Meditation on Bridge Building

My name is Urku. My work is sacred.

Step by careful step I take.

Am I the bridge? Am I the rope? Am I the space between earth and heaven? The water beneath?

We are known, called, named by the work we do. I am Q’eswachaka Weaver – the bridge weaver. I am over 1500 years of cumulative wisdom. For centuries I have carried the paja brava, the ichu grass. For centuries I have woven it. Year after year, a thousand years, it has been our way. It has been my way.

It is part of my mit’a, my public obligation. Every year at renewal time, I weave the Q’eswachaka, the bridge. Over and over again…for the bridge must be woven. We are the people of the bridge – the Quacha. We are the tribes and communities linked together by the bridge and linked together by the weaving of the bridge.

I am the bridge weaver. 

The ichu grass grows. The ichu is harvested. It is a cycle. It is strongest when kept wet for weaving – a baptism of the ichu. The large ropes are the duros. The woven handrails are the makis. The sirphas join them together. It takes all parts to make the bridge. 

A bridge is the grass, is the water, is the rope, is the weaver. 

I am the weaver of the bridge I cross.

There is no autonomous space. There is no bridge alone, no water alone, no heaven alone. All are linked together by the bridge I weave. Unified. Water comes from heaven. Earth supports the bridge. May its presence be accepted by Apurímac the River.

In time before time, the rope woven by hand connected all thigs and all people. The Q’eswachaka reveals the embrace of one side with another. The path, the bridge, has a spirit to it – a reality.

We are connected one to another and to all those who came before and to all those who will come after. 

It is a way to be walked, not driven, walked barefoot. That is the best way. Is not about arriving it is about crossing. 

I am the bridge weaver. 

This is true with all bridges and all bridge weavers. Sinews – they are – that old word sin. To knot together. To bind. Heaven to earth. God to humanity. This was Jesus’ work and nature. Both a weaver and a Q’eswachaka himself – a bridge. 

A living word from which all things came to be to which all things return. 

The cross, the knot, Jesus the sinew, the sin (2 Corinthians 5:21),the bridge weaver. 

"I am the way," the bridge weaver says. Follow the way. Not something to be driven but something to be walked, lived, and woven. 

No bridge. No water. No heaven alone.

No me, no you, no us, no them. 

All are woven together. 

Each step taken mindfully, each woven piece of ichu grass…we are. Carefully knotted together by the cross. Stronger together than apart. 

We are more than our parts.

I am the bridge weaver.

He is the bridge weaver.

We are the bridge weaver.