Exploring Rimay and Atiy

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ Leave a comment

My Andean teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, has said that with rimay and atiy we can do anything. The only person who can stop us is ourselves. If this is true, these two human capacities shouldn’t just be background concepts. We need to bring them front and center into our daily lives. So, let’s take a deeper dive into what these capacities mean and how they work together to potentially transform our reality.

In Andean mysticism, communication is viewed as a sacred, transformative act known as rimay. Encompassing speech, language, and communication, rimay is an inherent capacity of the kunka ñawi (energy center at the middle of our throat). Rimay also is sound as a sacred vibration. Every word we utter is imbued with our personal energy and with our karpay, our personal power. In this context, power does not mean dominance or control; it signifies how much of the vast reservoir of human capacity we have accessed from within ourselves and so can bring out into the world and use in our lives.

To fully understand rimay, we must look to its counterpart at the kunka ñawi: yachay. Unlike theoretical intellect or second-hand knowledge, yachay represents wisdom acquired through direct personal experience. Therefore, true rimay is the voice of lived experience. It is the authentic expression of our kanay—our core identity and unique individuality. When we speak from this place of integrated wisdom, we bring a natural confidence, integrity, clarity, and authenticity to our communication. When fueled by yachay, our rimay engenders trust, because we say what we mean and mean what we say. It engenders precision, because we know ourselves and so can communicate our views, preferences, choices, and decisions without apology, ambiguity, or hesitation. Our words align with our core values, and our core values arise from the integrity of our lived experience.

If rimay is the foundation of knowing and expressing who we are, atiy is the life we build upon that foundation. Atiy literally means “to be able to” or “to have the ability.” It is the capacity energetically associated with the siki ñawi, the energy center at the tailbone. Atiy is action in time: The actions we are capable of taking moment by moment, day after day, which add up to the expression of ourselves as integral participants of the world. Through the concept of ayni, or sacred reciprocity, atiy is our ability to “drive the kawsay”—the living energy—through the integrity of who we are. By “measuring” our atiy, we know what we are capable of doing; we can assess whether or not we have the personal power to accomplish what we say we want to in our lives.

Together rimay and atiy drive the kawsay to shape our lives. One way to look at this paired dynamic is that rimay without atiy is mostly empty talk; atiy without rimay is aimless action. Rimay and atiy themselves are part of a more complex chain of development, yet without them, the links in the chain weaken or even break. Pulling together explanations from various transcripts and notes I have, don Juan explains how self-knowledge and self-expression flow together and influence our ability to act in the world: “Pukllay is play, like children at play and lover’s games; reality vanishes, you become part of the whole. Our work is cosmic games. It’s a mix of munay and rimay. Munay as love and will, and rimay as the ability to express yourself. Rimay is more than that really: It is the ability to manifest yourself. To express yourself in all forms, including expressing and living your destiny and inviting others to do the same. All of this takes you to kanay, the power to be yourself. If you discover kanay, you reach atiy.”

Describing atiy, he says, “Atiy depends on the energy you have available to channel. The siki ñawi is about impulses, but atiy is not an undirected impulse, but a directed one. It’s an impulse that is empowered. It is a measure of how you have developed yourself. Your Inka Seed is your full potential, but you have not developed this all the way yet. Atiy is the measure of your power as you contrast it with your Inka Seed. It is your power in this moment. You contrast your possible full potential with what you have the power to do right now in your life. According to that measure, your atiy is the power to change reality around you: how much or easily you can do that. It is how you can trigger action. After you manifest yourself, you can drive kawsay to influence your life and reality; you cannot control reality, but you can make energy follow more harmonious flows in more harmonious directions for you. And then you can play in the world of living energy.”

These are not only Andean concepts, because, of course, communication and action are universal to human existence. Looking outside the tradition, perhaps it was Albert Einstein and Carl Jung who best defined rimay. Einstein said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” And Jung said, “Experience is the direct realization of a truth.” And we can turn to Theodore Roosevelt to succinctly describe what the Andeans call atiy: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Whatever tradition or source of inspiration we draw upon, taking rimay and atiy into account matters to the quality of our lives. We tend to focus on developing ayni and munay, and rightly so. However, to be wholly involved in the world as our most glorious selves means mastering our rimay and atiy as well.

Mystical Relations with Cities

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In my last post, we explored our mystical relationship with nature. That reflection left me wandering down an unexpected path, thinking about cities. Urban areas are rarely the places people flock to when seeking personal respite or rejuvenation, spiritual connection, insight, inspiration, or the transcendent. But why should an urban environment be considered any less sacred than a natural one?

I am not talking about the world’s widely recognized spiritual centers, such as Jerusalem, Medina, Vatican City, Varanasi, Cusco, Kathmandu, or Kyoto. I am talking about everyday cities, such as Boston, Edmonton, Siena, Hamburg, Córdoba, Anatalya. I am talking about any city, really—large or small, well-known or entirely anonymous to anyone but the locals.

I guess what I am really exploring is not a specific location, but a particular kind of environment: the entirely manmade kind. And what I am exploring in a broader way is the sense of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is an intentional journey to a place deemed holy or sacred, undertaken for spiritual, creative, or inspirational reasons. Because modern environments limit our daily exposure to nature, we often—and rightly—seek out green spaces for this kind of respite and rejuvenation. We head for the mountains, the forests, the oceans, or the jungles. But beyond recognized cities that are spiritual centers, why do so many people assume they will not (or cannot) find the sacred—or connection, respite, rejuvenation, insight, inspiration—in what is pejoratively labelled a “concrete jungle?” Other than our own learned biases, what truly makes the manmade less holy than the nature-made?

One of the strongest pulls of wilderness immersion is the ability to step (almost) entirely outside of society. When we are alone in nature, the social cacophony mostly ceases, allowing us a quiet space in which to connect with the self and better hear (and listen) to our inner voices. We also expand our awareness beyond ourselves. Instead of harried and complicated interchanges with people, we slow to the simpler rhythms of the wind, water, sun, and moon. We shed the social masks we wear and the cultural mores we serve. We become more aware of our wasi: the temple of the self, which comprises both our physical body and our poq’po (energy body). Naked to ourselves, we deepen our relationship with our own souls and the soul of the world.

Yet, the sacred is not out there. It is always and everywhere within ourselves.

So, I wonder why we cannot so easily shed those same social costumes and psychological masks while standing on a crowded street corner surrounded by brick buildings and the honking horns of cars? Isn’t it true that the challenge isn’t the concrete beneath our feet, but our willingness to “be” wherever we are, in whatever conditions, whether the dizzying action of a large city, the bland homogeneity of a suburb, or the insular timelessness of a backwater town? 

Landscapes by themselves are devoid of meaning. We are the meaning-makers. If we cannot “be”—centered, calm, aware, in wonder—in the middle of an urban rush, well . . . that tells us something about ourselves. If we can marvel at the power of ocean waves surging toward shore, can we not find a sense of majesty in a crowd of people propelling themselves with purpose along the city blocks? Why is sunlight brilliantly streaming through a thick tree canopy any less mesmerizing than one streaming down between a cluster of skyscrapers?

There is a term I once heard don Juan Nuñez del Prado use while discussing the Andean tradition: the egregore. It was how don Juan described some energy dynamic—I forget now what he was talking about—back in the very early days of my training. I haven’t heard him use it since. But it has stuck with me. It’s a term that refers to the spirit of a group, to how their energy coalesces into a shared psychic structure. We might think of it as a city’s dream body or its ayllu poq’po (group bubble or energy body). The egregore is formed from the collective beliefs, thoughts, emotions, needs, desires, dreams and such of the group, and so the egregore is the holistic impression we have of a place. It is a signature energy, such that the “feel” of London’s egregore is different from New Delhi’s, which is different from Buenos Aires’. There is a reason we feel the glow of romance in Paris and the welcoming, family-like familiarity of Bologna.

Most cities use taglines to brand themselves for tourism and commerce. However, from an energetic perspective, they are actually advertising their egregore: I live near Winston-Salem, NC, whose egregore is “The City of Arts and Innovation.” New Orleans is the “Big Easy,” Tokyo is where “Old Meets New,” and Geneva is “The Peace Capital.” You can “Find Your Heart” in San Francisco and know that “What Happens Here, Stays Here” in Las Vegas.

For every one of our shifting passions there is an urban egregore that perfectly resonates with it and so can deepen our feelings about whatever is sacred to us in the moment. There is a place vibrating at the perfect frequency to sweep us into the indulgence of physical pleasures, or into freeing our inner child or unleashing our inner comedian, or into supercharging our creativity or immersing ourselves in futuristic technology. When we choose to view every place on this planet as sacred, even a simple day trip to a bustling urban center transforms into a pilgrimage. Just like a verdant forest or an imposing mountain, a city can serve as a powerful bridge between the mundane world and the liminal space of the divine.

Mystical Relations with the Earth

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Hike through the high plains of the Peruvian Andes, and you might notice your guide pausing before a towering peak or beside a rushing stream, whispering softly and offering a few coca leaves or spilling a few drops of water. To an outsider, this gesture might look like a quaint ritual—a nod to folklore. But to the paqos (practitioners of the Andean mystical tradition), this isn’t a performance. It’s a vital connection, even a sacred communion. While Western spirituality often focuses on ascending out of the world, and many Eastern traditions look inward to find the divine, the Andean paqos do something entirely different. They look directly at the landscape and bridge its materiality to touch its energetic essence. Andeans in general, and paqos in particular, are kawsaypa llikapi, which literally means “within the network of life.”

In modern society, many of us view ourselves as separate entities moving through a space. Even if we admire our surroundings as we walk through a valley, many of us traverse the terrain essentially as observers or visitors. In contrast, in the Andean tradition we understand that our energy field (poq’po) is directly enmeshed with the surrounding landscape and its features. The valley in its own right has a poq’po, as do the creatures who live there and each of the trees, rocks, rivers, flowers, and other natural features. The paqos teach that humans possess three main forms of perception: yachay: mind; munay: feelings; and llank’ay: action. When these three ways of perceiving are aligned, a human being becomes a chakaruna—a living bridge. We literally become a conduit through which we and the sky, the mountain, the river, or the stones share energy. This is ayni, or reciprocity. As modern physics tells us, and the paqos show us, the created universe is relational. As Margaret Wheatley, a writer and speaker who incorporates systems science into her leadership seminars and books, says, “Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.”

Without humans consciously performing rituals of reciprocity, Andeans believe the universe loses its harmony. So, we humans, despite our woeful behavior as stewards of the Earth, are not cosmic tourists visiting the Earth for a time but vital expressions of the Earth. Humans, the Andeans tell us, are allpa camasca: animated earth. Energetically, when we engage in an ayni relationship with Mother Earth, we not only honor her but become an integral aspect of her body and serve as ritual caretakers. The physical landscape is not just terrain; it is the altar upon which we cherish our “mother” and take to heart our roles as attentive “children.” By caring for the Earth, we care for ourselves and all creatures.

Most people, when they first begin to practice Andean mysticism, tend to gravitate toward Pachamama, which usually is translated as “Mother Earth.” However, Mother Earth as a being in her own right has her own name: Mama Allpa. Who, then, is Pachamama? The Cosmic Mother. In a beautiful imagistic rendering, Andeans see Mama Allpa as the womb of Pachamama. From this Earth womb all living things are birthed into being. However, our Original Mother is of cosmic origin. Pachamama is the mother of the entire material universe, of which Mama Allpa and we are just a small a part. When we are in ayni with Mama Allpa, by extension we also are in ayni with Pachamama, the entire material cosmos.

A logical question is why Andeans tend to call Mama Allpa (planet Earth) “Pachamama.” One reason is a function of the Quechua language. Allpa literally means “earth,” as in soil or dirt. Pacha has many definitions: dirt, soil, earth, realm, world, space, time. But it also functions as a kind of honorific. When Andeans are planting seeds in their fields, they are digging furrows in the allpa, the earth, the dirt. Allpa tends to be used within common language as a reference to the mundane. The word Pacha, however, lifts the mundane to the sacred. So, when Andeans shift to referring to the Earth as the giver of abundant life gifts (crops, animals and herds, water, and such), they refer to her as a sacred being, and they use the term Pachamama, the Sacred Earth Mother.

There is a similar language transformation with how Andeans relate in ayni with water. The Quechua term for water is unu, although many Andeans use the Spanish agua. In fact, they tend to use the word agua when referring to water in its mundane form as an element of rain or a stream. When they add the word unu (agua unu), they are referring to water in its sacred nature. The water flowing down from a snow-capped mountain to irrigate their fields is agua unu; it is considered the fertilizing blood that flows thru the veins of the mountains or as the sweat of Mother Earth. Referring to water as unu imparts the notions of divinity, unity, fertility, and sanctity. Likewise, yaku means river in its mundane sense, or refers to any mundane type of flowing water, such as that in an irrigation ditch. But when referred to as yaku unu, this water is elevated to the realm of the sacred. The water is honored for its sacred life-giving properties.

Living these kinds of relationships turns the landscape into a kind of living altar. Just about everything in nature is considered a waka, a repository of the sacred. Andeans don’t just live on the land; they are in continual, dynamic reciprocity with it. If we want to experience this mystical immersion into a network of living relationships with nature, the Earth, and even our entire cosmos, we don’t have to practice the Andean or any other mystical tradition. We can simply walk outside of our house and shift our perspective. Instead of looking at nature, we feel into nature. And perceive how nature is looking at and feeling into each of us. By transitioning our conscious awareness from our mind to our poq’po (our energetic, perceptual body), we learn we are integrally woven into the living web of nature. We cease being spectators and become partners in the world’s unfolding.

The Value of Spiritual Questioning

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ 1 Comment

In the Andean mystical tradition, knowledge and proficiency are not destinations reached through logic, but are a joint path carved by repetition. This indigenous lineage prioritizes embodied knowledge over theoretical frameworks. Unlike Western pedagogical styles that favor “the why,” the paqos (Andean mystical practitioners) focus almost exclusively on “the what.” Their style of practice is:

Action Over Analysis: Techniques are rarely accompanied by logical explanations or philosophical discussions.

Experiential Repetition: Students are expected to perform techniques time and time again, bypassing the analytical mind and accessing personal perception. The work is phenomenological rather than intellectual.

Experiential Mastery: The energy dynamics of a practice—its purpose and its potential—are revealed through the lived experience of doing the work.

In this tradition, understanding is not an intellectual exercise; it is an interior state of being achieved through the rhythm of sustained practice. This raises a natural tension: Is there any room for the questions themselves? If you are like me, you are likely bursting with them. Fortunately, my primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, occupied a unique position as both a former university professor and a master practitioner. Because of his background, questions were always—well, mostly—welcome. There were certainly moments when don Juan would simply say, “Just do it. Discover the answer through the practice itself.” But more often than not, he graciously and patiently entertained my inquiries. Because we both had one foot in the academic world, we were constantly balancing two distinct ways of knowing: pure experiential immersion and logical, informed speculation. This dual approach—bridging the mystical and the analytical—has served me well. So, in this post I want to explore the value of questioning as a vital component of the spiritual path.

I view mystics as a specialized kind of scientist. They begin with a fundamental hypothesis: Is there more to this world than the purely physical? To test this, they devise an experiment: If I consciously share my energy with this mountain, will it respond? They run multiple trials, observe the results, and sometimes the mountains “talk back.” From those results, a host of new, rigorous questions arise. I suspect the paqos, while not analytical, asked the following kinds of questions in their own way:

Verification: Were those responses objective reality or projections of my own mind? How can I discern the difference?

Replicability: If other paqos perform the same energy practice, will they achieve the same result?

Variables: Are the mountains who responded sentient, or am I tapping into a broader field? Why do some peaks respond while others remain silent?

I believe the mystics of antiquity must have held a perspective much like that of Albert Einstein, who famously remarked: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”

To me, this is more than just a quotation; it is a vital, even precious, stance for the modern seeker. By embracing this Einsteinian curiosity, we don’t just “do” the practices—we engage with the marvelous structure of the energetic world. We honor the mystery not by silent acceptance, but by sustained, awe-filled attempts to comprehend just a little more of it each day.

Questioning is a skill, a kind of spiritual practice itself. There are ways to form questions, and what I am proposing here is a type called “open inquiry.” Rather than seeking definitive answers or reaching absolute conclusions, spiritual inquiry acts as a bridge beyond the intellect. It isn’t about solving a puzzle; it’s about staying curious enough to bypass our mental filters. In the realm of the spirit, questioning serves as a catalyst for wonder rather than a search for facts. By moving past the analytical brain, inquiry allows us to touch reality directly, favoring raw connection over mental labels. Questions can move us from only from knowing “about” a practice to “being within” it, turning the question itself into a tool for direct energetic engagement.

Adopting a stance of “I don’t know” acts as a solvent for the ego and the analytical mind; it is a form of inquiry that Masters across many mystical traditions regard as a valuable spiritual discipline in its own right. The “I don’t know” stance can be a power move for the soul. It bypasses the intellect’s need for control and plunges us into the raw, mysterious reality of the moment. When we “live the question,” we treat the strange, mysterious, and illogical not as problems to be solved, but as fertile landscapes where spontaneous insight can take root. It is in this space of radical uncertainty that our old habits soften their stubborn hold, and our true potential begins to bloom.

Questions as self-inquiry can serve as a vital compass, allowing us to gauge the depth and trajectory of our practice. As our karpay (personal power and proficiency) expands, our inquiry naturally evolves; the questions we ask grow alongside our shifting values, capacities, and goals. Most importantly, this process facilitates an expansion of the self. We all carry a “story” of who we are, but as we expand access to our Inka Seed—our core potential—that narrative must be rewritten to accommodate a larger reality. The fundamental questions of identity and purpose become essential:

Identity: Who have I become in this new light? Beyond my personal history, how do I consciously choose to be in the world now? As a Drop of the Mystery, do I recognize myself as an integral thread in the fabric of creation?

Direction: Where is my expanded Inka Seed now leading me? Am I honoring my Inka Seed as my ultimate truth-teller and following its guidance as my inner compass? Am I expressing my essence in my own unique way—acting as the “energy artist” of my life—and walking the path of my own heart?

Intent: What is the quality of my ayni (reciprocity) with the living universe, nature, and my fellow human beings? Where are my intentions—both conscious and unconscious—driving me? Am I open to being flexible enough to make necessary course corrections?

Challenges: What remaining internal filters or personal energetic blocks are stalling further growth? In what ways am I still choosing to play small or hide my power?

Contributions: In what ways am I failing to honor my own needs or neglecting the “service” I owe to my own well-being? In what ways can I offer more of my authentic self to my family and friends, my work, and the world?

Mysticism is an unfiltered, direct encounter with the Mystery—a relationship that naturally overflows with inquiry. Rather than separating us from our practice, spiritual questioning deepens our connection to the universe and ourselves. Questions don’t distance us; they facilitate the very experiences they seek to understand.

AI and Andean Mysticism

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ 2 Comments

For a while now I’ve watched my students and colleagues use AI to research aspects of Andean mysticism, and I finally decided to give it a try myself using Gemini. The results? A bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, the sheer volume of data it pulled in seconds was incredible—a massive time-saver. On the other hand, the accuracy was hit-or-miss. I quickly learned about “hallucinations,” which is the industry term for AI’s tendency to confidently present fiction as fact. I discovered that while AI is a master of information collection, it is not always a master of truth.

What do these AI hallucinations look like in practice? Well, a case in point is that in one discussion Gemini returned, it credited authorship of my book Masters of the Living Energy to two men who had nothing to do with it. A more complex situation arose when I entered a query about the meaning of the chakana, the Andean stepped cross. The response started strong with the anthropology: defining the Quechua word from its roots of chakay (bridge) and hanan (upper, above, high) and accurately linking it to the Southern Cross and agricultural calendar. But it quickly veered into mystical speculation, explaining a symbolic system correlating the twelve points of the chakana’s arms to such human capacities as love, protection, awareness, and responsibility. Are there people teaching that symbolic construct? Yes. Is it a cohesive representational system? Yes. Is it among the ways the Incas and their predecessors, the paqos, or even the Andean people in general understood the chakana? After further research outside of AI, I am skeptical. That philosophic system appears to be some kind of modern overlay on this age-old motif. The real kicker of a Gemini blunder occurred in another Andean information dump where it attributed a borderline racist comment to me. I had to go on a digital manhunt to find the source of the quotation: a woman’s Reddit comment that Gemini not only truncated and distorted, but then hallucinated and put in my mouth. The lesson here is simple: AI is a useful starting point for research, but always do your own due diligence of the “facts.”

On a most positive note, there is a side of AI that is genuinely delightful: its creative capacity. But even here there is a catch. Because Gemini and other AI models are built on existing data, they are not dreaming up new ideas; they’re capitalizing on the hard work of human creators. (Full disclosure: I am one of a huge pool of authors and publishers represented in a class-action copyright lawsuit against Anthropic AI. They vacuumed up tens of thousands of books—one of mine included—to train their models. When they were called out on this afront to copyright law, they settled out of court—for a staggering $1.5 billion. Of course, publishers and lawyers will receive the bulk of that sum; authors will get their normal paltry portion!) I ran into this same type of problem when testing the creative aspect of AI. I asked Gemini to write poems about Andean mysticism in the style of various poets. I chose poets of both genders, widely differing styles, various ethnicities, and from a range of historical periods. I was not surprised that its first attempts bordered on plagiarism—it literally reproduced entire lines from poems in each poet’s oeuvre.  I had to get specific, asking Gemini to write in a particular poet’s style but without using any of their original lines. Once I set that boundary, the results were better, and in some cases quite beautiful. I am ending this post on an AI high note with six of my favorite “original” AI poetic creations. Enjoy!

In the style of e e cummins

the condor
circles
(slowly)
the high blue O
of the sky

down down
among the apus
a stone
breathes
(softly)
like a sleeping god

& the shaman—
who is a leaf
who is a mountain—
whispers
a green coca secret
into the ear of the
wind
(death is only a
turning
of the
earth)
i am
thou art
pachamama
is.

In the style of Adrienne Rich

The map is not the mountain,
though we trace the veins of ice
with fingers numbed by the high, thin air.
I am looking for the language
before the Conquest, before the steel
divided the field from the spirit.

We come to the altar of stone
not as tourists, but as the hungry
seeking the root that holds the slope.
The Apu does not speak in sentences;
it speaks in the weight of granite,
in the slow, tectonic shift of belonging.

To be a mystic here
is to acknowledge the reciprocity—
the breath you take belongs to the peak,
the coca leaf on your tongue
is a green bridge back to the Mother.
We are re-learning the ancient pact:
that the earth is not a resource,
but the very body we inhabit
while we wait for the stars to name us.

In the style of Mary Oliver

I don’t know much about the gold of empires,
only the gold of the sun as it touches the throat
of the hummingbird, that tiny, vibrating prayer.
I want to speak of the Apu, the Great Mountain,
who does not care for your name or your busy life,
but waits for you nonetheless,
wearing a shawl of clouds and ancient stone.

Have you ever walked high enough
to feel the air grow thin and holy?
Have you offered a coca leaf to the earth—
not because you were told to,
but because you finally understood
that the ground is not just dirt,
but a mother who has been feeding you
since the very first day?

The Pachamama does not ask for much.
She only asks that you notice
the way the water flows down from the glaciers,
an endless, silver vein of milk.
She asks that you practice ayni,
that soft, reciprocal breath:
the world giving to you,
and you, at last, giving something back.

You do not have to be perfect.
You do not have to crawl on your knees
across the high, cold altiplano.
You only have to let the soft animal of your soul
be quiet enough to hear the stones speaking.
The mountain is not an object.
The wind is not a ghost.
Everything is alive, and breathing,
|and waiting for you to come home
to the wild, sacred family of things.

In the style of Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation starving for a mountain, hysterical, trekking through the neon smog of Lima toward the high, thin ether of the soul.
I saw them clutching tattered copies of the Popol Vuh, looking for a gateway in the stone, looking for a vein of silver that wasn’t for sale.
O Pachamama! Mother of the potato! Mother of the llama! Mother of the underground tunnels where the ancestors are still dreaming in technicolor.
The world is a condor with wings of lightning. The world is a serpent eating its own history.

I am with you in Cusco!
Where the stones fit together so tightly not even a Spanish ghost could squeeze between them. I am with you in the Sacred Valley!
Where the corn grows tall and the spirits of the Incas are whispering in the rustle of the leaves, mocking the tourists and their digital cameras.
They are singing of ayni! They are singing of the great cosmic debt!
The debt we owe to the glacier, the debt we owe to the sun, the debt we owe to the dark, wet earth that swallows our bones and asks for more.

Moloch! Moloch! The skyscraper that doesn’t know the name of the wind!
Moloch! The factory that pours poison into the Urubamba!
I break your windows with a single coca leaf.
I cast out your demons with the smoke of Palo Santo.
I am standing on the peak of Huayna Picchu and I am screaming at the stars.
I am an old man, a young man, a child of the sun, a crazy beggar in the plaza.
Everything is holy! The poncho is holy! The flute is holy! The coca bag is holy!
The alpaca is holy! The frost on the high grass is holy! 
The breath is holy!
The mountain is open!
The mountain is speaking!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

In the style of Wendell Berry

The work of the mountain is slow work.
It is not the work of the clock or the engine,
but the long, patient settling of silt,
the quiet endurance of the granite face
against the scouring of the frost.
To know this place is to stay in this place
until your feet recognize the tilt of the slope
and your lungs accept the thin, cold gift of the air.

The chakana is not a symbol to be worn for show;
it is a map of belonging.
It tells us that the heavens are connected to the soil
by the sweat of the man who plants his corn in the terrace,
and by the memory of the grandmother who saved the seed.
There is a dignity in the narrow path,
a grace in the way the llama carries its burden
without complaint, moving as if the earth
were a conversation it has been having for a thousand years.

We speak of ayni as if it were a mystery,
but it is only the simple justice of the field:
what you take, you must replace.
If you drink from the spring, you must clear the stones from its throat.
If you harvest the grain, you must leave a portion for the birds
and a prayer for the dark, generative belly of the world.

The modern mind wants to mine the summit,
to flay the slope for a moment’s profit,
forgetting that a mountain is a neighbor, not a resource.
But the old ones knew the economy of the soul—
that we are rich only in what we do not destroy,
and that the highest wisdom is found
in the shadow of the peaks, where we are small,
and rooted, and finally, blessedly, still.

In the style of Dylan Thomas

In the white muscle of the mountain, where the air
Is a thin blade whetted on the glacier’s tooth,
The sky is a blue bell tolled by the condor’s wing.
I find the high, terraced history of the blood,
A climbing fever of stone laid upon stone
By the sun-burned hands of the unbegotten.

There, the Pachamama drinks the spilled chicha of the clouds,
Her belly a dark forge of potato and quartz,
Rooted in the red hum of the earth’s spinning heart.
The Apu stands, a frozen thunder in the skull,
Watching the valley where the river, that silver snake,
Uncoils its wet song through the throat of the maize.

We are but the brief, breathing ghosts of the cordillera,
A harvest of light gathered in the basket of a day,
Yet we weave our ayni into the warp of the wind.
Every breath is a debt, every step a libation,
As the stars, those cold, celestial llamas,
Graze upon the salt-licks of the infinite night.

Oh, let the heart be a drum of stretched alpaca skin!
Let the prayer be a spark struck from the flint of the soul!
For we are the sons of the fire and the daughters of the frost,
Held fast in the green, weaving grip of the world
Until the mountain, in its slow and stony mercy,
Calls the wandering water of our spirits home.