Before the first stone of Machu Picchu was laid, before the Spanish galleons touched the shores of Tawantinsuyu, there was Pachamama . She is not a god in the sky. She is the sky, the rock, the potato, the river, and the bones of the ancestors. She is the Mother Earth—but to reduce her to "nature" is like calling the ocean "a little wet."
When you treat the soil as a bank account, you get monocultures and dead zones. When you treat it as a grandmother, you rotate your crops, you leave a corner of the field wild for the spirits, and you say thank you before you eat. pachamama madre tierra
But the Mother is patient.
I do. I hold the green, vein-ribbed leaves to my lips, and I whisper: "Pachamama, Mother, let my feet be light." Before the first stone of Machu Picchu was
She gestures for me to place them under a large rock. "There," she smiles. "Now she knows you are coming. And she will hold you." She is the Mother Earth—but to reduce her