A Wakeup Call
I recently saw an advertisement for a t-shirt that had the slogan “Woke!” on the front. My initial thought was “Woke to what?!?” What is the goal of an awakened heart and mind? What’s so important…
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Pilgrimage to Huascarán: Part 2
I kept thinking I would adjust, acclimate, hit a stride. I could hardly look around. I used every technique I knew to make it easier – every coping mechanism or trick I’d picked up…
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Pilgrimage to Huascarán: Part 1
They say a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. What they don’t tell you is that you’ve already started.
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 6
Starlight is fading. I feel the apus embracing me, their massive, deep resonance. Marvelous realms thrive within their interiors. I’m but a discoverer, an early explorer of these mystical, multidimensional realms. In the imagining capacity of a good mind, it’s possible to make seemingly unimaginable discoveries.
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Prelude to an Apacheta
Our first sight of the majestic Apu Tahoma (Mt Rainier) overwhelmed me with tears of joy and deep connection. Seeing an old friend is always heart-warming but this time I felt closer to the mountain than when I had lived in the neighborhood. Our group of six had been creating despacho offerings to Tahoma for
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 5
It’s said that life is about making choices. Right now I’ve got two. I alternate between staring at nothing in the fold of the tarp, my exhalations dull against it, or to relieve my discomfort
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Plant Spirit Compacto
Our plant spirit allies offer a beautiful way of uniting nuna (our soul) with the sacred hoop of our mesa. We are drawn into a communion with the ancient plant lineages when we enter the plant’s medicine. Through this intimate relationship a compacto emerges allowing that inasmuch as we pick the plants, the plants pick us.
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 4
It’s June in the Adirondacks, typically hot and buggy, but this summer solstice in the North Country is chilly and wet. I take my first step in and every notion of warmth, so dear to the mammal, is gone.
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The Great Year and the Cycle of Ascension
Do you ever suspect that we are not as intelligent nor advanced as we have ever been?
Over 30 ancient cultures have recorded the rise and fall of human civilization in a vast cycle of time …
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 3
It’s Day 2 of my Paqo Wachu, the day I embark on an overnight into wilderness. It’s been raining all night and well into morning. I sleep in. More than a bit. I run through the inventory for tonight, again.
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In the Presence of Beauty
In the presence of Beauty the mundane becomes magical. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. We get a glimpse into a world that belongs in the realm of goodness, a place where the soul makes…
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 2
When seen from the lake, Apu Sawteeth is like a sleeping dragon. I, paqo, on my wachu, am about to awaken it.
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Honoring the Dark: Becoming Hollow Bones
As Winter Solstice returns, I feel in my bones the ancient ones guiding me to hibernate in the primordial cave of the Pachamama (Mother Earth). During this season of the year, I attune with her rhythms…
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Puma Medicine In the ‘Heart’ of Peru
Chattering happily with one of my travel mates, I suddenly stopped talking and proclaimed with glazed eyes, “I’m feeling a bit woozy and light headed. I need to breathe and try to ground myself.”
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The Further Adventures of Paqo Piet: Episode 1
A no moon night in the North Woods is as dark as it gets. I’m laying in bed in absolute silence. I can’t see my hand in front of me. I’m swallowed whole into the Void. I’m in Camp on the eve of my Paqo Wachu, the pilgrimage Pachakuti Mesa Tradition initiates make to meet their Apu, the deity of the mountain that is called to them through shamanic journeying.
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The Sanctity of Food and the Web of Life
As a practitioner of the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, I have learned that one of the reasons people are drawn to become mesa carriers is a great love for the environment. This includes everything that nurtures Pachamama, and everything that Pachamama nurtures all of her…
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The Mesa as an Anchor of Soul in Rough Times
“Batten down the hatches!!” She cried out in her mind. The world had gone rough and she needed help. Well, sometimes the best help to be had is in just riding out the storm — batten down your hatches and turn into the wind. The Wind had been…
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Rise of the Sacred Feminine
The rise of the Spirit of the Feminine is now. She is a weaver of visions and dreams known by many names—curandera, medicine woman, shaman, wild woman, and wise woman. We are held in her loving arms just as we are in the grit and grace of our humanness.
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