Pilgrimage to the mountains
Pilgrimage to the mountains
Photographer Timothy Allen climbs high into the Peruvian Andes for Qoyllur Rit'i - the Snow Star Festival.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world/latin_america
(There are 20 wonderful photos at BBC link.)
Non-BBC photo from Google images:
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Wikipedia:
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There are several accounts of the origins of the Quyllur Rit'i festival. What follows are two accounts: one describes the pre-Columbian origins and the other is the "Catholic Church's" version as compiled by the priest of the town of Ccatca between 1928 and 1946.[2]
Pre-Columbian Origins[edit]
The Inca followed both solar and lunar cycles throughout the year. However, the cycle of the moon was of primary importance for both agricultural activities and the timing of festivals, which reflected in many cases celebrations surrounding animal husbandry, sowing seeds and harvesting of crops. Important festivals such as Quyllur Rit'i, perhaps the most important festival given its significance and meaning, are still celebrated on the full moon.
The Quyllur Rit'i festival falls in a period of time when the Pleiades constellation, or Seven Sisters, a 7-star cluster in the Taurus Constellation, disappears and reappears in the Southern Hemisphere. The star movement signals the time of the coming harvest and therefore a time of abundance. For this reason Incan astronomers cleverly named the Pleiades "Qullqa" or storehouse in their native language Runa Simi ("human's language"
or Quechua as it is also called.
Metaphorically, due to the star’s disappearance from the night sky and reemergence approximately two months afterwards is a signal that our planes of existence have times of disorder and chaos, but also return to order. This outlook coincides with the recent Pachakuti or Inca Prophecy literally translated from the two words pacha and kuti (Quechua pacha "time and space", kuti "return" where pacha kuti means "return of time", "change of time" or "great change or disturbance in the social or political order".[3]
The prophecy therefore represents (according to the Glossary of Terminology of the Shamanic & Ceremonial Traditions of the Inca Medicine Lineage) a period of upheaval and cosmic transformation. An overturning of the space/time continuum that affects consciousness. A reversal of the world. A cataclysmic event separating eras in time.
In the current pacha it is said that we will set the world rightside up and return to a golden era. This era will last at least 500 years. The andino people and their native historical culture will see a resurgence and rise out of the previous period of conquest and oppression and begin to thrive and return to a period of grandeur.
The Pachakuti also speaks of the tumultuous nature of our current world, in particular the environmental destruction of the earth, transforming and returning to one of balance, harmony and sustainability. This will happen as we as a people change our way of thinking and become more conscious. Therefore the Pachakuti is representative of the death of an old way of thinking about the world in which we live, and an elevation to a higher state of consciousness. In this way, we can describe ourselves not as who we are or were, but who we are becoming.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quyllur_Rit'i
