Before the Journey Begins

There has been a lot going on in my life lately. I’m preparing to leave for Peru. I’ve returned to work after several months away. I’m writing the guidebook for Quni Samiyuq, working on the website, organizing photographs, and trying to absorb an enormous amount of information at once. I’ve felt pulled in a lot of directions, and tonight’s reading gave me some perspective on how I might move through all of that information overload.

I sat down with Quni Samiyuq for my first reading and asked what I needed to know right now. The first card was the Four of Pututu, and I found myself staring at the four instruments lying on the earth. A pututu is made to sound, sending its voice outward across great distances, yet all four have been laid down. Their mouthpieces point inward toward a small sacred flower at the center of the card.

The message felt remarkably simple: rest the noise for a while. There has been so much communication around me lately, so much to read, write, solve, remember, and decide. Even the things I love have become part of that constant stream of information. Looking at those four silent pututu, I could feel the permission to lay all of that communication down for a moment. Once the instruments become quiet, my attention naturally moves toward the flower at their center. It feels like meditation, allowing everything that has been coming toward me to settle long enough for the sacred center to have a voice.

Then Mama Quilla appeared, shining beneath the full moon I had placed on her card. Quilla means both *moon* and *month* in Quechua, connecting the moon with the passage of time through her changing phases. She waxes toward fullness, wanes to disappear, and returns again. As I looked at her tonight, it was the fullness that held me.

I began thinking about what it means to allow ourselves to become full again. My energy has been moving outward in so many directions that I can feel how much of myself I’ve been spending. The Four of Pututu had already asked me to rest the noise, and beneath Mama Quilla’s full moon I began to understand what that quiet could offer me. I could allow some of that energy to come home. I could give myself enough time to fill again.

There is something beautiful to me about understanding fullness as part of a cycle. Energy grows, reaches fullness, wanes, rests, and eventually begins to return. I don’t need to remain full forever. I simply need to recognize where I am within the cycle and honor the time when filling myself back up is necessary. Right now, with Peru getting closer every day and so much happening around me, I think I need to spend a little time beneath Mama Quilla.

Then I turned to the Ten of Staffs, and the reading began moving again. This card holds ten staffs divided by the amaru, the great Andean serpent. Five stand upright above it while five rest horizontally below. I found myself studying the staffs that were standing: Inti, the puma, the condor, an ancestral figure, and the chakana.

Coming directly from Mama Quilla, those standing staffs felt like the things I could begin gathering once my energy returns. I could look at what surrounds me and recognize what gives me strength, what grounds me, what connects me to the sacred, what connects me to those who came before me, and what supports the direction I am traveling. The five staffs resting beneath the amaru could remain on the earth. There was something reassuring in realizing that gathering my energy did not mean gathering everything. I could know what to pick up.

I wanted to understand where all of this was leading, so I pulled one final card: Kamayoq of Coca. She is the one who prepares. A kamayoq is a specialist, someone entrusted with particular knowledge and responsibilities, and within this card she is preparing coca for ritual. She gathers what is needed and brings it together with attention and care.

Seeing her made me smile because preparation is exactly where I am. In less than two weeks, I will leave for Peru. There are still things to finish, things to pack, things to write, things to learn, and undoubtedly things that will remain unfinished when I finally close my suitcase and walk out the door.

Tonight’s reading gave me a different way to move through these final days. I can lay down some of the noise and return to my center. I can give myself enough time beneath Mama Quilla to feel full again. From that fullness, I can look at everything around me and know what deserves to be gathered. Then, like the Kamayoq, I can prepare carefully for what comes next.

My first reading with Quni Samiyuq began with four pututu resting silently on the earth and ended with a woman preparing coca for ritual. Somewhere between them was a full moon, five staffs waiting to be gathered, and a reminder that preparation can begin by becoming full enough to know what I want to carry with me.

The journey hasn’t begun yet, and somehow, I can already feel myself walking toward it.