It is part of the Literary and Interactive Interludes, small experiences born from walking and created to remind us that human imagination was not born within academic walls.
Long before classrooms, human beings had already invented other ways of learning:
walking,
observing,
repeating,
imitating,
narrating,
drawing,
dancing,
keeping silent,
and turning that which they did not understand into symbols.
This is one of those rituals.
You don’t need to believe in it.
You only need to walk.
[1] THE AWAKENING OF THE WALKER
On an ordinary morning —like all mornings, and yet completely different— the Walker left his house.
He had no goal.
He had not prepared a route.
He was not seeking to reach a specific distance.
Something inside him, a nameless restlessness, asked for movement.
And he walked.
First, along the usual street.
Then he took a turn.
Then another.
He didn’t know exactly why.
He simply wanted to discover what lay beyond his known paths.
After a while, he reached a path flanked by ancient trees.
There, he found a stone.
It was a small stone.
Irregular.
Grey.
There was nothing extraordinary about it.
And yet, the Walker stopped.
He didn’t know why.
He observed it.
He circled it.
He crouched down.
He touched it.
And then, something strange happened.
The stone spoke.
Not with a voice.
Not with words.
It spoke with the kind of language that emerges before words.
The Walker listened.
—Who are you? —he asked.
The stone remained motionless.
But it replied:
—I am a symbol.
The Walker smiled.
—Stones don’t talk.
—Then why are you listening to me?
The Walker fell silent.
The stone continued:
—I am not a symbol because I have a universal meaning. I am a symbol because you have decided to stop before me.
The Walker looked at the stone again.
—Then, is the symbol you or is it me?
—That is a good question.
[2] THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNSPOKEN
The Walker stood up again.
—Why have you called me?
—I didn’t call you.
—Then why did I stop?
—That is for you to discover.
The Walker began to walk slowly around the stone.
—And how am I supposed to discover it?
—By walking.
—That is too easy.
—Important things usually seem easy after they have been understood.
The Walker continued walking.
The stone remained behind.
But after a few meters, he felt that something had changed.
The stone was no longer in front of him.
Now it was inside a question.
—Why do you walk? —asked the symbol.
The Walker took a moment to reply.
—Before, I walked to arrive.
—And now?
—Now I walk so as not to stay in the same place for too long.
—What place?
The Walker thought.
—I don’t know.
—You do know.
—Which one?
—The place where you have grown accustomed to being.
The Walker stopped.
The phrase had found an uncomfortable spot within him.
—And what does walking have to do with that?
—A lot.
The symbol seemed to have multiplied.
Now it was in the branches.
In the leaves.
In a shadow.
In a crack in the ground.
In the movement of a cloud.
—When you walk, your body continually modifies its relationship with space. You change direction. You change rhythm. You encounter obstacles. You make decisions. You leave places behind.
—And what does that mean?
—That walking is a small daily practice of transformation.
The Walker smiled.
—So you are a philosopher.
—No.
—A poet?
—No.
—What are you?
—A stone.
The Walker burst out laughing.
[3] THE SYMBOL AND MEMORY
They kept walking.
Or perhaps it was the Walker who kept walking and the symbol who decided to accompany him.
They reached a massive tree.
The Walker rested a hand on the trunk.
—Have you always been here?
—No.
—When did you appear?
—When you saw me.
—That doesn’t make sense.
—Symbols don’t always need to make sense. They need to have meaning.
—And what is your meaning?
—That depends on you.
The Walker looked at the tree.
He then remembered a walk from his childhood.
An afternoon.
A hand.
A voice.
A path.
He hadn’t thought about that for many years.
And yet, the memory was there.
Not inside the stone.
Not inside the tree.
Inside him.
The symbol spoke again:
—Do not confuse memory with an object.
—What do you mean?
—Objects can awaken memories, but they do not necessarily contain them.
The Walker understood.
Perhaps what we call a symbol is not a box that stores meanings.
Perhaps it is a key.
And the key does not contain the room.
It only allows entry.
[4] THE SYMBOL IN CONSTANT MOTION
The Walker kept moving forward.
The stone had been left behind.
But the symbol had not.
Now it appeared in a leaf spinning slowly on the ground.
Then in a fallen branch.
Then in a curve in the path.
Finally, in his own shadow.
—I thought you were the stone —he said.
—I was never the stone.
—Then what are you?
—I am the relationship you established with it.
The Walker stood still.
That answer seemed to contain something important.
—So you can change.
—Of course.
—And can I change you too?
—Every time you change, you change the way you interpret the world.
The Walker looked around.
The forest was still the same.
But it no longer seemed exactly the same.
—Then the symbol is in motion.
—Always.
—Even when it seems immobile?
—Especially then.
[5] THE BODY AS A READER
The Walker began to walk again.
This time he paid attention to his feet.
At first, he only felt the ground.
Then he began to perceive small differences.
The damp earth.
The stone.
The root.
The sand.
The slope.
The temperature.
The balance.
The rhythm.
He understood he was reading.
But not with his eyes.
With his body.
And then he remembered something:
walking is a form of reading.
The foot reads the terrain.
The ear reads the space.
The gaze reads the horizon.
The breath reads the effort.
Memory reads similarities.
Imagination reads possibilities.
And thought tries to bring it all together.
—So the body is also a reader? —he asked.
—It always has been.
—And have we forgotten it?
—Frequently.
[6] THE SYMBOL AS A GUIDE
The Walker reached a fork in the road.
Two paths.
One familiar.
The other unknown.
—Which one should I take? —he asked.
The symbol replied:
—Why do you think I should decide?
—I thought you were a guide.
—I can help you formulate questions.
—But you can’t tell me which path to take?
—If I did, you would stop walking your own path.
The Walker observed both trails.
—Then, what question should I ask myself?
The symbol replied:
—Do not ask which path is correct.
—Then?
—Ask:
Which path do I want to know?
The Walker chose the unknown path.
Not because it was better.
But because he didn’t yet know where it led.
And sometimes, curiosity is a legitimate form of orientation.
[7] THE RETURN
Hours later, he returned.
The forest was beginning to grow dark.
The stone was still in the same place.
The Walker approached.
—I have come back.
—No.
—No?
—You have returned.
—Isn’t that the same thing?
—No.
The Walker understood.
The place hadn’t changed much.
He had.
He hadn’t received any revelation.
He hadn’t discovered a hidden truth.
He hadn’t found a definitive answer.
He had found something simpler:
a new way of looking.
The stone was a stone again.
The tree was a tree again.
The path was a path again.
But none of them were exactly the same for him.
Because now he had learned to walk inside them.
[8] THE MESSAGE OF THE SYMBOL
Before leaving, the Walker asked one last question.
—Will I find you again?
—Yes.
—Where?
—I don’t know.
—How will I recognize you?
—You won’t recognize me.
—Then how will I know it’s you?
The symbol replied:
—When something seemingly insignificant manages to stop you.
The Walker smiled.
—A stone?
—Perhaps.
—A leaf?
—Maybe.
—A shadow?
—That too.
—A person?
—Of course.
—A word?
—Often.
—A memory?
—More than you imagine.
—And if I find nothing?
The symbol replied:
—Then walk a little further.
[9] THE RITUAL OF THE SYMBOL
Perhaps this dialogue can become an experience for the person reading.
You don’t need to believe that stones talk.
You don’t need to look for supernatural messages.
You don’t need to interpret every coincidence.
You only need to go out.
Walk for twenty minutes.
For the first five, simply walk.
Then, choose a question:
What am I not seeing?
Or:
What have I stopped looking at?
Or:
Which part of me needs movement?
Or simply:
What does the path want to show me today?
Don’t look for an immediate answer.
Walk.
And when something manages to catch your attention, stop.
It could be a stone.
A flower.
A shadow.
A tree.
A person.
Architecture.
A sound.
A cloud.
Don’t ask what it means first.
Ask yourself:
Why did this manage to stop me?
Then continue.
Upon returning, write three things:
What I saw.
What I felt.
What I imagined.
And if you want, draw what stopped you.
It doesn’t matter if you know how to draw.
The drawing is not to show the world what you saw.
It is to show yourself how you saw it.
You have just performed a small ritual of the Creative Walker.
[10] THE WALKING READER
Perhaps after doing this exercise, you will understand something that books cannot always explain.
When I reached the forest, I could barely distinguish the first trees.
Branches appeared and disappeared.
The paths faded away just a few meters ahead.
Shapes seemed incomplete.
The whole world seemed to have forgotten its contours.
And yet, I had never seen the forest with such clarity.
Because when the obvious disappears, other things begin to emerge.
The sound of a branch.
The smell of damp earth.
My breathing.
The weight of my feet.
The brush of a leaf against my clothes.
Water pooled on a stone.
A bird singing without letting itself be seen.
The fog was not hiding the forest.
It was teaching me to look at it in a different way.
I have been walking for twenty-three days.
Twenty-three days learning something I was never taught in school:
walking can also be a form of creation.
At first, I believed that to create, I needed to sit down.
A desk.
A notebook.
A computer.
A silent room.
Today I am beginning to suspect I was wrong.
Perhaps many of our best ideas do not appear when we sit down to look for them.
Perhaps they appear when we stop chasing them.
A walk opens a strange space between thought and the world.
The body moves forward.
The mind is liberated.
The senses awaken.
And then something unexpected appears:
an association,
an image,
a question,
a word,
a memory,
a character,
a story.
The walker begins to become a creator.
THE FOREST AS A NOTEBOOK
Today I understood that the walker’s notebook is not always made of paper.
Sometimes it is made of trees.
Of paths.
Of stones.
Of clouds.
Of sounds.
Of shadows.
Of distances.
Of encounters.
The forest can be a notebook.
And each step, a line.
Each discovery, a word.
Each symbol, a phrase.
Each emotion, a chapter.
Perhaps that is why walking and writing are profoundly similar.
Both leave traces.
The difference is that the writer leaves words on a page.
The walker leaves a sequence of decisions on the territory.
THE FOG
About a hundred meters from the start of the trail, I found a fallen branch.
It had a strange shape.
It looked like a spiral.
I stopped.
Not because I needed to rest.
Because the branch had stopped me.
I observed it for a few minutes.
And I thought:
Every return can be a form of evolution.
I kept walking.
Further on, I heard a bird.
I couldn’t see it.
I could only hear it.
A tiny voice piercing the fog.
Then I thought:
Beauty does not need to be visible to exist.
I continued.
A few minutes later, a small clearing appeared.
I hadn’t seen it when passing by on other days.
I wasn’t sure if I truly hadn’t seen it or if I simply hadn’t been prepared to see it.
And another phrase appeared:
The landscape also changes when the one who looks at it changes.
Then I understood something.
Symbols do not necessarily appear because the forest places them in front of us.
Sometimes they appear because we have learned to recognize them.
THE SYMBOL IN MOTION
For a long time, I thought a symbol was an image.
A cross.
A spiral.
A tree.
A mountain.
A star.
But today the forest taught me something else.
A symbol can be an event.
A coincidence.
A direction.
A pause.
A repetition.
An object that appears exactly when we needed to find it.
A sound that forces us to stop.
A path we decide not to take.
The symbol is not necessarily still.
The symbol may be walking with us.
And perhaps that is why our book spoke of the Symbol in Constant Motion. (1)
Because a symbol changes when the walker who interprets it changes.
The same stone may be just a stone for one person.
For another, it can become memory.
For another, a warning.
For another, an idea.
For another, the beginning of a poem.
The stone did not change.
The walker did.
THE CREATIVE WALKER
And here an idea appeared that I want to keep in this notebook:
the Creative Walker is not necessarily a writer.
It can be anyone.
A child.
An elderly person.
A scientist.
A farmer.
A student.
An artist.
A person who has never written a poem.
They don’t need to know how to draw.
They don’t need to know philosophy.
They don’t need to study literature.
They only need to walk with enough attention to allow something to happen to them.
Afterward, they can decide what to do with what they found.
They can write it.
Draw it.
Photograph it.
Tell it.
Turn it into music.
Ask a question.
Invent a story.
Or simply keep it.
Because creating does not always mean producing a work.
Sometimes it means allowing an experience to transform our way of seeing.
THE RITUAL OF THE CREATIVE WALKER
Perhaps that is why human beings, since ancient times, invented rituals.
Not necessarily because they needed explanations.
But because they needed to create conditions for something different to occur.
A circle.
A dance.
A walk.
A song.
A campfire.
A painting.
A mask.
A silence.
A route.
An encounter.
Long before academic venues existed, human beings had already discovered mechanisms to awaken the imagination.
Walking belongs to that ancient family of experiences.
And perhaps we can recover it.
Not as nostalgia.
But as a contemporary tool for creating.
AN EXPERIMENT FOR YOU
If you are reading this while sitting down, you don’t need to finish the article to begin.
You can do it now.
Get up.
Go out.
You don’t need to go far.
You don’t need to prepare a major expedition.
Go to a quiet street.
To a park.
To a square.
To a trail.
To any place where you can walk safely.
And for the first five minutes, don’t try to think about anything special.
Simply walk.
Then, start looking for three things:
Something you hadn’t seen before.
It can be tiny.
A crack.
A leaf.
A shadow.
A window.
A stone.
A sound.
Something that sparks a question.
You don’t need to answer it.
Just formulate it.
Something that could become a symbol.
Don’t ask what it means.
Ask yourself:
What could it mean for me?
When you return, write three lines.
No more.
Don’t try to make literature.
Don’t try to be profound.
Simply write:
I saw…
I wondered…
And then I thought…
That is enough.
You have just started your first Creative Walker’s notebook.
WALK-RWD CAN ALSO WALK HERE
Now imagine we do this exercise accompanied by a tool like WALK-RWD.
The system records the journey.
But it is not limited to recording kilometers.
It can save photographs.
Words.
Sounds.
Drawings.
Pauses.
Changes in route.
Observations.
Questions.
And afterward, it can help us relate them.
It could discover that during certain walks we always photograph trees.
That our questions become longer near the water.
That we write more when we walk alone.
That certain places trigger memories.
That our routes change according to our mood.
Not to tell us what we should feel.
But to show us something we might not have noticed:
our walking also has a narrative.
And that narrative can become creation.
THE READER WHO LEAVES THE BOOK
Here another connection appears.
For a long time, we imagined the reader as someone sitting in front of a book.
But perhaps the reader of the future is different.
They read.
They close the book.
They go out.
They walk.
They observe.
They return.
They write.
They read again.
And then they discover that what they read has begun a dialogue with what they lived.
That reader no longer remains immobile.
They become an Evolutionary Reader.
And the book ceases to be merely an object.
It becomes a door.
Perhaps this is one of the most beautiful functions of literature:
not to keep us within the pages, but to help us step out into the world with new eyes.
A MESSAGE FOR THE IMMOBILE READER
Maybe you are reading this now from a chair.
From a bed.
From an office.
From a train.
From a café.
It doesn’t matter.
I’m not going to tell you that sitting is wrong.
I am also sitting as I write these words.
What matters is that we do not remain immobile out of forgetfulness.
If you can walk, walk.
Not because you have to meet a quota.
Not because you must conquer a distance.
Not because an application commands you to.
Walk because your body needs to remember that it can.
Walk to think.
Walk to stop thinking.
Walk to look.
Walk to converse.
Walk to be alone.
Walk to find a question.
Walk to seek an answer.
And sometimes…
walk without looking for anything at all.
Because perhaps it is precisely then that something will appear.
THE INVITATION
You don’t need a mountain.
You don’t need a forest.
You don’t need fog.
You don’t need a great adventure.
You can start on your own street.
The most extraordinary path can be three meters from your door.
Creativity doesn’t always wait in extraordinary places.
Sometimes it is hidden in what we see every day and never truly look at.
That is why I propose something:
Tomorrow, walk for twenty minutes through a familiar place.
But do it as if it were the first time.
Don’t use the eyes of someone who already knows.
Use the eyes of someone who has just arrived.
Look for a symbol.
Don’t force it.
Let it appear.
And when you find it, ask it:
What have you come to tell me?
Maybe it won’t answer.
That’s fine.
The best symbols don’t always answer immediately.
Sometimes they stay walking with you for years.
CLOSING OF DAY 23
The fog began to lift near noon.
The forest slowly regained its contours.
Trees became trees again.
The path became a path again.
Distances returned.
Clarity returned.
But something had changed.
Me.
I put away my notebook.
I looked at my boots.
They were covered in mud.
I had walked a little over three kilometers.
Nothing extraordinary.
I hadn’t conquered a mountain.
I hadn’t discovered an unknown territory.
I hadn’t achieved any sports record.
And yet, I felt I had traveled an enormous distance.
Because today I hadn’t walked only on the earth.
I had walked upon a question.
And the question had led me to a place that does not appear on any map.
Inside myself.
Then I wrote the last phrase of the day:
Today I didn’t advance more than three kilometers. But I traveled an entire galaxy inside me.
I closed the notebook.
Tomorrow will be Day 24.
There will be another path.
Another question.
Another symbol.
Another possibility to create.
And perhaps you can begin your own Day 1.
You don’t need to wait until you have time.
You don’t need to wait until you have inspiration.
You don’t need to wait to know what you want to find.
Go out and walk first.
Inspiration can catch up with you on the way.
FIVE PHRASES FROM THE CREATIVE WALKER
We don’t always walk to find a place; sometimes we walk to find an idea.
The landscape doesn’t only change when the world changes; it also changes when the one who looks at it changes.
A symbol can be an image, but it can also be an event that decides to walk with you.
Creativity doesn’t always start with a blank page; sometimes it starts with a path.
Don’t wait for inspiration to walk. Walk and allow inspiration to have a place to find you.
A FINAL INVITATION
If you have reached this point while sitting, perhaps that is enough reading.
Close this post.
Get up.
Open the door.
Walk for twenty minutes.
And when you return, write only three things:
What you saw.
What you felt.
What you discovered.
You don’t know what they will be yet.
That is precisely the wonderful part.
The Creative Walker’s notebook begins when the path begins.
(1) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, The Walker and His Shadow: Myth of a Nomadic Tower, EMULISA, Mexico, 2025. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ2DS9RY
There is an absurd paradox in our modern civilization: we spend our lives reading about reality on five-inch flat screens or in books stacked on the nightstand, while our feet step only on mute pavement. We have become illiterate in the only text that does not lie: the ground.
I write this because we have just extracted the core ideas from the essay “The Path as a Book” (1), and if one thing becomes clear after deciphering the grammar of the earth, it is that walking has never been a simple physical movement. Walking is an act of reading. And, above all, an act of writing.
I have condensed the foundations of the research that connects three geographies separated by colossal oceans and up to ten millennia of history: the Sacbeob of the Maya jungle, the hyper-arid pampa of Nazca, and the red laterite plateaus (saḍā) of Konkan, on the western coast of India (2).
In the essay, we explore how routes are not geographical accidents, but memories engraved under pressure. Each trail carved by continuous use is a grammatical sentence; each crossroads, a collective decision-making process; each worn stone, a punctuation mark.
1. Moving is Not Advancing: The Difference Between Transiting and Inhabiting
When was the last time your feet didn’t just take you somewhere, but actually listened to where you were?
At the speed of contemporary transport, the landscape becomes a blurred frame at 100 km/h. But when you slow down to the human pace (to those modest yet revolutionary 4 km/h), the territory stops being a background photo and reveals its lines of force.
At 4 km/h, the body acts exactly like the phonograph needle of a vinyl player; that is, when you walk:
The terrain dictates your syntax: An ascent is a reflective pause or an accent mark; a valley, a parenthesis in which to breathe.
The heel decodes the texture: The footstep transforms the inert carving into language and meaning.
Your footprints enter into dialogue: You are not inaugurating anything; you are overlaying your own calligraphy onto the layers of text left by thousands who walked before you.
2. The Veins of South America and the Transoceanic Enigma
If there is a place where this metaphor becomes terrifyingly literal, it is along the spine of South America.
Think of the Nazca geoglyphs or the monumental traces of the Qhapaq Ñan (the Inca Trail). Do you really believe they were just “trade routes” or “drawings for the gods”? They were systems of territorial inscription. They were gigantic codices drawn not with ink, but by removing the desert patina and arranging stones.
There, the territory does not merely speak: it shouts.
3. The Invisible Thread: From the Maya Jungle to the Peruvian Desert
Before crossing the ocean toward Asia, we must understand how two American civilizations solved the need to translate the order of the stars onto the ground they walked upon:
The Maya Sacbeob: Pedestrian Archaeoastronomy
The plaster-paved “white roads” of the Maya jungle were not mere commercial paths. They were vectors of Cosmic Synchrony. Laid out in flawless straight lines aligned with the solstices and the course of the Milky Way, marching upon a sacbé meant integrating human stepping with the mechanics of the universe. Elevated above the vegetation, the white road demanded a ritual march where the territory was read with the feet.
The Pampa of Nazca: Writing by Subtraction
On the southern coast of Peru, ancient inhabitants removed the dark surface stones to expose the lighter subsoil beneath. They traced figures ranging between 50 and 300 meters across that a stationary observer cannot fully grasp from ground level. The monumental scale in Nazca was not a message for extraterrestrials; it was a deliberate cognitive strategy to force movement. The mind does not receive the figure as a passive photograph; it reconstructs it step by step in the brain as the feet follow the curves, ridges, and turns of the design.
4. The Transoceanic Leap: The Konkan Plateaus (India)
And here is where the research takes its most breathtaking leap. On the horizontal red laterite plateaus (saḍā) of the Ratnagiri and Rajapur districts (Maharashtra, India), one of the most fascinating rock art discoveries of the 21st century has emerged.
The 10,000-Year Prologue
Dated between 10,000 BC and 2,000 BC (Mesolithic and Neolithic), these geoglyphs are between 8,000 and 10,000 years older than Nazca. Carved directly into bedrock without metal tools, they remained hidden for centuries under monsoon vegetation.
The Matrix of Stone
The Kasheli Elephant (18 x 13 m): A monumental carving containing nearly 80 carved micro-figures of animals (sharks, stingrays, monkeys, tigers) inside it, serving as a true biological encyclopedia of the land.
The Absent Fauna: Carvings of single-horned rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses—species locally extinct for millennia—proving that the plateaus acted as archives of climate and historical memory.
The “Master of Animals” of Barsu: A giant human silhouette flanked by two felines, asserting human consciousness as a mediator of the natural order.
Separated by oceans and millennia, the inhabitants of ancient India and pre-Hispanic Peru responded to the horizontal landscape with the same intuition: turning flat ground into a marching score.
And here is where imagination and historical evidence force us to look beyond the preconceived map. Anyone who has studied the sacred geometries and ritual paths of Nazca knows that this phenomenon is not unique to the Peruvian desert. If we cross the ocean to the Indian subcontinent—for instance, to the geoplanar alignments on the Konkan plateau or the mysterious figures carved into stone in Maharashtra—we find an unsettling echo: the same ancestral need to mark the land to make the cosmos intelligible.
Was there prehistoric contact, a cognitive coincidence of the species, or a universal mathematical matrix that inclined distant cultures to “write” upon the earth’s crust with the same calligraphy? We won’t find out if we remain seated on the couch. The answer is not in a search algorithm; it is in the slope of the ground, the erosion of the wind, and the resistance of the heel against stone. We have to go there. We have to kick up the dust in Nazca and trace the analogous footprints in Konkan. Real research is done with dusty boots.
5. Manifesto of the Irreverent Walker: Take Off Your Headphones and Read the Ground
The system wants you to consume space, not decode it. It wants you to buy a plane ticket, take three photos at the viewpoint, and return to your cubicle.
We propose a kinesthetic insurrection:
A. Become a voluntary GPS illiterate: Get a little lost. A digital map tells you where to go, but makes you blind to where you are.
B. Use your feet as sensory organs: Feel the difference between the warmth of clay soil and the coldness of asphalt. Your body knows things your intellectualized mind has forgotten.
C. Learn to read the relief: The hollow tells where water once ran; the steep slope reveals the stubbornness of the trees; the erased trail indicates which paths the community decided to abandon.
And what about you? When are you going to start writing your own lines, your own figures?
Every walk is an unpublished essay. It does not matter whether you are crossing the pampas of South America, tracing ancient geoglyphs in India, or simply walking the forgotten periphery of your own city.
The territory is there, patient, waiting for someone to regain the subtlety to listen to it.
Get out of the room. Turn off the screen. Put one foot in front of the other.
The book is open. The ground is already speaking. Are you going to leave it unread?
(1) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, The Journey as a Book, EMULISA, México, 20026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HNV3KF1C
(2) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Konkan: A Territory That Talks as You Walk It, EMULISA, Mexico, 2026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HP7TP3GC.
We can explore what people feel when walking through the Nazca Lines and formulate hypotheses about what their creators might have experienced, but we cannot claim beforehand that we know their original feelings. This distinction in our objectives does not weaken the WALKINGNAZCA project; it lends it rigor and opens up a much more interesting field of research.
There are figures we can contemplate. There are figures we can draw. And there are figures we can walk through. When we walk along them, geometry is no longer merely in front of us: it begins to unfold within our experience.
I. A Question to Begin Walking
What can a person experience when they follow, with their own steps, the figure of an animal, a spiral, a straight line, a trapezoid, or a geometric configuration extending across the landscape?
The question seems simple, but it leads us into a field of research that we are only beginning to explore.
We are accustomed to observing figures from the outside. We contemplate them on a sheet of paper, on a screen, on an architectural plan, in an aerial photograph, or from an elevated position that allows us to appreciate their outlines. We learn to recognize their properties, name them, measure them, and classify them.
However, another possibility exists: to abandon, at least provisionally, the position of the observer and enter the figure.
Not with our eyes, but with our feet.
Follow its path. Walk along one of its sides. Change direction. Reach an intersection. Approach a center. Move away from it. Repeat a route. Retrace our steps. Discover that a distance requires time to travel and that a direction changes what we perceive along the way.
A different question then emerges, one that we do not usually ask when looking at a geometric figure.
We no longer ask only: What shape does it have?
We also ask:
What happens when I walk along it? What relationships do I discover as I travel through it? What do I experience when I temporarily become a moving part of its configuration?
These questions constitute one of the starting points of WALKINGNAZCA.
Our purpose is not to replace geometry with a subjective interpretation, but to explore an additional dimension of figures: the bodily experience that may arise from walking through them.
To begin this exploration, we propose revisiting an ancient structure of knowledge: the quadrivium.
And, building on it, experimenting with a new way of relating number, form, movement, and experience.
II. The Quadrivium: Four Paths of Knowledge
The word quadrivium comes from Latin and can be understood as “four paths.” (*) Historically, it referred to the set of four mathematical disciplines that, in the medieval educational tradition, followed the trivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
Each discipline addressed a different dimension of the relationships that organize the world.
Arithmetic: number considered in itself.
Geometry: number and proportion in magnitudes and forms.
Music: numerical relationships expressed through proportions, intervals, and sound harmonies.
Astronomy: numerical relationships observed in celestial movements and cycles.
The quadrivium therefore provides an intellectual precedent for thinking that number is not limited to counting objects: it also allows us to study relationships, proportions, rhythms, and movements.
Historically, it was not conceived as a method for walking along figures. Nor do we have grounds for attributing to it an original theory of the sensations produced by such journeys.
(*) The Latin term quadrivium has two historically related meanings. In its original sense, it designates a place where four roads converge or intersect; later, in the medieval educational tradition, it came to refer to the set of four mathematical disciplines: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The Spanish word cuadrivio retains the meaning of a crossroads of four roads. This dual meaning is especially significant for WALKINGNAZCA: on the one hand, the quadrivium represents an organization of knowledge; on the other, it evokes a space where four paths converge at a center. This second image allows us to establish a conceptual connection between the historical meaning of the word and our proposal to explore figures through walking. This dual meaning is supported by the Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, which records both senses, and by the Infopédia Dictionary of the Portuguese Language, which defines quadrívio as the place where four roads converge or intersect.
But we can formulate a contemporary question based on its structure:
What would happen if we related the four dimensions of the quadrivium to the experience of physically walking through a configuration?
This question opens up a possibility.
Number can help us measure steps, distances, and durations. Geometry can define paths. Music can inspire us to study the rhythms of walking. Astronomy can remind us that every experience of a landscape takes place beneath a sky, at a particular moment, and within natural cycles.
We are not claiming that the historical quadrivium already contained our proposal. We are using its intellectual architecture as a starting point for building a contemporary instrument of exploration.
In WALKINGNAZCA, knowledge of a figure would not have to end once we have managed to describe it.
Another stage could begin when we decide to walk through it.
III. Our Quadrivium: A Proposal for WALKINGNAZCA
For the development of WALKINGNAZCA, we propose experimentally expanding the quadrivium through a relationship among four dimensions:
Number, form, movement, and feeling.
Number allows us to quantify.
Form allows us to recognize and organize spatial relationships.
Movement turns those relationships into a path that unfolds over time.
Feeling encompasses the bodily, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive experiences that may arise during the journey.
This adaptation is not a translation of the historical quadrivium, but an original proposal developed by WALKINGNAZCA.
We can express it as a sequence:
NUMBER → FORM → MOVEMENT → FEELING
And also as a research cycle:
FEELING → DESCRIBING → MEASURING → COMPARING → WALKING AGAIN
Why a cycle rather than just a sequence?
Because experience does not have to be the final result of a walk. It can become the starting point for the next one.
A person walks through a figure, describes what they experienced, compares their experience with that of others, and decides to modify the route. They change their speed, the direction from which they enter, the direction of travel, or the distance from which they approach the center.
Then they walk again.
The second experience may confirm an earlier observation, modify it, or reveal something that had gone unnoticed.
In this way, feeling ceases to be merely an impression that is difficult to communicate and also becomes an object of observation, description, and comparison.
This does not make it entirely measurable, nor does it deprive it of its personal character. What we do is create conditions for investigating it.
IV. The Quadrivium as Mantra and Yantra: Observing and Walking
Here we introduce one of the most suggestive ideas in this proposal.
We will use the words mantra and yantra as working analogies, inspired by their uses in different Indian traditions of thought, without claiming to reproduce their original religious or ritual meanings.
In our adaptation, the mantra will be a conceptual structure that we can contemplate and remember; the yantra will be a configuration that we can represent and walk through.
The first invites us to observe a relationship.
The second invites us to experience it through movement.
We do not claim that these two functions exhaust the traditional meanings of either term. We adopt them as imaginative tools for opening a new avenue of exploration.
1. The Mantra: The Figure Conceived and Observed
Imagine a cross formed by two perpendicular paths.
We can observe it from above. Recognize its center. Notice that its four arms point in different directions. Identify its relationships of perpendicularity and symmetry.
We can then associate four words with that figure:
Center. Direction. Intersection. Return.
We repeat them mentally as we observe the configuration.
This is not a magical formula or a claim about hidden effects. It is a way of focusing our attention on the relationships we want to explore.
In this sense, the WALKINGNAZCA mantra will be a verbal or conceptual structure that helps us direct our observation.
It may consist of four words, a question, a sequence of instructions, or a brief description of what we want to investigate.
For example:
I approach the center. I recognize the intersection. I choose a direction. I observe what changes.
The figure remains the same. What changes is the way we pay attention to it.
2. The Yantra: The Figure Walked Through
Now imagine that the same cross exists on the ground and that we can walk along its paths.
We start at the center and move toward one of its endpoints.
We return to the center.
We choose another arm and repeat the journey.
Finally, we walk from one endpoint toward the center and continue to the opposite endpoint.
The cross, which was previously a configuration we observed, becomes a sequence of actions.
The body experiences displacement, effort, duration, decisions, and the spatial reference points involved in walking.
In our proposal, the yantra is not merely a drawn figure. It is a figure whose structure can be experienced through a predefined route.
The same principle can be applied to a spiral, a trapezoid, a circle, a broken line, or an animal figure.
The mantra organizes attention; the yantra organizes the path. One invites us to look at relationships. The other invites us to walk through them.
Both can complement one another, although they do not necessarily have to produce the same experience or lead to a single interpretation.
V. The Cross: Four Directions and a Center
Let us begin with one of the simplest and most fruitful configurations: two straight lines that intersect perpendicularly.
The cross is an excellent initial laboratory because it allows us to study geometric relationships with few variables and an easily recognizable structure.
It has two axes, four arms, and an intersection point.
That point can serve as a reference for organizing numerous routes.
The First Route: From the Center Outward
We position ourselves at the intersection.
We choose one of the four arms and walk toward its endpoint.
We can pay attention to the distance traveled, the time taken, and the orientation of our body.
Then we return to the center and repeat the route along another arm.
Even when the distances are equal, the movements may feel different. The terrain, lighting, wind, slope, speed, acceleration at different moments, physical condition, and expectations of the person may all modify the experience.
The symmetry of the figure does not guarantee identical sensations.
This difference is precisely one of the questions WALKINGNAZCA can investigate.
The Second Route: From the Outside Toward the Center
Now we begin at an endpoint.
We walk toward the intersection and stop there.
We can observe whether approaching the center feels different from moving outward from it.
Then we repeat the experience from the other endpoints.
The return journey does not have to be psychologically identical to the outward journey. We know that we are returning, remember the route we have just traveled, and anticipate the destination.
The geometric path may be the same or similar to the previous one, while the temporal experience changes.
The Third Route: Crossing Through the Center
We begin at one endpoint and walk to the opposite endpoint, passing through the intersection.
Here, the center ceases to be a destination and becomes a transition.
We can stop there or cross it without interruption.
We can compare the two routes: stopping may turn the intersection into a deliberate event, while passing through it may cause attention to focus on the continuity of movement.
We are not claiming that everyone experiences these differences. We are identifying conditions that can be subjected to observation.
The Fourth Route: Changing Arms
From the center, we can turn ninety degrees and continue along another arm.
We can also make a series of ninety-degree turns, alternating among the four arms according to a predefined sequence.
In this case, perpendicularity ceases to be merely a mathematical property. It becomes a condition of movement: the body must change its orientation to follow the path.
We can record the number of turns, their direction, the elapsed time, and the ease or difficulty with which they are performed.
The figure begins to reveal something that does not appear in the same way when we observe it while standing still: its directional relationships become bodily decisions.
The Fifth Route: Returning to the Starting Point
We can walk along all four arms, returning to the center after each one.
Or we can follow a circuit connecting the endpoints through auxiliary paths, provided the design allows it.
We can also repeat the same arm several times and compare the first walk with the subsequent ones.
Does our attention change? Do we anticipate the end more accurately? Do we remember the distance more precisely? Does it become easier to maintain our direction?
These questions connect geometry, memory, learning, and movement.
What Does the Cross Teach Us?
The cross does not convey a universal feeling that we can deduce from its lines alone.
Instead, it offers a stable structure within which we can explore different experiences.
We can study the center as an origin or destination; direction as a choice; perpendicularity as a change in orientation; repetition as learning; and return as a comparison between what we remember and what we experience.
A simple figure thus becomes a set of experimental possibilities.
And, most importantly, these same possibilities can be incorporated into a digital system that guides routes and makes it possible to compare them.
VI. Center and Periphery: Two Ways to Begin
Any configuration with a recognizable center and a periphery can offer us two broad families of routes.
The first begins at the center and moves outward.
The second begins at the outside and moves toward the center.
These two operations may seem equivalent if we think exclusively about the distance between two points. But they are not equivalent from the standpoint of experience.
Walking from the Center
When we begin at the center, the starting point serves as a familiar reference.
We move away from it and can observe how our relationship with the configuration changes.
The distance from the center increases. Our perspective on the space may change. The path leads us toward a boundary, an endpoint, or a new reference point.
We can ask ourselves whether we remember where the center is, whether we can return without assistance, or whether the distance traveled changes our perception of the entire figure.
In a radial configuration, we can move outward in different directions and compare the routes.
Walking Toward the Center
When we begin at the periphery, the center becomes a goal.
We may see it from the beginning or discover it progressively, depending on the shape of the configuration and the conditions of observation.
The walk is then organized around an anticipated arrival.
We can compare the experience of approaching the center from different directions or examine how perception changes when the center is visible, marked on the ground, or defined only on the digital map.
The Center as a Bodily Reference
The geometric center does not necessarily coincide with the visual, topographic, or subjective center of an experience.
A figure may have a clearly defined mathematical center and yet present slopes, obstacles, terrain asymmetries, or environmental conditions that alter the walk.
For this reason, WALKINGNAZCA will distinguish among the calculated geometric center, the reference point used by the system, and the experience the person reports upon arrival.
This distinction will allow us to formulate more precise questions.
Are we walking toward a geometric point, a visible location, or a reference point we have learned to recognize?
The journey will allow us to investigate the differences.
VII. From the Quadrivium to the First Geometric Feelings
So far, we have discussed configurations, paths, and conditions of observation.
But our purpose does not end with describing movement. We want to explore the feelings that may arise when a person walks through a figure.
We use the word feeling in a broad sense. It may include bodily sensations, changes in attention, spatial impressions, emotions, memories, anticipations, and personal interpretations.
Not all these components are equivalent, nor must they occur together.
There is also no established correspondence that would allow us to claim, for example, that walking a spiral always produces introspection or that walking through a cross necessarily generates a feeling of balance.
What we can do is propose experiences, record responses, and compare the results.
Below are some initial scenarios.
1. The Straight Line: Continuity and Anticipation
Research question: How does the experience change when we maintain the same direction throughout a journey?
We can walk along a straight line of known length.
In a first trial, we move at our usual pace.
In a second, we maintain an approximately constant speed.
In a third, we divide the line into segments and briefly stop at each one (acceleration).
We can record the time, number of steps, pauses, changes in speed, and personal impressions.
The line has not changed, but the conditions of walking have.
Some people might describe continuity, monotony, concentration, calmness, or difficulty maintaining attention. Others might experience nothing particularly noteworthy.
The research begins when we accept both possibilities.
2. The Spiral: Moving Closer or Farther Away
Research question: What differences emerge when we follow a path that progressively brings us closer to a center or moves us farther away from it?
Imagine a spiral drawn on the ground.
We can walk from its outer endpoint toward the central region and, on another occasion, make the journey in the opposite direction.
We can compare the duration, number of turns, distance from the center, and changes in orientation.
We can also observe how our perception of the route changes as the spatial reference points change.
The spiral offers an opportunity to explore the relationship between a path and expectation.
If we know the design, we can anticipate that we will approach the center. If we do not know it, we may discover it as we walk.
There is no need to assign a universal meaning to the spiral. It is enough to investigate what changes between the two experiences.
3. The Trapezoid: Boundaries, Sides, and Transitions
Research question: How do we experience a figure whose sides have different lengths and orientations?
The trapezoid allows us to compare parallel sides, oblique sides, distances, and turns.
We can walk its entire perimeter or cross it using predefined diagonals.
When walking along the perimeter, we experience a succession of segments and changes in direction.
When following a diagonal, we connect two vertices without following the outline.
This comparison allows us to study how movement changes when we follow the boundaries of a figure or choose an interior path.
We can measure the segments, count the turns, and compare the duration of the journeys.
We can also ask whether a person perceives the longer and shorter sides differently.
4. The Circle: Continuity and Return
Research question: What do we experience when we follow a closed path and return to the starting point?
We walk around a circle until we complete one full revolution.
We can make a second circuit in the same direction and a third in the opposite direction, if conditions allow.
The endpoint geometrically coincides with the starting point. However, the person walking is not exactly the same observer who began: they now have the memory of a complete circuit.
We can compare the perception of distance, estimated time, and ease of anticipating the end of the route.
Returning allows us to investigate the relationship among repetition, memory, and orientation.
5. The Zigzag: The Experience of Changing Direction
Research question: How do successive changes of direction influence attention and the perception of a route?
A broken line requires us to alternate between segments and turns.
We can compare two paths of equal length: one straight and the other composed of segments that change direction.
Although the total distance may be similar, the second requires us to reorient our bodies repeatedly.
We can record the turns, pauses, and speed along each segment.
We can also ask whether a person remembers the straight segments or the turning points more clearly.
The configuration allows us to explore the relationship between spatial continuity and the effort required for orientation.
6. The Cross: Choice and Relationships Among Directions
Research question: What changes when we can choose among four directions that begin at the same point?
We can repeat the cross route using different instructions.
In the first experience, the system chooses the sequence of arms.
In the second, the person freely decides where to walk.
In the third, the person must complete all four arms without repeating any until all have been traversed.
These variations allow us to compare guided movement with self-directed movement, as well as to study route memory and decision-making.
The geometry offers the same set of directions. The way we walk through them changes the conditions of the experience.
7. The Concentric Figure: Distances and Relationships
Research question: How do we perceive the relationships between a central region and the regions surrounding it?
Imagine two or three concentric circles.
We can walk along each one, move between them along radii, or alternate between circular and straight routes.
The system can measure the distances between paths, the number of transitions, and the time taken.
The person can describe whether they perceive differences between remaining on a circular path and moving from one path to another.
An interesting possibility emerges here: experiencing a figure not only by following its outline, but also by relating its components.
8. The Symmetrical Figure: Similarity and Difference
Research question: What similarities and differences emerge when we walk through two symmetrical parts of a configuration?
We can divide a figure along an axis of symmetry and compare the corresponding routes on both sides.
If the paths have the same length, we can check whether they require similar amounts of time and whether they are experienced in similar ways.
We can also introduce a controlled variation: start from different points, change the direction of travel, or walk one part after resting.
Mathematical symmetry provides a precise reference for observing the differences that may arise during the experience.
In all these cases, the figure poses a question; the journey creates the conditions for exploring it; and feeling constitutes one of the responses we need to listen to, describe, and compare.
VIII. The Other Feeling: Walking Animal Figures (1)
So far, we have explored abstract geometric figures.
But WALKINGNAZCA has another major family of configurations: figures representing animals, birds, insects, and other living beings.
Here, the problem acquires an additional dimension.
When we observe the geoglyph of an animal, we recognize a figure that we interpret as the representation of a living being. We may identify a head, a body, limbs, wings, a tail, or a path that follows part of its silhouette.
However, recognizing an animal visually is one thing; walking along the configuration that represents it is quite another.
As we walk through it, we stop contemplating only the figure as a whole and begin to experience its parts as segments of a route.
Walking the Body of an Animal
Imagine an animal figure whose route allows us to distinguish the head, torso, limbs, and tail.
We can begin at the head and move toward the torso. Then we can walk along a limb, return to an intersection, and continue toward another part of the silhouette.
The system can indicate which segment we are walking and which one comes next.
The person can stop at designated points and describe their impressions.
Do they perceive differences between long and short segments? Can they easily recognize the continuity of the figure? Does their interpretation change when they walk the entire outline rather than traversing it in separate parts?
These questions do not presuppose that walking along the representation allows us to literally experience the animal’s feelings.
They allow us to investigate something different: how a person physically explores the spatial organization of a figure representing another living being.
The Other Feeling as an Exercise in Otherness
In our essay THE OTHER FEELING, the possibility of recognizing forms of sensitivity different from human sensitivity is a central question.
WALKINGNAZCA can contribute to exploring this question through a deliberate bodily experience.
We walk an animal figure, observe its proportions, and follow its paths. We try to imagine what it would be like to engage with the landscape from a different bodily organization, with different movement capabilities and different relationships with the environment.
But we must distinguish three levels.
The first is the actual experience of the person walking.
The second is the imagination of how a being with different bodily characteristics might relate to the landscape.
The third is the scientific knowledge available about that animal’s sensory and behavioral capabilities.
These three levels can inform one another, but they are not interchangeable.
Walking along the silhouette of a bird does not allow us to experience flight. Walking the figure of an insect does not reproduce its sensory capabilities. Nevertheless, the journey can serve as a starting point for asking questions about the differences among bodies, movements, and ways of perceiving the world.
Thus, the other feeling does not become a conclusion imposed on the user by the system. It becomes a possibility for exploration.
What If the Journey Changes Our Interpretation of the Figure?
Imagine that we first observe the complete geoglyph in an aerial representation.
Then we walk along its outline.
Finally, the system shows us the complete figure again and invites us to draw it from memory.
We can compare three results: the observed figure, the experience of walking it, and the remembered representation.
We may discover that some parts of the figure were easier to walk than to remember, or that certain changes of direction acquired greater importance during the journey.
The comparison may reveal differences among visual perception, bodily experience, and memory.
We do not need to claim that we know how the Nazca builders felt in order to find value in this research.
We need to formulate good questions, record the experiences, and respect the difference between our findings and our interpretations of the past.
IX. The Two Great Territories of WALKINGNAZCA
Based on the foregoing, we can define two major experimental families.
First Family: THE OTHER FEELING (1)
This family includes journeys along configurations that represent living beings.
Its main questions concern representation, otherness, bodily organization, and the imagination of other ways of relating to the landscape.
We will be able to study:
The continuity of an animal figure’s outline.
The relationships among its parts.
The differences between walking along the perimeter and crossing particular segments.
The influence of the direction and order of the journey.
The differences among observing, walking, and remembering a figure.
The imagination of forms of perception and movement that differ from human ones.
Second Family: THE FEELING OF GEOMETRIC FORM (2)
This family includes geometric configurations and spatial relationships that we can walk through.
Its questions concern direction, distance, proportion, symmetry, repetition, center, periphery, intersection, and return.
We will be able to study:
The differences between straight and broken paths.
The experience of approaching a center or moving away from it.
Changes in orientation.
The repetition of a path.
The relationships between segments and complete figures.
Anticipating a route and recognizing its endpoint.
The differences between a figure’s mathematical properties and the experiences of those who walk through it.
Both families share one principle: transforming a spatial configuration into a bodily experience that can be described, investigated, and compared.
But they are not identical.
The animal figure invites us to explore the representation of a body different from our own. The geometric figure invites us to explore the spatial relationships that organize a configuration.
In both cases, walking provides us with an additional avenue of knowledge (3).
X. The Figure Does Not Determine a Single Feeling
We arrive at a fundamental statement for the development of WALKINGNAZCA:
Form does not determine a single experience. It contains a field of possible experiences.
This statement means that a figure may offer different routes and that each route may be experienced in different ways.
A straight line can be walked slowly or quickly. A spiral can be followed from the outside or from the inside. A cross can be traversed in a straight line or walked by making successive turns.
Furthermore, two people can follow exactly the same route and describe different experiences.
Even the same person may experience differences between two journeys undertaken on different days.
For this reason, WALKINGNAZCA should not assign a mandatory emotional meaning to each figure.
It should not claim that a particular shape necessarily produces calmness, fear, joy, introspection, or any specific sensation.
Its function would be different: to provide configurations, instructions, and walking conditions that allow each person to explore what happens during the journey.
The system can suggest questions. It can point out geometric relationships. It can record times and distances. It can compare routes.
But it should not decide in advance what the user is supposed to feel.
Feeling belongs to the person’s experience; the system helps create the conditions for observing and studying it.
XI. Walking, Space, Time, and Number
Walking through a figure brings together three dimensions that deserve special attention: space, time, and number.
This relationship allows us to establish a dialogue with the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, particularly his reflections on symbolic forms and the ways in which human beings organize their experience of the world.
We do not need to attribute to Cassirer a theory of walking along geoglyphs. His thought can serve as a framework for formulating our own question: how are the space we travel through, the time we take, and the numerical relationships that describe our movement related?
Space
The space occupied by a figure can be described through points, segments, distances, angles, intersections, and proportions.
But when we walk through it, it also becomes a space of movement.
The starting point, the path we follow, the changes in direction, and the place where we arrive organize our experience.
Time
Every walk unfolds over an interval of time.
We can measure its duration, record pauses, compare speeds, and observe how the time taken changes when we modify the instructions.
A geometric figure does not need to change for the time required to walk through it to change.
Number
Number allows us to describe and compare routes.
We can record steps, distance, the number of turns, the number of intersections crossed, and the number of times we repeat a path.
We can also study proportions between segments and relationships between the time taken and the distance traveled.
The Combined Experience
Suppose we walk along two paths of equal length.
One is straight. The other contains numerous turns.
The distance may be identical, but the number of changes in direction will be different. The time taken may vary, and the bodily experience may not be the same.
If we repeat the experiment with several people, we can compare the results without assuming that their sensations must coincide.
An important possibility emerges here: using number to describe the conditions of an experience without reducing the entire experience to a figure.
Time and distance can be measured. Sensations can be described through words, drawings, narratives, or voluntary rating scales. Differences among participants can be analyzed without pretending that every human experience is quantifiable.
This combination of measurement and description can become one of the methodological foundations of WALKINGNAZCA.
XII. From the Nazca Desert to Any Landscape
So far, we have imagined journeys along simple figures and animal representations.
But WALKINGNAZCA originated from a question connected to an exceptional place: the territory of Nazca, in Peru.
The lines and geoglyphs of Nazca and Palpa constitute an archaeological heritage whose interpretation requires consideration of the available evidence and specialized research.
WALKINGNAZCA does not seek to replace those studies or offer a definitive explanation of the purposes of the people who created the figures.
It proposes investigating another, complementary question:
What can we learn today by physically walking through configurations similar to those we observe in the geoglyphs?
This question allows us to distinguish three areas of work.
1. Walking the Original Figures
When conservation conditions, regulations, and authorizations permit, an in-person experience could guide participants along legally authorized routes.
The application would have to respect archaeological restrictions, prevent damage to the heritage, and distinguish authorized paths from representations used for educational purposes.
Not all figures can or should be walked physically.
The possibility of walking an original configuration will depend on the specific conditions of the site and the corresponding authorizations.
2. Walking Similar Figures in Other Landscapes
We can reproduce certain geometric relationships in a different location.
A cross, spiral, trapezoid, or animal figure can be represented on an appropriate surface, provided that its dimensions and paths are precisely defined.
Users will be able to walk through them without having to travel to Nazca.
This possibility is particularly important because it broadens participation and allows experiences conducted in different regions to be compared.
The same configuration can be walked on flat terrain, in open spaces, or in installations designed for that purpose.
Differences in the surrounding environment will themselves become variables that need to be recorded.
3. Designing New Figures
WALKINGNAZCA will also be able to generate configurations that do not exist as historical geoglyphs.
It will be able to design new crosses, spirals, networks of paths, symmetrical figures, and geometric combinations.
It can also create original animal configurations, provided that these are clearly distinguished from documented archaeological geoglyphs.
These figures will serve to investigate specific questions.
For example, we could compare two spirals that differ only in the spacing between their turns, or two crosses of the same size but with different relative arm lengths.
The system will be able to guide users along both configurations and record their journeys.
In this way, WALKINGNAZCA will not depend exclusively on the possibility of visiting Nazca.
Nazca will be its historical and conceptual reference; the world’s landscapes will be its potential field of experimentation.
XIII. WALKINGNAZCA: From the Map to Guided Experience
Let us now imagine how WALKINGNAZCA might function as a digital model.
A person opens the application and finds two main entry points:
THE OTHER FEELING
THE FEELING OF GEOMETRIC FORM
The person chooses one and selects a figure.
It may be a documented configuration, an elementary geometric figure, or a new creation generated by the system.
The application presents the figure, explains its characteristics, and offers several possible routes.
The person chooses one.
From that moment on, the system is no longer merely a screen displaying an image. It becomes a guidance tool during the walk.
First Operation: Observe
The application presents the complete figure.
It identifies its main components, reference points, and the relationships relevant to the route.
For a cross, it can highlight the four arms and the center.
For a spiral, it can indicate the starting point and direction of travel.
For an animal, it can identify the main segments of its outline without imposing an emotional interpretation.
Second Operation: Choose a Route
The user selects a path.
They can walk from the center outward, from the outside toward the center, along the perimeter, or through a sequence of segments.
The system explains the instructions and displays the proposed route.
Third Operation: Find One’s Way
The application indicates the next direction, reference point, or segment to be traversed.
Depending on the available technical capabilities, it may rely on a map, a representation of the figure, spatial reference points, or positioning technologies.
Actual navigation on the ground will require verification of map and location accuracy. We must not assume that a phone can identify every point of a figure precisely in every environment.
For this reason, the application will need to distinguish between a reference route on a digital map and a verified position of the user.
Fourth Operation: Walk
The user follows the instructions at their own pace.
They can stop, continue, or abandon the route.
The application can record the data defined for the experiment: time, estimated distance, sequence of segments, pauses, or changes in direction.
The collection of personal or location data must be transparent and obtain the appropriate consent.
Fifth Operation: Describe the Feeling
At the end, the application invites the user to describe the experience.
It does not ask only whether they liked or disliked the journey.
It can ask which parts were easiest to remember, where they needed to change orientation, whether they correctly anticipated the route, or which bodily and perceptual impressions they wish to record.
Users can respond through text, voice, category selection, or a drawing.
They can also indicate that they experienced nothing noteworthy.
That response is just as valid as any other.
Sixth Operation: Compare
The application can display the completed route alongside the original design.
It can show the recorded times, distances, and changes in direction, as well as the observations the person has chosen to share.
In subsequent experiences, it can compare two routes through the same figure or two different configurations.
In this way, the application will help transform an isolated walk into an experience that can be reviewed.
WALKINGNAZCA will not simply show users where to walk. It will help them decide how to walk, what to observe along the way, and how to document their experience afterward.
XIV. A Cartography of Feelings
Over time, WALKINGNAZCA could assemble a collection of experiences associated with different figures and routes.
It would not be a catalog of emotions supposedly produced by each shape, but a cartography of experiences reported by participants.
Each record could contain:
The figure walked and its geometry.
The selected path.
The direction and order of the journey.
The distance and time taken.
The general conditions of the terrain.
Observations made during or after the walk.
Drawings, narratives, or descriptions voluntarily contributed.
Differences noticed when comparing successive journeys.
This information would allow us to formulate new questions.
Do people remember a figure better after walking through it than after observing it?
Do descriptions change when the same route is walked in opposite directions?
Does the ability to choose one’s route freely influence the attention given to the figure?
Are geometric configurations and animal figures described differently?
Do experiences conducted in different locations display similarities or differences worth investigating?
The answers must not be anticipated.
They will have to emerge from the journeys, the descriptions, and the analysis of the results.
It will also be important to distinguish between spontaneous observations, personal testimonies, and conclusions supported by systematic comparisons.
An individual experience can be valuable without constituting a general law.
A similarity among several participants can be interesting without proving that the figure caused it.
The cartography of feelings will be valuable precisely if it preserves these distinctions.
XV. The Memory of the Nazca Builders: An Open Question
We arrive at the most delicate historical question in our project, and at the same time, one of the most suggestive.
What did the people who designed, constructed, and walked through the Nazca configurations experience?
We cannot answer definitively on the basis of our own walks.
The geoglyphs belong to specific historical and cultural contexts. Their purposes and meanings must be investigated through archaeology, landscape studies, available sources, and the analysis of evidence.
It would not be correct to assume that their builders walked the figures exactly as we might today, or that they attributed the same meanings to each configuration that we might attribute to it.
Nevertheless, we can formulate a more cautious working hypothesis.
If a configuration was designed to be walked through, or if certain cultural practices involved walking along its paths, movement may have been part of some of the ways people related to it.
This possibility must be examined on a case-by-case basis rather than assumed to be established in advance.
WALKINGNAZCA can contribute to investigating the possibilities of this relationship between figure and movement, although it cannot, by itself, reconstruct the original experience of the ancient inhabitants of Nazca.
When we walk through a similar figure, we generate a contemporary experience.
That experience can help us formulate more precise questions about spatial organization, orientation, memory, and movement. It can also suggest hypotheses that must subsequently be tested against archaeological evidence.
But present-day experience is not direct evidence of what the builders felt.
This distinction is essential to the project.
We do not need to claim that we feel what the ancient inhabitants of Nazca felt. We need to explore what experiential possibilities a configuration contains and what new questions it allows us to formulate about it.
Imagination opens paths. Research establishes how far we can travel along them.
XVI. The Body as an Instrument of Knowledge
For centuries, geometry has developed extraordinary methods for representing and analyzing forms.
We can define points, lines, angles, surfaces, distances, and symmetry relationships with great precision.
WALKINGNAZCA does not seek to replace this knowledge.
It seeks to add a question: what happens when geometric relationships become conditions of our own movement?
The body is not a perfect measuring instrument. Our perception of distances may vary; we may lose our bearings, become tired, or interpret the same route differently.
But these limitations do not make bodily experience worthless.
They oblige us to distinguish between what we measure, what we perceive, and what we interpret.
A distance can be calculated geometrically. The duration of a journey can be measured with a clock. The sensation of effort can be described using a personal scale. The interpretation of a figure can be expressed in a narrative.
These are different kinds of records.
Relating them without confusing them may allow us to study aspects of experience that do not appear in a purely visual representation.
In this sense, walking through a figure is a form of bodily inquiry.
The journey poses questions through movement. The body responds through its capabilities, limitations, and perceptions. Subsequent reflection transforms that experience into a description we can examine.
The knowledge that emerges is neither exclusively geometric nor exclusively subjective.
It lies in the relationship among a spatial structure, a specific movement, and a person who experiences that movement.
XVII. From Feeling to Creation: Figures That Teach Us to Walk
WALKINGNAZCA does not have to be limited to walking through existing configurations.
It can also design them.
This possibility opens a new stage of the project: creating figures explicitly intended to explore particular spatial and bodily relationships.
Imagine an application that allows users to select simple parameters:
A specific length for the segments.
A specific number of turns.
A relationship between the center and the periphery.
A distance between parallel paths.
A degree of symmetry.
A number of intersections.
A sequence of routes.
An approximate duration for the experience.
Based on these conditions, the system could generate a figure and propose one or more ways to walk through it.
For example, we could create two configurations with the same total length but a different number of turns.
Or two symmetrical figures, one with a clearly marked center and the other without one.
Or two spirals whose paths differ only in the distance between their turns.
These comparisons would allow us to explore how the properties of a figure and the instructions for walking it influence the experience.
We could also create original animal figures composed of segments that allow for different routes.
The system would not need to assign them an emotional meaning. It would be enough to define their characteristics and offer questions to guide the exploration.
In this way, WALKINGNAZCA could become a digital laboratory of walkable configurations.
It would not merely display figures for us to observe: it would help us build figures that we can walk through and study.
XVIII. An Initial Method: Walking, Observing, Writing, and Drawing
To ensure that these ideas do not remain solely conceptual, we propose a simple procedure that can be carried out using an accessible geometric figure.
We can begin with a cross drawn in an authorized and safe space.
Before Walking
We observe the figure for a few minutes.
We identify its center, its four arms, and their directions.
We write down what we expect to find during the journey.
We can draw the cross from memory or briefly describe it.
During the Walk
We choose one of the routes proposed by WALKINGNAZCA.
We walk at our own pace, paying attention to changes in orientation and the relationship between our position and the center.
If the experiment permits, we repeat the route in the opposite direction.
There is no need to seek an extraordinary sensation. The absence of any particular impression is also a legitimate observation.
After Walking
We write a description of the experience.
We can record what we remember most easily, where we changed direction, whether we anticipated the endpoint, and what differences we noticed between the routes.
We then draw the figure and mark the places we consider relevant.
Finally, we compare the initial drawing with the later one.
When Repeating the Experiment
We undertake another route and compare the descriptions.
Have we noticed something new? Has our perception of the center changed? Do we remember the sequence better? Are the differences due to the figure, the instructions, the environment, or our own circumstances?
We will not always be able to identify the cause of a difference. But we can learn to formulate more precise questions.
This procedure integrates four fundamental actions:
WALKING. OBSERVING. WRITING. DRAWING.
Walking provides the experience. Observation directs our attention. Writing helps us articulate what we have experienced. Drawing allows us to represent and compare the spatial structure.
The result is not a definitive explanation of feeling, but a record that can inform the next exploration.
XIX. A Principle for Digital Navigation
Everything discussed so far leads to a practical idea.
WALKINGNAZCA must distinguish among the figure, the path, and the experience.
The figure is the spatial configuration we wish to explore.
The path is the specific route the user will follow through it.
The experience is what happens when that person follows the path under particular conditions.
These three dimensions are related, but they are not identical.
A single figure may contain multiple paths.
The same path may be walked at different speeds or in different directions.
The same walk may generate different experiences in different people, or in the same person at different times.
Therefore, the system must allow design decisions to be separated from users’ observations.
In practice, this means that each figure can have several routes, and each route can incorporate instructions, reference points, and observation questions.
It also means that the system must not confuse the route it recommends with the route the user actually followed.
If the application records a deviation, it must treat it as data about the journey, not as a sensation or interpretation.
Similarly, if the user describes a personal impression, the system must preserve it as a personal account without automatically turning it into a property of the figure.
This separation will facilitate both individual experience and subsequent analysis.
Navigation will guide movement. Recording will describe what happened. Research will seek to understand the relationships between the two.
XX. Toward a New Way of Reading the Landscape
Until now, we have learned to read maps, plans, diagrams, and representations of the landscape.
WALKINGNAZCA invites us to try a complementary way of reading.
Instead of limiting ourselves to identifying the shapes that appear in an image, we can follow their paths with our own steps.
Instead of observing only the relationships between the points of a figure, we can experience the distances that separate them.
Instead of studying angles alone, we can record the turns we need to make.
Instead of treating the center as an abstract property, we can walk toward it, move away from it, and return.
Instead of contemplating an animal figure exclusively as a visual representation, we can walk through its spatial organization and ask what that experience reveals about the way we recognize other bodies.
This way of reading does not replace the others.
It complements them.
The map retains its usefulness. Geometry maintains its rigor. Archaeology remains indispensable for studying the historical contexts of the geoglyphs.
But an additional possibility emerges: reading the landscape through the relationship between a figure, a path, and a body in motion.
The landscape can then become a surface for exploration, provided that we move through it with respect for its physical conditions, its inhabitants, and its heritage.
We do not need to walk over every archaeological remnant to develop this idea. We can begin with digital configurations, authorized reproductions, and spaces designed for experimentation.
What matters is not walking at any cost.
What matters is learning to formulate questions through walking.
XXI. The Beginning of WALKINGNAZCA
Let us return to the quadrivium.
In its historical tradition, four mathematical disciplines made it possible to organize a significant part of knowledge about number, form, sound relationships, and celestial movements.
We have taken that structure as our starting point to propose a different kind of exploration.
Number, form, movement, and feeling constitute the four dimensions of our experimental quadrivium.
The mantra helps us organize our attention.
The yantra allows us to imagine the figure as a path that can be walked.
The cross teaches us that a simple configuration can offer multiple routes.
The center and the periphery allow us to compare two ways of beginning and ending a walk.
Spirals, trapezoids, circles, and symmetrical figures expand the possibilities.
Animal geoglyphs invite us to explore representations of other living beings and to formulate questions about otherness.
The relationship among space, time, and number allows us to describe routes more precisely.
Writing and drawing help us document experiences.
And the digital system can bring these elements together to guide, record, and compare walks.
All of this constitutes an initial proposal. Its value will depend on our ability to turn ideas into concrete routes, test how they work, and learn from the real experiences of participants.
WALKINGNAZCA does not need to promise a revelation to be interesting.
It can begin with something simpler and, at the same time, more fertile: a figure, a route, and a question.
What changes when we stop observing a shape from the outside and begin to walk through it?
What do we discover when space becomes a path?
What do we remember after walking?
What differences emerge between our experience and that of other people?
What new questions can we formulate about the figures of Nazca when we also study them through bodily experience?
These questions do not all have to be resolved at once.
They can become WALKINGNAZCA’s work program.
A program in which each journey helps improve the next, in which each figure can offer different possibilities for exploration, and in which personal experiences are documented without being confused with historical explanations that have not yet been demonstrated.
The project will begin to function when a person can choose a figure, receive clear guidance, walk a path, and record what they experienced.
From that moment on, the proposal will cease to be merely an idea.
It will become a practice.
And that practice can develop in Nazca, in other landscapes, or in spaces specifically designed to explore the relationships between geometry and movement.
Because figures do not have to remain confined to the images that represent them.
They can become paths.
And paths can become questions that we learn to formulate with our own steps.
XXII. A Final Invitation: Walking to Know
Finally, imagine a person standing before a cross traced on the ground.
They do not need to know the entire history of the quadrivium.
They do not need to master advanced geometry.
Nor do they need to wait for an extraordinary sensation to appear.
They only need to observe the figure, choose a route, and begin walking.
They move from the center toward one of its endpoints.
They return.
They change direction.
They cross the intersection.
They stop again.
Then they describe what they observed and draw the path they have just followed.
Perhaps they discover something about their orientation. Perhaps they notice a difference between walking toward a point and moving away from it. Perhaps they remember a path better after having walked it. Perhaps they identify no significant difference.
Any of these results can be the beginning of an investigation.
Afterward, that person can walk a spiral, a trapezoid, or an animal figure. They can compare two paths, repeat a route, or design a configuration of their own.
Over time, they may discover that a single figure allows for multiple experiences and that walking through it is a way of relating to it that goes beyond visual observation.
They will not necessarily have discovered the feelings of those who built the Nazca geoglyphs.
They will have discovered something equally worthy of study: the possibilities and limitations of their own experience when walking through a spatial configuration.
And they will have helped build a methodology that other people can test.
That is the beginning we propose.
Not a system that tells its users what they should feel, but a system that allows them to explore, describe, and compare their experiences.
Not a definitive explanation of the Nazca figures, but a new way to formulate questions about them.
Not a replacement for archaeological or geometric knowledge, but an invitation to relate that knowledge to bodily movement.
The quadrivium has provided us with an intellectual starting point.
The mantra and the yantra have offered us two complementary images: observing the figure and walking through it.
The cross has allowed us to discover the multiplicity of routes contained in a simple configuration.
Animal and geometric figures have opened up two major territories for exploration.
Now it is time to turn these ideas into routes that can be experienced, documented, and improved.
WALKINGNAZCA begins when a figure ceases to be merely something we see and becomes something we can walk through.
And it also begins when, after walking through it, we dare to formulate a new question.
Because there may be knowledge we can acquire by looking.
Other knowledge, by measuring.
Other knowledge, by reading.
And still other knowledge that we can only begin to explore when we set out on a path.
WALKINGNAZCA: walking through figures, exploring their relationships, and discovering the feelings that may arise as we traverse them.
Form does not determine a single experience. It contains a field of possible experiences.
And every walker can help us discover part of that field.
Steps we will take starting with this publication.
This post should serve as the first conceptual effort of WALKINGNAZCA. To give it practical continuity, three editorial elements are proposed.
1. A cover image
A composition that combines a geometric figure (like the one shown) drawn on the desert, the footprint of a route, and a person walking. The image should suggest investigation and movement, without presenting speculative interpretations as if they were archaeological findings.
2. A map of the initial routes
A sheet with six initial configurations: straight line, orthogonal cross, spiral, trapezoid, circle, and symmetrical figure (like the one shown). Each would show the starting point, the direction of travel, the center (if one exists), and alternative routes.
3. The first WALKINGNAZCA experiment
Begin with the orthogonal cross (like the one shown). Design two guided tours—one from the center outwards and one from the outside inwards—and ask participants to describe their experiences. This would be a first concrete test of the digital model, before developing more complex tours.
My initial plan is for the first digital prototype to be very simple. There’s no need to immediately develop a complex system that covers all the geoglyphs. We need to demonstrate that a person can select a figure, follow a route, record their experience, and compare the results.
This first experiment would allow us to begin transforming the philosophical idea into an operational methodology and, subsequently, expand WALKINGNAZCA into the two main categories we’ve defined: THE OTHER FEELING and THE FEELING OF GEOMETRIC FORM.
The project’s ambition is enormous. Its first test, however, must be small, clear, and verifiable.
(2) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, El Sentir de la Forma Geométrica, EMULISA, Mexico, 2026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition in Spanish: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0HMDLSZ7G
(3) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, El Camino como Libro, EMULISA, Mexico, 2026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition in Spanish: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0HL6Y8CBK
One early morning, when no one had yet fully opened their windows and the first people were beginning to walk through the streets of Pueblo Quieto (1), something happened that no one could explain.
It had belonged to someone who had once walked those streets when they were still very different from what they are today.
The memory walked out slowly.
It crossed a doorway.
It stepped down from a sidewalk.
It stopped at a corner.
And then it continued walking.
It did not walk the way human beings walk.
It had no legs.
And yet it moved forward.
Perhaps because memories have a secret way of walking:
they go from one person to another.
The memory reached Morelos Street.
There it found another one.
It was the memory of a man walking with a sledgehammer over his shoulder.
The first one asked:
—Did you also come from a house?
—No —the second replied—. I came from a quarry.
—And what are you doing here?
—I am looking for someone who still remembers me.
The first memory remained thoughtful.
—Then we are companions.
—Why?
—Because I am also looking for someone.
—Who?
—Someone who can think of me again.
The two continued walking.
And that morning Pueblo Quieto began to fill with memories.
They did not all appear at the same time.
Some appeared beside doorways.
Others descended from windows.
Some remained hidden behind family photographs.
Others slept inside drawers.
Some were contained in small objects.
A cup.
A tool.
A photograph.
A stone.
An old toy.
A recipe.
A word.
A name.
And others, the oldest ones, were beneath the sidewalks.
1. THE MEMORY OF THE STONE
The first conversation took place between a stone and a memory.
The stone was resting beside a wall.
The memory approached.
—I know you.
The stone did not answer.
—Yes —the memory insisted—. I know you.
Then the stone asked:
—From where?
—From very far away.
—Stones do not travel very far.
The memory smiled.
—You did.
The stone remained silent.
The memory continued:
—First you were a mountain.
Then volcanic rock.
Then a quarry.
Then a fragment.
Then a wall.
Then a sidewalk.
And now you are simply a stone that someone can touch.
The stone seemed to tremble.
—Does that mean I traveled?
—It means you transformed.
The stone remained still.
The memory added:
—Don’t you remember?
—I remember too many things.
—Then tell me one.
The stone closed its eyes.
Although stones have no eyes, that morning Pueblo Quieto had decided to allow them to have them.
And the stone began to remember.
It remembered fire.
It remembered the birth of the volcanic landscape.
It remembered the wind.
It remembered the rain.
It remembered the cacti.
It remembered the agaves.
It remembered the rabbits.
It remembered the first men.
It remembered the sledgehammers.
It remembered the drills.
It remembered the dust.
It remembered the trucks.
It remembered Mariana.
It remembered the houses.
It remembered the streets.
It remembered the children.
And finally it said:
—Now I understand.
—What do you understand?
—I was not destroyed.
The memory waited.
—I was distributed.
The sentence traveled through the entire street.
It was a sentence that had already been born in the old rock of Pueblo Quieto: the mountain had not completely disappeared; its stones continued living in walls, courtyards, paths, and homes.
The memory smiled.
—Then you walk too.
—Me?
—Yes.
—But I have never moved.
—You do not need to move in order to walk.
The stone reflected on that statement.
Perhaps that was precisely what it had learned from the wind.
The wind could travel across the world.
The stone could remain in the same place.
And yet both could walk.
One carrying stories.
The other preserving them.
2. THE MEMORY AND THE THOUGHT
Farther along, the memory encountered a thought.
—Where are you going? —the memory asked.
—I don’t know.
—Then why are you walking?
—Because I am looking for a question.
The memory was surprised.
—A question?
—Yes.
—Wouldn’t it be more logical to look for an answer?
The thought smiled.
—Not in Pueblo Quieto.
—Why?
—Because here questions have memories.
The memory understood immediately.
It had known many questions.
Mariana’s question:
Do stones hurt?
Morelos’s question:
What is a homeland?
The wind’s question:
Don’t you get tired of always remaining in the same place?
And the question that perhaps stood behind all the others:
What was here before us?
In Memories of Pueblo Quieto (2), the streets begin precisely when they discover that they know many things about the inhabitants, but know nothing about themselves. Then they ask what was there before the houses, the sidewalks, and the lampposts.
The thought stopped.
—That is my question.
—Which one?
—What was here before us?
The memory answered:
—A mountain.
—And before that?
—Fire.
—And before that?
—Time.
—And afterward?
The memory pointed toward the streets.
—Us.
3. THE MEMORIES OF THOSE WHO CAME
By midmorning, memories from other places began to appear.
One came from Guanajuato.
Another from a town in the State of Mexico.
Another carried the smell of a kitchen.
Another preserved the sound of a song.
Another remembered a rainstorm.
Another, a cornfield.
Another, a dirt road.
Another, a house that no longer existed.
They gathered around a stone.
—What are you doing here? —the stone asked.
One of them answered:
—We came with our owners.
—Who were they?
—The men and women who came here to work.
Then the stone understood.
Those memories had arrived with the quarry workers.
Not all of them had been born there.
Many had left their towns behind.
But they had not left their memories behind.
They had brought them with them.
They carried them in the way they spoke.
In their songs.
In the recipes.
In the words they used to name plants, rains, and paths.
Mariana’s mother had explained it with a simple phrase:
—Yes. But they are also planting another one.
And that phrase contained an enormous idea.
Pueblo Quieto had not been built only with volcanic stone.
It had been built with migrant memories.
The stone had come from the depths of the earth.
The memories had come from other towns.
And both began to form the same territory.
One of the memories asked:
—Then does Pueblo Quieto belong to those who were born here?
Another answered:
—Also to those who came here.
Another added:
—And to those who left.
And a fourth memory said:
—And to those who have not yet been born.
Everyone fell silent.
Because they had just discovered something extraordinary:
a neighborhood is not made up only of those who inhabit it today.
It is also made up of those who inhabited it yesterday and those who, in some way, left something of themselves behind for those who will come tomorrow.
4. LIBERTAD STREET AND THE MEMORY OF ITS NAME
That afternoon, a memory encountered Libertad.
—Do you still call yourself that?
The street remained silent.
—They call me Moctezuma now.
—But I remember you as Libertad.
—Many people remember me that way.
—Does it bother you that your name has changed?
Libertad took a long time to answer.
—No.
—Then have you forgotten who you were?
—Neither.
—How can you be Moctezuma and still be Libertad?
The street answered:
—Because names can change.
The memory smiled.
—That is what the stones said.
—What did they say?
—That written names can be erased.
Libertad looked toward the long road that crossed Pueblo Quieto.
—And lived names?
—Those remain.
The street breathed.
—Then I am still Libertad.
—Yes.
—Even if the map says something else.
—Yes.
—Even if someone who has just arrived does not know it.
—Yes.
—Then perhaps maps have memories too.
The memory answered:
—Not all of them.
—Why?
—Because some only record where things are.
—And the good ones?
—The good ones also record what things mean.
Libertad remained silent.
Then she watched a woman walk by.
Then a child.
Then an old man.
And she said:
—Then my true address is not on a map.
—Where is it?
—In the footsteps of those who still remember me.
5. WALKING IS REMEMBERING WITH YOUR FEET
The following day, a walker appeared.
He was an ordinary man.
He did not know about the conversations of the streets.
He did not know that beneath the pavement there was an ancient volcanic landscape.
He did not know that many stones had traveled until they became walls.
He did not know Mariana’s story.
He had not read any of the books.
He was simply walking.
But as he walked, something happened.
His foot touched a stone.
He stopped.
He looked down.
He did not know why.
The stone did not know why he had stopped either.
Then a thought appeared.
—I wonder what lies beneath this street.
The walker continued.
Then another thought appeared:
—Who walked here before me?
Farther along:
—What was this place like a hundred years ago?
And then:
—What stories might have remained here?
The man stopped again.
He had not read anything yet.
And yet he was already reading.
Because walking can also be a form of reading.
Reading a street.
Reading a corner.
Reading a wall.
Reading a shadow.
Reading a stone.
Reading a doorway.
Reading a house.
Reading the way a person crosses a street.
Reading the places where the pavement breaks.
Reading what has been repaired.
Reading what remains.
Reading what disappeared.
And then the walker understood something the streets of Pueblo Quieto already knew:
a city can be read without opening a book.
6. THE THOUGHT THAT LEARNED TO WALK
The thought that was searching for a question decided to accompany the walker.
For several minutes it said nothing.
Then it asked:
—What are you doing?
—Walking.
—Where to?
The man looked ahead.
—I don’t know.
The thought smiled.
—Then you are doing something important.
—What?
—You are allowing the path to teach you.
The man continued walking.
The thought added:
—When you walk without knowing exactly what you are looking for, you begin to find things you did not know you were looking for.
The man looked at an old house.
Then a window.
Then a crack.
Then a small fragment of rock.
He picked it up.
He looked at it.
He put it back.
But he was no longer the same man.
He had begun to look.
And looking attentively is the first step of reading.
7. READING IS MAKING THOSE WHO ARE NO LONGER HERE WALK AGAIN
That night the walker entered a library.
He opened a book.
And something even more extraordinary happened.
The people who were no longer there began to walk.
Mariana appeared.
Mariana’s father appeared.
The quarry workers appeared.
The children appeared.
The men who laid out the streets appeared.
The streets themselves appeared.
The old rock appeared.
The wind appeared.
And even Time appeared.
The reader looked up.
—How did you get here?
Mariana answered:
—You brought us.
—Me?
—Yes.
—But I only opened a book.
—Exactly.
The reader understood then that reading is not merely receiving words.
Reading is opening a path.
Every page is a street.
Every chapter is a neighborhood.
Every character is an inhabitant.
Every memory is a house.
Every thought is a door.
And every reader is a walker.
When someone reads, they make those who became still within the pages walk again.
That is why a book can preserve a mountain.
It can preserve a street.
It can preserve a voice.
It can preserve a childhood.
It can even preserve something that no longer exists.
The young woman who had attended Mariana’s gathering had understood something similar: there came a moment when she stopped writing in order to listen, because taking notes might have caused her to lose the emotion of the memory.
And that experience leads us toward another way of walking.
Writing.
8. WRITING IS LEAVING A PATH
A word appeared on a sheet of paper.
Then another.
Then another.
The words began to form a sentence.
The sentence formed a paragraph.
The paragraph formed a page.
And the page opened a path.
Mariana watched from a distance.
—What is he doing?
The old rock answered:
—He is writing.
—Why?
—So that someone may walk tomorrow where today there is only a memory.
Mariana understood.
That was writing.
Not merely telling what had happened.
It was building a path so that someone else could reach what had happened.
The writer walked toward the past.
The reader would later walk toward the writer.
And between them there would remain a trail made of words.
That is why writing is also walking.
The writer does not remain completely still before a sheet of paper.
Even when his body is sitting, his memory walks.
It goes toward a childhood.
It returns.
It travels to a street.
It comes back.
It climbs a mountain.
It descends.
It enters a house.
It leaves.
It hears a voice.
It follows it.
It finds a stone.
It touches it.
And then it returns to the page.
Every word he places is a footprint.
Every paragraph is a stretch of the path.
Every page is a street.
9. DRAWING IS MAKING MEMORY VISIBLE
But that night a fourth walker appeared.
He carried no book.
He carried no pen.
He carried a pencil.
He sat down in front of a sheet of paper.
And he began to draw.
First a stone.
Then another.
Then a mountain.
But the mountain no longer existed.
So he drew the memory of the mountain.
The pencil continued moving.
It drew a quarry.
A worker.
A sledgehammer.
A path.
A cactus.
An agave.
A house.
A street.
A child.
An elderly woman.
And finally it drew Mariana holding a stone.
The drawing was finished.
The stone looked at it.
—Do you recognize me?
The drawing answered:
—Not exactly.
—Then why did you draw me?
—Because I did not want to draw only your shape.
—What did you want to draw?
—What you mean.
The stone remained silent.
That was difficult.
Because drawing Pueblo Quieto did not simply mean representing its streets.
One also had to draw what cannot be seen.
A worker’s fear.
A family’s hope.
The nostalgia of someone who had left their hometown.
Fatigue.
Dust.
The children’s joy.
The smell of a kitchen.
The memory of a mountain.
The absence of those who left.
The presence of those who remained.
And then the artist understood:
drawing is another way of listening.
The pencil listens to the eyes.
The paper listens to the pencil.
And the reader listens to the drawing afterward.
10. FOUR WALKERS
At dawn the four of them met.
The Walker.
The Reader.
The Writer.
The Artist.
All four were standing in front of Morelos Street.
The Walker asked:
—What are we doing here?
The Reader answered:
—Reading.
The Writer said:
—Writing.
The Artist added:
—Drawing.
The Walker smiled.
—And me?
The other three looked at him.
—You make everything else possible.
—How?
The Reader answered:
—Without walking, you might never find the story.
The Writer added:
—Without walking, you might never have anything to tell.
The Artist said:
—Without walking, you might never discover what you need to draw.
The Walker remained silent.
Then he asked:
—And can you walk with me?
The Reader said:
—Yes.
The Writer:
—Always.
The Artist:
—As long as there is a sheet of paper.
And so they began to walk.
11. THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS A BOOK
They walked along Morelos.
Then they reached Juárez.
Then Hidalgo.
After that, they walked along the old Libertad.
The Walker asked questions.
The Reader observed.
The Writer took notes.
The Artist drew.
And the streets spoke.
Morelos said:
—There were footsteps here.
Juárez added:
—There were decisions here.
Hidalgo said:
—There were beginnings here.
Libertad finally spoke:
—And there were people here who walked in search of a different life.
The Walker asked:
—Where are they now?
The streets fell silent.
Then the old rock appeared.
—They are here.
—Where?
—In you.
The Walker looked at his feet.
The Reader looked at his book.
The Writer looked at his page.
The Artist looked at his drawing.
They understood.
People do not remain only in photographs.
They remain in the places they transformed.
In the words they spoke.
In the recipes they taught.
In the paths they traveled.
In the stories they passed on.
In the stones they touched.
And in the people who still remember them.
12. WHEN MEMORY MEETS THOUGHT
At the end of the street they found the memory again.
It was sitting beside a thought.
They seemed to be arguing.
—I am more important —said the memory.
—No —the thought replied—. I am more important.
—Without me, you would not exist.
—Without me, you would not know what you mean.
The memory reflected.
—Then we need each other.
The thought answered:
—It seems so.
—What shall we do, then?
—Walk together.
And they began to walk.
The memory went ahead.
The thought followed behind.
Then they changed places.
Sometimes the memory led.
Sometimes the thought did.
And little by little they discovered that they could not be separated.
Because a memory without thought can become nostalgia.
And thought without memory can become abstraction.
But when the two walk together, something different appears:
understanding.
13. MARIANA GOES FOR ANOTHER WALK
As evening fell, Mariana opened the door of her house.
She was already an old woman.
She walked a few steps.
She touched the wall.
Then the sidewalk.
Finally, she found a stone.
She took it in her hands.
The reader walking behind her could hear her say:
—You were up there.
It was the same scene that had opened Memorias de Pueblo Quieto: Mariana, now elderly, walking along an avenue in southern Mexico City, touching a stone and recognizing in it a fragment of her past.
But this time something different happened.
The stone answered her.
—And you were with me.
Mariana smiled.
—Do you remember me?
—We stones do not forget.
Mariana gently squeezed the stone.
—Then we are still walking.
—Yes.
—Where to?
The stone answered:
—Toward those who do not know us yet.
Mariana understood.
That was the true journey of memory.
Not returning to the past.
Walking toward the future while carrying the past with us.
14. THE DIASPORA OF THE STONES CONTINUES
For a long time we thought that when a stone leaves a mountain, it moves away from it.
Perhaps the opposite is true.
Perhaps the stone continues carrying the mountain within it.
A stone placed in a wall can still be a mountain.
A stone turned into a sidewalk can still be volcanic rock.
A stone that someone keeps in a box can still be territory.
A stone given by an elderly woman to a child can become an inheritance.
And a stone transformed into a word can become literature.
That is why the diaspora of the stones did not end.
It continues.
Every time a wall is touched.
Every time a street is walked.
Every time someone asks what was here before.
Every time someone remembers.
Every time someone writes.
Every time someone draws.
Every time someone reads.
The stone walks again.
15. MEMORIES HAVE LEGS TOO
Perhaps that is why, that morning, all the memories of Pueblo Quieto decided to come out.
The memory of the first drill.
The memory of the dust.
The memory of the cooking fire.
The memory of the workers.
The memory of the children.
The memory of the first trucks.
The memory of the dirt roads.
The memory of the first houses.
The memory of the names.
The memory of Libertad Street.
The memory of those who arrived.
The memory of those who left.
The memory of Pedernal.
The memory of Mariana.
And they all began to walk.
They were not walking backward.
They were walking forward.
Because a memory that only looks backward can become stuck.
But a memory that finds someone willing to listen to it can walk again.
And then a thought appeared:
What will Pueblo Quieto be like a hundred years from now?
The memory answered:
—That depends on you.
—On us?
—Yes.
—Why?
—Because the future of a place also depends on what it chooses to remember.
16. MEMORY NEEDS WALKERS
The old rock called for the wind.
The wind came.
Then it called the streets.
Morelos, Juárez, Hidalgo, and Libertad came.
Then it called Mariana.
Then the memories.
Then the thoughts.
And finally it called the Walker, the Reader, the Writer, and the Artist.
They all gathered together.
The old rock spoke:
—I have kept this story for a very long time.
No one answered.
—Now I need you to carry it.
The Walker asked:
—How?
—By walking.
The Reader:
—How?
—By reading.
The Writer:
—How?
—By writing.
The Artist:
—How?
—By drawing.
The wind began to move.
The leaves of the trees trembled.
The streets seemed to awaken.
And the old rock concluded:
—Because a memory that remains locked away eventually becomes silence.
The Walker understood.
The Reader understood.
The Writer understood.
The Artist understood.
Mariana understood too.
17. AND THEN PUEBLO QUIETO WALKED AGAIN
That night something happened that no one could record.
It did not appear in the newspapers.
It was not written down in any document.
No one took a photograph.
But the streets knew.
Pueblo Quieto walked.
Its houses did not move.
Its sidewalks did not move.
Its walls did not shift.
Its memory walked.
Its history walked.
Its absent inhabitants walked.
Its workers walked.
Its children walked.
Its questions walked.
Its thoughts walked.
Its stones walked.
And its words walked.
The ancient volcanic landscape walked within the streets.
The streets walked within the books.
The books walked within the readers.
The readers walked within their own thoughts.
The thoughts returned to the territory.
And the territory became memory once again.
It was a circular movement.
Like breathing.
Like the wind.
Like walking.
18. EPILOGUE
A STREET CAN BE READ
If you ever walk through Pueblo Quieto, perhaps you will find nothing extraordinary.
You will find streets.
Houses.
Sidewalks.
Walls.
Doors.
Windows.
Trees.
People.
Perhaps a stone.
And, apparently, that will be all.
But stop.
Walk more slowly.
Look.
Read.
Listen.
Draw.
Write.
Ask yourself:
What was here before me?
Then ask:
Who walked through this same place before I did?
And then:
What thoughts did they leave here?
Perhaps you will discover that a street is never just a street.
It is a page.
A stone is never just a stone.
It is a memory.
A house is never just a house.
It is an accumulation of lives.
A name is never just a name.
It is a promise to remember.
And walking is never simply moving from one place to another.
It is coming into contact with time.
Because when we walk, our feet read.
When we read, our thoughts walk.
When we write, we leave paths behind.
When we draw, we make visible what memory does not want to lose.
And when we remember together…
the place comes alive again.
Perhaps that is why the old rock was right.
It was not destroyed.
It was distributed.
And perhaps Pueblo Quieto did not disappear either.
It was distributed.
It is in its stones.
In its streets.
In its houses.
In its inhabitants.
In its memories.
In its books.
In its drawings.
In its thoughts.
And in every person who still has enough curiosity to walk down a street and ask:
—What do you remember?
Then the street will answer.
Perhaps slowly.
Perhaps with a murmur.
Perhaps through a stone.
Perhaps through a memory.
Perhaps inside a book.
But it will answer.
Because streets that have learned to listen never become completely silent again.
And Pueblo Quieto…
is still walking.
WALK. READ. WRITE. DRAW.
Four actions.
Four paths.
Four ways of entering the same territory.
Walk to discover it.
Read to listen to what others discovered.
Write so that what we discover does not disappear.
Draw so that what words cannot reach can appear once again before our eyes.
And perhaps there is a fifth action that brings them all together:
remember.
Because remembering means allowing the past to keep walking within the present.
And as long as someone walks through Pueblo Quieto wondering what existed before their footsteps, as long as someone reads its stories, as long as someone writes new ones, and as long as someone draws what still remains hidden behind the stones…
Pueblo Quieto will continue to be a town in motion.
Even though its name is Quiet.
(1) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Pueblo Quieto, EMULISA, México, 2015
(2) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Memories of Pueblo Quieto. The Diaspora of the Stones, EMULISA, México, 2026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBLVBDLM
(3) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, PHENOMENOLOGY OF LITERARY CREATION. Case Study: MEMORIES OF PUEBLO QUIETO, EMULISA, Mexico, 2026. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBTK6XGY
