Sitting on the ground in the middle of the woods feeling foolish, I turned. I expected nothing extraordinary. I was never one who had visions. Yet I turned and looked. And I looked up . . and up . . and up. There, looming over me with glittering eyes was a coiled snake. The flickering tongue was fifteen feet over my head. I felt no sense of menace. This was a friendly snake in some way, although hardly tame or safe.

The medicine man had said he worked with the tradition of the Incas, the Children of the Sun. He had spoken of how often we in the Western world are afraid of our power, and run from it. "You could," he said, "turn and face your power. It has been chasing you, wanting to be acknowledged; wanting to work with you. Claim it!"

We were told to find a stick and, using bits and pieces of things we found in the woods, decorate it in honor of our power. There was a fire. I already knew a couple of ways to make a sacred fire, but this one was quite different. More than a hundred of
us who were attending the Medicine Wheel were chanting and shaking our rattles. The energy built – I could feel that. Finally the fire was ready. We approached the fire one by one from the four directions, in lines stretching back toward the woods. Each one of us had someone behind, guarding our back. He said we do not do this work alone. I put my stick in the fire, drawing the energy of the fire into my belly, my heart and my third eye.

After the fire, we melted into the woods, each on our own path, our own reunion with our power.

Power had been a dilemma in my life for some time. In the early 80's, my first teacher had told me that I was very powerful. She went even farther, to tell me that "Everyone in the room attunes to the most powerful force in the room, so you need to be very careful." As a consequence, I ran from my own power, even more than I had been already. A few years later, I began to feel an undeniable urge to get a drum. This was not something I would have chosen, and in fact I was irritated. How would I play it? I had no idea even where to start. This was, however, a compulsion, so I went to the only store I knew that might have what I needed. There were lots of drums from all around the world. Not one of them spoke to me.

A few months later, I attended a gathering of several hundred like-minded people. One woman led a circle dance with 100 of us. Skillful drummers played a great mother-drum for us, and at the end of the dance, she had them bring it out into the center of the room. She pointed and said, "Everyone in the room attunes to the most powerful force in the room; get a drum."

You can imagine how that resonated in my heart and soul. "Oh, that's why!" I soon discovered that one of the leaders at this gathering knew how to make drums. Before long, I was in a workshop making my own drum. The drum truly began to teach me about power, about prayer, and about connection. It is a thread that has continued to weave its way through my life and my spiritual path.

Earlier this day I had prayed to be able to "see." Now, here I was, sitting in the middle of dark woods, having just seen my power. And it was huge – different from anything I would have imagined. What could I do now? I wish I could tell you that I asked my power the questions I was carrying, but I did not. Nor did I invite her to come into my being and assist me with my path. How foolish I was – I told myself I had not really seen her. She was a figment of my imagination. There! Problem solved.

Nevertheless, this was my introduction to the sacred tradition of the Incas, which has become the heart of my life and of my soul. Several years later I met Dr. Mary Blankenship, who became my teacher and mentor and who taught me to heal myself. As I finally dedicated myself to learn and grow in this tradition, I discovered that the great serpent I had seen was one of the central archetypes of the Incan tradition: Amaru, the great serpent.

My lineage is through Don Manuel, from the Q'ero village in the very high Andes, one of the descendants of the Incas. In their language, Quechua, the breath is called "wayra," and is sacred. They do not exactly sing – their prayers are the songs of the breath. They also use Florida Water, the "breath" of the flowers. And love is the center, the heart if you will, of the tradition and of the medicine body. They call it "munay."

The mountain people work with stones wrapped in a cloth to make a portable altar called a "mesa." Instead of seven chakras, this Incan tradition works primarily with three centers: the belly, yankay; the heart, munay; and the head, yachay.

Mary was just planning to take her first group of students to Peru as I was beginning my initial studies with her. I knew I had to go with them, though at the time I did not know why. I believed it was because I had long had a compulsion to see Macchu Picchu. That was indeed a part of the reason for my journey to the Andes.

When we actually arrived in Cuzco, I felt overwhelmed with color, changing currency, street vendors and various forms of hubbub. I couldn’t breathe. Cuzco is at 11,000 feet above my sea level home.

The most important learning this journey held for me was transforming my anger. After five days in Peru, I was almost violently angry. I believed I knew why. In truth I did not have even the first clue. What I experienced was mostly confusion and muddle. It was the third and last day we would be at Macchu Picchu, and we were given the task of doing our personal work. As one of our native medicine teachers told us, there is a lot of help at Macchu Picchu. Spirit is beautifully and wildly present.

As I sat doing my work, it became clear that I needed to give away two of the stones from my own mesa. It was very challenging for me – I was attached to those stones. At that point I did not yet realize that as a medicine person in this tradition, as I grow and learn, my mesa also grows and shifts and changes. It was not unusual, particularly in such a journey of the soul as we were making, for me to make big shifts in consciousness, and therefore in my mesa. All of us did.

I put aside the two stones in a separate bag, and continued with the journey. It was several days before I saw the person to whom I had been told to give the stones. He took them and went on with his day.

We all boarded a boat on Lake Titicaca, bound for an island where we would do ceremony and stay overnight. The next morning I took my bag out to the boat tied up at the pier and walked back to the beach. I saw two of the men of our group; one of them had two stones I had given him. As I stepped onto the beach, he came to me and put a stone in my hand and gave me a big hug. Then the other man gave me a stone and hugged me.

I was overwhelmed with love and gratitude. These stones were so much more powerful than I could have imagined. They were basalt – lava cooled in Lake Titicaca and then struck by lightning. For the people of the mountains of Peru, these are medicine of the highest order. I treasured them, and still have one of them.

My mesa has grown and shifted and changed over the past decade. I am less in awe of anyone, and love has filled and healed my heart. I am forever grateful for my journey out of time in the mountains of Peru.

Author's Bio: 

Jackie studied dance as an undergraduate, and graduated from law school and became a member of the bar in Washington State. She finally realized that her path was to be spiritual. She was initiated in an ancient feminine rite of passage in the hermetic tradition, and was given the full medicine of Don Manuel Quispe, a Quero shaman in the lineage of the Andes of Peru. She is an animal communicator, a healer and teacher. Jackie is available for consultations.