In the heart of Peru’s Sacred Valley, rising like a sentinel over the town of Calca, stands Pitusiray, a majestic peak reaching 5,100 meters (16,732 feet) into the heavens.
To the Quechua people, this is no ordinary mountain.
Pitusiray is an Apu, a sacred spirit, a guardian, a protector.
In Andean cosmology, the Apus are alive. They are ancestral beings, holding memory, wisdom, and presence.
Offerings are made to them for harvest, healing, protection, and balance, a deep relationship between the people and the land.
A Meeting Beyond Words
During my last visit to the Sacred Valley, I was given a gift I didn’t ask for:
A moment completely alone with this guardian.
No tourists. No distractions. No sound but the wind.
Just me and the mountain.
And I’ll be honest, words fail.
How do you describe standing in front of something so immense, so eternally present, that your own thoughts fall away?
I didn’t try to explain it.
I didn’t pray.
I didn’t speak.
I sat in silence.
Not out of choice, but because silence was the only response worthy of such presence.
The mountain’s energy was like a deep, resonant gong, vibrating through my bones and into my soul.
It wasn’t just a landscape, it was a being.
And I was in its presence.
To Sit in Reverence
With Pitusiray, there was no need to seek meaning.
No need to understand.
The stillness held me.
The mountain saw me.
And I remembered how to simply be.
In a world that so often demands words, action, and explanation,
There is sacred power in just sitting in silence with something greater than you.
Pitusiray, I carry your vibration in my chest.
You will always be part of my story, even if no one else understands it.
