Oracle Temple - August 23rd, 2013

      The next day we headed to the Oracle Temple. The Oracle Temple had symbols on the top representing time and space and how the Inca's saw it. There was a Puma who was awake, a serpent leaving the center and a condor with wings outstretched on one side. On the other side where the puma was asleep there was the Eagle and the serpent going away.This was all on top of the Temple carved into a rock.

       Puma described the Condor side as the side that was awake, the old wisdom of the ancestors and the side of the Eagle and sleeping Puma as the side that was to awaken and how people held both inside of them. He described how Medicine women were said to have predicted the future at that place.

   It was also a place of birth and after we went inside the Temple. It was here that the women laid on the table and Puma did a ceremony. It was comforting and relaxing. I ended up meditating inside of one of the sections of the wall.

   After we left the 3 symbols embraced our exit. With a serpent carved going into the Temple and one going out and likewise with a Puma and Condor. A baby condor was carved into the entrance.

     The importance of symbols became all the more apparent in my time there. The three symbols of the Condor, Puma and Serpent are such an important and large part of the Inca and indigenous religion that it was hard not to see the power behind it. The power of others beliefs and also the power of the symbols themselves.

     After the ceremony we made our way to Saqsayhuaman for the final adventure of the day.