gratitude and questioning
cloudy sun-day
In the lobby of Pisac Inn is a fire place built hip height in the earthen wall. Each morning I find myself migrate from our bedroom to this hearth. Starting each day with warmth on my back, supporting the act of waking and facing the table full of humans huddling around plates of fruit. The first meeting point — fire, a signifier of creation and transformation. What follows breakfast is routinely spontaneous, always full of intellectual and personal learning.
Days on, days off; the roll of these routines resembles the life of a stray dog who walks wherever her nose takes her, still keeping track of where she has got to be and when she’s got to be there, for food, water, and a comfy resting place. Essentially, I prepare for class and show up for class, engaging this week more specifically with the political histories of the many coups occurring in Peru since 1960s and in dialogue about positionally and personal sentiments related to our excursions to the Amaru mountain community and Kusi Kawsay Andean school grounds.
It’s been fruitful to acknowledge the sweetness and spikiness of such experiences.
The central essential of this week is the essence of friendship. Anyi, reciprocity and cooperative labor, actions powered by open hearts. From the brilliance and honesty that people bring in class discussion to the excitement of laughing and getting loose with my homies, I am just really appreciating the resonance resounding within the circles of our cohort. The process of studying Peruvian culture in Pisac is really too dang interesting to turn to simplified motives; I am glad to be just one angle in this grand sculpture of multi-faceted discovery. I think of the ayllus, the local communities of the Andeans, exemplified in the community we visited on Thursday, and how this dynamic of relations is replicated in this seminar matrix. In emergent evolution…
But I pose some questions, (obviously suggesting a lot) of what is coming up, as one cycle rounds from our journeys inception:
What does travel for the purpose of study entail of our personal purposes?
Are we here to write our own chronicle? A collective chronicle?
Does engaging with contested histories reinstate the harm of dominant narratives?
How does our form of participation resemble the writing of past chronicles, written from a foreign perspective making claims of observed reality?
How do we do better than to (just) observe or consume?
Do I exist in this ‘subjectified’ reality?
Are we to become temporary members of community?
What acts does this entail? Contribution? Story-telling?
How can I improve communicating (via blog-chronicle) the voices who speak to me?
Soy paciente para definir lo que me han dicho, lo que he observado, lo que he aprendido. Muchos gracias a todos por decir, mostrar, encarnar cuentos que es el contenido de una compresión de El Valle Sagrado.
x
I adore these reflections and this blog. Thanks for getting me on substack Emma!!! I am not sure if these questions are just for yourself and if that is the case lmk and I'll drop the rest of this but I had some thoughts~
Does engaging with contested histories reinstate the harm of dominant narratives?
It can. The role of the student. To be a part of it yet still be behind Plexiglas. It reinstates where it extracts never to bring benefit back to a place or the people with such a contested history
How does our form of participation resemble the writing of past chronicles, written from a foreign perspective making claims of observed reality?
That's certainly the profound joke of being a student. You, yourself, I know to be keen and effectual. But y'all are there for practice. And y'all are practising a 2024 version of university research that has a well-practiced history of those same dominant narratives. It's gonna leak out. Such a thing is important to acknowledge. At least being able to name your perspective as being wholly influenced by your worldview and your lack of context on all that you're learning can at least demonstrate strong positionality for all a student of the academy's failings (I say with great love for you, yourself!)
How do we do better than to (just) observe or consume?
Give something to someone there. Of your heart. Of your creation. Of your possession. If it's against the rules... Then "don't do that" lmao.
Do I exist in this ‘subjectified’ reality?
Yes!! Just behind Plexiglas while also able to touch thru the barrier.
Hi Emma! Your question "Are we to become temporary members of a community?" Really spoke to me. After all, what does it mean to be a member of a community? Is there such thing as being a member of a community "temporarily," or is this membership something that you are born with? Thinking about it, I guess that would depend on what our definition of "community" is. If that's a group of people who broadly identify with belonging in the same place, I think we can work to be part of a community like that. However, if the definition of "community" is strictly based on culture and ancestral background, that's probably something we'll never quite be able to achieve.