Venus and Her Lover

by Becca Tzigany

  The tall, bearded white-skinned Viracocha arrived at Lake Titicaca with his trident of lightning and golden ax. According to the myth, he gives Manco Capac an ax to establish a city for the mining region, and Manco Capac founds Cusco. He and his fellow Anunnaki/Sumerian/Viracocha gods proceed to impart not just metallurgy tools, but the practices of civilization, to the locals.

  While it seemed far-fetched to contemplate Sumerian mythology in the Americas, the common elements found in both places – in astronomy, mathematics, calendar-keeping, smelting procedures and artifacts, written cuneiform, and linguistics – belied at least contact between the Old and New Worlds or even a common origin of civilization, as Sitchen and others suggest.

  Gods from outer space? A slave-worker system established for humans (along Dominator Culture lines)? Our ancestry in the stars? Up here in the Andes, far above hustling humanity, all my academic notions of mythology were fanning out into the rarefied air. In the cold, clear night, the stars leaned down and whispered into my dreams.

  Machu Picchu, the Matrix

  In mythic terms the issue isn’t the end of the planet, but the further loss of this earth as a magical, mythical, imaginal realm. The issue is the growing poverty of imagination, the loss of tender connections to unseen things and to the felt sense of beauty all around.

  ~ Michael Meade

  In the Andean tradition, a place strong with spiritual energy is called a huaca. James and I, like so many visitors before us, felt Machu Picchu to be just such a power spot. La Plaza Sagrada (Sacred Plaza), true to its name, held us for quite a while. We loved the feeling there. I put my hands on an immense flat-topped boulder, sensing its use as an altar, as we eavesdropped on circulating tour guides explaining in different languages how El Templo de las Tres Ventanas, El Templo Principal, and a stone carved in the shape of the Southern Cross constellation related to the four directions, solstices, equinoxes, the sun, moon, and the Pleiades.

  Undoubtedly, Machu Picchu had been a ceremonial city, a religious center, a place to renew relationship with the Earth and the Heavens. Above the Plaza Sagrada, we studied the Intihuatana, the “hitching post of the sun” which was considered an astro-agricultural “clock.”

  Clouds began to creep up from the Amazon basin and were peeking over the eastern ring of mountains above Machu Picchu, so I suggested we head over to the agricultural terraces by the so-called Guardhouse.

  “That’s where we can take the classic Machu Picchu photo,” I told James.

  Looking across the site to the opposing hillside, James calculated how many stone staircases we would have to take to get there.

  “My knees are beginning to talk to me,” he explained, leaning against a wall. “Maybe it’s the thin air at this altitude...”

  “Come on! A pilgrimage is not necessarily easy,” I said, pulling on him.

  “I know... I want to see the view, too. Let’s go!” he said, invoking his Mars stamina.

  Up we climbed, past llamas grazing, and onto rock perches where we photographed ourselves with all of Machu Picchu glowing in sunlight. We pressed onward to the curving terraces and walked onto a level that was deserted of tourists. Sitting down on the grass, James and I gazed at the magnificent Incan city surrounded by spectacular verdant mountains, their crags assertively tall. Beyond them, snow-capped Andes stood even taller.

  “Would you like to do a ceremony here?” I asked James

  “Sure! I can’t imagine a more perfect place!” he replied enthusiastically. “It feels like we’re in an amphitheater here.”

  I unwrapped my medicine bundle – called a mesa in Andean shamanistic tradition – and set it upon the lawn: a locally-woven cloth, a small Incan chakana cross made of black serpentine and white stone, a bottle of river water James had scooped out of the Rio Grande, and a photograph of James’ painting, “Born Again,” which depicts Pachamama giving birth to the new Earth, assisted by Mars and Venus.

  “Becca, that cone-shaped mountain – what is it called?” James asked.

  “Huayna Picchu. It’s considered a sacred mountain.”

  “Yeah, that’s for sure,” he continued. “Do you notice the purple haze around it?”

  “Of course you’d see that – you and Jimi Hendrix!” I chided him, but looking up, I saw what he was talking about. In fact, all of Machu Picchu, backed up by Huayna Picchu, glowed in golden light while having a background aura that seemed purple.

  “What a mystical place this is!” he exclaimed.

  Our ritual space set, I began with invocations. On a solitary hike the previous day, I had asked permission of the local spirits for us to be there, so I felt ready to now work with them. “We call forth the guides of Venus and Her Lover, the spirits of Machu Picchu, and the apu [nature spirit] of this mountain. We call upon the forces of Love and Warriorship – Venus and Mars. We invoke Pachamama... please hear us!”

  Pouring New Mexican cornmeal into James’ and my hands, I said, “We offer you corn from our land, the Land of the Eagle, to feed you as you have fed us.” James and I cast cornmeal onto the cloth and around it on the ground.

  Sprinkling water from a bottle, I said, “We offer you the water of life from the Rio Grande, to soothe you and mix with the Río Valcanota below us.”

  Then we both distributed coca leaves on the altar cloth and around. “We offer you coca, the sacred plant of these Andes.

  “We honor you, Pachamama, our beloved Earth Mother, and thank you for all you give us, all the ways you feed us. We ask that you support us manifesting Venus and Her Lover in the world.” I then fell silent, wanting to listen meditatively.

  “Wow!” James’ shout gave me a start. “I see it! I see it!”

  “Shhhh! Can’t you see I’m in prayer?” I shushed him.

  “Look, Becca, look!” he insisted.

  My eyelids flew open and scanned Machu Picchu. “What? What do you see?” I asked.

  “It’s so damn obvious, but I don’t recall ever having heard of it before. Look – from behind us on the left, to around behind that cone mountain...”

  “Huayna Picchu.” I filled in the blank.

  “Huayna Picchu, to over here on the right, the mountains are in the shape of what?”

  “It’s a ring of mountains, like the rim of a bowl?” I ventured.

  “Like a cauldron, Becca, which is symbolic of...”

  “The Feminine,” I confirmed.

  James continued his thought, “And rising up in the center – that sacred mountain...”

  “Huayna Picchu.”

  “Huayna Picchu is a phallic shape pointing up to the sky. A lingam, symbolic of...”

  “The Masculine!” I declared.

  James went on. “What an amazing example in Nature of the balance of the Feminine and the Masculine! Look! It’s the Creatress, holding the Creator... the male supported by and emerging from the female... not the other way around like in Western mythology. Machu Picchu – the city itself is like the matrix – the Creatrix – that runs from the back side of the cauldron where we’re sitting to the linga of Huayna Picchu. People were living here in a harmonious balance of natural forces.”

  “Sacred geography,” I observed.

  “The river far below,” James went on, “loops around it all... waters of life, like you said. And here, in our amphitheater... maybe it wasn’t for agriculture at all! Maybe the indigenous people came up here to behold the whole scene, like we are now, and feel the harmony of the masculine and feminine forces of Nature. Or if they were growing crops here, they would have made love to increase the fertility of the soil. Can you imagine making love up here under the moon and the stars? Or under the sun, for that matter?!” James pulled me over to him, allowing his hand to reach under my shirt and stroke my bare back.

  I giggled at his touch. “See, James, why you had to come on this trip? A pilgrimage is so mysteri
ous – we thought this was for me, but it’s you who had the revelation!”

  “You got me here, Becca,” he countered. “It took both of us – woman and man – to be sitting in this spot right now. It’s amazing – twenty feet to the left or right of this spot and the mountains don’t blend into a rim. You only get the cauldron perspective right here. And we sat ourselves down right here.” James leaned over to kiss me. Our lips rejoiced in the magic of the moment.

  “Let’s conclude our ceremony,” I said. Standing up with the woven mesa cloth in our hands, we released its contents – the cornmeal and coca leaves – to the four winds.

  James announced, “Here’s to the harmonious relationship of the Feminine and the Masculine! Peace on Earth! May the balance be restored!”

  I chimed in, “Thank you, Pachamama, for supporting our family and our work! May our offerings, like Venus and Her Lover, bring peace and pleasure wherever they land!”

  The wind fluttered the coca leaves across the green terraced hillside and out of sight, but not out of mind.

  James took the afternoon bus down the mountain, but I hiked until sunset, with the site pretty much to myself, until guards shooed the last tourists toward the entrance.

  Vizcachas, little creatures that looked like mini-kangaroos the size of rabbits or squirrels, scampered after one another through the stone monuments, standing up on hind legs to watch me go by. I walked the ancient rock steps, each footfall a caress of Pachamama. From my feet up, I felt reverence for the Earth Mother who held us all.

  Paqo in Training

  Once back in Cusco, I wanted to visit a string of ancient sites above the city. Leaving James in our hostel to rest, I took a local bus eleven kilometers out of town to alight at Tambo Machay, the old Incan imperial baths. Though the green countryside was bathed in warm sunshine, the air felt fresh here at 3800 meters (12,460 feet). On my way to the next ruins, I stopped to behold the view. The glaciers of Mt. Ausangate (6370 meters; 20,900 feet) gleamed white in the distance. The nearest mountainsides were terraced, with llamas grazing on some.

  “Hola, amiga,” a young man greeted me in Spanish. “Do you know when the new moon is?”

  “Why, yes,” I replied in Spanish. “It was last night. We’re still under its influence.”

  His deep brown eyes smiled before his mouth did. “You know the phases of the moon,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I saw you at Tambo Machay. Mystic people recognize each other.”

  He told me his name was Fredy and his nickname was Viracocha. Gazing into his eyes, I was disarmed by the sincerity and gentleness I saw there. He was right. In spite of his appearance – tousled black hair, wisps of a mustache, a bulky grey sweater, and a student’s backpack – he did have the heart of a mystic. So in spite of what I’d heard – that a lone woman on this road could be accosted – I felt like I could trust him. We walked together to the next site, Puca Pucara, where we sat among the sculpted red stones of its walls.

  I took my water bottle out of my pack and offered him a drink. He tilted the open bottle, splashing water on the ground. In response to my initial alarm, he said, “First to Pachamama, our mother.” In fact, he had only spilled a few drops. “People today forget who feeds them. It is Pachamama, and we must honor her. It makes her sad when we forget her.”

  Fredy told me that he was a jamies, a paqo in training. A paqo is a curandero (healer), “Earth keeper” or shaman in the Andean tradition. When he was a child, his grandfather had recognized his spiritual destiny, but it did not mean much to Fredy then. It was only after surviving a difficult childhood that he remembered his grandfather’s words. Since Fredy’s father had died in an accident when he was a child, and his mother had subsequently been beaten to death by his stepfather, he had been raised by an uncle and aunt. As a teenager, he had gotten sick and nearly died. In his illness, he realized that he had to face his destiny, or he might not survive.

  “My uncle was still connected to the old ways,” Fredy Viracocha said, “and helped me recover my health through traditional medicine. When I got better, I started studying herbs, how they heal, and then began my spiritual training with a paqo. My illness saved my life by almost killing me! They showed me the way to becoming a paqo.” In the Andean tradition, a paqo was initiated not so much because of the studies he had completed but as an induction into the process. While giving guidance, elders nonetheless understood that each initiate must make his own discoveries.

  A question occurred to me. “Your uncle... your family... you speak Quechua together?”

  “Of course, it’s our language,” he replied. I understood that Spanish was a second language for both of us.

  “Viracocha, what is your work?”

  “I am learning to be a paqo,” he replied.

  That was work that surely did not pay, so I asked, “Do you also work as a guide, like to these ruins?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but only for spiritual tourism.”

  “Well, I’d like to hire you, Fredy, but the truth is I spent all my money on the combination ticket for these ruins. It was more expensive than I’d thought, and I left the rest of my money in my hostel...” I almost went on to say because I was told there were thieves around here, but said instead, “But I do intend to visit the ruins all the way to Sacsayhuamán, and I am looking for the right place to do ceremony. I want to make offerings to Pachamama.”

  Fredy’s boyish face lit up with a white-toothed grin. He stood up, saying, “Let’s walk then. Let’s just walk.”

  We walked through meadows of wildflowers: little yellow and purple snap dragons and black-eyed Susans. Sometimes we would interrupt our conversation to pick a weed or smell some leaves, as he described their medicinal uses to me. We ambled past adobe mud houses with thatched roofs, past runny-nosed children begging for money or chasing the family pigs. Several horses lifted their heads to watch us pass and then resumed their grass chomping.

  As we walked we talked about our different spiritual paths. He explained to me the concept of kawsay, the energy that animates everything in the Universe. Everything: every creature, every tree, every rock, every mountain, every star... everything was alive! I thought of how alike was the kawsay of the Andeans, the ch’i (qi) of the Orientals, the prana of the Hindu yogis, and the mana of the Hawaiians. They all spoke of the vitalizing power of the breath, the flow, the life force. Sumak kawsay is the concept of “good living,” meaning, living in such a way that everyone thrives: people, communities, and Nature. The way Fredy Viracocha spoke of living beings also gave me the impression he thought they had consciousness. He talked about Apu Ausangate like the mountain was a person!

  In addition, he often mentioned ayni. “When we receive, we must give. When we give, we must receive.” Ayni is basically the principle of exchange and reciprocity. We were always in ayni with Pachamama, whether we chose to acknowledge our relationship with her or not, because she was an expression of kawsay, and so were we, and we could never do anything outside the Universe of living energy. We could only choose the quality of the relationship we would have with other beings.

  The Inca Empire fell, according to this view, because the leaders did not act with ayni (reciprocal relationship). When two Inca brothers, Atahualpa and Huascar, fought each other for the emperor’s throne, civil war broke out in Tawantinsuyu. Their rivalry so weakened the vast empire that when the Spanish conquistadores arrived, they conquered it with relative ease. Some believed the Inca emperors would return from the Lower World where they now dwell, once they had redeemed themselves by teaching others there ayni.

  “The people have forgotten to act with ayni,” Fredy lamented. “That’s what’s happening to Pachamama.”

  “What do your teachers say is happening to Pachamama?” I asked.

  Fredy’s face grew sober. “They say she is dying.”

  “Maybe the human race will die off,” I said, “but don’t
you think Pachamama will survive?”

  “We put chemicals into the soil, her flesh, that kill the creatures there, we put smoke in the air, her breath, that makes it hard to breathe, we pollute the water, her blood, and that kills its spirit! We all live on Pachamama. We are the cells of her body. The paqos tell me that Pachamama is dying,” Fredy said.

  This young paqo was portraying the Gaia hypothesis, the theory, named after the Greek Earth Goddess, that the Earth was one living organism, an intricate web of animate and so-called “inanimate” parts. What we did to one part we did to the whole. Plainly, modern ecological thought was bearing this out.

  “It’s up to us to save her,” I responded. “We have to heal ourselves, to help her heal. Each one of us has a part to play, and we can help each other... like the ayni between you and me right now.” We both smiled.

  Beneath a pyramid-shaped mound, at K’usilluchayoq/Lanlaquyoq, there is the Templo de la Luna, the Temple of the Moon. Fredy led me into a cave, with carvings of serpents at the entrance, guardians of the Lower World. Then he left me there to do my meditation. Thin shafts of light entered the cave from above, where ancient temple tenders had opened small holes in the earth, allowing enough light for me to distinguish a broad, flat rock against one wall – obviously an altar – and other carved flat niches in the cave. Inside it was damp from water oozing on one wall, and it smelled of resinous incense. There was a natural cleft in the rock that opened into the shape of a yoni; someone had placed a red carnation where the clitoris would be. Dark water streaks outlined the yoni even in the shadows. I felt myself at the womb of the Earth and meditated there.

  When I emerged from my meditation in the cave, Fredy walked us to the base of nearby cliffs, where he said paqos from all over South America came to pray. We agreed to co-participate in a ritual.