When Don Américo indicated we should track down Zorro because he was the best, I thought he was kidding. Even though it was February, we hoped to find a good selection from which to choose some souvenirs. Local artisans labor the entire year to produce enough masks to satisfy the demand during the festivities. Indeed, in the days after the conquistadors came to Peru, donning a mask was one of the few ways the brujas and paq’os, sorcerers and medicine women and men, could come out of isolation, mix with their people and have some measure of protection against being tortured and killed.
Over countless years, the celebration had become a syncretistic diversion from an often difficult existence for those who live in the mountains.Ī dancer isn’t complete without a mask, signifying a particular persona out of the many folkloric characters. Each July, thousands of Quechua Indians descend upon this small burg where no conventional lodging exists, to find shelter somewhere in order to take part in the traditional dances whose origins stretch back centuries to the times when Catholicism was introduced. Paucartambo was known for the Festival of the Virgin of Carmen. We still had at least an hour to go, depending on the conditions of the road, or as he had already intimated, if the mountain hadn’t “fallen down.” Having already experienced the circumstances of the route we had thus far driven, and knowing from previous trips it would not at all improve, I was happy to put my feet on the ground for a while and stretch my legs. We had paused on the way to Salk’a Wasi, Don Américo’s ancestral home located several hours outside Cusco. We were in Paucartambo, a place barely large enough to be called a town. The man said a few sentences in Quechua, gesturing in such a way that I realized we were to go over a few streets. “Holding nothing back means holding the intention to be an open vessel, in a daily way.” Here is his passionate call to each of us to find and befriend the quiet courage to bring all of who we are to every step we take through the miraculous world.Įxcerpted from the full-length audio program Staying Awake.“Zorro?” Don Américo inquired of a passerby. “To hold nothing back means staying committed to letting whatever we experience make its way in and letting whatever is in make its way out,” explains Nepo. The Mystery of Transformation-staying true to the spirit within while the person carrying it keeps evolving.
Alone and Together-the paradox of being and belonging and how we need both solitude and community.
The Fall into Life-our inevitable journey into what is real, and how we only find meaning through relationship.
Our reward is nothing less than the realization that “all of life is in whatever moment we wake to.” Holding Nothing Back illuminates: In Holding Nothing Back, Mark Nepo invites us to enliven the one obligation we are born with: to be completely who you are. As such, holding nothing back is less a forceful act of will and more a surrender into the current of life we are always in. A Poet's Guidance for the Practice of True Self-ExpressionĪll spiritual traditions affirm that fully participating in our own life is what allows us to find our place in the fullness and beauty of the world.
0 kommentar(er)
