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Photographs and text by Irjaliina Paavonpera.
I was sitting with nine other artists in the middle of the Chilean desert, with the volcanic peaks of the Andes in front of me and the Cordillera de los Angeles Sal, or mountains of salt, to me. I squinted at the morning sun that stretched over the peaks, feeling small as it began to soften the desert in all directions. Carlos, our host, had spread a blos angelesnket on the warm sand and was now placing a bottle of red wine, a plate of coca leaves, and 4 cups.
As a group, we prepared dishes with biological offerings: pods of edible carob fruits; chañar seeds; a few slices of apple and orange – before kneeling alternately in the dirt, filling the glasses with coca leaves and wine in express order. The cups on the right represented woman, life, while those on the left represented man, death – a duality. Then we move to a small hole dug in the ground that represents the mouth of Mother Earth, to place our offerings and communicate with her as we wish.
Here in the Lickanantay, the indigenous people of the region, we participated in a rite of reciprocity called Ayni, a symbol that offered Mother Earth to ask for her invitation and cover when we arrived. Carlos, a Lickanantay yatiri, or religious and medicinal healer, guided us through the ritual, too sacred to photograph.
He had arrived the day before at Coyo’s small network, in a dusty corner of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, after being accepted into a three-week artist-in-residence program with La Wayaka Current, an organization that focuses on the environment, networking and new art. I am there to inform myself and participate in the Lickanantay culture and photograph my experience. Exhausted by life in New York, I tried to perceive how ancient wisdom thrives in this component of the world and how I can simply honor those values in my own existence.
Coyo is rarely a village; Rather, it’s a set of winding dirt roads with houses made of clay, rocks, and branches torn from the surrounding landscape. To get there, I flew from New York to Calama, a town in northern Chile, where nine men and I boarded. He boarded a bus and headed into the desert.
As we approached Coyo, Dago, a geologist who served as our engine and guide, told us that the air here – “cleansing your lungs” – would cleanse our lungs.
I took the time after the Ayni rite to walk through the streets of the community, feeling the temperature begin to rise as the sun burned the morning clouds. At first glance, the houses might have looked worn and unkempt, with cracks and crevices that exposed their population to the outside world. But I saw them more tenderly: each made with hands deeply rooted in the earth. Roofs were held up with stones and sticks, fences were tied together with plastic ropes. The dogs guarded the houses.
My brain wandered around home in New York, in my apartment full of knick-knacks and furniture collected over the years, photographs gathering dust. Me in a brownstone in Brooklyn, where the Lower Manhattan skyline is reflected in my bedroom mirror. I have no idea who built this city.
Back in Coyo through the barking of dogs, I had a hard time accepting the fact that, in other parts of the world, a city thrived with skyscrapers and lamps that never go out. In York, I learned that I move through life in a way that is alien to this network. And as long as this life exists, this network, located in the driest desert in the world, asks Mother Earth if we can continue. Can we come to you for answers, Mother Earth?
Cloudy weather in the desert. The days followed one after the other. I measured his passage through the sunsets and sunrises, the walks he had taken, the other people he had met. Sandra, Carlos’ wife, came and went from my days. Her contagious power and everything about her vibrant: her clothes, her laughter, her strength.
Sandra comes from a long line of pastors. We spent an afternoon shepherding with her, talking about life as we walked llamas and sheep through the desert. Every day, she and Carlos walk for hours under the scorching sun to feed their animals, walking either side of the herd, whistling to stop them. in a row. Sandra carried Gaspar, her grandson, tightly on her back.
One day we stopped in the shade of the trees, clearing the ground of thorns and thistles to sit while the animals grazed. Sandra told us that our base in Coyo was her home. However, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, she and Carlos had to move to where they currently live, a 15-minute drive from Coyo, a place reserved for shepherd families with kilometers of open land and trees that provide seeds for animals. . eat. Without electricity, without hot water and with little or no mobile service, the network of families there pool their money to have drinking water delivered as normal.
Although Coyo is a humble desert community, it has been a convenience for Sandra and Carlos. I, too, understood this convenience. Sandra tells us that at first it had been difficult for them to adapt to a new way of life, but now they feel more hooked on nature. As Sandra spoke, Gaspar rolled in the dirt, putting the stones in his mouth to give them flavor.
Again, I have an insight into my life in New York City, with its comparable amenities and services: a position in which we exchange connection and respect for other beings for a specific form of generosity. But this life is also generous. Sandra and Carlos wander through the desert every day by choice, feeling connected to the ground and the sky. In Brooklyn, he had seen a mother reprimand her son for refusing to pick up sticks from the ground. I think of Gaspar, how lucky it is to be able to play so freely on clay.
According to the Lickanantay, yatiris like Carlos are selected beings who have been struck by lightning, awakening their religious talents that the rest of us can only access through the use of hallucinogens. Carlos was stillborn, he told us, until his mother felt the lightning strike. through the walls of St. Peter’s Hospital, causing him to scream on the floor.
In the Lickanantay culture, the term “pachakuti” refers to a time of upheaval and social transformation. The 2017 solar eclipse welcomed us to the fifth pachakuti, Carlos told us. For centuries, the dominant social order has been that of the Western conqueror, seeking to hide and dishonor indigenous communities. This new pachakuti frees us from this energy, he said, and renews us with indigenous wisdom to bring to lifestyles a concord with Mother Earth and all her beings.
The mineral-rich Atacama Desert is also full of lithium, copper, magnesium and potassium mines. In particular, the extraction of lithium, used for electric vehicle batteries and critical to the transition to renewable energy, is at the heart of ongoing debates about mining interests, climate replacement, and the rights of indigenous peoples.
We drove miles on bumpy roads to marvel at the scenery: the desert, the lithium-rich marshes, the mines themselves. Nothing, nothing, until suddenly the landscape of Los Angeles opens up and you can see salt for miles around, splashing the desert like new snow. We parked the van and I climbed a steep ledge to sit with this Los Angeles landscape, watching the sun set over the Cordillera de los Angeles Sal, dyeing the desert and snow-capped mountains pink.
One morning the sky opened up. At first it rained only a few drops, but then the winds became stronger and the sky became grayer, and the rain began to fall relentlessly. A group of us put on our raincoats and ran back through the streets with our arms outstretched to let the rain rustle on our sleeves pass.
I took a deep breath, allowing the aromatic air to fill my lungs, to leave them blank, as Dago had told us. Still, I found out that’s what he meant.
Irjaliina Paavonpera is a photographer who now lives between Sydney, Australia and Paxos, Greece. You can see his paintings on Instagram.
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