Month: April 2026

It has been a month or so since I have returned from a sacred journey to Peru. A lot of my friends have been before and raved about Peru. This year it felt all is rightly aligned that I go and experience it myself as well. And was I equally excited about it? Yes. The history, connection with Earth and Cosmos, the warmth of people, the food and of course music, dancing. I felt so much Life and Joy, that now I can relax more into this feeling here now as well.

One of the things it was also around me a lot was signs indicating a safe space in case of Earthquake. Mind works in miraculous ways how it links together some images and ideas. My mind started to connect the trapezoid structure of building as a metaphor for a relationship.

In structures like those at Sun Temple in Cuzco, trapezoidal doors and windows are narrower at the top and wider at the base. The exception is the one when it is Heaven to Earth, there it is mirroring this structure. In trapezoidal doors the walls lean slightly inward, and the stones are cut to fit tightly without mortar. This design is so stable that it endured Earthquakes, while other buildings weren’t able to.

I kept feeling into this structure as a relationship. How even when I don’t agree with my close friends, or my husband, how the structure is strong enough to withhold the relationship and deepen it. So an Earthquake being something that shakes the relationship but doesn’t break it.

What would be the base in a relationship?

That wide stability between two sides that lean a bit to eachother, not directly, but through the top part.

The bottom wide base is a shared foundation. For us with my husband even when the relationship was really shaking like 16 years ago, that was the mutual respect. This mutual respect was based on honesty most of all and feeling safe enough to be honest with eachother. Then through a discussion this respect was deepened by focusing and acknowledging the goodness in eachother.

Honesty is a tricky only in a sense that we need to have enough emotional safety in ourselves first for radical self honesty. Sometimes we are honest to the other to the extend we are capable to be radically self honest to ourselves as well.

Shared values and trust would be also what I would put in the base. Sometimes a relationship starts with same values, and then each partner can also grow too much in their own pace and priorities and values change. Back to radical self-honesty, emotional safety and communication skills to be able to keep the mutual respect as the base.

Leaning inward

Just the right amount of standing by yourself and leaning inward into the structure and other without collapsing into the other so that the other bears the weight. This leaning into means standing on your own side and being willing to lean inward to offer support and receive support. If both partners lean in consciously  they create compression strength. This healthy leaning into is interdependence.

Narrower top

In the narrower top, the connection is the awareness of Us and  intimacy, chemistry, intensity, romance. It is certainly a connection but without the wider bottom it is not stable.

The trapezoid shape and inward lean help buildings survive shaking.

In relationships, “earthquakes” are conflicts, stress, life changes, sudden focus on lack of.

What I took from this experience is to imagine a strong relationship as an Inca trapezoid. It is grounded in trust, respect and honesty – and with acknowledgement how this matters as a base. Two people who gently not overly lean into eachother. Their connection on the top defined as us, intimacy, chemistry, care being held up by everything beneath it.

With warmth,

Be