Munay Ki Initiations

The Q'ero are a nation of shamanic healers in the high Andes, often called the "Last Incas," though their lineage is older than the Incan Empire itself. For over 500 years they've preserved the paqo arts — the shamanic work of mediating between the human and non-human realms — in isolation above 14,000 feet, where the air thins and the mountain spirits are close. The Munay Ki, meaning "I love you" in Quechua, are nine energetic transmissions that build on each other in sequence. They're not meditation techniques you learn or visualisations you practise. They're given. Usually over a very long period of time, requiring extensive preparation and initiation.

My version

I'd been in the Sacred Valley for a while by then, based in Pisac, engaged in other shamanic work, and curious about the Q'ero culture. I'd received vague telepathic connections with the elders a few times in the months leading up to it, and had even delayed my flight out of Peru by a month because of it. The Q'ero are notoriously difficult for making any kind of definite plan, and anything with them is subject to change at any moment, but I had a feeling that somehow, it was going to come together.

Then, spontaneously one morning, a shamanic friend of mine called to say his contact — the Q'ero elder I'd been connecting with energetically — was coming later that very morning to offer all nine transmissions in one go to a small group of us. All friends. All already far along our own spiritual journeys, with extensive trainings and initiations behind us. I think that’s why we got given all nine in one go like that, it’s very rare.

I made my way down from my cabin in the mountains to a friend's home, where the impromptu ceremonial gathering was being hosted. We sat as a despacho was expertly constructed to call upon the spirits of earth and cosmos and to make offerings. Central to the whole practice is ayni, sacred reciprocity: the principle that every exchange maintains cosmic balance.

Then, one by one, we received round after round of initiations. Each one was like having a new app installed on your phone, with each rite activating a different layer of what the Q'ero call the luminous body — the field of light and energy that surrounds and permeates the physical form. I tuned into the energies of each as best I could – snake, puma, eagle…

Functionally they cover: healing in the hands, protective bands around the energy field, sharpened intuition and sight, connection to the mountain spirits (Apus), the Earthkeeper lineage, the light body and solar attunement, and finally the Creator rite — the integration of all of it into a single coherent field. Each of us experienced our own sensations and processes around the transmissions. Some of them felt like a lot. Some felt like almost nothing. But they were all calibrating my system to be in tune with their sophisticated cosmology and connection with earth and the stars.

Ausangate

The following day, a few of us began phase two of the initiation. I'd been feeling a strong calling from that mountain for some time — to come and be present there, for initiation directly by the Earth itself.

After several hours of driving through winding Andean roads, watching the landscape turn increasingly lunar, we arrived at 4,900 metres, at the frosty foot of the mountain. Ausangate is a turquoise-glaciered guardian, considered by the Q'ero to be one of the most powerful mountain spirits on the planet. I could feel it.

The next morning we woke before dawn to mount ponies and climb to our ceremonial location — a pastel-coloured lagoon at its base. Another despacho was made. We undertook a series of cleansing rituals, including being washed by the sacred waters.

Then we drank the San Pedro. I didn’t take as much as the others as I’d had a really rough San Pedro ceremony the last time. But it was enough to shift things.

We walked the sacred initiation path of that mountain as frost turned into gleaming sunlight, sunlight turned into pouring rain, and rain turned into gentle cloud.

I stood before the mountain and tears came pouring as though straight from my heart, as lifetimes of separation melted into the vastness. I felt he was granting me his blessings, a mandate even, to go and embody these healing rites in the world, and also, there was something about my upcoming travels to Asia. It was like he was imparting something in me that I would take to other mountains many continents over.

That evening we lit a ceremonial fire under a canopy of southern stars and sat with tobacco, offering our intentions, prayers, and gratitudes.

The days following the mountain ceremony felt like a kind of second birth. Colours more vivid. Empathy deeper. An unshakable sense of stewardship for the Earth. I've come to understand all my travels — stone circles in Scotland, lakes in Java, the mountains and jungles of Peru — as part of this same work of remembering connection with the Earth, and activating dormant energies through presence, intention, and love. The Munay Ki weren't an endpoint. They were an ignition. In the Q'ero's words, we are all Earthkeepers. The work continues.

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