Sacrifice: An Interview
by
Natasha Saje
How does someone access a past life?
Sometimes the past drips into the present. I love blue potatoes and corn. That and some other things made me wonder if I had been Incan.
And how did you go about confirming that?
My head has a unique shape. See, on top there’s a hollow where I can balance a potato. The Incans demarcated tribes by swaddling the heads of infants. And I hate to drive.
Anything else?
I use knots to communicate, like tying shoelaces together and then leaving them around for the cats.
So your past life is a curiosity for you?
There are many ways to explain the unexplainable. Some people think they’ve been abducted by aliens, some believe in God, others in past lives. A force directs the soul back to earth again and again.
How do you know when a past life memory is true?
How does one know when anything is true?
Tell us about your Incan life.
In 1493 a drought had stunted the crops and stopped the animals from breeding. My father offered me to the Emperor as a sacrifice. I was ten and perfectly proportioned, without blemish. Priests accompanied us to Cuzco where the Emperor had a feast in my honor. Then we climbed to a higher altitude, where they gave me the maize alcohol chichi, and placed me in a canyon shaft.
And then?
I was walled-in alive. After my death I spoke to the people as an oracle. I saw the moon with three great haloes, one blood-red, one shading from black to green, the third ashen. I predicted the coming of the Spaniards, the fall of the Empire.
Can you see the future in this life?
As a person of the four directions, a child of the sun, I see a tear in the fabric of time.
What does that mean?
The Incans had a creed: Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not be lazy. In the U.S. we have entered a period of sloth and dishonesty.
What can be done about it?
“Pacha” means earth or time. Interesting, don’t you think, that the two are interchangeable? “Cuti” means to set things right. The Pachacuti is not a messiah in an individualistic Christian sense, but a spiritual prototype. Look at a mountain side that’s been mined or watch the sun go down at the equator: one learns the swiftness of change.
How does that translate for you?
I weave cotton finer than silk but do not make a blindfold. I enter the Province of the Ant.
Which means?
We must regain our luminous nature in the Place of Good Pasture.
(begins singing)
Ñoqan kani Intiq Churin, taytallaysi kachamuwan
Ñoqan kani Intiq wawan, taytallaysi kamachiwan
I am a daughter of the Sun, going to my people.
I’m one of the children, going to my people.
I’m a child of the Sun, coming for a purpose.
I’ve come to find and gather my people.
Inca child, like me, in what country are you crying?
Child of the Sun, like me, listen to us cry.