High in the Andes Mountains of Peru the Number Three Has Many Meanings

The Sacred Valley approaching Mlantaytambo
The Sacred Valley approaching Ollantaytambo

The Power of Three

 

I hold three crisp green Coca leaves

Arrange carefully their graceful elongated shapes

Admiring the small bouquet

An offering, grasped between my thumb and two fingers.

 

The chime of the bell signals it’s time

To inhale and expel three breaths imbued with my intentions

One for the underground snake

One for the prowling puma

One for the condor in the clouds.

 

Bits of fluffy cotton ask for rain

Sugar candy begs for a sweet life

Quinoa for sustenance and strength.

We sprinkle many things and make our requests

On the cloth of our existence

Creating a small bundle to be buried or burned

Messages delivered to the fabric of the universe.

 

Our demands are great.

Our offerings small.

The lack of balance spins the circle around

Creating a never ending spiral

Propelling us to repeat the journey

Humans on a spinning top, likely to fall from grace.

 

An altar placed within a church where once a temple stood

A holy place filled with memories and dreams

The trinity of life; past, present and future

The father, the son the Holy Ghost

The sun, the moon, the stars

The father, the mother, and the child

The three points of the triangle, a mountain stretching towards the sky.

 

We reach for the heavens

Forgetting to embrace the present

We stumble and repeat past mistakes

Searching for the answers

Trying to find our way back home.

______Nadja Maril   1/27/2015

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Published by Nadja Maril

Nadja Maril is a communications professional who has over 10 years experience as a magazine editor. A writer and journalist, Maril is the author of several books including: "American Lighting 1840-1940", "Antique Lamp Buyer's Guide", "Me, Molly Midnight; the Artist's Cat", and "Runaway, Molly Midnight; the Artist's Cat". Her short stories and essays have been published in several small online journals including Lunch Ticket, Change Seven, Scarlet Leaf Review and Defunkt Magazine. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. Former Editor-in-Chief of What's Up ? Publishing, former Editor of Chesapeake Taste Magazine a regional lifestyle magazine based in Annapolis, and former Lighting Editor of Victorian Homes Magazine, Maril has written hundreds of newspaper and magazines articles on a variety of subjects..

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