This post is based on a conversation I had with my teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, about phutuy, or flowering. Literally, in most Quechua dictionaries, it is a noun that means germination, and it correlates with the Quechua word wiñay, which means many things, such as eternity, to develop, to grow, to sprout. In your mystical work, it refers to being born or to birthing your mystical self. Juan reminds us all that our paqo path is a process of kawsay puriy—walking in a world of living energy. Don Martin Quispe Machaqa, the current top paqo of Q’ero and one of many paqos our group was working with, said, “We try to walk with well-being through our lives, in alignment with the kawsay pacha, in ayni, using all of our capacities.” To do that, you have to “flower” as a paqo.

There are other metaphors that provide context for your work. Two are wachu, which means furrow (as in a plowed row in a field), and tarpuy, which means both to plant and to sow. In effect, you are a muyu, or seed, and you are learning to plant yourself in this wachu—the universal field of living energy—so you can grow and evolve. You literally have an energetic seed within you, the Inka Seed, which is close to your heart in your chest and which contains within it your fullest potential. When you grow your Inka Seed you not only can realize who you are (exactly as you are) at the current time, but you can perceive your highest potential—that of an enlightened sixth-level being. Everything you need to realize this potential lives within you. You have only to use your energy practices to germinate this potential and grow yourself into the fullness of your individual beingness over time.

Juan says that in your work, especially the basic energy practices of saminchakuy and saiwachakuy, you are enriching yourself, feeding your Inka Seed. When you grow, you will grow as a tree does—you are building yourself. A tree uses all the power available to it—water sun, earth and wind—to form and shape itself. You use all your practices to grow and shape yourself, to feel and express your beingness. Touching that beingness enriches you, it empowers you to continue to evolve, enriching yourself in many specific ways.

For example, you can work through your ñawis—mystical eyes—in various ways. Juan says just like a tree works with the power of sun, earth, water and wind (which are not elements, but spirit beings: Tayta Inti, Mama Allpa, Mama Unu, and Tayta Wayra respectively), you can work with them through your poq’po (energy body). He explained, “Working with those spirit beings at your ñawis is a type of phutuy, or flowering. You offer yourself as a flower to Wiraqocha. You germinate, bloom, grow. For example, you can lay on the ground and connect your four main ñawis to the Earth and grow as a mallki (an energetic tree) and see the project of your life.” The mallki, or sacred tree, is a symbol of the enlightened human being, a “self-made” being just as a tree is self-made using the gifts of the spirit beings of sun, earth, water and wind. When you pull in these powers you can catch a glimpse of yourself in your future potential, as a sixth-level being. And that glimpse can be enough to motivate you to do the day-to-day work of seeding, germinating, and growing yourself and your poq’po.

Juan reminds us that it is not just your mystical body you are seeking to evolve, but your physical body as well. In the mystical work, “you are building another kind of body, a perceptual and mystical body,” he says, “so you can be stronger. When you are energetically weak, you cannot do fully, you cannot be fully. But your work also builds your physical body. You are developing your gifts—such as atiy, khuyay, munay, and yachay—but also building your body.” As paqos, we are always about building and empowering both: our human self and our spiritual/mystical self.

We have many practices to help us do this work, but in terms of phutuy we would do well to work with our primary mystical centers, our ñawis, or mystical “eyes.” These are, in reality, full perceptual centers and are not associated only with “seeing.” The seven mystical eyes are the siki ñawi at the base of the spine, the qosqo ñawi at the belly, the sonqo ñawi at the chest/heart area, the kunka ñawi at the throat, your two physical eyes, and the qanchis ñawi (seventh eye) in the middle of your forehead.

As I pointed out previously, the ñawis—the mystical eyes—are associated with the seven teqse apukuna, or universal spirit beings. (Among other posts on this site about the universal spirit beings, see the one of December 27, 2015.) As examples of how to work specific ñawis, Juan offers the following: “If you want to have the capacity to stick with something for a long time, to undertake a long-term effort, you work through your qosqo and qosqo ñawi with the spirit being of the Earth, Mama Allpa. Mother Earth provides the stability and grounding to help you sustain an effort over the long term. If you want to start something new, you work with the siki ñawi and the capacity of atiy, which is the power to do something, to take action, and also about the proper timing to start your project. If you want to learn about a subject deeply, you work with the air and wind (Tayta Wayra) at the kunka ñawi, the eye of the throat. If you want to deepen feelings, you work at the sonqo ñawi with the sun (Tayta Inti), who sheds light and brings illumination to what you are feeling so it you feel with greater clarity.”

These are all ways to “flower” the self, both physically and mystically. But I would add that none of these practices will be particularly effective if you are not attending to the coherence of your entire poq’po. Ideally, these specific practices should be combined with the more general practice of saminchakuy, which is a type of pichay, of sweeping hucha from your poq’po. Pichay literally means to remove dirt, to sweep clean. (If you don’t know saminchakuy, it is a practice of bringing sami in and over your poq’po while simultaneously releasing hucha from your poq’po.) I always start my work with a general saminchakuy of my entire poq’po, and I recommend you do that as well. Then, if you are planning to work at a particular ñawi, you can go on to do a pichay at that center. You can direct the sami to a particular ñawi and release hucha from it. Then, once it is “clean,” you can begin your phutuy work with the spirit being associated with that ñawi. Following this sequence is like preparing the soil bed of the self first, and then preparing a place for a particular seed. However you decided to work, your intention matters. Your focus is on phutuy—flowering the fullness of yourself.

When I am with my teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, we have wide-ranging conversations and he inevitably offers enlightening off-hand remarks that, unbeknownst to him, alter my perceptions of the work we are doing together or with a group. Recently he said, “Sanctuaries are spiritual engines. You pull energy from them.” That might seem an obvious statement, but it got me thinking about my relationship to the sanctuaries we work at and how to expand and deepen the work I, and others, do there.

If you have been to Peru you know how magnificent the sanctuaries are: Tipon with its amazing multilevel fountains, Ollantaytambo with its soaring walls and exquisite sweep of stairs, moray with its tiers of vast circular terraces , Machu Picchu with its finely wrought temples and profusion of wakas (stones and other structures or objects that are repositories of the sacred). We work in specific ways with each of these, and other, sacred sites. Among many other practices, at Tipon, we work with the ñust’a energies of the water fountains, at Ollantaytambo we work with the spirit of the wind, at Moray we form relationships with and are empowered by the teqse apukuna (seven universal spirit beings), at Machu Pichu we undertake all kinds of energy work, including the cycle of practices of the Q’enti Rijchay, the ceremony of awakening the hummingbird. But Juan’s remark helps me see that the work goes much deeper—beyond specific energy practices at individual sites within a sanctuary to touching the very heart of the poq’po (energy bubble) of the sanctuary as a engine of living energy.

Most of our work is that of connecting seqes—cords of energy—with a specific waka. But Juan is advising that we also connect with the entire sanctuary, offering it our energy and pulling its power to us in an ayni interchange. Once we lay down a seqe, it persists over time if we continue work it. That seqe then can be a permanent energetic link to the sanctuary from which we can—at any time, from any place in the world—continue to receive its energy empowerment. The sacred “engine” of the sanctuary is never idle. It is always running, thereby providing a continual source of power to us and helping us to grow and paqos and as human beings. What a beautiful concept! We would do well to remember that when we are in Peru or at any sacred site anywhere in the world.

The rituals of the Andes are not ceremonies per se. They are intention put into action to make energetic connections and to refine mystical perception. The flow between yourself and the entity you are interchanging energy with is an act of ayni.  There are commonalities between each sanctuary—for example, they may all be engines of the sami of the earth. And, they are all sites at which paqos throughout time have worked, so they are imprinted with the energy of the collective energy of those paqos, which itself can be a source of power from which you can draw. But they also each have their own energy signatures. When you connect with that power source, then you may eventually become, as Juan would phrase it, an “owner” of that particular power as well.

Some sites are not man-made sanctuaries but natural formations that may or may not have been modified by the Inkas and pre-Inkas. For instance, the cave of Amaru Machay (which you can no longer enter) is a natural cave with carvings along the entrance rock face and a huge platform “altar” inside. You don’t have to enter to  connect with its poq’po and draw from the engine of power of this place. The work you would here is a kind of recapitulation of your life to release hucha and a rebirthing as a whole, healed human being, so the signature energy of Amaru Machay would be the energy of healing your past. By laying down a seqe to the poq’po of Amaru Machay, you can continually draw on this healing energy no matter where you are.

I am not an expert on what the “signature” energy is of the many sanctuaries of Peru, and I won’t go into any detail here for those I do know something about, but I can offer a few possibilities about how you can explore doing this kind of work. There are two primary ways. First, you can work with the sanctuaries according to their literal use and then extrapolate from that meaning to make a metaphoric connection to human experience. Second, you can work with the energy of the site’s mystical significance within the paqo lineage.

Let me use Moray as an example. This was an experimental agriculture center, where the Inkas sought to develop plants that could thrive in different environments and at different altitudes. So, quite literally, it was a place of adaptation. If you extrapolate metaphorically to your life, you might draw along a seqe the energy and power of adaptation into your own life, perhaps to help you discover new ways to adapt in and thrive in a difficult environment of your current life (family, work, etc.). In the metaphysical realm, Moray is a place where we work with the seven levels of human consciousness. (This is not all we do here, but it is one of the primary energy practices we do at this site.) Notice in the photo above how each circular grouping is comprised of seven “steps” of terrace. In our mystical work, each level of terrace represents one of the seven levels of human consciousness. But you can work with the site holistically, drawing sami from the poq’po of the entirety of Moray to empower yourself to explore, heighten, and evolve your consciousness.

This is just a flavor of the work you can do with these sanctuaries as engines of power. I hope this post has inspired you both to see the creative ways you can apply Andean mystical practices and to develop a new appreciation for the sacred sanctuaries of Peru (or of anywhere else). Remember that everything is a being, including the sacred sanctuaries, and through ayni you can work with these “beings” to help you along your path as paqo and in your life as a human being.