Some of the most hucha-producing days of my life occurred in 1995 while I was traveling, with several others, to Q’oyllurit’i, a festival held in the bowl of a glacier more than 16,500 feet above sea level. We traveled on horseback for four days, and the ride was difficult and even frightening, especially the narrow, precipitously steep trails and drop-offs over the cliffs that led to hundreds of feet of nothingness. As unnerving as parts of the trail were, most of my hucha was created by my fear of horses.  As a city girl growing up outside of Boston, the only time I had been around horses was during a visit to a farm. Not knowing any better, I walked behind a tethered horse and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, having been kicked in the forehead. I survived that encounter, but I was not so sure I would this trip to Q’oyllurit’i. I almost didn’t go, but my desire to attend this most sacred Andean festival was stronger than my fear of having to ride a horse to get there.

These were Andean horses: most of them were slung low to the ground, with barrel chests and lungs that chugged like bellows. They had amazing stamina and were sure-footed, but willful. Sometimes there was little I could do to control my horse. The lead rope was hand-woven and frayed, the saddle—if you can call it that—had no horn so there was nothing to grab hold of to steady myself on precipitous parts of the train, and the stirrups were set for a short Peruvian and could not be adjusted for a tallish American. The one on the left was high, so my leg was uncomfortably bent the whole trip and my balance affected.

Needless to say, whenever my horse encountered an especially difficult part of the trail and stumbled, I went over the top. Almost every day I had a fall and suffered some kind of injury: a large hematoma on my right hip from flying over the horse and smacking into a stone outcropping when my horse slipped going down some wet Inka stone steps; a badly injured knee from another mishap on day two. In some kind of selfish divine justice, I didn’t fall off on the third day—someone else took a tumble instead. Then on day four . . . well . . . let’s just say that because of Latin machismo, and against my vigorous protests, the guides insisted I stay mounted when it was clear I needed to get off that horse. The horses could not climb one portion of the trail that was a huge stone Inka stairway, the steps very deep at the bottom and a struggle for the horses to get up on. Plus, there was a shallow but wide crevasse at the base of the steps. Everyone dismounted and climbed.

But because of my knee, the guys, trying to be nice, insisted they had a way for my horse to make the climb with me on its back. To get around the crevasse, they decided to take me, on the horse, onto a slick round stone to the side that was only a step or two away from one of those terrifying drops to nothingness. Of course, their plan didn’t work. My horse freaked out and tumbled into the crevasse. In one of the few Castaneda-like moments of my life, I leap-frogged backwards off the horse but somehow ended up standing on a tiny ledge just wide enough for my feet that was 90 degrees to the left. How I ended up there defies the laws of physics, but I was incredibly happy to be there. In another miracle, the horse, when they finally were able to extricate him, was unhurt except for a small cut on one lower leg. Anyway, this was a huge hucha-producing trip during which I was pretty rattled and did not remember to do saminchuy often enough to re-establish equilibrium in my poq’po.

I did two major hucha-cleansing sessions. The first night at Chua Chua while visiting don Manuel Q’epsi, I released hucha and pulled sami from him. Juan Nuñez del Prado, my teacher and guide on this trip, had said that when you are with a paqo who is more advanced than you are, you can drink sami from his poq’po. (Remember, sami literally means “nectar.”) When I was with don Manuel, I drank and drank! The other time was at Hatun Q’eros, where we also spent a night and I got some herbal anti-inflammatory help with my swelling knee. There I performed saminchakuy in the regular way, sending my hucha to Mother Earth and pulling sami in through my uma (crown of my head) and filling my bubble and body.

We humans have the dubious distinction of being the only creatures who can slow or stop the flow of kawsay, causing hucha. (The ancient names for sami and hucha were llanthu kawsay, literally “light living energy,” and llasaq kawsay, literally “heavy living energy.”) Although we create hucha whenever we are not living in ayni, or reciprocity, with the kawsay pacha, the most common cause of hucha is emotion. Our emotions fuel words, actions, thoughts, and intentions that can disrupt ayni. The number-one creator of hucha is humans is fear—but not just any fear.

We instinctively feel fear—the flight or fight response—when we are physically threatened. If you are hiking and cross paths with a bear, you probably will feel fear. You are reacting physically and naturally to a potentially significant threat to life and limb. Your emotion is in perfect ayni with the circumstances. Hence, this fear may not generate hucha, although the whole experience may upset your energy. The life-threatening aspects of my trip did not themselves cause hucha. That fear was a normal, appropriate response to circumstances.

But beyond that justifiable fear was fear that was hucha-producing. I was carrying the hucha-imprint of my early experience with horses. Now I was not a girl but a grown woman and could have handled that horse well if I had only acted like an adult and had confidence in myself. My hucha was following me from my past, and I was misunderstanding that past to be true in my present. I also had a lot of self-esteem problems at that time, plus was just generally subject to a low-level constant anxiety about unfamiliar situations where I felt I had little control. So I was producing a lot of hucha.

When releasing hucha, we always refresh ourselves with sami—and we have almost unlimited sources of sami. Although in saminchakuy we tend to pull the light living energy down from the cosmos, in actuality we can pull it in from anything in nature—a tree, a stone, an animal, a cloud, a river. Everything in nature is comprised only of sami, so we have unlimited sources of various “flavors” of sami and can choose the most appropriate flavor for our condition.

For example, if you feel unsteady and at the whim of life’s circumstances, when you perform saminchakuy you might pull sami in from a large rock formation. Its sami is grounding, steadying, vigilant, “rock solid.” If you feel you are stuck and can’t seem to move in life, perhaps you might pull sami from the clouds, which are always moving and full of life-giving and life-sustaining water. Your only limitation is your imagination when it comes to drinking in the sami of the natural world and cosmos. And your primary responsibility is to do the practices that release hucha and help re-establish coherence in your poq’po. Take it from me: I know how difficult it is to remember to do the practices when you really need them! But better late than never. . .

Dancing in step with the universe. Flowing with purpose and joy along the stream of life. Understanding that the universe knows you better than you know yourself, and witnessing it deliver to you, at just the right time, the perfect fulfillment of your needs.

I just read Michael A. Singer’s new book, The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life’s Perfection,” and it’s a story that meets each of these seemingly impossible expectations.

And while reading it, and his previous book The Untethered Soul, I couldn’t help but think of the Andean path, especially about ayni—being in perfect reciprocity with the kawsay pacha, the universe of living energy.

In his new book, Singer recounts his quest for getting beyond the pesky, loquacious, opinionated, ego-based voice within to the still, silent, knowing place of the Self. When he gets there, he finds that his life unfolds almost miraculously, with everything falling into place as if by divine guidance. He says, “Once you are ready to let go of yourself, life becomes your friend, your teacher, your secret lover. When life’s way becomes your way, all the noise stops, and there is a great peace.”

We have to recast Singer’s journey from meditation and Buddhist teachings to Andean energy practices and concepts to understand that what you are learning on the Andean path is exactly what he is talking about achieving through the contemplative traditions.

“When life’s way becomes your way. . .” That is a great definition of ayni, of reciprocity. The “great peace” that results we would call “well-being.” When Singer talks about having to quiet that ego-based voice that blocks the flow of life energy, we would understand that as releasing all the unconscious and conscious projections that create hucha. Singer frees himself through arduous meditation practices; we do it much more quickly and effortlessly through saminchakuy.

On the Andean path, we know that the natural state of kawsay is to flow unimpeded. We understand that our goal is to allow life/kawsay to flow through us in order to “see reality as it really is.” We learn to see not only through our physical eyes/mind/ego, but also through our mystical eyes (the ñawis). Because we can be qawaq, we know we need to embrace our direct experience of the kawsay pacha and not be fooled by the illusion of our projections.

Singer’s focus is largely on being aware and allowing. From the Andean perspective, we would call this intention. Intention is not about control but about clarity of vision. Singer, for instance, sets a clear intent of quieting the personal ego voice (releasing hucha), being in reciprocity with the universe (practicing ayni), and of being awake to what is actually happening and allowing it to unfold (qaway). All of this leads to acting with personal power and integrity.

Intent and personal power allow us not only to follow the lead of the kawsay pacha, but to have the capacity to act when opportunity arises. Ayni is not passive, but active—it is a clear-sighted interchange. Intent without energy is not effective, and vice versa.

Singer takes action in spades! As paqos do. Sometimes that action is simply allowing. Other times it is actually doing something. One of the culminating capacities of the energy work of the Andes, especially through the work of the chunpis, is atiy. Atini means “I can do it” in Quechua. Man atini means “I cannot do it.” Your personal power—energy coupled with intent—determines your capacity for atiy, between your being able to waltz with the universe or having to sit on the side of the dance floor as an observer. The key is in knowing when to allow and when to act.

Singer at first thought the path to “enlightenment” required passivity. He dropped out of life and became a recluse, obsessing about being alone in the woods in meditation so he could access his higher Self. After tedious effort, he discovered that the universe did not want him hiding out in the woods. It wanted him engaged in the world. That is exactly the message of the Andean path—to be fully human in the human world instead of trying to leap beyond your humanness into a purely spiritual world. It takes Singer dozens of years to realize this. You know it from the first training in the Andean path.

I recommend you read Singer’s new book. It is impressive in its evidence-based nature that the universe is a living universe and ayni allows us to partner with the cosmos and dance. Singer’s book also underscores what Andean paqos know: the kawsay pacha is incredibly abundant, giving back tenfold for every authentic energy exchange. Singer’s book reveals that intention and energy are the twin engines of life at every level, from the most mundane to the most esoteric. What it doesn’t show, naturally, is that the Andean practices can achieve the same ends, and they can get you there faster and less painfully.

There is one lesson I ask you to definitely take to heart from Singer. That is dedication to a path. If you know the Andean practices but are not using them, hopefully Singer’s example of persistent practice will motivate you to take them up again. By doing so, you can start on your own path toward waltzing with the universe in ayni.

If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.

—Alan Simpson

The word “integrity” has several meanings within the Andean tradition as passed on through the lineage of Juan Nuñez del Prado. The core meaning of integrity as a paqo means being in energetic coherence, in the sense that the streams of kawsay that flow through and within your bubble do so harmoniously. When you divest your bubble of hucha through practices such as saminchakuy and hucha miqhuy, you increase your bubble’s level of sami, which is the life-creating and life-sustaining energy of the cosmos. Less hucha and more sami means your poq’po is closer to its original, natural state.

When you are in energetic integrity, kawsay flows through you unimpeded, so you are in a greater state of unity with the cosmos, Thus, your capacity to make more refined ayni exchanges is heightened. As more sami flows and energetic integrity increases, you also activate your Inka Seed, which is your divine self. It’s you as a Drop of the Mystery. Your Inka Seed encodes your true nature and fully realized self. Thus, it is the repository of your fullest and grandest capacities and gifts. But your Inka Seed grows best when the ground state of your poq’po is one of coherence.

Integrity as coherence also means you are not split within. You don’t act as often from your superego, which acts according to feedback such as approval and acceptance that comes from outside the self, or from your undirected passions and impulses. You are more aware of who you really are, and so you can more easily divest yourself of illusions, contradictions, projections, and such. Doing so releases hucha and increases sami so that you can act with the integrity of a unified self. You are not torn emotionally between your head and your heart. Between your desires and your best interests. Between your intentions and your actions. When you are in energetic integrity your thoughts, actions, words, intentions, desires, and such are more integrated. The consequence as a human being is that you are in “right relationship” with yourself and with others. You are more compassionate, confident, trustworthy, joyful, truthful, patient, and a host of other qualities that arise from inner coherence. In short, you are more “real” in the union of yourself as human being and spirit being.

Integrity also means to act with munay, with a love grounded in will. Munay is not sentimental; it is not a feeling that is subject to the whim of circumstance or emotion. Munay is a choice.  It is grounded in clear-seeing—in qaway—and so is subject to your will.  Munay is beyond the needs of the self yet within the purview of self-control.

Munay expresses itself in myriad ways: it is evident when you choose to speak kindly to someone with whom you have deep differences; it displays as compassion for someone whom you judge as suffering due to his or her own choices and actions; it does not condemn; it is not about preaching; it is not holier-than-thou, although it also is not devoid of opinion, ethics and morality. But munay always extends the benefit of the doubt. It errs on the side of kindness, charity and empathy. Because munay is love grounded in will (choice), it is not so much a feeling as it is action. Even if you do not feel loving toward another person, you act with loving–kindness. Ideally, however, munay is the perfect coherence of both feeling and action. It is, like Christian agape, the model for humanity.

Integrity encompasses each of these meanings and others. Bringing integrity—coherence—to your poq’po is a fundamental practice of a paqo. When in energetic integrity, you can live more fully and truly as a paqo who fosters joy and well-being for yourself and those around you.

Those of you who have undergone the Chunpi Away and Ñawi K’ichay karpay—the weaving of the belts and opening of the seven eyes—have a unique capacity to develop seeing beyond the constraints of your physical vision. This enhanced vision is called qaway, which is seeing through your mystical eyes. Your goal as a qawaq is to see reality as it really is, without the screen of projections, illusions, and self-created limitations. As a qawaq, you see the past and present clearly and without impulse or sentimental emotion. You can even see into the future.

In contrast, the future—qayapacha—is behind you, because you can’t see it. Referring to the ñawis, you have only one eye, the siki ñawi of the yana chunpi, by which to view the future. Thus, it is less unknowable, although when you developed your qawaq/seer abilities, you can sense what may be coming, especially if you increase your mastery of pushing the kawsay (influencing the world of living energy). The future also is sometimes associated with the left physical eye, the lloq’e ñawi.

Although the seventh eye faces forward, and so looks at the past, it also has an integrating capacity. When you are qawaq and seeing clearly and soberly through both your physical and mystical eyes, then the past and future fuel your vision through your seventh eye, which is in the middle of your forehead (called the third eye in many metaphysical traditions). At the seventh eye, past and future coalesce into the now (called the kunanpacha). Thus, you can improve your ability to see reality as it really is in your life at the current time. This mystical vision, coupled with your personal power, allows you to be in greater well-being because you can think, speak, and act according to what is necessary at the moment, without being impulsively or unconsciously driven by the whims of circumstance.

Being a qawaq does not mean you become clairvoyant, although you certainly can develop a similar ability. Being qawaq is less about predicting what is coming and more about living in well-being in the present. Ram Dass’s famous adage, “Be here now” is a good way to describe what qaway involves, but it goes beyond just being attentive or mindful to what you are doing or what is happening around you at the current moment. It extends to being able to see beyond the “story” of the self by which most of us color our present life, usually in rosy hues. Seeing reality as it really is takes you beyond story and circumstance. It drops you deep into the center of your

personal power, whereby you can not only intend to be who you really are, but can actually more fully live as who you really are. It frees energy so that you can grow and change, helping you rise above any self-imposed limitations.

The Andean path is all about being able to better live up to your potential as a human being in the human world. Developing your personal power, which includes improving your mystical seeing, allows you to take greater responsibility for your life, to deal more artfully and effortlessly with the circumstances of life exactly as your life is right now. Best of all, developing your qawaq capacity allows you establish a deeper, truer, realer relationship with yourself.

Animal spirits don’t make appearances in the Andean tradition in quite the same way they do in many other traditions, such as the Native North American tradition. Let me say off the top that I know some Western paqos work with a Medicine Wheel, and so associate animals with each of the four cardinal directions. But I have no knowledge of that being the case in Peru or as a formula used by any of the paqos I have worked with or know about.

The most common use of animals as spirit beings in the Andean tradition is as representative of the three worlds. The lower world—the ukhupacha—is represented by the snake; the middle world—the kaypacha—by the puma; and the upper world—the hanaqpacha—by the hummingbird, and sometimes by the condor.

The serpent, as the amaru or anaconda, rises from the earth, and in the left-side work we raise it as representative of our personal power. It changes color as it rises up our body along the spine and positions its head over the crown of our head: shifting from green, to black, to red, to silver and finally to gold. The colors are associated with the chunpis, or belts of power, and we can call on the snake of the corresponding colored belt to quickly access the capacities of that belt. For example, we can rise the amaru as silver to access capacities of communication and holistic conceptualization at the kunka chunpi, or silver belt at the throat. Or, when we need to take quick action with decisiveness and will, we can raise the aramu in its red guise, which corresponds to the puka chunpi, or red belt at the qoqso, which is the center of personal power and kinetic action.

The puma is a representation of this material world, the kaypacha, and is mirrored in the geographical contours of the city of Cuzco, which is laid out in the shape of a puma. There are sacred sites and huacas situated along the body of the puma, some of which represent its chunpis.

The hummingbird is the messenger of the metaphysical God, bridging the upper world and this world. When we commune with spirits of the hanaqpacha—who are beings of perfect ayni—we say we are crossing the hummingbird bridge.

When we work with the chunpis and the Stairway of Seven Steps (which can be associated with the seven levels of human consciousness) we also work with eight helper energies: three of them are animals, four are humans, and one is the metaphysical God. We choose the seven animal or human helpers, so there are no universal symbolic associations with them. However, our zero-level helper is always a reptile; our first-level helper a mammal; and our second-level helper a bird.

These helpers can indeed help us! They hold the space within us for those capacities which are undeveloped in us. They help us to gradually realize our fullness and use our gifts. They also can serve as protector spirits. I remember Juan telling me the story about walking in Amsterdam at night and being confused about the street path, since there was a trolley line right through it. As he walked he suddenly found himself making a leap, like a frog, off the side of the track and onto clear pavement. The movement happened spontaneously. And a good thing it did, as a trolley rounded the corner and would probably have seriously injured or even killed him if he had not leapt to safety when he did. He credits his zero-level helper, the frog, with motivating his spontaneous leap.

If you have gone through the lloq’e work of don Melchor Desa and have chosen helper spirits, don’t forget to nurture them. They are not just there for use during the workshop exercises. They are there to represent your unexpressed capacities and to help you grow into them. By nurturing a relationship with each of them, they can indeed assist you in your life and your development as a paqo.