The COVID-19 coronavirus is at pandemic proportions, and while I hope we are all dealing with it calmly and sensibly at a human level, we as paqos have a role to play at an energetic level as well. As the paqos of old have told us, we have a responsibility to use our tools to increase the well-being of ourselves and others. And so it is with this responsibility in mind that I post now about what we as paqos can do.

My primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, has posted information about how to work the energy of the virus. I am pasting that posting in here. However, I have received emails from several students and others about efforts they are undertaking to help reduce the power of the virus. Hats off to them for being proactive. However, I have a few things to say about those efforts that may be instructive, at least in relation to how I learned and teach the tradition. I will comment at the end of this post.

Our tools are, of course, saminchakuy, saiwachakuy, and hucha miqhuy. Don Juan explains how we can use these (using his personal spelling of terms and only slightly editing):

“To my paqos colleagues:

“On the occasion of the ongoing epidemic, chains of prayer and meditation are being organized to help control it. Of course we can join their intentions and practices. According to tradition, at the end of the 19th century, don Garibilu Quispe, one of the founders of our spiritual lineage, used the practices of the Andean spiritual arts to counteract an epidemic of smallpox, which occurred in Peru at that time. In the current circumstances, we can use the basic practices of our art for similar purposes, as follows:

“Saminchakuy: Using your intention, make the living energy—kausay—flow from top to bottom and through the generated flow offer Pachamama—the cosmic mother—as food the energy of the virus and the heavy energy of the epidemic.

“Saywachakuy: Using your intention, make flow the living energy of the earth, from the bottom up, with the intention of strengthening your immune system [or the immune systems of others].

“Juchamijuy: Using your intention, attract to your qosqo—energy center of the navel—the heavy energy of the people of your family or intimate group to support and strengthen them, and with the power of this center digest it [their hucha]. Extract from it fine energy [sami] and incorporate that into your energy field and discard the heaviest energy, offering it as food to the earth.”

Of course, you can follow don Juan’s advice working as a group as well as individually. For those of you who have shared your group work with me, I would like to respectfully offer the following comment: keep it simple! I mention this because some of the practices people have proposed in the emails are quite elaborate indeed! Remember, as paqos we never want to waste our energy. So, we always use the simplest, most efficient practice first. And we repeat that practice and give it time to work. Only then, if there is not a good effect, do we increase the complexity of our practice. But that increase is incremental, adding in only what is absolutely necessary to try to produce the effect we are seeking.

Individually and together, we can do our part as paqos to “work” our energies to reduce the impact of or even stop the spread and effects of the coronavirus. Please join us.