Setting the Table

When I think of "setting the table" I think of doing chores as a little kid. In the Andes, making a "mesa" (trans: table) is a religious act that is a necessity but certainly not a chore. In fact, it is really a celebration. The entire ritual is dedicated to Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Andean people make mesas as a display of thanksgiving and a request for a blessing.

Yesterday, Don Calixto Quispe came to teach us about the mesa ritual in Andean cosmovision. We all sat in a circle and Don Calixto explained each item and its importance before arranging it into the mesa in the center of the room.
Our mesa started as a blank sheet of paper, but soon grew into a colorful pile of rainbow llama wool, miniature houses, sweets, plastic gold, and silver tinsel. As beautiful as it all was, it eventually hit me: we were performing a ceremony for mother earth, yet the nik-naks in the center were quite un-natural. Aside from the coca leaves that blanketed the base of the mesa, and the flowers that surrounded them, almost nothing came straight from the earth.



Andean cosmovision, which I previously had viewed as a perfect relationship between people and the earth, suddenly seemed not so perfect. Sure, the mesa ritual worships the earth, but it can also be used to bless new office buildings, or even ask for a new car or TV. I concluded that the Altiplano is simply not removed enough from the modernity of western culture and beliefs. Maybe if I travel deep into the Amazon I can find an untouched culture that finally has it right with nature. Then I can sell my posessions, move in with them, and live happily ever after, running through the trees with my new society...


At one point, Don Calixto handed each of us a small waxy minature, representive of a positive trait or a hope for the future. A star for health. A sacret snake for "Pachakuti" (trans: return to Pachamama). A road for the travels ahead of us. Then Don Calixto told us to hold the minatures close to us and, with all of our energy, think of what we are thankful for. This, he said, we were going to give to Pachamama.
It was then that I realized that this ceremony isn´t one of hypocracy. It simply celebrates the natural life and the human life. In fact, I was the one making a distinction between the two; to the Andean people, it is all one life. In the Andes, people can live in a modern society yet still remember that they come from the earth. I can graciously aknowledge the beauty of mountains, and be happy that I have a warm (though very synthetic) coat to wear while I am exploring them.

In Andean cosmovision, both the mountains and my coat have souls and are living. Thus is affirming life, we are affirming those things along with everything else in the world. This idea of affirming life is summed up in the Aymara word "Jallalla," which literally means "life, affirmation of life, and re-affirmation of life." This idea is so important to Andean people that is is represented in every single weaving done in this region through three stripes in the center of the design: the life, and the affirmations on either side.
Don Calixto explained that everyone here, even the poorest people, spend money of fiestas and celebrations because celebrating life is the most important thing. This made a lot of us uneasy. Our travels in Bolivia have made us increasingly aware of our privledges, and along with this comes a lot of guilt. Don Calixto made me realize that it is wasteful to sit around feeling guilty for what I should be feeling thankful for. Celebrating life- all life- is a much better us of the energy that the earth gives us.

Before we place our miniatures around the mesa, Don Calixto had us breathe on them to give them our life and our intention. For me, the minature held my celebration of, and thankfulness for, life and the human world. I gave it a bit of my life, made it real, then gave it to Pachamama.

The last thing Don Calixto gave us were flowers. He told us to look at the flowers and contemplate our life and what we want our life to become. As I stared into blossom, I noticed a lot of bugs crawling in and out of the stamens which I hadnt noticed before. There was my life, teeming with other lives, all made up of and dependent on each other. There, too, was my future: a pluri-biotic system, breathing with the breath of the mountains, and the trees, and the cities, and the houses.


Before us was a pile of colors, plastic metalics, dried leaves, and playful figurines. The mix was both natural and man-made; symbolic and literal; physical and spiritual. Don Calixto asked us, "Wouldn´t it be nice if life looked like this?" In my opinion, if you view life through the right goggles, it does.