1 of August, Pachamama’s (Mother Earth and Mother Reality, more exactly) Day. The only Deity or Entity in which i seek comfort and direction. She protected the travelers through the desert, and was reciprocated with the hard earned fruits of the human and animal labor. A point of reference, an axis mundi in the chaotic and uncertain reality.
In the Andes, she is interceded through offerings (very humble and small, like fresh and chewed coca leaves, alcohol, salt, eyelashes to get rid of bad eyesight, old shoes to get rid of exhaustion), which are deposited on the Apachetas, little stone cairns or rock piles, located on “edge areas”, the border of a particular landscape, the summits of mountains, the edge of the knowable, the “human”, the “safe”.
Let us pass, unharmed. Kusiya Kusiya (protect us, protect us)
