Hike through the high plains of the Peruvian Andes, and you might notice your guide pausing before a towering peak or beside a rushing stream, whispering softly and offering a few coca leaves or spilling a few drops of water. To an outsider, this gesture might look like a quaint ritual—a nod to folklore. But to the paqos (practitioners of the Andean mystical tradition), this isn’t a performance. It’s a vital connection, even a sacred communion. While Western spirituality often focuses on ascending out of the world, and many Eastern traditions look inward to find the divine, the Andean paqos do something entirely different. They look directly at the landscape and bridge its materiality to touch its energetic essence. Andeans in general, and paqos in particular, are kawsaypa llikapi, which literally means “within the network of life.”

In modern society, many of us view ourselves as separate entities moving through a space. Even if we admire our surroundings as we walk through a valley, many of us traverse the terrain essentially as observers or visitors. In contrast, in the Andean tradition we understand that our energy field (poq’po) is directly enmeshed with the surrounding landscape and its features. The valley in its own right has a poq’po, as do the creatures who live there and each of the trees, rocks, rivers, flowers, and other natural features. The paqos teach that humans possess three main forms of perception: yachay: mind; munay: feelings; and llank’ay: action. When these three ways of perceiving are aligned, a human being becomes a chakaruna—a living bridge. We literally become a conduit through which we and the sky, the mountain, the river, or the stones share energy. This is ayni, or reciprocity. As modern physics tells us, and the paqos show us, the created universe is relational. As Margaret Wheatley, a writer and speaker who incorporates systems science into her leadership seminars and books, says, “Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.”

Without humans consciously performing rituals of reciprocity, Andeans believe the universe loses its harmony. So, we humans, despite our woeful behavior as stewards of the Earth, are not cosmic tourists visiting the Earth for a time but vital expressions of the Earth. Humans, the Andeans tell us, are allpa camasca: animated earth. Energetically, when we engage in an ayni relationship with Mother Earth, we not only honor her but become an integral aspect of her body and serve as ritual caretakers. The physical landscape is not just terrain; it is the altar upon which we cherish our “mother” and take to heart our roles as attentive “children.” By caring for the Earth, we care for ourselves and all creatures.

Most people, when they first begin to practice Andean mysticism, tend to gravitate toward Pachamama, which usually is translated as “Mother Earth.” However, Mother Earth as a being in her own right has her own name: Mama Allpa. Who, then, is Pachamama? The Cosmic Mother. In a beautiful imagistic rendering, Andeans see Mama Allpa as the womb of Pachamama. From this Earth womb all living things are birthed into being. However, our Original Mother is of cosmic origin. Pachamama is the mother of the entire material universe, of which Mama Allpa and we are just a small a part. When we are in ayni with Mama Allpa, by extension we also are in ayni with Pachamama, the entire material cosmos.

A logical question is why Andeans tend to call Mama Allpa (planet Earth) “Pachamama.” One reason is a function of the Quechua language. Allpa literally means “earth,” as in soil or dirt. Pacha has many definitions: dirt, soil, earth, realm, world, space, time. But it also functions as a kind of honorific. When Andeans are planting seeds in their fields, they are digging furrows in the allpa, the earth, the dirt. Allpa tends to be used within common language as a reference to the mundane. The word Pacha, however, lifts the mundane to the sacred. So, when Andeans shift to referring to the Earth as the giver of abundant life gifts (crops, animals and herds, water, and such), they refer to her as a sacred being, and they use the term Pachamama, the Sacred Earth Mother.

There is a similar language transformation with how Andeans relate in ayni with water. The Quechua term for water is unu, although many Andeans use the Spanish agua. In fact, they tend to use the word agua when referring to water in its mundane form as an element of rain or a stream. When they add the word unu (agua unu), they are referring to water in its sacred nature. The water flowing down from a snow-capped mountain to irrigate their fields is agua unu; it is considered the fertilizing blood that flows thru the veins of the mountains or as the sweat of Mother Earth. Referring to water as unu imparts the notions of divinity, unity, fertility, and sanctity. Likewise, yaku means river in its mundane sense, or refers to any mundane type of flowing water, such as that in an irrigation ditch. But when referred to as yaku unu, this water is elevated to the realm of the sacred. The water is honored for its sacred life-giving properties.

Living these kinds of relationships turns the landscape into a kind of living altar. Just about everything in nature is considered a waka, a repository of the sacred. Andeans don’t just live on the land; they are in continual, dynamic reciprocity with it. If we want to experience this mystical immersion into a network of living relationships with nature, the Earth, and even our entire cosmos, we don’t have to practice the Andean or any other mystical tradition. We can simply walk outside of our house and shift our perspective. Instead of looking at nature, we feel into nature. And perceive how nature is looking at and feeling into each of us. By transitioning our conscious awareness from our mind to our poq’po (our energetic, perceptual body), we learn we are integrally woven into the living web of nature. We cease being spectators and become partners in the world’s unfolding.