Originally sent on 27 October 2026. This letter is preserved as an archive; prices, availability and invitations reflect that date. For current details, please visit the linked project pages.
Good morning, família Yura.
Today I’m writing with a deep sense of relief, now that Lula has been reelected president of Brazil. I’ve been thinking about my family, the people we walk alongside, and everything we still want to build together. There is hope in this result, and a responsibility to care for what becomes possible from here.
I also want to share news of the school we’re developing, the classes with Inu Yube and our gathering with HUNI YAWA in Tulum. You’ll find those below, along with some music, a film and a book that speak to this moment.
There is a relationship between what we receive from Indigenous peoples and the conditions in which they live. The forest we meet through a song is someone’s home. It has families, children, people facing threats just to remain on their land. And when these songs and teachings enter our lives, I feel they also bring us closer to the responsibility of standing alongside the people who carry them.
This is why Flávio Bolsonaro’s defeat matters. His father, Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced to 27 years and three months for crimes connected to the attempted coup. This result gives us room to keep building in a democracy, facing a movement that has already shown how far it will go to remain in power.
Brazil’s military dictatorship tortured, killed and disappeared people. Indigenous communities endured massacres, forced removals and the destruction of their territories. The full scale of those deaths remains unknown. Families are still searching for people who never came home. That history lives inside our fear of authoritarianism returning.
Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu called this the year’s most important election outside the United States, because of Brazil’s influence in the region and the democratic risks of the Bolsonaro family’s return. What happens in Brazil reaches far beyond its borders, including the community we’re building here.
I want to honour Lula’s journey too. A worker reaching the presidency through collective organising means a lot in a country where so many grow up hearing that certain places will never be theirs. And I want that story to keep opening doors: for Indigenous peoples defending their territories, for quilombola communities rooted in resistance to slavery, and for the terreiros that keep Afro-Brazilian spiritual traditions alive.
But the younger Bolsonaro lost the presidential election while his political camp gained ground in Congress. The PL, the Bolsonaro family’s party and a leading expression of Brazilian neo-fascism, will have 121 deputies and 28 senators.
So we need to keep supporting those who are in this struggle, more than ever. Support the government when it protects rights, hold it accountable when it retreats, and insist on schools, healthcare and territorial protection that respect the people they serve. A difficult Congress cannot excuse abandoning those who have already waited too long.
Lula cannot run again in 2030 under current rules, because that would mean a third consecutive term. We have four years to help new leaders grow and bring more people into political life, while the far right continues organising.
And keeping the forest standing has to remain part of that work. Annual deforestation in Brazil’s Legal Amazon region fell from 11,594 km² in 2022 to 5,731 in 2025, approximately 50.6%. We need to care for that progress so it can continue beyond one government.
This is also where YURA’s work takes root. These cultures remain alive because people sustain them every day, and those people need clean water, safety, and the freedom to teach, create and decide how they live.
Wherever we are, we can support the projects keeping these cultures alive, and the people working towards a better future. We begin by listening to what they need, respecting their decisions, paying artists and teachers fairly, and building relationships that continue after we return home.
And this is where I want to share what we’ve been building.
YURA School of Ancestral and Earth Knowledge
We’re preparing our first community learning circle, bringing education, culture and care for the Earth together. The school is still taking shape, and we want to develop it with the people who will participate, respecting the communities’ needs and decisions. Our fundraiser supports this beginning.
Txana Study Circle with Inu Yube
For those who want to keep studying, Inu Yube’s recorded classes offer time to listen, return and let the learning settle. You can begin with one class for €68, choose five for €250, or the ten-class cycle for €444. Five classes are available now; the remaining five are still in preparation.
If you’d like to study more closely with Inu Yube, we also offer private online classes, with me there to translate into English. There’s time to return to a song, work on pronunciation and bring your own questions: €150 for one session or €400 for four.
And I have two openings this month for guitar mentorship with me. We can begin with your first chords or explore the songs you’ve been wanting to play and sing, taking time with rhythm, voice and whatever needs attention along the way. Just reply to this letter and tell me a little about where you are with music.
HUNI YAWA in Tulum
We’ll gather with Wannu and Dua at Nahku, Tulum, on 12–15 February 2027, for songs, conversations and time together with this family connecting Huni Kuin and Yawanawá traditions. We’re extending our community discount until the next newsletter, on 9 November. Write to me for the details.
And before we go, a little culture to share
I wanted to leave you with Construção, by Chico Buarque, for the way it brings us close to working lives and a Brazil we still recognise.
Also, I’m Still Here, by Walter Salles: a family living through dictatorship, and a woman holding life together while searching for answers.
And Sobre o autoritarismo brasileiro, by Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, to look more closely at the histories of inequality, racism and violence that continue shaping the country.
Today I’m celebrating, família. And I want this hope to find a home in people’s lives, in schools, in territories, and in the encounters we still have ahead of us.
Seguimos caminhando.
With love,
Ariê
YURA
