The following is excerpted from the new book Lessons in Courage: Peruvian Shamanic Wisdom for Everyday Life.
The Challenge of Honoring Spirit: How Can We Know Oneness? How Can We Cultivate a Relationship with That Knowing?
Angry Muslims burn American flags as a blasphemous YouTube video circulates. An American ambassador dies. Halfway around the world, a Florida pastor declares Islam and its teachings “of the Devil” while an effigy of Muhammad hangs limp. What makes religion spawn such hatred? When will the fanaticism end?
The realm of spirit has no dogma. Its only doctrine is an invitation to become conscious of our essential nature. We are at one with the Great Originating Mystery which is within and beyond us. It is our re-membering this experience of union that returns us to wholeness. When we acknowledge the perfection within us even as we consecrate ourselves to that which is beyond, we are well aligned. Our willingness to embrace this paradox of free will and surrender is how we honor spirit in our lives.
But, if spirit is an awareness of wholeness, and a birth- right to which we all have equal access, why do messages of judgment, or disdain, or intolerance seem to pervade the very air that we breathe? Western religions tell us our salvation comes as we fill ourselves up with what we lack. But they also teach that there is only one God, only one way, only one truth. Eastern religions take a different approach. We are already too full, these tell us. The trick is to empty ourselves out, give up who we are, surrender. In both cases, we are somehow deficient. In the midst of these messages, is it any wonder we lose sight of our transcendent or divine nature?
After years of apprenticeship with my beloved teachers of both physical and non-physical realms, I live with this heartfelt conviction: the earth-honoring traditions of our planet’s original peoples provide a welcome alternative to all dogma. These traditions show us the way back to our spiritual roots as they offer us an intimate, reverent relationship with Pachamama, who is our beloved Earth mother. As we marvel at the patterns and the beauty of the natural world, we learn to walk in gratitude for the gift of our lives. And as we pay close attention to how her cycles, pulses, and rhythms are mirrored in ourselves, we gain a very clear understanding that we are not separate. Through this practice, we recognize ourselves as luminous strands in the great web of life.
A Time of Apprenticeship
It was the first Tuesday of August in 1969. My surf buddies had departed and the ritual had begun. The chill of evening settled around me as I gazed at the marvels of don Celso’s mesa from where I sat to his right. I recognized the styles of some of the medicine pieces on his altar. As I stared in wonder, I was transfixed by their power. There on his mesa were 3,000-year-old Chavín effigies and a 1,000-year-old Chimu bowl that was filled with a mixture of fragrant tobacco and the finest cane liquor. I feel the medicine of my ancestors and my heart fills with reverence as I relive the moment of that first encounter. Herb-filled bottles called seguros, conch shells and rattles, Inkan mace heads, a small crucifix, and stones smooth as satin grabbed my attention. At the top of the white ground cloth that held all these pieces stood swords and knives as well as staffs of chonta palm and palo santo.
The families who had come to support their loved ones on this night huddled together in the darkness on the dirt- packed floor of the patio where the altar was set up. Wrapped in ponchos, they waited patiently as don Celso rattled and sang to all the objects on his altar; naming and welcoming all his spirit allies, he called on the living essence of their power to accompany him that night. We communed together, ritually imbibing the sacred plant medicine in gratitude for the lessons and the messages that would be shared.
Sometime later, after the tobacco offering was given and after his patients were cleansed with the sacred objects on his altar, out of the center of his banco a light started to circulate. I blinked my eyes in amazement. The light continued to rise from the mesa. As it emerged, it coalesced into a large, oval, pulsing field. As I continued to watch, the same three wizened Shining Ones that visited me and healed me of asthma eight years before appeared before us now. As they began to come closer, I stared in open-mouthed wonder. No one else seemed to see them, not even don Celso’s assistants who were sitting just to his left. Was I dreaming? Was this really happening?
At first I didn’t notice don Celso’s sideways glance. Then, he elbowed me firmly, jarring me from my reverie. “Do you remember them?” he asked me. “Yes, I do,” I stuttered. At that moment, my entire reality shifted. I felt transported back in time to a moment I had all but forgotten. In less than a nanosecond everything that had been shown to me at age ten during that near-death experience came back into my awareness. And I remembered it all. In this second visitation by the three Shining Ones, I tapped into the noosphere–the ineffable yet universal field of information that some call the Akashic record.
In that moment, all contrasts, all polarities, all separation, all interpretation, all need to have a nice comforting orderly world was annihilated. It was all destroyed. And I found myself floating up in space and dissolving as a separate entity, as an individual, as an ego-mind, as a personality. In that moment, the one known to this world by the name Oscar just disap-peared. I was absorbed within the ALL. I remembered my purpose for being born, and this time, it stayed firmly imprinted in my psyche. All that I had witnessed and forgotten at age ten came cascading back, free of censorship and dimensional filters. I realized how incomplete our sensory experiences are as I peeked behind the veil of the eternal now. As soon as the ritual ended, I asked don Celso if I might apprentice with him, and he agreed.
Over the next twelve years, I spent every summer vacation returning to apprentice with don Celso. As he taught me the ways of my ancestors, I would tune in again to that field of awareness, and I would simply remember how to perform
the rituals that he shared. Yet that ability to access the Akashic record–the stored essence of all life on this good earth–did not prevent me from making foolish mistakes. For it is difficult to remain awake to our true nature, even after we have glimpsed it. The ego fights mightily against our enlightenment. That is why spiritual practice is so important. It is through the rituals– through the sacrifice of our time and our energy–that we cultivate gratitude for our earth-walk. It is through the practice of offering our heartfelt thanks with cornmeal or tobacco, incense or coca leaves–whatever is sacred food for the ancestors and the spirit allies who walk with us–that we humbly remember our place in the universe. With these practices we affirm that just because we are a divine manifestation of the Great Spirit, we are in no way different or more “special” in beauty than is a blade of grass or a spiral galaxy. The rituals we practice become expressions of sacred reciprocity. Their repetition become the furrows that channel the flow of spirit so that the seeds of our compassion and right action toward others may grow strong.
At first, don Celso taught me about the sacred objects on his mesa. He taught me where they came from and how they were used. He taught me about the powers of the natural world that they harness and embody. Then he taught me how to assemble all the elements of his mesa for the evening rituals. Rather than simply memorizing the placement of all the medicine pieces or imitating his actions, he insisted I deeply commune with each piece, each arte, as a conscious being and trusted medicine ally that is imbued with the power of creation in every moment. Don Celso taught me, through his example, to honor the perennial vitality of each ceremonial artifact by lovingly remembering each experience of healing I had witnessed him perform with it. By evoking in every detail the image of the entity whose power it carried, I began to be able to enter into deeper and deeper communion with these shamanic spirit helpers.
As my initiations and my apprenticeship progressed, my vista expanded. Vista is a kind of shamanic clairvoyance. It is a spiritual vision that allows us to look deeply into both the unadulterated soul essence and the very human agenda of any person. Vista also allows one to see the person’s sombra, or “spiritual double.” This sombra reflects a person’s psychological as well as physical traits. Further into my apprenticeship with don Celso, I learned to see a person’s sombra coming into the healing lodge before the actual physical person arrived. I could envision if they had a limp or a particular physical deformity. I also learned to see into their psyches; their greatest fears and insecurities as well as the most elevated expression of human dignity became more available to my gaze. After my vista improved, I was able to use it to diagnose the cause of a patient’s illness–whether physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. By really focusing on the sombra, I could see all these arenas of dis-ease. And once the diagnosis was complete, the healing-work could begin.
As don Celso taught me, healing requires two skill sets, which I was developing through my apprenticeship. First, I needed to learn how to develop and to discipline my “imagination.” In the healing arts, imagination is about constructing images through the power of the mind. With loving intention, one visualizes the patient as healthy and whole. “Our task as maestros,” don Celso repeatedly told me, “is to help others remember their wholeness–that they are complete just as they are.” Second, I needed to learn to work in harmony with all the powers embodied on the medicine ground to raise the vibration so that the image I was holding could take form and actually manifest itself. This combination of loving intention and increased vibration is what allows “magic” to happen. It is also what allows healing transformation to occur.
This lesson became very clear to me during one particularly arduous pilgrimage with don Celso, his son, and his son-in-law. The occasion of our expedition was the impending arrival of a group from Lima for a series of healings that would require a significant amount of the sacred San Pedro cactus to be harvested and prepared. This sacred plant ally is sometimes grown in people’s gardens, but the most powerful and alive of these plant relatives–and those which don Celso required for this particular healing–could only be found in a hidden corner of the Chongoyape Valley. This sacred site was about a day’s walk from his home in Salas. To be effective at all, the plant needed to be harvested in an honoring way, right after it flowers, which happens only in the light of the full moon.
Unfortunately for us, this hallowed ground where the San Pedro grew happened to be accessible only by crossing into a military base. As Peru was still governed by a military dictator who had imposed martial law and a mandatory curfew, it meant that trespassers could be shot on sight. So we chose to travel stealthily, under cover of night, to avoid detection. It was the darkest time of the month, with no moon in the sky at all. My teacher had chosen this time deliberately so that the dark would hide our advance.
Before our start and all through our journey, don Celso made offerings of cornmeal and tobacco to the apus–the mountain guardians of this region. He invoked all his plant and animal relatives, all ancestral allies of the ancient cultures who brought forth this lineage, asking for help to complete this sacred mission so that no harm would befall us. He offered our pilgrimage in service to healing and in the name of the Great Mystery. As he did, he trusted that all would be well.
To avoid detection, we took a very roundabout way to our destination. It was an El Niño year. Torrential rains and mudslides had fouled the streams we had expected to drink from, and the edible plants that would normally have supplemented our rations were absent. These had been washed away or buried in the flood. The little bit of food and water that we had packed was quickly depleted. Where carob trees and bushes with edible berries had once stood, there was only mud and parched brown earth on our path. All the usual landmarks pointing our way were gone. One day’s journey quickly became three as we trudged on through the barren landscape. Yet don Celso remained confident that the San Pedro cacti that we sought were still standing. His vista kept presenting him with a vision of the San Pedritos with their white blossoms waving at him, calling to him.
It was the driest, most inhospitable trek you can imagine. Yet after three days and nights, we finally came upon these plant allies standing alone in this eerie, moonless, landscape. Seven-ribbed San Pedros with the most beautiful, white blossoms were there, growing on a ledge with a little rock outcropping just as don Celso had envisioned. We were exhilarated to see them, yet completely exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. As we approached these beautiful medicine plants, don Celso suddenly told us to sit.
What happened next defies all description. Don Celso told us to quiet our minds, deepen our breathing, and become invisible. He had seen with his vista that the military police were looking for us and that they were nearby. So we steeled ourselves and we quieted ourselves. We took slow, deep breaths and we went within. We trusted in don Celso’s guidance. We had no other choice if we wanted to survive.
At that moment, we began hearing the rumbling of jeep motors in the distance. We began hearing the barking of dogs. Don Celso told us that no matter what happened, we were not to open our eyes, for that would break the spell that we were weaving. He told us to be alive, yet not to be present. He insisted that any disturbance of our alignment, any breach of the shared purpose and the field of unified consciousness that we were creating would reveal where we were. The noises came closer.
The four of us sat motionless with closed eyes. The dogs and the army officials were upon us. The floodlights that were shining on us were so bright that I could see the luminosity through my closed eyelids. I could hear the panting and feel the warm breath of one of the dogs at my left ear. The soldiers were speaking to one another, “They must be around here.” They were walking right next to us, dogs sniffing, literally gazing into the ground where we sat. After four or five minutes they said, “There’s nobody here. Let’s go check somewhere else.” They got into their jeeps and drove away.
We remained motionless for a long time after they left. We were stunned by the unbelievable experience we had just passed through, afraid to utter one sound until we heard our teacher speak. When he did, he said simply, “Brothers, the light is ours. Stand up now; it’s time to celebrate the protection that our beloved San Pedros have bestowed upon us.”
