You drive the living energy using your intention, don Benito explained, and the primary technique for getting stuck energy moving again is saminchakuy.

–Juan Nuñez del Prado

I get a lot of questions about some of the most basic, but important, energy practices of the Andean tradition. So in this post, and in a series of posts after this one, I want to talk about energy dynamics from a few different perspectives. Today, we’ll look at saminchakuy, a topic I have talked about at length about in multiple blog posts. It’s worth revisiting this subject.

I have said in the past, and continue to stress, that the Andean tradition is a path of joy and well-being. But that joy and well-being don’t just happen. You have to use the practices of the tradition to achieve them. That said, the practices are not “work.”They are joyful themselves, and they don’t take a PhD to understand or use.

Let me own my bias about what it means to claim you are following this path. For me it means you actually know and use the fundamental techniques of the tradition. Yet, it amazes me that so many people who have been on this path  for years don’t know the single most fundamental energy practice of the Andes—saminchakuy. Just about everything “energy” in the mystical tradition is based on this practice.

Everything is made of sami (the most refined kawsay, or living energy) and the very term saminchakuy means something like “making/working with sami” or “taking action with sami.” This practice is the basic “cleansing” practice. Just like the skin on your body needs to be washed in order to maintain your health, so does the “skin” of your poq’po (energy body or bubble) need to be cleaned of hucha. Saminchakuy is like taking an energetic shower. However, it’s important to understand that “cleansing” is a metaphor, because hucha is just slowed or blocked kawsay/sami. It is not dirty or contaminating, but it can affect your ability to be in effective reciprocity (ayni) with the living universe. Saminchakuy gets this slowed kawsay (hucha) moving again, and by doing so tremendously improves your capacity for well-being. You could also say, again metaphorically, that in relation to your well-being, it ramps up your energetic immune system.

The practice is simple. You use intention to draw sami in from the environment or cosmos through the top of your poq’po, and, after connecting through your tailbone or feet (the bottom of your poq’po) to Mother Earth, you use intention to direct any hucha in your poq’po into the Mother. You simultaneously release hucha as you fill and empower yourself with sami.

Saminchakuy pervades the tradition. So much of Andean practice is some variation of saminchakuy that not knowing about it may cause you to miss what is going on around you when you work with the paqos.

When you hear the Q’ero or other paqos sing or pray, you will often hear this word or some variation of it in their songs or prayers, as they petition the apus or Pachamama to receive their hucha. I was recently in Peru as part of a group, and we had the good fortune to spend several days working with a group of Q’ero paqos. During despachos I heard them whispering this word (saminchakuy) as they sought the blessings of the teqse apus. In effect they were asking, “Clean us, clean us.” This makes perfect sense since the despacho is the primary ayni ceremony and the despacho bundle is a great eater of hucha.

When you watch paqos work with their mishas, they most often are running it down a person’s body to release hucha. They basically are doing saminchakuy with the misha (as a result, it is also called mishachakuy: literally taking action with the misha). Like a despacho, the misha is a great eater of hucha. The downward movement of the misha (or a despacho bundle) over the body is a type of saminchakuy. They usually make sure they run the misha or despacho over all twelve ñawis (mystical eyes) and four chunpis (energetic belts), cleansing them of hucha and empowering them with sami. If you don’t know or understand saminchakuy, you might miss the actual intention of what they are doing with their mishas and despacho bundles.

To benefit from saminchakuy, you need only practice it ten minutes once or twice a day. The benefit is more perfect ayni. Everything in the Andean mystical tradition is based on ayni—moving energy through intention in reciprocity with the kawsay pacha. The quality of your ayni is dependent of the state of your poq’po—the more sami, the most effective your ayni—and vice versa. Saminchakuy is the core practice for creating a coherent and “clean” poq’po, so it directly impacts your capacity for ayni (or, to put it another way, your personal power ). It also impacts  the quality of your consciousness. As you cleanse your energy body, you perfect your ayni, which in turn helps you move up the stairway of the seven steps of consciousness. This is why don Benito Qoriwaman said that with saminchakuy alone (often supplemented with the empowering companion practice of saiwachakuy), you can reach the sixth (and possibly the seventh) level of consciousness. Saminchakuy, thus, is absolutely fundamental to your practice as a paqo and your personal development as a human being.

Can you follow the Andean tradition without knowing saminchakuy? Not really. It is simply too fundamental a practice.

Have I convinced you that you need to know and practice saminchkauy? I hope so.

Photo 3 is courtesy of and copyrighted by Lisa McClendon Sims.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.
― Jim Morrison, The Doors

Many of the prophecies of the Andes are about the runakay mosoq, the rise of the New Humanity. Instead of looking outside ourselves—to our politicians and to activists and others—the revolution as conscious evolution starts within.

As I have said so many times before, a primary goal of the Andean path is to become the grandest human being you can be—to consciously evolve, and by doing so to contribute to the conscious evolution of our species. It is not too grandiose to say that we are seeking to change the world by first changing ourselves.

The truth of the matter is that we can’t change other people, we can only change ourselves. As we reach a higher expression of ourselves, we can become living examples to others of the benefits of doing so, and we may even be able to inspire others to do the work of their own inner growth.

While it is important to be an activist and champion for causes that help better the world, if we focus only on what is wrong in the outer world and with others instead of what is going on within ourselves, we risk losing perspective of how the process of change works.

As writer and spiritual teacher Alan Cohen writes, “The world is not defective and does not need fixing; the world is unfolding and needs belief. You will never create a perfect world by fixing everything that is broken. . . .The only way to attain perfection is to claim it, right where you are. If it is not here now, it will not be here later. Perfection is not a condition you attain; it is a consciousness you live from. Changing the world is not about setting it right, but seeing it right. Inner transformation must occur before outer change is possible.”

So seeking to be a force for good in the world is not about doing, as much as it is about your state of being. As writer and teacher Marianne Williamson says, every moment is a choice about your “ministry.” Will it be a ministry of fear or one of love (munay)? Does it arise from respect or does it only marginalize or denigrate? Long before Williamson was a public figure, she was a cocktail waitress. She decided that her ministry was to be the best, most life-affirming waitress she could be. The bar where she worked was her “church.” She started right where she was and as who she was—a waitress in a bar at a restaurant—and did not defer her work until she had a larger stage or a different environment. Most important, she started by deciding who she wanted to be, before she started acting on that state of being.

As paqos we know that we are in continual ayni with others, the material world, and the cosmos of living energy. And we also know that if we are on one end of the ayni flow and another person is at the other end, all we can take responsibility for is our end of that flow. For instance, when we do hucha mikhuy, we are not cleansing the other person, we are cleansing the flow of energy between ourselves and that person. Our undertaking will indeed decrease that person’s hucha and increase his or her sami, but mostly we are focused on what the flow between us feels like to us and making it feel better for ourselves, so we can take back our projections from that person. We are taking responsibility for ourselves, not trying to change the other person. That person may indeed change as a result of our practice, but that is not our overt intent. Our intent is to shift the condition of our own life and emotional/energy environment.

This is why we say in the Andean tradition that each of us is at the center of the universe. This is not a statement of hubris or solipsism. It is a practical focus on where the work needs to be done—in the self. We are solely responsible for ourselves and for how we are in ayni with the world of living energy—for how we absorb kawsay and how we radiate it.

Imperfect ayni creates hucha. Like a snake swallowing its tail, by reducing our hucha, we not only increase our own well-being, but we improve our capacity for more perfect ayni. All the beings of the hanaqpacha have perfected ayni, and it is our hope as paqos to one day perfect our own ayni as well. When we do, our own lives will feel more like paradise, and we will be contributing to the shift collectively that can ultimately result in our bringing heaven down to earth.

So while it has become almost cliché to quote Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” that is exactly what our Andean practice is about. Don Benito once told Juan Nuñez del Prado that we don’t have to wonder what God will say next time “he” appears in physical form on earth. We know what “he” has said in the past, and that will be exactly what “he” will say in the future: Ayninaqichis: Practice Ayni.

The medieval mystic Kabir reminds us that when it comes to outward gestures, “Why run around sprinkling holy water? There’s an ocean inside you, and when you’re ready you’ll drown.” The mystical drowning is not life threatening, but life affirming.

In the same way that is it impossible to separate water from ocean, we are both an ocean of self and a drop in the cosmic sea of being. We are both separate beings and inseparable from the All. The Andean mystical practices are first and foremost guiding principles for the evolution of the self, and from the center of the self our energy radiates out to touch the world. So think globally but start the process of change by acting locally—within yourself.

 

 

We are in the time of the Taripay Pacha, the Age of Meeting Ourselves Again, when humanity is marshaling the energy to consciously evolve. It’s a Pachacuti, a potential “overturning” of space-time, when an energetic evolutionary door is opening to usher in radical and beneficial change. Nothing is guaranteed. What our future looks like is entirely up to us. But despite the chaos we see and feel around us, this is a hopeful time for those of us on the Andean path. It’s a time to do our personal inner work, so as we change, grow, and transform we contribute to the greater well-being of the world.

Evolution is very much a part of the Andean cosmovision. It’s interesting that in the Andean tradition, unlike many other traditions, the “wild” is lower down the evolutionary scale than is the “domesticated.” Although the Andean tradition is deeply connected to nature, it values that which grows in refinement, coherence, and organization. You can think of this as moving from the unformed to the formed, from the unconscious to the more conscious. For example, “sacha” is deemed higher on the evolutionary scale than “salka.” Sacha is the forest, but in this case it would refer to domesticated landscapes, where trees are planted and subject to forestry husbandry practices. Salka is the wild landscape, untouched and left to its own. Sacha is the landscape to which human effort has been imparted. It evolves through intent and care. It is not one that has been decimated by humans, but cared for lovingly. It is evidence of thoughtfulness and even munay, and as such is an evolving landscape.

In the same vein, the symbol of the kaypacha, the puma, follows this pattern. In the Andean schema, the otorongo, the wild jungle puma, is lower down the evolutionary scale than is the more domesticated mountain puma.  Paqos work with the mountain cats, not the jungle cats.

This concept of the evolved in nature connects with the continuing development of conscious human evolution. The idea is that things move toward more perfect versions of themselves; they move toward greater capacity; they move toward God realization, which is unlimited potential.

This does not mean that wild things are “less than” per se. They are simply at the lower end of their full “realization.” This is a controversial concept for many Westerners, who may still operate under the sway of archetypes such as the perfection of unspoiled nature and the sentimental valorization of the noble savage. But Andean see things differently. They have a concept of movement toward higher forms of function and increased capacity—greater ayni. To be in reciprocity, in tune with the cosmos, one moves from wild to less wild, from pure instinct and uncontrolled urge to self-responsibility and conscious intent.

There is an Andean concept of the three ages of man, moving from the Age of the Wild Man to that of the Solar Man to that of the Metaphysical Man. This movement toward a more refined consciousness and more perfect ayni has parallels to the spectrum of physical evolution, of humans moving from unthinking apes to thinking, feeling modern humans. We move from being solely survivalists, concerned mostly with our physical safety and well-being, to becoming thinkers, such as scientists, philosophers, and poets. This evolutionary thrust toward more highly evolved (organized, structured, productive, sophisticated) forms includes landscapes and the creatures of nature, which is why Andean see salka, the wild, as less evolved than sacha, the domesticated.

Even the symbols of the three worlds have evolved. They have changed as we have changed, as we have move through these ages. For instance, the old emblem of the upper world, the hanaqpacha, was the condor, who is the great hucha eater. Today, we are moving, or have already moved, to a new symbol of the hanaqpacha, the hummingbird.

The hummingbird is a producer of sami. The entire focus of the age has changed from one of releasing heaviness to producing lightness. We now are expected to make sami. While we still need to release hucha, our focus in the Taripay Pacha, as creatures of conscious evolution, is to increase the sami in ourselves and foster it in others. This is a huge conceptual shift. It is almost like making a shift from carrying the burden of original sin to celebrating ourselves as creatures of original virtue. You can see how massive a change this shift in perspective can engender as we move our focus from releasing to generating, from reducing hucha to actively increasing sami.

We must bridge the lower world—the ukhupacha—in new ways as well. In the Andes, the ancient symbol of the lower world was the frog. Today it is the anaconda, or snake.

The ukhupacha, contrary to common thought, is not only a place where beings go who do not practice ayni; it is the place of regeneration. It is where those people who don’t know ayni go to regenerate themselves, to evolve. This, too, is a massive reframing in our way of conceptualizing our place in the world and in the cosmos. It leads us from thinking of the ukhupacha as a place that is “less than,” and passive, or even a place of punishment (it isn’t) to seeing it as a place of doing, and of potential and possibility. No one is lost. No one is condemned. At the very worst, if you still need to learn ayni upon your “death,” you find yourself in a place of self-regeneration. The ukhupacha is a place of evolutionary movement within. The Andean conceptual landscape is always one of positivity. There is always a path to growth, change, and transformation. The focus is always on achieving wholeness.

The symbols of wholeness are the tawanatin and the chakana. The chakana is the Andean cross, but it is more than a symbol of an empire or a culture. It is a symbol of a living tradition—of a bridge between cultures. As Juan Nuñez del Prado says, we are each a chakana—we are people who are building a bridge between traditions and fostering the shift from one age to another, more evolved age.

What of this world, of the kaypacha? When we conceptualize the entire landscape of the Andes in the Three Worlds—the hanaqpacha (upper world), kaypacha (this world), and ukhupacha (lower world), we see that the whole is divided into three parts, similar to how space-time is segmented into three ages.

You might say that the kaypacha—this world—occupies the most space. It is itself divided into two parts, an upper and lower part. In the upper part of the kaypacha is Pachamama and the stars and galaxies—the material cosmos. The lower aspect of the kaypacha includes the planet Earth (Mama Allpa), the apus, ñust’as and other spirit beings of earth.

Below the kaypacha is the ukhupacha, the place of regeneration for those who don’t practice ayni. Above the kaypacha is the hanaqpacha, which, contrary to common belief, is not the cosmos of stars and galaxies but is that which is beyond the material world, beyond matter. It is a non-material plane of those enlightened beings who always practice ayni.

We work as bridges between these three worlds, empowering ourselves with the sami from the enlightened ones of the hanaqpacha and sending sami to the ukhapacha to help empower the people of the lower world who don’t know ayni. Our practice is inherently evolutionary. We receive from those more evolved from us and we give to those less evolved than us. You might say we take from the sacha (the refined, the evolved) and give to the salka (the unrefined, the wild), although that might be stretching the metaphor a bit.

The value of understanding how we are chakanas—bridge builders—at many levels is that we can deepen our practice and make it incredibly useful. We are not paqos for the fun of it! We are working to further our own conscious evolution and that of the world. We are helping to birth a new and better world, to usher in the Age of the Metaphysical Man/Woman. Our world is one that has evolved through eons from the unformed wildness and narrowed scope of the instinctual and unconscious self to the more refined, responsible, and self-aware self.  Make no mistake about it—as a paqo you are taking on nothing short of the work of the world as you help move us toward realizing our fully enlightened selves—right here on earth in our human form. We are all active participants in the Taripay Pacha, and realizing this can energize our practice as paqos.

 

As with my previous post, “Making and Offering Despachos,” in this post I discuss aspects of the misha (In Spanish, the mesa) in response to questions I have been asked while traveling around the United States as a teacher of the Andean tradition.

The same disclaimers apply here as did with the despacho post!

• Seeking the “why” of your practice takes you back to basic Andean cosmovision.

• These are the teaching as I understand them and as preserved through the lineage of Juan Nuñez del Prado, and his teachers, don Benito Qoriwaman, don Andres Espinosa, and don Melchor Desa; or it is information I learned from paqos with whom I have worked. So it is not definitive beyond this scope.

• There is next to no way to make a mistake with Andean practice if your ayni is conscious and clear.

• Because of ayni, most energy work is invisible, so ceremony and ritual are almost always choices rather than requirements when undertaking Andean practices; therefore, most “must do” instructions are personal preferences of teachers and should be taken as such, especially if the teacher cannot justify the practice based on the core Andean cosmovision.

When students ask about how to do something, such as how to make or use a misha, my preference is always to ask the “why” of what they are doing, leading them back to the basics of the Andean cosmovision. When you understand the foundation of the tradition, you will better know how to evaluate what you are being taught, especially when it comes to ritual or ceremony.

As I said in the despacho post, there is next to no rote ritual in the Andes because the foundational principle of practicing is ayni, which is by definition intensely personal. I advise you to go to the despacho post (August 2016) and read the first half so that I don’t have to repeat all of the information about the core precepts of the Andean tradition here.

So, what is a misha? It’s a bundle of objects, mostly stones, which are called khuyas, that have personal meaning for the paqo. Misha is the ancient Quechua term for what is called in Spanish the mesa. It means “sign.” It is the “symbol” of personal power. It is not your actual personal power, but is an outward symbol that you are a paqo—a follower of the Andean mystical tradition of Peru. As a paqo, you are in training to become a master of ayni. The better your ayni, the more personal power you have—and so the “stronger” or “more powerful” your misha, since it represents or embodies your personal power.

Khuya means “affection.” The items you gather into your misha bundle are objects infused with your munay, or love. They represent your ayni connections to teachers, the most important spirit beings, places you have worked such as temples or sacred sites, and the most important, loving, transformative events of your life and people in your life. These khuyas are gathered together and wrapped in a cloth, which is the misha.

Let’s now look at some common questions about the misha and its use.

How do you make a misha?

Many beginners on the Andean mystical path ask this question. They see paqos with mishas and they, rightly, want one, too. The answer is that, generally speaking, you don’t “make” a misha, it is a gift that you accept, piece by piece, as you engage life.

Think of the misha as a material diary of your life and your journey as a paqo and as a human being.

Every khuya represents an important event, person, feeling, or learning in your life. So, khuyas can come to you in myriad ways. They can mark a karpay given you by your teacher. They may be “gifted” to you by a spirit being. You may be attracted to a stone or other item at a sacred place. You may choose an object to represent a significant turning point or relationship in your life. There are as many ways to receive or choose a khuya as there are experiences in life.

For instance, the newest khuya in my misha is a small wooden cross that my siblings and I placed in one of my mother’s hands as she slipped away from this life in hospice. She held it the entire last week of her life, and when she dropped her body, I took that cross and added it to my misha as a khuya of my deep love for a woman who was not only an incredible mother but my best friend. She represented the epitome of many qualities that I try to model in my life. This khuya not only embodies our mutual love, but serves as a reminder of those qualities that I continue to aspire to in my own conscious evolution.

What is true of all khuyas is that each is infused with meaning and munay. You care for that khuya as you do any precious gift: by wrapping it in a cloth or otherwise protecting  or preserving it. With that first khuya you have started your misha.

So the truest answer to the question of how you “make” a misha is: Live your life.

Does every misha (or khuya) have power?

No, not necessarily. The misha is representative of your personal power. For the most part, it does not confer power on you, it reflects what is in you at the current time. So, its power is commensurate with your personal power. If you have very little personal power, then so does your misha. If you have a lot, then so does your misha.

No matter what kind of khuyas you have in your misha—a small meteorite, a crystal, a stone from Apu Ausangate, an object representing a person you love—the individual khuyas are not really transmitters of power per se. You have to develop a relationship with each khuya.

Even though in the Andean mystical tradition everything in the cosmos is seen as a living being, if you do not have an ayni relationship with that item, then it cannot have much of an impact on you. The ayni relationship is always a two-way flow. If you are gifted a khuya, its energy cannot penetrate your poq’po if you are not open to receiving it. And even if you do receive its energy, you can only understand and use it to the level of your own conscious evolution.  So while khuyas can transmit “power,” receiving and using that power is dependent on you and the state of your energy and consciousness.

Khuyas can be teachers, even powerful ones. But they can’t make you powerful. You have to accumulate your own personal power. As good teachers, usually they talk to you only at your level of understanding, or maybe a little higher so that they can challenge you and help you grow. But you have to have some measure of personal power (clear and effective ayni) to even open a dialogue with a khuya “spirit being” or to be able hear it. It is always wise to “work” with a new khuya. It’s like meeting a new friend. The relationship may be tentative and even awkward at first, but the more you connect and spend time together, the easier and more relaxed, deep, and meaningful the relationship becomes.

All of this is why, it is possible to have a misha of “powerful” khuyas and yet not have a misha of power! If you don’t have the ayni to relate to the khuyas, they might as well be powerless because you won’t be able to recognize or use the power. Remember, your misha is representative of your power, not only the power of the khuyas in it. However, a paradox is that khuyas may gift themselves to you because they represent the potential within you.

I remember one trip to Peru in which a few of us—all relatively new to the Andean path— were sitting around with don Mariano Apasa Marchaqa. Our small mishas were spread out on the ground around us. He leaned over and picked up one, put the bundle to one of his ears, and appeared to be listening. After a minute or so, he placed the bundle down again, remarking, “That is a misha of power.” Since the woman whose misha it was didn’t feel especially well versed in the tradition or powerful herself, she and we took his declaration to mean that she had attracted powerful khuyas, even though she had not yet accumulated a lot of personal power herself. It’s as if the khuyas, as spirit beings, recognized her potential and were patiently waiting for her to catch up!

The core of the interaction is that your misha represents your personal capacity for power (making ayni) right now in your life, no matter what level of latent power each khuya has within it. Thus, you can grow into your misha, in effect catching up with the khyuas in it. They are very patient!

How do you work with a misha?

Let me start by saying anything you can do with a misha, you have to first learn to do without it.

The misha doesn’t necessarily confer power; it mostly channels what personal power you have. Your focus has to be on perfecting your ayni, which equates with your personal power—your capacity to be in relationship with the living universe. Therefore, you never want to turn anything, including your misha, into a fetish.

A fetish is something in which you project your power. But if you ever lose the fetish, then you believe you have also lost your power. Don’t do that with your misha or any of the individual khuyas! They are a sign of your power, but are not your actual power. So whatever you can do with a misha, you can do without it.

At the core of the Andean cosmovision is that energy must follow intent. Intent is your power/ayni. So no matter how you use your misha, it is only an outward representation of your intent, whether you use it for healing or blessing or anything else. So when I discuss some of the uses of the misha below, always remember that it is you and your intent that is driving the energy, not the misha itself.

The misha  is a primary “eater” of hucha, so you will often see paqos running it over people’s bodies to reduce their hucha. But it is not really the misha alone that is doing anything. It is the paqo’s intent that is driving the energy through the misha. That paqo is simply using the misha as a repository for the hucha.

If you have experienced this or watched this process, you will no doubt have noticed that the paqos move their mishas in two primary ways. The most common process is to run the misha over your body in a downward stroking motion. The other, less common way is to move the misha upward, from your feet toward your head. You probably won’t ever see a paqo making circles around your body with the misha, or making squiggly lines around your body, or some other motion. It’s almost always a downward motion from head to toe or an upward motion from toe to head. What are they doing and why are they doing it this way?

The answer: saminchakuy or saiwachakuy.

In case you don’t know, there are two primary practices in the Andes: saminchakuy and saiwachakuy. Saminchakuy is a downward flow of energy: you use your intent to pull sami down from the cosmos into the poq’po while releasing hucha down into Mother Earth. This is the “cleansing” practice that moves hucha. In contrast, saiwachakuy is an upward flow of energy. Using intent, you direct sami up from Mother Earth into your poq’po to empower yourself. It has nothing much to do with hucha.

So look behind the outward movements and the colorful bundle that is the misha and you will see that the main way to use the misha is to either release hucha or empower with sami. There is nothing mysterious about this, despite the personal style with which the paqo may be performing the work. It is saminchaky and saiwachakuy, only using the misha to bolster and direct intent!

It’s a similar situation when you use a misha to “open” a person’s qosqo (or other center) or use the mullu khuyas to weave the chunpis and open the mystical eyes. The misha and khuyas are tools that represent or channel power, but are not the power itself. For instance, when performing the karpay for the chunpis (Chunpi Away), the paqo first connects with Mother Earth and so is actually channeling her sami up through himself or herself and the khuya to help the person (along with the person’s intent, of course). It is actually Mother Earth who is doing the karpay, not the paqo (and much less so the tools of misha or khuya)!

You often see paqos blowing through their misha or talking into it, addressing the spirits through it. Again, it is not the misha that is conferring power, it is the intent of the paqo that is passed through the misha. The misha is like the telephone line that is broadcasting the ayni of the paqo. The paqo doesn’t need the misha, but it is a beautiful practice to use the bundle to outwardly represent his or her munay and ayni.

Do khuyas have specific purposes?

Yes, they do. All of the paqos I have worked with, especially those who have gifted me a khuya, have explained that khuyas have different powers. One may be especially good at eating hucha. Another may be able to confer a blessing, and sometimes for specific reasons such as blessing you for a trip. But everything I said earlier is true to the tradition as I know it: you have to have the personal power to use the khuya. It can’t give you a power you are not capable of using. You can’t even discover the specific use of a khuya if you can’t first establish an ayni relationship to open an “dialogue” with the khuya. It can do nothing on its own, and that is the important thing to understand.

Recently while in Peru, I asked Juan about a khuya I have—a gift from a Q’ero paqo—that has an elaborate ceremony attached to its use. Juan smiled and said, “All of that is third level.” What I understood him to mean is that at the third level of consciousness we tend to complicate things, to make the khuyas (and ourselves) “special” by imparting ritual  and complex “magical” abilities to them. When we reach the fourth level, we realize that intent is what drives energy and we have less (or no) need for elaborate outer ritual. I have found this to be true in my own practice over the last twenty years. Watch out for the ego! Attaching “importance” to the self or sacred object can obscure what really counts, which is your munay and intent (your ayni). Ayni is almost always invisible. Most of the time, no one will ever know when a master is “working” the energies. He or she will not need outward displays.

Do you ever work with the misha open? And if so, how is the misha organized?

I have never seen a paqo from the south-central Andes work with an open misha. Because the primary purpose is to move energy (outward manifestation of inward intent), the bundle is usually closed and then run over the body or blown into or spoken into to establish a relationship with spirit.

I also have never heard or witnessed a teaching where a paqo opened his bundle and proscribed a particular organization for the khuyas in the misha. The way you configure your misha is personal to you because your intent and ayni are personal. You may arrange things according to any kind of structure, perhaps in an arrangement reflecting the three worlds, the yanantin/mastinin/tawantin, or some other pattern that is your personal preference and has personal meaning for you.

The situation is very different for paqos from the northwest coastal traditions. They have elaborate misha configurations and complex symbolic explanations for placement. But that is not true of the Q’ero of south-central mountain tradition, at least to my knowledge and in my experience.

Finally, remember that your misha is a “sign” that you are a paqo, following the Andean tradition. As such, it connects you to all the spirit beings and other paqos of the tradition. You are never alone as a paqo. However, your misha is always and only representative of you—and you alone. If you are following a rote schema, you are mirroring someone else’s ayni relationships, not your own. There is nothing wrong with agreeing to “universal” meanings and a teacher’s instructions for where to place something and what it means as long as that feels true in relation to your own beingness and ayni relationships.

If you want to make your open misha into a map of the self or a map of the three worlds or a map of the universe, there is nothing to stop you from doing so. Just know that that schema, too, is a symbolic construct. It confers no magical knowledge or powers. What you can do in your life is what you have the personal power to do. Personal power is ayni. No magical incantation or symbolic map can change your ayni. It may heighten your focus to do your work, it may feel good or look beautiful, but it can’t in and of itself change your energy one iota.

Can you change what’s in your misha?

Absolutely. As a symbol of your personal power, your misha changes as you change. Khuyas that had meaning ten years ago may no longer have that meaning today. New items may call you as you have new experiences and you grow and change. You are not static, so you misha cannot be either.

Traditionally, it is common to open your misha, “feed it,” and change anything in it once a year. Often that is done on August 1, the day, it is said, that Pachamama and the Apus “awaken.” They listen more closely, so we have opportunity to be in deeper ayni with them and state our intent for manifestation over the next year.  As we do a self-review and refocus, we may change our mishas. (See my post “Independence Day Andean Style – July 1, 2015.)

What if you lose your misha or a khuya?

Replace it! I asked Juan this years ago and he said, very simply, “If you lose a khuya, go out into your backyard and pick another stone. Then infuse it with the affection and feelings you had about the one you lost.” Remember, khuyas are not fetishes, not magical totems. They are only representative of what is within you. Simply infuse the new stone with the feelings you had about the old. Same for the entire misha.

There is much more to say about the misha, but this covers the basics. As I stressed in the despacho post and again here, don’t worry about what others tell you do—including me—but drop deep inside and discover what you feel. Your ayni is your guide to your practice. You can have all the tools of a paqo, including a misha, but they can’t make you a “better” paqo. Only your ayni can. That said, part of being a paqo is knowing your lineage and its cosmovision. When you know the elemental and core aspects of the cosmovision, you will almost always know what is important in your practice. Don’t be swayed by complexity, symbolism, ritual, ceremony. Simply trust your heart—and your results, as they are the measures of your power because they are the direct “feedback” about your ayni from the kawsay pacha.

 

[Note: Photos 1, 6, and 7   were taken by Lisa McClendon Sims. She owns the copyright, so these photos may not be shared, copied or reproduced without her written permission.]

 

 

This is a long, long post, so thank you for your patience. It’s long because it covers one of the core practices of the Andean tradition—the despacho—and there is a lot to say. As I have traveled around sharing the tradition, I get a lot of questions  about the despacho. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information about how to properly make and offer a despacho: Do you open sacred space first? Do you always make the most beautiful despacho possible? Are you in a state of thanksgiving and reverence? If you offer the despacho through burning it, do you watch it burn or turn your back to the fire?

Usually, when someone asks me a question, about the despacho or any other aspect of Andean practice, I ask, “Why are you doing it that way?” or “Why did your teacher tell you to do it that way?”

If they can’t answer, then we have reached the heart of the problem—undertaking a practice without knowing the foundation of Andean cosmosvision. If you have a thorough understanding of the essence of the Andean cosmovision, you will almost always know if a practice is in accord with the tradition or if it is more likely the personal preference of a teacher, the addition of a teacher’s non-Andean area of expertise (psychology, philosophy, etc.) or an overlay from another tradition. That is why I believe that answering the “why” questions are paramount to being a skilled paqo.

Let me start with some disclaimers! Because ayni—reciprocity—is at the heart of the Andean tradition, personal intent will always trump technique. If your intent is pure, strong, focused, you really can’t go wrong and are almost always on the right track in your ayni exchange with the cosmos of living energy and the spirit beings. But there is a “more Andean” and a “less Andean” way to do things because practice rests on the foundation of the Andean cosmovision. That’s why my manner of teaching the tradition is to always, always, always go back to the cosmovision as it was taught to me through Juan Nuñez del Prado and his lineage of don Benito Qoriwaman, don Andres Espinosa, and don Melchor Desa. Is this the only lineage worth studying? No. But it is a lineage of three of the most respected master paqos of the recent past. Is theirs the only way to practice the tradition? No. But the benefit I find in this lineage’s teaching is that the “why” is always explained, and so my practice can be as simple, essential, efficient, and practical as the tradition itself.

That’s just my preference—to strip things down to the essential with no razzle-dazzle. This preference may not  be yours. So, if you don’t care that your practice aligns with the established Andean cosmosvision of this lineage of paqos, then there is no need to read any further.  But if that matters to you, or you are just curious to read another point of view from what you may be used to, then I hope that you will gain some insight about offering a despacho from this long post.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that there is an Andean cosmovision that has survived the centuries through oral transmission. Although every living tradition changes over time, to survive it must retain its core beliefs. In the Andes these beliefs include that:

• The universe is one of living energy (kawsay). One aspect of this living energy is the Pachamama, the material universe. Everything is made of kawsay.

• We are in constant interchange (ayni) consciously or unconsciously with this living energy.

• Intent drives energy.

• Energy is just energy. Only humans project a moral overlay on to energy according to their ethics, values, etc.

• Only humans slow down the living energy (called hucha), which over time may deplete some of our well-being. But hucha is not negative, bad or contaminating; it is just slow kawsay: kawsay we don’t radiate perfectly.

• If we have a sufficiently coherent energy body (poq’po) there is no expression of energy that we need to fear. The more coherent our poq’po, the more “personal power” we have, which means the more effective our ayni will be.

• There are spirit beings, we can communicate with them, and they can teach us, empower us, and assist us.

These are a few of the core convictions of the Andean cosmovision that will come into play as we examine our despacho practice. Why and how we do something should be rooted in these foundational, largely unchanging Andean beliefs.

The “ how” is easy, as we all have our way of undertaking the practices. But too many times, when people ask about whether one way or another is preferable, they can’t trace the “how” back to the “why.” Being unable to do so, they will have to blindly accept everything someone tells them—including me!—instead of being able to assess its reliability for themselves. And if they can’t make those considered distinctions, then it is unlikely they will ever master the practices of the tradition. To achieve mastery, at the very least we have to be fully engaged through our intent, not practice by rote.

Let me be crystal clear: There is not one way to do things, but there are some explanations and reasons for carrying out Andean practices in a particular way that are more elemental to Andean cosmovision and, thus, closer to the “spirit” of the tradition.

So, all that said, I trust we can agree that our understanding and knowledge of the cosmovision do affect our practice. Let’s turn our attention now to the despacho.

Questions and Answers About the Despacho

What Is a Despacho and How Do You Make One?

Despacho is the Spanish word for the nature bundle and offering that in the ancient Quechua is called the hayway (pronounced sort of like “hi-why”), which literally means “offering.” A haywarisqa is the practice of making the offering and the one who makes it. The Spanish word “despacho” is the translation of this Quechua term, although its meaning depends on context: dispatch, communication, shipment, office or study, among other meanings. The first two meanings in this list are most appropriate to an Andean despacho offering.

As an offering, the despacho is a bundle of items infused with your personal power and intent and offered in ayni to the cosmos or spirit beings. It has a base of paper, which is covered with natural and manmade items that represent your intent and your state of mind, heart, and being. The items you select for a despacho have both universal meaning (shell = divine feminine, cross = divine masculine, etc.) and personal meaning. Once you have made the despacho, you then close up the bundle and offer it to the spirits by burning it, burying it, or releasing it in a body of water.

Although there are general guidelines for making a despacho (paper, shell, cross, k’intus, offering items), there is no one set of rules for its structure or organization. There are no fixed placements for the items because the despacho must be true and authentic to your intention.

For example, don Manuel Qespi’s styles included the following: if he wanted to bring air and openness to something in the intent of the despacho, he would place the items loosely and spaciously, often out toward the edge of the paper. If he wanted to bring stability and groundedness to a situation, he would cluster the items close to the center of the paper. Since the choice for where to place items depends on intent and purpose, there can be no standardized way to organize a despacho. Because of ayni, a despacho is by definition personal (between you and the spirit beings) and idiosyncratic (this is your offering, wish, desire, or whatever, and so like no one else’s).

Ascribing meaning to most of the items for the despacho can also be entirely personal. For instance, in premade despacho bundles you can buy in the market in Peru, there is usually a little “wheel” of metal figures and symbols. Among them is the lock and key. I know some paqos who teach that you never put the lock and key in your despacho, as it will lock out your intent, countering your ayni. I also know others who teach to always put the lock and key in, saying it unlocks your deepest ayni and intent. Bottom line: it’s your despacho—what you put in it is infused with your meaning, through your own intent and personal power.

The making of a despacho not only mirrors the intent of why you are making it, but also reveals your personal style as a paqo. In fact, once you get to know a paqo you can look at a row of despachos and pick out the one that a particular paqo made. That’s because paqos develop “signature” styles. A despacho made by don Manuel would be recognizable, as would one made by don Mariano Apasa Marchaqa. In the same way, your style of making a despacho is likely to be different from mine, and we might change our styles depending on the reason we are making a particular despacho offering.

In Andean mysticism you never just copy your teacher. Over time, you develop your own way of making a despacho, and you may have several “templates” that you follow purely from personal preference. I have drawings of some of the types of despachos don Manuel Q’espi used to make. He used a completely different placement of k’intus and items in a “male” despacho than a “female” one. Sometimes he would not even use a shell and a cross, instead making a central cross or X with fine granular incense.  And he sometimes arranged the k’intus in rows, not a circle around the center.

Bottom line: Be yourself and be true to your ayni. Don’t make a despacho by rote.

How Do You Open Sacred Space Before Making a Despacho?

When it comes to an “opening” ceremony for despacho making, it’s a personal choice, not a necessity. There is very little ritual or ceremony in the Andean mystical tradition, but there is nothing wrong with performing ceremony if you are conscious that it is only a personal preference. But to get to the heart of the question, I have to ask,  “Why do you need to open or create sacred space?” and “What space is not sacred?”

Even if seen as metaphor, the words “open” or “create” sacred space hint at a misunderstanding of the Andean conception of energy. They imply that you have to open a door to the sublime that has been closed to you. That before your invocation, you are in a space devoid of or lacking in the sacred. This view is counter to Andean cosmovision of a universe infused everywhere and at all times with sami.

According to the Andean tradition, there is no place except within the human energy body that is not pure sami (refined energy), so everything, everywhere is sacred. The entire kawsay pacha is living energy in its most refined state. And even if you feel hucha within yourself, hucha is not bad, contaminating, or unsacred. So my point is that ceremonial space clearing or ordering is not necessary. You might like to do that. Fine, do it. Performing such ceremony can mark the beginning of the despacho-making process, help focus your attention, foster a greater sense of beauty, and bring a group into collective resonance. It might also be part of your ayni to connect with the spirits, as in opening a dialogue.  But it is not required. Ayni is invisible! If you choose to it make visible, fine, but know that undertaking this kind of initial ceremony is a choice, not a necessity.

As I said, there is next to no rote ritual in the Andean tradition. You will indeed see many paqos (at least, those with whom I have worked) whisper into a k’intu or their misha (mesa) before starting to make a despacho. They are communing with their guiding spirits or the cosmos at large. They are calling the spirits to come closer or asking that their prayers be received. They may honor the three worlds and the three human powers. If you want to call this personal communication with spirit guides or beings by the words “opening sacred space,” okay. But that is not really an accurate way of describing what they are doing—which is deepening their ayni in an intensely personal and nearly private way.

Why Offer a Despacho?

To understand the “why” of the despacho, it’s helpful to realize that when training in the tradition, the despacho is usually one of the first practices you are introduced to. Why?

Because the despacho is the primary way of teaching about ayni (reciprocity).

There are hundreds of types of despachos, which means that there are hundreds of reasons for offering an despacho.  What underlies them all is ayni. Ayni is always and only the “why” of a despacho. The despacho is the outward action and manifestation of the inward energetic and intentional gesture of personal reciprocity with the living cosmos.

The intent of a despacho will always be expressing one of these three stances of ayni:

• An offering of thanksgiving, gratitude, or appreciation that honors or acknowledges someone or something. You can be honoring your parents or the spirits being. You can be thanking the spirit beings for a turn of good fortune or a return to health. You can be making a gesture of appreciation for your life or your new car. You can be acknowledging the wisdom of the ancestors or a new insight into yourself that has helped you overcome stuck beliefs or behavior.

• A request. In this kind of despacho you are asking for something. It might be the help or influence of the spirit beings or the general largesse of the living cosmos. You might be asking for a blessing such as for fertility to bear a child or assistance to birth a new business. Or you might be requesting a break, such as an end to or relief from your suffering or heartache. When you make this kind of despacho, it is important to be true in your ayni and make a despacho that reflects your feelings. If you are depressed, make an offering of your depression. If you are angry, make an offering of your anger. A despacho is not always pretty. If it is an offering of your depression to the cosmos with a request of release that means your despacho actually is your depression, not just a mirror of it or substitute for it.

• To make atonement. This kind of despacho is called a pago, or payment. This kind of despacho is a purely energetic ayni for making amends, asking forgiveness, or acknowledging a personal shortcoming in thought, word or deed.

Every possible kind of despacho falls into one of these three ayni categories, so when you are preparing to actually make the despacho, knowing this “why” will guide how you actually make the despacho, including what you put in it and its design and organization.

How Do You Offer a Despacho?

In my work with various paqos over the years, I have only ever seen one way of offering a despacho, but as I share the tradition around the country I have become aware that there is a different opinion and diametrically opposite practice. I can only offer an answer based on my understanding of Andean cosmovision through the lineage that I follow.

The two schools of thought are that when you offer a despacho, let’s say by burning it, you:

• witness the offering and the burning until the despacho is fully consumed

• you turn your back so you can’t see the offering consumed and you detach from the outcome of the offering

I have only ever seen paqos offer a despacho in the first way, by witnessing the offering until it is fully consumed. Admittedly, that is a small sample of paqos. So I won’t base my answer only on how I have seen it done by the paqos I happened to work with, but on what makes sense in terms of the universal, underlying cosmovision of the Andes through this lineage.

Don Benito Qoriwaman taught ayni through the practice of the despacho. He explained that when you make a despacho it is like inviting the most honored guests (the spirit beings) to your house and making and serving them the finest food (everything you put in the despacho, especially your intent).

(As an aside: Don’t misunderstand that the “finest food” means anything sentimental. As I indicated earlier, if you are making a request to lift a deep depression, then the main ingredient of your meal for the spirits will be your dark and debilitating depression.)

Knowing that a despacho is like preparing the finest meal of yourself and your intent for the spirits to dine on, I ask, “Why would you ever turn your back on these most honored guests?”

You wouldn’t. You would serve them and commune with them. You invited them, and they have come to meet you and dine on your intent. If they accepted your invitation, then you can be sure they want you there with them. So, you would enjoy, not reject, their company.

Moreover, there is nothing in the Andean tradition, at least that I have ever heard, that teaches fear of the spirit beings. Respect, yes. But not fear. They are not intimidating strangers. They are your friends! You are honoring them, making a meal for them—and that occasion is not complete if you as the host are not fully present.

If it is a group despacho, nothing changes. If possible, you don’t send a surrogate (your teacher or a master paqo) to be with the spirit beings on the group’s behalf. If anything of you is in the despacho, you commune with the spirits yourself (along with the others in the group) because the despacho is always about ayni—and your ayni is part of the group despacho. The only caveat is if a paqo is making a despacho on your group’s behalf. The group may witness the despacho-making, but is usually not deeply involved. In this case, the group may not be involved in actually offering it to the fire.

In addition, paqos almost always closely witness the spirits “eating” their offering. They assess the color and direction of the smoke, how the bundle burns, if it is fully consumed, and so on. All of that has meaning in terms of how the spirits “accept” your ayni. You can’t do that if you have your back turned.

Another aspect of offering the despacho is how you relate to your prayer, request, or payment. Some say you must “detach” from the offering, which is another reason to turn your back while the despacho is burning.

From what I know about the Andean mystical tradition through the lineage in which I studied, I can’t imagine a paqo ever telling anyone to “detach” from their despacho offering. A despacho is the deepest expression (outward and inward) of your ayni. Ayni is inseparable from your intent. You can’t detach from ayni, only be unconscious to it.

Plus, from the Andean perspective, when you undertake a practice, you expect results. You absolutely expect them! That’s the practicality of the Andean tradition. The expectation is that if your ayni is “accepted” by Spirit, you will not only get what you asked for, but you will showered with blessings greater than what you asked for. That expectation is the furthest thing possible from detachment!

Detachment is a decidedly Buddhist stance, where craving is at the root of human suffering. That is not even close to the Andean view. In fact, Andean practices are almost the opposite of detachment. For instance, in the “play area” at Qoyllurit’i, people embody their desire (intent, ayni). They act it out, in great detail and with a spirit of both intensity and playfulness. Andeans embody to fully immerse themselves in an experience, not to detach from it or the intent that drives them to undertake the experience in the first place.

It is true that sometimes we detach from how the ayni is returned to us, but we never detach from expecting a return or the process of making and offering the despacho. The universe of living energy is untold times greater in its generosity and creativity than we are, so how we receive our ayni may not look like we expected it to, but we always know that ayni is the law of the cosmos and so we never “detach” from it. I am talking about attention and intention, not about craving or obsessing, which may be hucha-producing. We can be humble in our offering and still strong in our intent, but humility is not detachment. If you are offering a despacho—the supreme expression of ayni—then almost by definition you are exercising a stronger than normal intent: the whole point of a despacho is to concentrate your intent beyond its normal level by embodying it in material form, so you have every reason to keep your expectations high while also remaining humble before Spirit.

All of this is why I think detachment is a contamination from another tradition and is counter to the core of the Andean cosmovision and the spirit of despacho-making and despacho–offering.

I hope that this long post has helped you see that the “why” of what you are doing as a paqo is as important as what you do. When you are told to “Do it this way,” ask yourself, “Is this way in alignment with Andean cosmovision?” If it isn’t, then you can safely assume that the teaching is personal to that teacher and not a “must do” in terms of the core of the tradition.

There really is no right or wrong—it’s really, really hard, if not impossible, to make a “mistake” in Andean mystical practice because intent is at the heart of everything in this tradition and always trumps ritual. However, there is “more Andean” and “less Andean” and sometimes as a practitioner of this tradition, you have to question your teacher about the “why” of a practice. The answer may be in alignment with the ancient cosmovision or may be simply personal preference, but your teacher should be able to explain that difference clearly to you.

The Andean tradition is beyond most dogma, but you can layer any kind of psychology, philosophy, ceremony, or poetry onto its practices without those practices losing effect (if your ayni is effective and strong). But why do that? I propose that in your development as a paqo the most productive approach is to strip things down to their foundation before choosing to dress them up to make them more fun or appealing or whatever. Doing so, to me at least, is the best way to honor the lineage, respect the tradition, and become the most effective paqo you can be for your own conscious evolution and that of the world.

(Note: I am traveling in Peru for a large part of September so will not be available to moderate comments or questions until my return.)

(Also, thank you to Fran for pictures of some of her despachos.)