Q'ero

By Regina Roeder

March 22^nd, 2024

Spaces of remembrance.

Portals to an ancient memory.

Connecting everything with everything else.

A deep inhale of peacefulness and trust.

A homecoming.

Creating union.

While dissolving the space between the

I & the you.

Life has its own rhythm & timing.

Usually life enters into us long time before it happens,

as Rilke once beautifully said. Yet when & whether it manifests lies up in the ethers.

Nine years ago, I set my feet for the first time on South American land. Whilst in Peru, there was one place seemingly calling me, Ausangate. Yet somehow the timing wasn't right and life invited me to write other stories.

Then two years ago my path crossed with various musicians from the land of Peru during my stay in Switzerland. Amongst one of them, Kike Pinto, whom I had the honor to photograph during his concert spending various days listing to his stories filled with wisdom from living with Q'ero communities in the Andes. Upon many conversations, we imagined visiting the mountain of compassion, Apu Ausangate one day together.

Nine years after my first visit, I find myself back in Peru with Kike and some other friends invited to one of the Q'ero communities, the Peruvian Indians, thought to be the last descendants of the Inkas.

Fluently and effortlessly. Almost unexpected I arrived at this place of remembrance. It revealed a deep trust in life, its rhythm & timing. Moments cannot be forced, neither resisted. Gratitude for the unique circle that was asking for permission to the land to sent off our prayers and offerings under the full moon.

There is this magnetism that draws situations and humans towards the self that are important for our path and growth. Like the Moon and its tidal nature. Reveling our interconnectedness, offering invitations to listen. Many times we don't realize their teachings until many years later. How each encounter shapes us and each revelation guides us. Starting with the place we are born including the ancestral lineage. The stories that have been written before us, are woven into the unique fabric of our own life. And we continue weaving.

Beauty lies in reviewing the story. What has shaped you, what has drawn you out in the first place and what still lights you up? That's your unique spark you came to explore and share with the world. Everything that is drawn towards you has its meaning & teaching.

Praying & offering. Giving & receiving.

The Q'eros, as many indigenous communities, have rituals that seem foreign to the Western mind. A mind, that is very much conditioned to taking advantage of the resources that nature provides so selflessly. Many times without considering the consequences in the long term.

Nine years ago, this was the greatest revelation alongside my journey. Witnessing & documenting the imbalance of this planet, where the Western world keeps on exploiting, without giving anything in return. The topic that touches myself the most is and always has been agriculture amongst deforestation & mining. For me just sitting with these themes for some time makes me wonder and question how advanced of a species we are. How most of our choices are based on survival instead of reciprocity. Polluting rivers, excessively using all precious gifts in order to still our hunger. Forgetting each of us eventually arrives at a place to give everything away.

In contrast, these communities don't own much, but still they offer what they have to the wider family, the Apus, the mountains, who communicate messages from their gods, the sun and the stars. There is no distinction. Everything is spirit in its deepest essence.

Q'eros don't take more than they need.

They wouldn't treat Mother Nature differently than sisters and brothers, knowing they are part of her. Their prayers help them through difficult times & also ensure their harvests and well being of the community. Honoring their ancestors, the mountains and the lakes, the sun and the moon. All of them are their teachers. The Q’eros talk in myths to describe events that many of us undergo in their lifetime. While weaving patterns and symbols into their textiles, they tell their stories. Their medicine are their plants & nature herself. The mountains are their grandfathers and the sun and the moon their gods. They themselves are the guardians that preserve the equilibrium on this planet.

For my own story, I grew up in nature with grandparents dedicated to their farms, my parents still take care of our ancerstor’s land. We always lived close to the earth. Following her seasons and rhythms. A deep appreciation of those who came before me and how they planted seeds that me and my family were able to harvest. A selfless service that each of us is invited to undergo in his/her lifetime. To plant seeds for generations to come. Living with the land gives you a deep appreciation for how plants grow. Sometimes the flower bears a fruit and an incredible harvest that you have to share with others, other times there is not even a flower neither a fruit nor a harvest. Still there is gratitude and a knowing how many forces are in play all the elements working together to alchemise our food. It is a miracle indeed what we call creation, each of us included, a miracle to be here. And who has ever had a garden, or a passion project, knows, when you put love into something it will come back in unexpected ways.

Yet I am wondering, why do I sometimes forget?

How often do we honor our ancestors? The path that they opened for us so generously? Having them still watching over us, receiving their messages whenever we feel lost. This invisible net that connects & catches us to guide us into unknown territory. How often do we listen to our elders?

Within all the communities I was fortunate to live in, I realized that there is a common thread. A deep union with everything that surrounds them & a strong connection to the invisible world.

Since I was young, I was drawn to explore places and people that still live closely with the land. The guardians of the Earth are a reminder of how we could be, when we did not fall out of union. How that one relationship is a mirror for all our relationships in life. Where do I separate myself? In which ways am I trying to take advantage of my surrounding? Where am I not satisfied and therefore longing for more? May I take a breath knowing 'this more' won't ever satisfy my hunger which always is a cry for union.

While observing and listening to her messages, her cycles & rhythms, we learn to adapt to ours, we learn patience & acknowledge the beauty of birth & death. Also the art of Ayni - reciprocity. The natural balance between giving and receiving. One is always the teacher and the student at the same time, whether with the elders or the younger ones. At the same time everyone is a brother or a sister, starting within their families, including every mountain and star. The invisible is equally important as the visible and the ancestors and guardians are in constant communication with the living beings. Before starting something new permission is being asked, by the spirits of the mountains and offerings are being made.

There lies great appreciation in simplicity. A certain attention to what is. A delight in the given. A breath of gratitude for what one is receiving, even if it may be different than anticipated. When living a simple life you decide to get rid off all the unnecessary thoughts and behaviors. A simple life invites to follow the heart. Since there is less distraction & a simple heart is content with what is.

Prayer.

Prayer serves like an anchor. Especially in times where there is no hope on the horizon. When clouds of doubt and worries seem to overshadow the path. Prayer cuts through fears of the future while envisioning hope in a place that seems hopeless. A prayer always unites what has been separate. It lights up a path that is still invisible.

Every journey is sacred

Every time I come to visit sacred lands, it is as if the questions I have disappear, as if my mind changes its perspective and becomes less noisy, less destructive. Gratitude for having been invited to the land of Ausangate and the Qero‘s. May their wisdom be remembered in those moments of forgetting. May we all spent more time in nature and honour her gifts & beauty and may we never take them for grated. May we understand whenever we care for one another we care for ourselves.