe’s annual Tomol crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel. He also holds regular fire ceremonies at his home in Goleta and presides over other community fire ceremonies, such as the solstice celebrations at the Ojai Foundation. As firekeeper, his attention is not just on the physical fire crackling in the pit but also on “the spark in each person’s heart” around the fire.

“Ceremonies are for healing,” he said, “so I create a space in which people can offer their pain and problems to the fire to be transmuted into smoke, which rises to the Creator.” He makes this space by telling stories — his own and stories from the many teachers with whom he’s studied — so that people feel comfortable in sharing their own experiences. He gently reminds them that at least part of their pain is the result of having forgotten whom they are and who they belong to — our Mother, the Earth.

STORY: Chumash Healing With Spirit: A Tribute to Cecilia Garcia

“Human beings are interdependent with all beings for our existence,” he explained. “Our world today is out of balance because we have forgotten our responsibility as caretakers. We have forgotten to love one another unconditionally as children of the same Mother. We have forgotten that everything was given to everyone to share and that the greatest of us is responsible for the least of us.

“All people were given instructions to keep peace and harmony: humbly ask permission; pray and offer tribute for everything that we need and use; and give back through our good thoughts, words, and actions [in] our love for our Mother Earth and one another. This keeps the balance of energy and promotes peace and harmony, health and happiness. When we take without permission, or hurt each other; we create disharmony and disease. We hurt our Mother.”

STORY: Self-Healing with Chumash Native Plant Medicine

Art Cisneros gives the invocation at the March 1 Great March for Climate Action LA launch.

Cisneros believes that the time is now for all of us to begin the process of restoring the balance of energy. “We can heal each and the world through our willingness to share what we hold as material wealth and what we hold in our heart as love, kindness, compassion, and generosity,” he said.

“This is the hardest part of my work: getting people to realize that they have the power to reverse the chaos of our times simply by asking permission of the Earth; taking only what we need; giving thanks; and sharing what we have.”

It’s a message he speaks wherever he goes. He serves on the boards of the Sacred Earth Foundation and the Tribal Trust Foundation, where he opens each meeting with prayer, thanking the Creator for bringing the board together. He brings indigenous elders from other parts of the world to Santa Barbara, “because these people are the ones who are praying for the Earth and keeping the energies in balance. They need our support and acknowledgement.” He is also working with a group of nonprofits to protect a piece of the Gaviota Coast — the site of the original Dos Pueblos — to be used for learning, healing, and ceremony.

“We’re each an integral part of the whole,” he said. “If you’re not healthy, the world can’t be healthy. And if you are healthy — in body, mind, and spirit — you’re really helping to heal the whole world. This is what I try to share with people.”

What else could an Earth Man with a Good Heart do?

Art Cisneros, Chumash Elder and firekeeper for the Barbareno Chumash, will be doing the invocation at the Great March for Climate Action on March 1st in the Port of LA.

Updated 9 January 2024