Direct Revelation, Living Energy, and Living Transmission: the Munay-Ki
Indigenous peoples, who have not forgotten old earth ways and interconnections, can be wonderful teachers for us as we figure out how to shift our consciousness. For example, in the Andean Quechua world, the "living energy" of all things is deeply understood, and people exist in conscious interconnection with stones, stars, animals, and plants. Living in reciprocity with all beings is essential for receiving guidance, information, and teaching from the healing plant or the sacred mountain. Such wisdom is experienced as valid, reliable, essential knowledge.
Why does the Western world have a hard time validating such wisdom? In part it's because we no longer spend enough time in nature to hear the messages. In part it's because the perception of the whole was split into science and religion in the 17th century. Morality and spirit became the domain of religion, while observation and interpretation of the natural world was given over to scientists. Now, 400 years later, our schooling discounts and our minds resist guidance (whether spiritual or practical) from tree or lake or bird. And we are so trained towards information, words, and ideas that we can have a difficult time really feeling things in our bodies.
Yet: our cells remember. We can redirect our minds and consciousness with experiential perception. We can learn to feel morphic resonance (Rupert Sheldrake's term), and the living energy of all things-"the environment as our extended body"-as Deepak Chopra puts it.
We have to spend time outside-observing, listening, connecting-to learn the environment as our extended body. Looking out a window gives what an Andean friend calls a "conceptual" picture-the idea of tree or lake-in contrast to a "perceptual" or experiential sense of a specific tree and the feeling of its bark, leaves, and shape, or the smell of wet earth, the feel of the wind, and the shifting colors of a specific lake. The more we are outside experiencing such sensations deeply, the more we become embodied parts of the whole.
Transmissions as Seeds
Some years ago, while playing in amazing waterfalls in the Amazon Basin, a huge downpour abruptly ended our hike. Slipping and sliding down the rain-slicked path towards the river, we halted under a palapa, warming ourselves by a campfire. Great flashes of light surrounded us. Thunder shook the ground. My teacher, Americo Yabar, told us to reach our arms up as the lightning struck, and pull the energy down into our bodies. Three times we did this, three times filling ourselves with the stupendous energy of lightning. Later, he referred to this experience as a "lightning initiation."
At the time this didn't seem anything like the formalized Andean initiation ceremonies and transmissions I'd read about. Now I understand more about the nature of energetic transmissions and initiations, and want to share some of this with you: transmissions are one of several ways we can move out of the limits of a single human mind and access the wisdom of the cosmos.
"Transmissions" can come from a number of sources: people (Buddhist teachers or Reiki masters, for example); nature (lightning, mountains, creatures); and spirit (non-ordinary teachers, power animals, angels). A transmission taps into collective energy and morphic fields beyond the personal. If it is connected with "lineage," it is passed on and on through generations, and is known by all the people who receive and learn to use the power. If it is a spiritual initiation, it is understood to cause fundamental change within the person being initiated. What transmissions share is a physical, spiritual, and energetic transfer of awareness, experience, and state of mind. They give us access to fields of consciousness we might otherwise take years to experience. When received, the energy of a transmission can take you into another dimension, much like sacred places of power can elicit visionary experiences.
Energetic transmissions, like sacred medicine, are gifts we can use to jump-start our awareness. They are seeds: a transmission is given to you, then you have to learn to feel it in your body, use it, understand it, and be able to communicate it. For example, you may have received a Reiki "attunement." You probably had to practice for a long time before you "got it" fully, no matter what "level" of Reiki you work with. And any other transmission, initiation, or vision quest is the same: there is an initial experience, a moment of "Aha!" Then the process of integration, putting-into-practice, and refining begins.
Using the analogy of gardening and farming is useful in working with seeds of transmissions. After preparing the soil (your receptiveness, your intent), the seed can be planted. To help the seed grow, you water and fertilize it (feed it with shifting habits and opening to new ways). You weed (throw out old stuff-beliefs, ways of acting-that are in the way) to give the seed space to grow and blossom. When it ripens, you harvest the "fruit" and eat it, taking in energy from the nutrients and processing the waste so more "food" can enter. This cycle of growing, harvesting, and shedding repeats over and over.
The Seeds of Munay-Ki
In Andean wisdom teaching, the rites of Munay-Ki are transmissions designed to connect us with ancestors, mountains, stars, and the time to come. These transmissions are from a spiritual and cosmological lineage thousands of years old that the Q'ero/Inca people in the Andes have maintained, untainted by western ideas until about 50 years ago (they live so high in the mountains that the Spanish gave up on conquering them!) The Munay-Ki are energetic seed transmissions, passed from person to person and mountain to person, for becoming "beings of wisdom and power" who "accept the stewardship for all of creation."
When I received all nine Munay-Ki rites six years ago, I experienced portals opening; hugely expanded awareness; and sweet heart-opening connection to the four Q'ero people who came from Peru to share the rites. Ever since, I have been "feeding the seeds" of these profound energetic transmissions by observing my energy carefully, exploring the shamanic connections, and integrating the spiritual understanding that's been emerging. I have noticed shifts in my work: less flailing; more confidence in what I truly know and have to teach; and a greater clarity about my path during these prophesied times of great change and opportunity. It is easier for me to apprehend the heavy and negative in the world while focusing on bringing light to every situation I am in.
At the end of January 2011, I'll begin the Fourth Annual Munay-Ki transmissions Sharing the Munay-Ki with you is an opportunity to pass on tools for shifting awareness, ways of perceiving the living energy of the cosmos, and tremendous heart opening. Our intent together is to find the energy to reconnect to the web and each other during this shift in planetary consciousness. The Munay-Ki rites are, of course, one of many ways to enlarge our world perspective. I urge you to check them out: you can read about them, find someone near you who can transmit them, receive them if you are drawn to them.
The caveat I want to emphasize is that there is no one way; there are many ways. The challenge for each of us is to find what's right for us as individuals, what feeds and empowers us to follow our true path.
