Tenka Kirano Into the Tsáchila world EMILIA LLORET
Me, Sto. Domingo 1993
For the Aguavil family, for letting me into their world. For my family, for the constant support.
I was in another reality. The world was passing my eyes as if it was the first time, indomitable, unclear, and rebelling against all my certainties and structures. Questioning everything I know. I m floating and everything I grasp to see is painted with a special colour; lucid, warm. It shines with yellow, red and blue, with the laughter of the children and the humid heat. This colour reflects darkness and light with the same clarity. I m surprised because I can feel it and breathe it. It even painted me, who had just arrived unannounced. The Pones sail until they touch the sun, seeking strength and understanding. They bring back knowledge to use in the material world, expanding reality. These journeys are impregnated with shapes, colours and sounds that are born and die there. They cannot live elsewhere. I notice that they have another way of looking, an eternal look of great clarity. Tenka Kirano is their own special way to see, in total darkness, with every breath and every heartbeat. The world brings back flashes of great force.
The long awaited party arrived and Suyun attended. Many fell in love with him, without knowing how this would transform them. Now these women are projected next to the sun, using water and rain to appear and disappear. Some days, after sunset, they emerge with intensity. But not everything is joy and peace, there are dangers painted with exactly the same colour. The oko luban inhabit the same reality, hiding, lurking and waiting for the red sky to signal the moment to attack. The stars, the children, the leaves - they all have an extraordinary force inside of them from the moment they start to exist. Always present, this power allows them to communicate among each other soundlessly, without speaking. This place gradually slowed me; suddenly it became easier to breathe. Slowly, my mind abandons all anxiety and starts to taste, starts to live. I love this reality; I wouldn t like to wake up. There is so much light, flooding the entire place. But to live here takes a lot of courage as well - some animals want to steal your identity, your brother s identity, your mother s identity, and you need to be very careful to realise when they do, as you won t notice the differences with the true human form. If you find out, they will fly away embarrassed and never return.
I don t know if this reality will disappear, suffocated by another, if it will be shattered, if the sounds will be silenced forever, if all the colours I perceived will turn darker, if its strength will weaken. I only know that those infinite universes of greater consciousness are still there, throbbing. I see and feel them like reflections, in the eyes, in the language, in the laughter and serenity of the ones who still know their portals, who walk their trails and purify themselves in their waters. The Tsáchilas keep painting life with that special colour that only there reveals the mysteries of existence.
CREDITS Photography and text Emilia Lloret Edition Emilia Lloret Coordination Siete de un Golpe Design Emilia Lloret Print Pulse Print Binding La Eriza 2013