LINEAGE
Timeless wisdom lived through fatherhood
DAILY PRACTICE
KAWSAY
Everything Speaks To You
Story
I remember this if it was yesterday, I walked past it without noticing. My daughter stopped. Water was running down, slowly, almost quietly. She stood there watching it, not asking anything, not trying to name it. Just looking as if the body of water was communicating something.
An elder I met once pointed to a rock where water was slowly running down its side. “How can you say it has no feeling?” he said. Then he add. “Don’t you see that it’s crying?” He wasn’t asking me to believe the rock was a person. He wasn’t speaking about belief at all. “You think it’s nothing, look closely it’s alive.”
We are taught in western culture that life is what moves, speaks, or reacts. Life is already present vibrating, expressing, whether you notice it or not. That’s kawsay, a quechua word from the Andean traditions of Peru. It refers to living energy, life as something present, waiting for relationship.
This is where it becomes challenging. Because to perceive it, you have to stop imposing meaning. You have to slow down enough to let something reveal itself without interference. No labeling. No teaching. No need to turn it into a lesson. Most adults can’t tolerate that stillness. So they interrupt it.
Shift
Living energy is already present. The moment is alive before you explain it.
Action (Today, With Your Children)
Do this:
Before explaining what something “is” let the moment unfold without naming it.
Reduce your impulse to direct.
Choose one ordinary moment. Walking. Eating. Playing.
Say less than usual. Notice what appears when you stop interfering.
Let your children feel the quiet aliveness of the moment.
Let yourself feel it too. Let it remain as it is.
The living energy was already there
You’re receiving this as part of a daily fatherhood practice
Thank you for being here
PASS IT FORWARD
They can suscribe and obtain this daily