Cabala Club: Pawkar Raymi in NYC

Drum Session: Barón López / Photo: Paul Merino / Teatro La Tea /

Native Nations celebrate Life as The Road through Wisdom. For Wisdom they gradually learn with -and about- all the magnificence surrounding us. Rivers talk as stones speech. It’s to become one with "the Whole" when we step forward, and we grow.

By growing, you practice what you have learned. By mistakes, you just back up and see carefully what the lesson says. May be your father, may be your partner, any circumstance may be. You just back up, and learn how to watch, how to listen.

With that on mind and spirit, we celebrate the Spring Equinox, which arrives on March 20 this year. All surviving Incan communities honor this season. This celebration happens in the whole continent according to the ancient calendars, Solar and Lunar.

Pawkar Raymi is Quichua, the Incan Language. It means the Festivity of Harvesting and the chance to thank Mother Earth –Pacha Mama – Allpa Mama- for all the benefits she gives to us.

This ceremony involves chanting, dancing, body and mind purification, to make us, the life beings- connect and synchronize with all around us.

The South Nations –Yanaconas, Nasas, Aymaras, Quechuas, etc.- take 3 to 5 days starting a fire, a huge bonfire, that has to be kept with chanting and dancing with non stop all 3 or 5 days in a row.

They also talk with “power words”, it means, participants, specially the elders, take the word to reflex, to learn and to understand what is going on and what is coming on.

On March 15th we celebrate the Pawkar Raymi in New York City, at La Tea Theater, an opportunity to connect and thank "the Great Magic" for all she or he has given to us. There were my son, my best friends -A blessing!-, plus the public, mostly students of Baruch College.

I performed a celebration by Honoring the Seven Directions. Another ancestral tradition shared all around Abya Yala, all around the America Continent, south to north.

The Directions Ceremony has some differences between the North Nations and The South Nations: Animal Protectors may change, the order in what the directions are called, and the four elements vary. But the general context is the same: Connection to well-being, nature and spiritual harmony. Each cardinal direction, East, South, West and North, along with the center, above and below hold lessons of physical, emotional and spiritual balance.

So, we honor the Spring Season through the Pawkar Raymi.