| A Mystical
Marriage In Machupicchu |
| Getting
Hitched On Top Of The World |
| Cusco,
o Cusco, land of sacred green valleys, land of mysticism, land of the Inti
Raymi (fiesta of the sun), land of the Inkan ancestors and of the mamchas
and papachus. This is the land that captured my heart and spirit, the
land where I met my compañero para toda la vida (life companion),
Monito.
I met Monito
while I was visiting Cusco, looking for an adventure in what is called
there “mystical tourism.” I sought Monito out because we had
a mutual friend who recommended Monito to me as a spiritual guide for people
who want to experience the sacred plant, San Pedro, a hallucinogenic cactus
that has been used for centuries in the Andes Mountains for cleansing ceremonies,
to connect with the Pachamama and la naturaleza (Mother Earth and nature)
and to open the sixth sense and discover things you’ve never understood
before. |
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| I decided
I wanted to try San Pedro right after my thirtieth birthday after several
years of difficult times, struggling with depression and chaos when several
people in my family died in rapid succession, including my mother.
Feeling lost
for a long time, I set out to explore other parts of the world and have
new experiences in order to grow up and hopefully get unstuck from the
past so I could move renewed into my future. As a person who never experimented
with drugs, and who doesn’t drink, my decision to try San Pedro was based
on what I’d heard about the spiritual journey and how the plant can help
you to make the connection to the bigger world beyond what we know in our
day to day lives.
I suppose every
San Pedro experience ends up being different than your expectations, but
mine was off the charts. I fasted for 24 hours before meeting up with
Monito to travel to Pisaq where we would have our full moon San Pedro ceremony.
We
drank the plant in liquid form when the moon reached its peak, and we traveled
to the beyond together, falling in love during the journey. |
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| I know that
San Pedro isn’t supposed to work that way, although the plant certainly
does make you more sensitive to your environment, but there are many things
about Monito and my relationship which don’t fall into traditional notions
of the way things should be. Our connection has made me a believer in
destiny, attraction of the spirits, and pure love, and therefore, when
we decided to get married almost one year later, we chose to have a spiritual
ceremony.
The positive
energy of the universe must have been smiling on our union, because we
managed to pull off something unheard of. We secured official
permission to have our marriage ceremony inside Machupicchu,
an apu (sacred mountain) and architectural wonder, a small Inkan city replete
with temples to the sun, moon, and condor, built on a great mountain above
a river, which also happens to be the eighth wonder of the world. |
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Offshore
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| San Pedro
was not part of our wedding ceremony because during our lives together,
Monito taught me that his ancestors believed in another world far away
from the material world in which we live, one which your reach by opening
your third eye or using your sixth sense. San Pedro can help
you get there by making you more sensitive, but it is not necessary.
We did, however,
decide to have our ceremony on the full moon because it is optimal for
new beginnings, good fortune, and fertility, not to mention that the full
moon marks our anniversary of the day we met. Monito’s brother Josè,
who is a shaman in Cusco, performed our ceremony, a reflection of pre-Inkan
spiritual practices. Our family members and guests were asked to wear
white to maintain the positive energy and because white represents the
mixture of the 7 colors of the rainbow. The rainbow flag was the banner
of the empire of Tawantinsuyo, the name given to this land in the Andes
before the Spanish colonized.
Ours was
no ordinary wedding ceremony where the guests get bored by the formalities. |
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| They didn’t
have a chance! We married next to the solar clock, known as the Inti Huatana,
a term that means in Quechua the indigenous language, “the place where
they tie the sun.”
The solar clock
is a sacred spot within the Machupicchu complex, and the ancient stone
still lights up every equinox. Our families and friends stood in a circle
around us and the Inti Huatana to maintain a united force of energy, sometimes
holding hands, sometimes with their eyes closed, sometimes dancing, sometimes
walking seven times around, as instructed by Josè.
Our friend
Kathia translated Spanish to English so that everyone would be accomodated.
Four ceramic bowls filled with palo santo, mirra, saumerio, and alusema,
which are woods and incenses with cleansing and protective properties were
set at the four cardinal points outside the circle. |
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Offshore
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| Josè
also used various perfumes such as Agua de Florida, Agua de Kananga, and
Agua de Rosas, which he spat alternatively at us and our guests in three
different directions in order to send away the negative, call on the positive,
and neutralize to maintain an equilibrium.
Josè
called on our guests to close all negative thoughts out of their minds
and to send all of their positive energies to Monito and I as we joined
our futures together. He sang and chanted in the ancient tongue Chavin.
Josè drove away the negative energies and called on the positive,
using his intricately carved chonta sticks, bara silvador, and huaco silvador.
Monito’s other brother Aquiles and my father Warren and aunt Marcia each
represented our separate familiar lineages and distinct cultural heritages,
as Josè spoke about how our marriage represented the union of our
distinct cultures. Aquiles placed my ring on my finger, and my dad
and aunt put Monito’s on his. Our rings are also special - they’re
identical, an eclipse of the sun and moon, a representation of the union
of the masculine and feminine, made for us by an hermano/friend Tito.
Monito and
I stood in the center of this circular force of energy, radiant in our
love for each other. We dressed in white with crowns of white
mountain flowers on our heads, each holding a carved wooden stick called
palo quemado to ward off negativity. We were barefoot on a violet
manta scattered with flowers, behind a ceramic offering bowl filled with
fruits of the earth such as maiz (corn), quinoa, potatoes, chunyo, choclo,
and habas, which we later threw into the Villcanota River.
I was filled
by the vibrations of all of the positive wishes of our guests. The
Inkas believed Machupicchu was part of the navel of the world, and Monito
and I stood alongside the Inti Huatana, I felt an energy much greater than
myself. I felt the presence of loved ones who couldn’t be with me,
like my mother, and Monito’s mother, who have passed away, as well as other
dear friends, and I was conscious of my tiny place in this huge universe.
Before the
ceremony was over, something marvelous occurred. Monito and I were blessed
by the appearance of a rainbow, while there was no rain to speak of during
the rainy season for us at Machupicchu. The rain was over by Putukusi,
the mountain across the river, but all of our guests stayed dry as we viewed
the colorful splendor of the Pachamama and what felt like nature’s approval
of our eternal union.
Our ceremony
ended as Monito’s brother Aquiles and my brother Jake placed commemorative
necklaces with the sun/moon eclipse symbol around the necks of our guests,
followed by hugs all around. And of course, what ceremony would be complete
without the kiss, although, to be honest, we kissed several times before,
during, and after the ceremony. Our wedding wasn’t that rigid!
Now our
lives are back to normal, only now we’ve been married in Machupicchu.
How many people can say that?
If you would
like to contact Leah Click Here
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