On a boat for 4 days, I felt Iara and Iansã accompany me through this travel on the Amazon River, and for the first time, something woke up inside me to do something. Different from other times when there was a connection and a sense of awakening I could live without doing anything. This time I felt guided, my hand was taken and I decided to follow.
Like in the old folklore, where you are lost in the middle of the jungle and a being finds you, or you find them, and you are guided to the way out. I felt that.
Iansã was making her magics, bringing those warm colours to the sky, warning us about the wars we are fighting every day. To save this magic place, to protect this sacred land. Iansã comes from very far away to protect through the battles where people go against people and nature. Nature swallows people in to pay back the price for each loss she has. Her children are the trees, the waters, the soil and the rocks, her children, in human form, are rebelled beings that work against their future.
Iansão brings colours to Iara before the darkness comes in to rely on the moonlight, she will guard the deep, sweet waters. The river was low; the forests were burning. The sky was fogged for days, and the smoke entered our lungs. Iara cried, but her place was to protect the waters where some dared to throw plastic and trash in. She pleads and then realises there is nothing else to do but only to curse those who disrespect our home.
Often, I feel compelled to photograph mostly people or happenings that involve humans. This time, I was mostly inspired to catch some of the most beautiful views I see every evening. There was not much to see for me besides looking on the outside (nature) or the inside (machinery and humans). My heart was driven by the multi colours of the sun setting down, then disappearing behind the trees on the horizon.
There was not much to be done; the internet was difficult, and I didn't feel a need to "work" while travelling in the most emblematic river in the world. None of the usual things made sense. A much simpler life could become true on this boat, on my way to somewhere I never meet. But the journey felt very familiar: childhood, my life meant to cross multiple rivers, the children of the grand Amazon.
Felt less social than usual, but I didn't want to isolate myself completely. At another time or another place, I would be talking with everyone in that boat, finding out who is with who, why they are travelling, where they come from, etc. Well, I did towards the end. I felt like I could not leave this boat without knowing a bit about some of the people who transit through it, and it was very enriching, as always, for me.
This time, I was more in my head, and my head was out there, between the giant trees far away, deep in the brown waters far away, flying with the birds in the sky far away. Contemplating, far away.
Later, looking at my Astrocartography chart, I noticed that everything made sense. I was travelling near my Venus line. Now, I plan to visit this area again soon. I think it was one of the most beautiful and peaceful experiences I had. It was peaceful in the sense that life made sense all of a sudden, and I knew what my place was in this world. Everything felt in the right place and at ease. I wanted to enjoy the beauty of what the universe was made of, not only forme but for all of us, but just a few stops to admire it.
The deep fears of water vanished, I was at no point worried or anxious. And I know why I didn't feel like that, as I would be about the ocean. Funny enough, my deep water traumas never came from the sea because I hadn't met the ocean until later in life.
Salt waters never attracted me enough; I never had a dream or desire to see the sea or be on it, and there was even a sense of anxiety coming out of nowhere. Only able to stay in shallow waters, while my fears are partially healed.
Then, I saw the Amazon River for the first time from a place and I told myself I needed to be there, later on, the same year I was there...travelling through it.
All my fear was gone; I saw those brown waters that should have scared me, and I felt driven by it, I could fall into those waters and feel at home, drown in the depth and stay there with Iara. Dark brown waters that you can't even see a pinch of what is underneath, the mystery of creatures, the sacred Pirarucu and the mischiefs of the pink Botos.
The same waters where I drowned many times, and death was near me, but I have always been protected by Iara, she was the one who pushed me from the bottom of the rivers towards the surface, she was the one who helped me to have the energy to scream for help and get out of there. I was never meant to die in the brown waters of the Amazonian rivers, but to be part of it as part of my soul stayed there.
I don't know how to swim, but I know how to dive, like sirens of sweet water, my lungs become waterproof. I never inhaled fresh water, even when I could not breathe. Longevity and death-defying run in my veins like a Pirarucu, only natives would understand that when you have indigenous running through your blood, bones and cells.
Running sweet waters I'm part of, and in me, it breath.
Freshwaters travel the world with me, and they travel through me.
Where I wash my soul and go back to my roots.
My roots are in the black and brown waters of the Amazon, which they never left me.
Iara lives in me, and she guides me through this world.
Takes me back home while I follow her through the dark, wet tunnels that nurture the world.
If the networks of trees are the lungs of Earth. Then these sweet water networks are the veins that feed the Earth.
Pauline Massimo, 2024/2025
Film: Ultramax 400
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