 |
| Aranwa spa resort in Huayllabamba, Sacred Valley of the Incas (Svetlana Zubareva) |
 |
My private lounge which, alas, nobody visited as they all had their own cozy nooks
|
 |
| Ornate icon in the lounge |
The Aranwa Spa Resort turned out to be just the right
setting for the group to settle into becoming the One Being. Magnificently
landscaped and furnished in grand hacienda style with beautiful iconic art in every
room, the sprawling grounds were enlivened by a resident menagerie consisting
of peacocks, brilliantly colored macaws, and a family of alpacas (goat-like woolly camelids related to llamas).
However, the
super-luxurious trappings were marred by some very basic design flaws. A couple
of days before the ceremony, it rained so heavily part of the conference room
was flooded. Sebastian the heroic and indefatigable coordinator spent 45
minutes sweeping water back into the drains and managed to save Omashar’s sound
system from possible damage. The carpet smelt of wet dog for several days
afterwards.
 |
| Lushly landscaped grounds (Svetlana Zubareva) |
Other quirky details made our sojourn even more unforgettable: for
instance, somebody had forgotten to incline the shower floor in my bathroom so
that water could drain quickly. As a result I was forced to use the long bath
with its built-in jacuzzi (good fun, but I still prefer the natural ones around my home). And Solara twice reported that she found a worm in
her room. Although every room supposedly had wi-fi, the connection was so
feeble and unstable it cured me, at least temporarily, of my low opinion of
Streamyx.
 |
| Our master chefs at Aranwa |
But what touched us all deeply was the incredible hotel staff who
were friendly and cheerful all the time – and visibly delighted to serve such an
unusual bunch of guests. We got to know many of them by name and held a
poignant thank-you ceremony with all the kitchen and restaurant staff where
Solara presented them with a generous tip collected from all the participants.
I have never in my life encountered such heart-centered hotel staff – except
possibly in Bali - and the Peruvian people have much in common
with the Balinese, especially when it comes to expertise in agricultural terracing - and also the Nepalese in their practical approach to spirituality.
 |
| Road to Urubamba, adobe house, the Andes |
 |
| Schoolkids at Machu Picchu: the girl on the left smiled at me all the way on the bus |
 |
| A Quecha bambina |
I only spent a few hours in a budget hotel in Lima, but
that’s a city of 10 million with all the problems monster cities face. It was
smoggy and cold and not particularly enchanting. I was glad to see the blue sky
and feel the intense sun on arrival in Cusco, gateway to the Sacred Valley of
the Incas.
The Urubamba Valley is mostly scenic, with endless acres of potato
and corn fields, and colorfully dressed native Quechas going about their
business. The houses are mostly made of adobe which lends them an entirely earthy aura. There are many local tribes that did not assimilate genetically with
the Spaniards – their features echo the Nepalese and the Maya. You can tell
from the luminous eyes of the children that these highland tribes are still
very much connected to their souls.
Many of them remain farmers but some are from artisan
families with highly developed jewellery making skills. Peruvian food has
subtle flavors and is quite easy to adapt to – especially the variety of
excellent breads made from assorted grains. As we spent most of the 10-day
session comfortably embedded in our splendid resort, there wasn’t much
opportunity to play tourist – except for those who extended their stay and
continued exploring before or after the ceremony. I was content to wander
around the cobbled streets of Ollantaytambo and check out a few cafes. I did make an attempt at scaling Pinkuylluna, the nearest peak to my guesthouse - but after 20 minutes I decided to just stop and admire the view. The thin air (and my thinning hair) made climbing extremely strenuous - and I wished I had visited Peru 10 years earlier. Anyhow it was
delightful to keep bumping into others from the 11th Gate who were still
around. It felt like a neverending family reunion.
 |
| Ollantaytambo plaza at dawn |
 |
| Morning mist over Ollantaytambo |
 |
Aguas Caliente is a tourist trap where the trainline stops
and you walk or take a bus to Machu Picchu |
I hadn’t made any plans to visit
Machu Picchu but when I learnt that Ollantaytambo was only a couple of hours
away by train and bus, I decided to go – even if the excursion cost a lot more
than I expected ($115 for the train, $17 for the bus, plus $43 for the entrance
fee).
Machu Picchu is a major revenue earner for Peru and they
even set a daily limit on the number of tourists. It was a little disconcerting
to see the long lines of day-trippers waiting to go in, many gabbing away
loudly the whole time, totally insensitive to the awesome sight of the towering
mountains and the inscrutable gaze of the Apus (mountain spirits). Why would
anyone spend so much money visiting this spectacular site, only to photograph
each other with handphones and then brag about having been there?
 |
| Vertiginous terraces of Machu Picchu; the Urubamba River flows below |
 |
| First glimpse of the Inca ruins as you enter Machu Picchu |
 |
| Restoration is ongoing, just as at Angkor Wat, another UNESCO World Heritage site |
 |
| I couldn't take my eyes off the monumental peaks. The Apus are still around! |
It is simply
a jaw-dropping sight, despite the thousands of noisy tourists crawling around.
I managed to find a few quiet nooks where, at least for 15 minutes at a time, I
could imagine life in this fortress temple complex as it used to be, and
commune with the Apus. There were many discreet niches everywhere, ideal
meditation spots – which suggested that the beings who inhabited this place
were lofty minded and cognizant of both terrestrial and celestial forces.
 |
| View of Machu Picchu in 1911 (Hiram Bingham) |
 |
Trapezoidal windows and inwardly inclined
walls designed to withstand tremors |
I was surprised to learn that Machu Picchu remained a lost
city until 1911 when Hiram Bingham, who lectured in history at Yale University,
announced his astounding discovery (he was led to the spot by an 11-year-old
Quecha boy named Pablito Alvarez). A hundred years later, Machu Picchu has seen
extensive restoration as a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are uniformed
guards everywhere who will stop you from being too curious about roped-off
areas, which spoils the mystery somewhat.
My intuition informs me that there is
a great deal as yet undiscovered about the Incas – who they were and where they
originated. Near a cave glittering with tiny quartz crystals I spotted the
entrance of a hobbit-sized tunnel. Friends mentioned the possible existence of
crystal cities deep within these rugged peaks and I kept visualizing 20-foot
tall humanoids peering out the trapezoidal windows which normal-sized humans
would have to climb ladders to reach.
 |
| Ponchos and chullos are perfect for the Andean climate |
The sight of me in my rainbow poncho and chullo (Peruvian
wool hat) triggered a great deal of excitement, especially among the Japanese tour groups. They must have assumed I was part of the exhibit, since
I appeared to be the only visitor not dressed like a tourist but like a
Peruvian shaman.
I greatly look forward to the day fresh discoveries are
announced that may reveal the deep secrets of the Andes: how these mountains
were formed and who built these monumental ruins that have survived serious earthquakes
and Conquistadors.
 |
| Bronze statue of Pachacutec in Aguas Caliente |
Machu Picchu, according to mainstream historians, was built
in the 1400s by the great Incas,
Pachacutec
Inca Yupanqui and Tupac Inca Yupanqui. The cyclopean rock structures, I
strongly suspect, date back much farther in time. It’s entirely possible that
the 15th century Incas merely restored and extended the original structures, less
than a century before the Spanish conquest.
 |
| 12-angled stone in Sacsayhuaman (Håkan Svensson) |
The problem with
academic historians is that they are vigorously discouraged from arriving at
conclusions that don’t fit in with the orthodox view of linear evolution, even when the
evidence is rock solid in every Inca ruin.
In Machu Picchu massive boulders
weighing up to 50 tons fit neatly and asymmetrically together without the use
of mortar to seal the joints, which are generally so precise you couldn’t slip in
a human hair, much less a razor blade. I read that the Inca walls in
Sacsayhuaman, outside Cusco, feature gigantic stones, some weighing over 125
tons. I seriously doubt any contemporary engineering methods exist that can
come close to constructing such colossal structures, designed to blend with the
terrain and withstand major earthquakes.
 |
| One of the awe-inspiring terraced depressions in Moray |
The entire Master
Cylinder went on an excursion to Moray, a mysterious archaeological site (described
by academics as an agricultural research station) located 11,500 feet above sea
level, about 40 minutes by bus from Huayllabamba. Several terraced depressions,
the largest nearly 100 feet deep, spread over hundreds of acres, present an
awesome spectacle.
 |
Echoes of far-off memories in Moray
(Thilo Vasanael Vierhuff) |
The air is exceptionally thin up here and I found breathing
difficult – almost as if I were suddenly transported to a different planet.
Solara had gone through a good deal of red-tape a year earlier when she
conducted a Silent Watcher ceremony at Moray with a small group. When she made
arrangements for more than 120 of us to visit Moray, the officials worriedly asked
if she was doing another ceremony – because if she was, they would have to
obtain special clearance from headquarters – so she assured them we were just
visiting as tourists.
When we got there, it just so happened that we thought it
would be amusing to spread ourselves around the amphitheater-like terraced depression with
people on every level. Having been briefed about our non-ceremony at Moray,
nobody was to perform any mudras - but if we felt like it we could do a
bit of synchronized stretching.
As it turned out, our non-ceremony at Moray was
supercharged – everybody seemed totally focused and energized as we performed our synchronized “stretching”
exercises. It would have been a magnificent sight to record on video, but every
one of us was involved in the non-ceremony so the only videos that might exist
would have been shot by a handful of other tourists who happened to stumble
upon our spectacular non-ceremony.
 |
| A segment of our lovable One Being at Moray (Virginia Ball) |
My first impression of the huge terraced
pits was that this area was where an enormous spaceship landed - the circular
depressions indicating where its landing gear impacted the earth. Perhaps many
centuries later, the Incas had the bright idea to smooth out the terraces for
agricultural experiments.
 |
| Rainbow seen from the Aranwa resort (Emanáku Ku) |
In Peru it’s impossible
not to have UFOs on your mind. The Andean peaks visible in almost every
direction and the elevation make you acutely aware of the firmament. I did keep
an eye on the night skies while we were preparing for the Activation – but nothing
unusual happened, apart from a vivid rainbow appearing over the Sacred Valley one
evening; and then around the midday Sun for two consecutive days, interspersed
with a brilliant halo around the Moon on the night of the Activation ceremony.
 |
| The Eye of AN formed by the midday Sun |
There were countless
poignant moments throughout the 25-hour ceremony but the moment that remains
indelibly imprinted in my soul occurred just as we completed the final Starry
Processional dance. Many of us felt torn between joy and sorrow. Joyful,
knowing we had kept our promise and performed a very special service to our
beloved planet the full significance of which will not be understood for perhaps
another couple of generations.
 |
| 25 hours of starry dances and 11:11 mudras, witnessed by the Apus |
Sorrowful, because the beautiful 11:11 family we
had bonded with for more than a week would soon disperse, and there was every
possibility we might never again see the others – at least not on this planet
or in our human bodies.
Anyway, on the second day of the ceremony, a few
village kids had wandered into the Activation site and were observed trying to imitate
our mudras. A couple of them even stood in as Guardians for a while, just for
fun. Among them was a girl of perhaps 10 or 11 and I found out her name was
Libertado – which means “liberated” in English. Omashar performed a
haunting song to close the ceremony and as he
played the final chord we were surprised to hear the voice of Libertado wafting a capella over
the speakers – a pure angelic voice singing praises to Pachamama in Spanish –
and I bet there wasn’t a single dry eye among us. It was unmistakably the Voice
of the New Aeon.
After that we
collected our stuff and made our way to where mini-buses were waiting to take
us back to the hotel. Halfway along the path I paused to light a cigarette and decided
to take another look at the beautiful sight of the radiant Sun in the West and
a luminous crescent Moon in the East.
In Peru, the symbol of the Sun and Moon
uniting as one is the equivalent of the Chinese Yang and Yin. And that,
according to Solara, is what the frequency of AN represents – the reunification
of all polarities – the male and female merged in dynamic balance.
As I gazed
at the Moon, a brilliant moving light suddenly appeared right next to her in
the afternoon sky. Could it be a plane? Just as I asked the question, the light
paused, then reversed direction, before doing an elegant jig and vanishing
behind the nearest cloud. Only three people in my immediate vicinity spotted
this mysterious light. It was the perfect vision to take away from the ceremony. I felt a powerful surge of optimism and reassurance.
On the previous day
Solara had spotted a condor flying over the Activation site. Apparently,
condors have rarely been seen in the area for years, even decades. She was
greatly cheered because the condor represents the Spirit of the Andes, just as
the eagle represents the Spirit of the Rockies in North America. I missed seeing the
condor but felt amply rewarded spotting the Light Ship. It was an unmistakable
sighting – I’ve had quite a few over the years – and these glimpses of other
dimensions interpenetrating with our own are immensely fortifying.
Most certainly part of what Solara calls the Ultra Greater Reality.
Photos by Antares except where otherwise credited
In Shaffer’s fictionalization of Mozart’s story, Salieri’s professional envy of the gifted upstart becomes the central motif of the drama. Salieri is one of a small handful academic musicians with sufficient savvy to appreciate the full extent of the man’s extraordinary talent; but he chooses to thwart Mozart’s destiny in every way possible.
So... are we really doomed to remain a mediocracy forever? Is there no cure for the Salieri Syndrome? Indeed there is. You only have to take a stiff swig of this ancient Chinese prescription: “One does not grow taller by chopping off other people’s heads.” That’s right, folks. Ego insecurity breeds jealousy. Which is (I keep reminding people, especially my wife) the root of all evil. For that matter, one does not grow taller by wearing platform shoes either. But that’s an entirely different disease called TLFC – The Lord Farquaard Complex – which can be easily treated with a little bit of dragon magic.
