I went to the top - well, to the top from where I am standing in this photo - up to where there are minuscule human forms to be seen. It took us close to four hours to get all the way down the mountain - including a lovely picnic lunch - and I have to say ...I am grateful that we came up to the Temple of the Sun in Pisaq not by foot but by taxi and our walk was downwards all the way - after we had made it to the top of this photo.
Temples are transition points between this world (us), the upper world (higher powers) and the lower world, the world we enter after death (and please don't forget, in this case 'lower world' does not mean eternal damnation and hell, it is just where everyone goes and it is ok!)
View from one of the houses on the way to the top - down there is a minute part of the long road we drove in the taxi to get to the top.
And just to make sure that nobody doubts it, I really was there!
Another transition place - Valerio took me off the beaten track to show me a different kind of beauty. It was immense - I have never in my life been up this high, as a matter of fact I shun heights if I can, don't even like flying. In this case ....there was nowhere to go but down and I had to be aware and in control of my inner wish to run away - however since there was nowhere to run but down we proceeded at a sane and careful pace.
The view through layers and layers of windows, notice the fields over on the other mountain, these are not fields worked with machinery, these are fields worked with bend backs and hours of stubborn intent to feed the family and make a living.
And at this point I stood close to the wall behind me and took the photo.
I need to say ..... I was not forced or in any way cohersed to come up to this amazing temple or to do this track, it was suggested and I said yes, please - I was feeling my emotions very clearly through and through -
there were times on the way down where the beauty was as immense and breathtaking as some of the days when I crossed the Atlantic Ocean on Sørlandet with my husband and a whole bunch of teenagers a couple of years ago. Standing in the galley peeling potatoes, chopping carrots or putting together a bread dough for ten loaves of bread, looking up and seeing the pristine beauty of rolling swells, perhaps a flying fish -
It feels funny but my inside, head and heart at times were filled with that same sensation in the middle of the Andes Mountains, up high - how lucky, fortunate, grateful can a person be - it is a gift to be filled with such opposite emotions of awe,reluctance, inspiration and connection to mother earth (patchamama) all at the same time.
And I couldn't find the swells but ....here is a sunup in the middle of .... The Atlantic Ocean.
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