First of all let me state very clearly, I am not a shaman. At very best I am a shamanic practitioner. I do not want to engage in cultural appropriation, but rather cultural appreciation. I try to respect to the wisdom keepers who have kept the shamanic traditions alive through the ages and against the odds.

My foundational shamanic practitioner training came back in 2006-2007 from Alberto Villoldo of the Four Winds School of Healing the Light Body, working with the Q’ero traditions of the Andes. In addition, I have been to Peru numerous times between 2008 and 2018 and have worked directly with some of the Andean paqos, the healers, such as Don Francisco, Don Sebastian, Don Basilio, and others, as well as some of the shamanic Maestros of the Amazon, who work in a very different way, and primarily with the plant medicine, Ayahuasca.

The Andean Spiritual tradition has no institutional facilities, nor hierarchy of leaders who tell people how they must behave. It’s a tradition that works on the mystical and energetic levels. It understands we are part of a larger whole. The sun that rises everyday gives us life. The seeds we plant give us sustenance. It is a tradition that knows we reap that which we sow.

The only commandment of their tradition is to live a life of Ayni, which means something like “give and take" or "exchange with the universe." It’s about living in right relation with ourselves, others and all of creation. Ayni operates in communities within a moral and personal code of conduct. But within the indigenous spiritual cosmology, ayni takes on even greater significance for it is an implicate, creative principle of the natural world. Ayni involves a feedback loop between yourself and the universe.

In the Andean cosmology there are three worlds:

The Hanaqpacha, the upper world, associated with Condor and the place of our becoming. Kaipacha – the middle world– where we live, the material world of our everyday existence, associated with Jaguar. Ucupacha – the lower world–– the underworld inhabited by the ancestors, associated with Serpent.

Some paqos say that the current time is one that heralds our potential to consciously evolve. It must start within each of us recognising we are conscious, we have capacity to create reality through our words and actions. And there are five ways of living, which I will discuss in my next blog.

Kausay pacha is the energy of the living universe and in other cultures it would be called prana, ki, chi. The Q’ero believe it expresses itself in two fundamental types of energy: sami and hucha. Sami is refined or ordered energy that suffuses the natural world in its pristine state. Sami helps us achieve harmony and be in effortless interchange with the cosmos.

Hucha is heavy or disordered energy, and it is produced only by human beings. We create hucha with jealousy, with envy, with anger, lust, greed, shame, guilt, disgust. It’s not negative or bad energy, it’s associated with those things that do not best serve us in our relationship with others.

The high priests or mystics are known as the Altomesayoq and they work and communicate directly with the living beings of the kausay pacha, such as Pachamama, the cosmic feminine principle; Wiraqocha, the cosmic masculine principle; Father Sun; Father Wind; Mama Qocha, mother of the lakes or Hatun Mama Qocha, the mother of the oceans; Maa Una, mother of the waters; Mama Killa, the moon; Mama Ch'aska, mother of the Stars.

In my work with you we may journey to the Upper world or the Lower world, always with the intention of releasing hucha and bringing in sami, and acknowledging that we are part of a greater universal Consciousness. My hope and intention is to allow you to live in greater Ayni.