THE POWER OF UNCERTAINTY of today’s INKA

I Have this magic switch for when I land in the countries of Africa and Latin America. A button placed somewhere deep in my gut which tells me that nothing is certain. It gives me lightness, embedded strongly in the mind.

Suddenly, little things are more interesting, colours are brighter and crowds of pedestrians have eyes, facial features, emotions and longings. I don’t look at my phone, it’s hidden deep in my backpack. Everything is more important, stronger and regular everyday walking the streets after dark is a sort of a perverse romance with what people like to call ‘normal’. Suddenly, this thought passes through my head, that it is possible that I disappear, that there can be no me. I look at the poverty around me so intense it’s sticky, privation mingled with bitter-sweet abundance that runs down the wealthy necks in the form of golden chains. Everything seems fleeting – like the wind, which, however, stirs it’s coolness to the bone.  This impermanence is questioned by no one, no one tries to pretend that anything is certain or forever. And even though these poignant pictures of pouring emotion spill on and beyond everywhere I turn, there is something to it, so immensely liberating, I call it the power of uncertainty.

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How to find a sense of security where it is not?

Such nights cannot be forgotten… Drifting on a river in the middle of the Amazon with strangers from Ese Eja while watching with peace as the night comes. Stars were scattered across the sky, like a rash, as if the sky had been sick for twelve hours, and the only antidote for him was dawn. If I could name all the emotions that were boiling in me, it would be like a machine gun firing after the decimal point, the problem is that these are the emotions I have not known so far, the feelings I have never experienced. And so the virgin Amazon jungle, bore something new in me, as if for a moment it wanted to show me that there is nothing I can catch as a railing, even shadows of thoughts, experiences or feelings, everything around was new and unknown, and the only key to trying to understand what was happening now was respect and careful observation.

 

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My night with Tarantulas and how I tamed my fear

It was one of the turning points in my life. During one restless morning I learn how to domesticate fear. I had to complete an express training of befriending terror, but in the end I think we did quite well. I made a decision to become fond of the tarantulas, because after all it was me who was their guest and not the other way around. I stiffened with fear, I couldn’t move an inch, but I remembered what I was told by the shaman, from whom a couple weeks prior I got an introduction on jungle safety.

 

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How to reach the tribes in the Amazon? That is, with patience and respect.

How to reach the tribes in the Amazon? I waited for this answer and the following conversation for a long five days without a hinting whisper that I would hear the word, “Yes”. I waited with a passionate conviction that acting shoulder to shoulder with NGO’s would give me even a vague confidence I would soon gain the trust of the tribe of my choice within the deep jungle. Well, I was wrong.

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What can fire teach us?

What can fire teach us? During my trip to South America, I met contemporary voyagers. That is, people whose task it is to keep the ritual fire alive. They were shamans chosen for this purpose year-round in Guatemala, in the Maya, or homestead graveyards, and in Varanasi burning the holy fire of corpses. Their dedication and attention to the fire always fascinated me, but I could not understand it. What’s so hypnotic about that? What can the Maya learn from fire knowledge? Why do they believe what the fire says? And what can we recall?

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