Peru: Finding Connection & Community in the Andean Village of Huilloc
“Now is the time to know that all that you do is sacred… now is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but grace” – Hafiz
In an earlier post describing my adventure to Machu Picchu, I said this about the Sacred Valley:
From my journal:
10/22 – 8:45 PM CST – Monday
“Day 11 of our Peruvian adventure… so much has happened…
So again, of all of the places I’ve been, the Sacred Valley is one of THE most profound places next to Angkor Wat. Like Angkor Wat, I want to live here. No surprise that I connect with these ancient places. I wonder if I would feel the same type of connection if I went to visit Egypt, Iraq, Jordan or Jerusalem? Or say, the Yucatan peninsula?
Maybe I was meant to come to these places because I have some past connection in a past life or I am meant to make some new connection and share what I find with the world...
Regardless, Peru, like Cambodia, has left a profound impression on me. I feel as though I belong here. Especially in the Sacred Valley. It really felt like home. And the Incan technology, up close is incredibly impressive:
The terraces
The engineering
The astronomy
The understanding & connection to the natural world…”
Part of the reason The Sacred Valley had made such an impression on me because of what I experienced in Huilloc. On that day, like every day, over breakfast, I would re-read through what the daily itinerary way. Here is what it said about Huilloc:
10/18: The Sacred Valley of the Incas
Huilloc is specifically outstanding for its charming textiles with genuine designs. It sits at 11,480 feet above sea level and is part of the network of weaving communities in the region of Cusco. From their ancestors, the people of Huilloc inherited a rich tradition of textiles that they still carry on. They continue to weave a range of textiles following the knowledge, techniques and usages of their ancestors. The women have preserved this unique and ancestral tradition of weaving by hand colorful designs. On their looms, they make some of the most beautiful and exquisite weavings in Peru. In the textiles, they depict images of the world in which they live including the flora and fauna of the place. They weave into the cloth images of cougars, condors and the huallata (wall-ya’h-tah) birds that are typical of the place. The bird is so important that people perform a dance in their honor that is much celebrated in Cusco in its different festivities. The dance, like the bird, is called huallata. In contrast, men dedicate themselves to helping Mother Earth produce.
Part of what we wanted from our Peruvian adventure was to have authentic, immersive experiences with the indigenous people. Opportunities to meet people who have lived there for 100’s of years, to ask questions about their lifestyle, their culture and their beliefs, have conversations and experience unique moments and travel to places beyond the typical tourist attractions & monuments.
This is not uncommon for me. I’ve done this my whole life. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you’ve spent a night with me on the streets of Kuala Lumpur interviewing people and taking photographs. Or spent the day with me as I drove around with a devout Muslim taxi driver in Kuala Lumpur showing me the sights while having conversations about life, politics and our beliefs in God. You’ve visited a fishing village in the middle of Tonle Lake in Cambodia to see an elementary school and what real-life refugee living is like. I have hundreds of these experiences written down in my journal, big & small.
Peru would be no different. It’s how we ended up in the small village of Huilloc. A small community of Peruvians who speak Quechua, 12,000’ up the Andean mountains at the end of a narrow, dead-end dirt road. They decided to open up their homes and their hearts to people around the world, like us, who are willing to come and learn more about their culture and their way of life. My goal is to share my adventure with them in hopes that other people will look for their own connections with different people around the world too…
I encourage you to watch a video they have put out about their village: https://vimeo.com/130581936
We arrived in the village of Huilloc shortly before noon. It was just Kristin, me and our guide, Alfredo, who actually spoke Quechua, which really made it easy for us to have conversations with people that we met. Alfredo was telling us that not everyone who comes up here speaks Quechua, which must make for a very interesting experience… I can tell you, no one spoke English and I’m not sure anyone we spoke to, spoke Spanish either.
Everyone was dressed in brightly colorful poncho-like shawls & sweaters… lots of oranges mixed with lots of other colors and the hats!!! And so many beautifully designed geometric shapes, some with animals. Were told that each village has a unique color and set of patterns associated with them, so all of the locals and neighboring communities know who everyone is and which village everyone comes from. They actually gave Kristin and I shawls and hats to wear while we were there as part of the immersive experience.
The first thing they did was bring us into a room to make introductions to women in the town who had organized our visit and to serve us a traditional Huilloc lunch. The lunch was a combination of coca tea, rice, beans and corn. The food was so different from what I was used to… both in taste and texture. Very interesting… They later brought it outside while we participated in the dance so that we could continue to eat.
We then were escorted outside to participate in a dance. Like the itinerary described, our guide confirmed that it was a ceremonial bird dance of some kind, Birds play an important role in their culture and that people perform several different dances in their honor. After they demonstrated it for us, the invited us to participate in the huallata dance, which is name after the bird it honors. You can watch :45 seconds of us dance below.
After the dance, we walked through the community, Kristin with the women, me with the men. The women were showing Kristin how to sew…
The men showed me how to farm the land. They let me use one of the tools the ancient Incas would have used to farms all of the terraces surrounding the village. Alfredo explained to me the close connection the entire village has to Mother Earth or Pachamama. In fact, as we tilled a small plot of land, we stopped to make a small offering to Pachamama for success and good fortune. They places cloves & coca leaves in an orange, buried it in the ground and said a prayer. I have included a few pictures of the ceremony and the actual orange offering being buried into the ground.
Later I looked up more details on Pachamama on the internet and this was Wikipedia’s summary:
“Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess, who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own creative power to sustain life on this earth. Her shrines are hallowed rocks, or the boles of legendary trees, and artists envision her as an adult female bearing harvests of potatoes and coca leaves.
The four cosmological Quechua principles – Water, Earth, Sun, and Moon – claim Pachamama as their prime origin. Pachamama is the mother of Inti the sun god and Mama Killa the moon goddess. Pachamama is said also be the wife of Inti, her son.
…As Andean cultures formed modern nations, the figure of Pachamama was still believed to be benevolent, generous with her gifts, and a local name for Mother Nature. In the 21st century, many indigenous peoples in South America base environmental concerns in these ancient beliefs, saying that problems arise when people take too much from nature because they are taking too much from Pachamama.”
As I stood there, listening to Alfredo explain Pachamama to me, the village’s connection and candidly, it’s dependency on the Earth, and looking at the Inca terraces that have been standing for over 500 years off of these steep cliffs, still farming…
And then juxtaposing it place in modern society… it may seem so far removed from it, but in reality, it’s connected more than it may first appear… you can see all of the satellite dishes on the homes, the modern clothes underneath the traditional clothing, even this village reaching out to the world and offering itself as a tourist and cultural center… I mean, it does has a video promoting itself on vimeo!
So many thoughts raced through my mind about our purpose for existence.
Why does all of this around us, life, exist? And I wondered, “what significance or purpose does the interconnectedness & intersection of history, cultures, beliefs, ideas and this specific group of people in Huilloc serve at this moment? Literally, me + kristin + Alfredo + the Huilloc village people I talked to for a few hours about life and their beliefs…
I believe it serves some connection. Connection is a central theme of my life… of everyone’s life.
Connecting with ourselves, each other & with nature around us. There is deep meaning in authentic connection. It’s realizing it; knowing when the connections that are meaningful and being present in that moment. Letting the ego go. The ego is the illusion. Any time we can go beyond the illusion and make the authentic connection we are free. These types of experiences offer us that kind of freedom.
Connection is life itself. Connection is our living energy, the soul, the consciousness in all things.
Connection is everywhere, in every living thing, all the time, at the same time.
Love is the essence of connection.
Everything and everyone is one with Love and Love is one with us.
Therefore, we are all one with one another & everything.
Find Connection.
Find Love.