Quechua is an oral language; there was no written form of it until after the Spanish Conquest. It is a language rich in expressiveness, especially for conveying emotional depths, complexities, and subtleties. Rimay is the primary word for speech. In its various forms it means language, voice, word, discourse, conversation, to talk, to communicate, to express, and to explain.

Within the mystical tradition, rimay gains additional meanings. It is sacred sound and sound as a power. It is in yanantin relationship with yachay (knowledge). They are different but complementary powers that together refer to our ability to share the knowledge and wisdom we have gained through personal life experience. It comes as no surprise that rimay as communication is associated with the kunka ñawi, the mystical eye of the throat. Because of rimay, we can charge our vocalizations—words, songs, prayers—with our personal power to lift them beyond the mundane to the spiritual. In the context of rimay, spiritual not only means holy, sacred, or reverent, but filled with life force. (The root meanings of the word “spiritual” are breath and life). This is not some abstract life force, but our personal life force. Put more simply, rimay reveals our kanay: our beingness. With accuracy, clarity, and integrity, we give voice to who we are as unique human beings living unique human lives.

Rimay is a power of the kay pacha: of the human world. This exchange from the 1970s dark-comedy film Harold and Maude could be about rimay:

“Harold: Do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No. I communicate.
Harold: With God?
Maude: With life.”

Using the power of rimay, we can express anything about ourselves and our lives: our joy and despair, our love and fear, our compassion and indifference. . .  Doing so means that in that moment, through our feelings, we touched a truth about ourselves and had the courage to express it. In this way rimay is more about the self than others. If we are owners of the power of rimay, we mean what we say and say what we mean. Our word is reliable, such that we follow through on our commitments and promises. We take responsibility not only for the content of our speech, but also for its volume and tone, for how we place emphasis, and for explicit and implicit intent and effect. We all have heard what lack of rimay sounds like: the polite put-down, the snarky compliment, the disingenuous assurance, the hypocritical judgement.

Rimay as a power asks us to be conscious communicators. Self-awareness and self-control are at its core, for sometimes our power lies in what we restrain ourselves from saying. Actor and writer Craig Ferguson offers wise advice when he says, “Ask yourself these three things before you say anything. 1) Does this need to be said? 2) Does this need to be said by me? 3) Does this need to be said by me now?”

In its highest vibration, rimay as communication is healing. Victor Zea, a Peruvian photographer and hip-hop artist who seeks to preserve the Quechua language through his music, uses the term hanpiq rimay, which is speech that heals. (Hanpiq is more commonly spelled hampeq, which means healer.) Our words, of course, can lift others up. They can be soothing, restorative, inspirational. But as with all our work, we first attend to ourselves. When we marshal the will to speak our truth with honesty and clarity, we bring healing to those denied or wounded parts of ourselves we previously had kept hidden or protected. Our healing might be as simple (and powerful) as reclaiming our integrity around the words “yes” and “no.” It might be learning to say “yes” to ourselves when for most of our lives our lack of self-worth led us to say “no.” Or learning to say “no” to others when previously we had begrudgingly said “yes” from a sense of obligation or fear of rejection.

The paqos tell us that while our use of Andean practices for self-development is serious work, it is not only that. It also is pullkay: undertaken with a sense of playfulness. This is true of rimay as well. Don Juan Nuñez del Prado reminds us that “our work is cosmic games. It is a mix of munay and rimay. Munay as love and will, and rimay as the ability to express yourself.” But, he says, “rimay is more than that really: it is the ability to manifest yourself. To express yourself in all forms, including expressing and living your destiny and inviting others to do the same. All of this takes you to kanay, the power to be yourself. If you discover kanay, you reach atiy, the power to change reality around you. After you manifest yourself, you can drive kawsay to influence [reality], but not control it; you can [push] energy to follow more harmonious flows in more harmonious directions for you. And then [you can] play in the world of living energy.”

Although rimay primarily relates to communication, in the mystical tradition it is the personal power to express any of our capacities. The evolutionary process don Juan explained above starts with munay—with cultivating it for ourselves. We learn to love ourselves just as we are. We recognize our inherent value and become the owners of self-worth. We express who we are without the need for putting on false faces: without illusions, excuses, apologies, justifications, or explanations. We neither devalue our strengths and gifts nor inflate them. We acknowledge our weaknesses and shortcomings, yet we do not fixate on them. When we accept ourselves just as we are, then we can relate to others just as they are. Our inner state conditions our outer reality.

Mastering this first harmonization of munay and rimay leads us to kanay: I am. Moses asked God, “Who are you?” God replied, “I am that I am.” Kanay confers this level of clarity. When we know “This is who I am” and are unafraid to express ourselves, we gain the power to live according to our true nature. Our Inka Seed—the energetic repository of our full potential—flowers. Although we cannot help but be shaped by aspects of life that are beyond our control, through kanay we also become shapers of life. Andeans aspire to attaining “sumaq kawsay”: a beautiful life, a happy life. I agree with Lucille Ball, who said, “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”

Once we expand our understanding of ourselves to include kanay, then we can begin to use another of our primary powers: atiy. Atiy is our capacity for acting in the world. Through kanay we know who we are and what we want from life. Through atiy we begin to manifest that life. It is a short hop from atiy to the final stage of development: khuyay. Khuyay is the passion, the joy of being alive as you. And so we come full circle, back to rimay: the exuberant expression of ourselves in our unique version of this cosmic game called life.