Q’ero (Part 1)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Shamanism
has been practiced widely throughout South America for many thousands
of years. High in the Andean mountains of Peru, the Q’ero people
are living as they have for untold generations. Many believe that they
are the direct descendants of the Inca and that their spiritual practices
originate with this ancient wisdom culture. They tend flocks of sheep
at high elevations, and migrate down to lower elevations to grow corn
and other foods. They spin and weave wool as their ancestors did, in the
traditional Incan styles. Because of their isolated lifestyle, they have
been able to preserve more of their original culture than other South
American peoples, and the living spirit of ancient wisdom is still thriving
there.
In Return Of The Children Of Light (2001) by Judith Bluestone Polich,
the author discusses the Incan and Mayan cultures, their prophecies and
world view. Here she tells us about the radical difference between the
perceptions of western people as compared to the Q’ero;
“What we can learn from Andean mysticism is amazing. However, to
grasp even the basics of their teachings we need to step outside the little
box of limited perception that makes up what we call reality and learn
to perceive our world—as they do—in terms of living energy
fields. This involves learning to see the energy that exists behind all
forms in the manner that Juan Nunez Del Prado instructs his students,
not with our physical eyes, but with our spiritual or third eye. This
avenue of perception is what the Indian people call gawag, an ability
that leads to direct perception and interaction with the world of living
energies."
This idea of seeing the energy behind form is central to shamanistic teachings.
Quechua is the original language of the Inca, and it is the language the
Q’ero speak. The Qechua speaking people call the energy universe
“Kausay Pacha,” (Pacha means cosmos or earth in Qechua) and,
according to Polich, it is divided into three energetic worlds. Here we
see the universal three tiered cosmology represented, the divisions fitting
into the common themes of the upper, middle, and lower worlds of the shaman.
For the Q’ero, the first world is called “ukhpacha,”
the interior, or underworld. This world exists within the earth as well
as within the individual. It is considered the place of the heaviest energies.
The second world is called the “kaypacha,” and includes the
ordinary world of form. Within the kaypacha is contained the “pachamama,”
Mother Earth as the Great Cosmic Mother. This world nourishes and maintains
all physical life. The third world is called the “hanaqpacha,”
and is considered the higher realm of spiritually evolved beings and highly
refined energies.
The Q’ero are commonly able to navigate these worlds, and experience
a multidimensional reality. They can shift from one flow of consciousness
to another, from linear time progression to the simultaneous flows of
consciousness within other realms. Polich quotes an article from Magical
Blend Magazine on the Q’ero Worldview, written by Joan Parsi Wilcox
and discussing the teachings of Alberto Villoldo:
“…Culturally and certainly shamanically, they [the Q’ero
people] tend not to make the Cartesian distinction between subject and
object, between inner and outer, between the signified and the signifier,
between the secular and the sacred. Thus they are able to slip the bounds
of the causal and are able to literally step outside of linear, monochronic
time into nonlinear polychronic time. They have not lost the sensory foundation
of knowledge, and so they perceive synthesthetically—bridging the
five senses, so that looking at a mountain they can feel its texture.
They perceive totalities, which are by definition, nonlinear, rather than
the fragmented, causal realities the West apprehends."
This ability to perceive totalities is a shamanic skill as well. It is
intimately tied to the ability to see the energy behind form. On the energy
level, the reality of interconnectedness is obvious, and the totalities
of various energy systems are perceived clearly. The development of the
abilities of perception and discernment, the ability to perceive outside
the narrow perspective of consciousness that so limits Western perspective,
is essential and central to the shamanic reality. Polich speaks to Westerners’
limited perceptions, and the possibilities of breaking through these self-imposed
barriers:
“To navigate in non-ordinary realities, we need to alter the concepts
we have about ourselves and others. The conceptual framework we have been
taught by our parents and our culture is based upon perception of ordinary
reality. Not only are we taught to perceive primarily through our five
senses, we are also taught to rely almost exclusively on our sense of
sight. If we can't see it, we believe it does not exist. We are also stuck
perceptually within the confines of linear time. But what if we could
see the world energetically and multidimensionally? What if we to could
step beyond linear time? To some extent, many of us already have had experiences
that give us a glimpse of dimensions beyond ordinary perception—experiences
our rational mind has denied or minimized. Such experiences sometimes
occur during meditation, through the discovery of gateways to a higher
world; or through inspired writing, music, or artwork. On such occasions
we experienced the central truths of existence, what the Q’ero and
the Inca before them called the kausay pacha, the energy universe."
Polich discusses the ideas of Americo Yabar, as quoted in an interview
by Hal Zina Bennett in Shamans Drum Magazine(1997), for ways that the
teachings of the Q’ero can benefit the people of the world today
by connecting with the great archetypal energies available to us.