PERU Trip & Vision Quest to Ancient Wonders of the Inca World
November 8, 2008
Join us on our next Spiritual Retreat & Vision Quest to Machu Picchu, Copacabana, and other ancient wonder with Dr. M & Peruvian Shaman Guide, Don Victor Estrada!
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Aug. 20 - Aug. 30
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Trip Highlights (see detailed itinerary below):
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Quest 1: Machu Picchu/Jungle
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Quest 2: Machu Picchu/Tiwanku/Lake Titicaca
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Metaphysics, the Election & America’s Fate
November 2, 2008
(UPDATE Nov 5, 2008 - We have made a decision. We have chosen a path. America has selected Barak Obama as our new president. This, of course, is only the first step of a new beginning. What remains is for us to embrace and embody the energy, principles, values and potential of this new era, and bring them to fruition in our everyday lives. Yesterday, we planted the first seeds. Now we must nurture them.) [Read more]
Vision Quest Diaries 2007: Day 2 - Walking into the Mystery
November 1, 2008
October 14, 2007
Saqsayhuaman, Temple of the Sun, San Pedro Ceremony
Darkness into Light
We went to one of my favorite places today, the “cavern” at Saqsayhuaman. To walk through it with attention and deliberateness is a healing, a rebirth and 
an initiation into a new level of power, a new level of being. It is a very literal metaphor for walking into the mystery–the mystery of the unconscious, the unmanifest and the unknown. And it is also a metaphor for the awakening that happens afterward, and the process of moving from darkness into the light–whatever your darkness may be. Each of us had our own darkness to move through. Darkness, however, is not all fear and negativity. It is also the potential that has yet to be developed.
We also visited the Temple of the Three worlds in Qenqo for a meditation to connect with ourselves as the seeds of the New Humanity.
Unshakable Force, Balance & Non-attachment
Every day on our Peru vision quest was an exploration of some mystery or other. Earlier that day we explored the “mysterious forces” used by the Inca and pre-Inca architects. The remains of mortarless temple buildings and earthquake-proof trapezoidal doorways (stronger than arched doorways, says Don Victor) continue to amaze and mystify. Stone blocks seemed to defy gravity and hang suspended in mid air. Not a drop of mortar to be found (except where we modern people attempted to restore the ruin). With the trapezoidal shape of the structures, it was as though the stones all supported each other –leaned on each other almost, which produced an “unshakable” internal force and balance. Yet with the absence of mortar, no stone was attached to anything. In this age of “I have mine, you get yours,” what a lesson we could all learn from that.
Cosmic Cycles and Flow
We visited Qorikancha -the Temple of the Sun where in ancient times, legend tells us, the temple’s garden housed the golden sun disc of Mu, which bathed the temple in sunlight and cosmic information. Many such gardens existed throughout the Inca empire and, according to Don Victor, served as central channels of communication between villages in the Empire. Somehow, the local people still have some method of communication between each other across vast distances. After the Peru earthquake that occurred in August, townspeople across the country already knew what the Peruvian president would not learn for many hours later. The legends say that the ancient sun discs transmitted information within the beams of sunlight it reflected.
The Inca measured life by a thousand year cosmic cycle called an Inti, which means ‘Sun’. This cycle was then divided into two transitional time periods of five hundred years. Each period is called a Pachakuti, and represents a time of light and a time of darkness. According to the Inca’s cosmic cycle, we are soon about to enter the 10th Pachakuti, a time of great change that will usher in a new period of light, and in which the ancient sun disc and the knowledge it transmits will be accessible again.
After visiting Qorikancha, we went to see the mysterious ancient fountain and water sanctuary at Tambochay. The locals call it the bath of the Inca. This fountain has flowed continuously since the Inca built it. How the fountain works and where the water comes from remains a mystery to this day. I thought perhaps there was some cycle of forces that generated the steady flow of water. We sat in meditation there listening to the sound of the fountain. One can learn a lot about flowing from an ancient Inca fountain.
Opening the Cosmic Door with San Pedro (plant medicine)
Tonight was also our first ceremony with the “cosmic medicine,” San Pedro (San Pedrito as Don Victor likes to say, or rather sing). This plant medicine is also known as Wachuma in the Quechua language - the native tongue of Peru’s native peoples. Shamans in Peru and Bolivia have used Wachuma for thousands of years for the expansion of consciousness and healing (including physical healing). The last time I took San Pedro, which had been about two years ago on a beach in the Amazon, left no doubt in my mind about why it was called the cosmic medicine. It shifts you–mind, body and spirit–into a higher vibration and opens the door to other dimensions. I could feel the shift happening even at the cellular level. It was as though I could feel my cells’ atomic spin accelerate. And then I felt like I was in a centrifuge. I could feel the heavy sediment in my energy field separate from my lighter energy and densify into something physical that I could expel.
As I lay there, a gateway opened up in front of me, revealing a small piece of some other world. I wanted to step through the portal but I didn’t have the strength. San Pedro is a very powerful healing plant. I had a lot of purging and healing to do that first night with Don Victor. This experience was the primary reason I wanted to come back. I wanted to continue working with the cosmic medicine. I wanted to continue with the healing, and I wanted to walk through that cosmic door.
Now, almost two years later, we would have the opportunity to work with the plant medicine many times during our vision quest. Again I felt the shift happening after taking the San Pedro, and I felt the accelerated spin. But there was a new sensation this time. It was as though I could feel the force of gravity acting upon my physical body. Was this what the density of karma feels like? If so, then now I know why they really call it ‘enlightenment’. We have to lighten up! “To step into your power is to step into your liberation,” Don Victor said to us earlier that day. These vision quests with him have been a tremendous aid in helping us to develop the strength and the nerve to take that step.
The purging of the heavy energy this time was much different than the last. The desified energy began to settle in my stomach like the last time. I thought I would be sick the whole night. As I lay there, however, I suddenly started to laugh uncontrollably. But the time the laugh attack was over, I felt much better. The laughter burned away most of the density. The rest of it washed down the sink in a healing dream I had that night.
Wow! And this was only day two! I can’t wait to see what mystery we’ll walk into tomorrow!
