Understanding the Mesa Dialectic

The Mesa is replete with layers of symbolic reference.  The more these layers are understood, the more we are able to enter into a direct form of dialogue with Spirit through the Mesa dialectic.  This retreat will dive deeper into the heart of the mesa's symbolic language, empowering its users with forms of direct communication with divinity.  

LEARN TO CREATE, AND WORK WITH, YOUR OWN SEGUROS

Seguros are jars of ritually prepared herbs, which are microcosmic recreations of landscapes of sacred or healing import.  Like building a ship inside a bottle, seguros meticulously recreate the intricate systems of medicine that grow in a bioregion, gaining the practitioner access to this healing medicine even in the absence of being able to visit that location directly.  When you are unable to go to the mountain for healing, you can now bring the mountain, and all of its medicines, to you.  

THE 11 STEPS OF CEREMONY

1. Preparation – Physically create an environment that is free from distraction. Step back from the mind and let go of expectations, ego, and attachments to a desired outcome. Drop into your heart and operate from a deep place of intuitive, present-moment awareness. 

2. Purification – Energetically release anything within you and around you that is not serving a higher purpose. Common purification practices involve the use of smudge, incense, floral waters, staffs (varas), feathers, etc., to create a clear field to operate within. 

3. Consecration – Make some form of offering to the ceremonial ground you have created, honoring the interdependence and the sacred reciprocal exchange of ayni. 

4. Pause – Move into astute observation of the silence and stillness – both within and around you. Deepen your sensitivity to all forms of sensorial awareness (sound, light, smell, temperature, etc.) found within the present moment. 

5. Declaration – Present your intentions for the ceremonial space you are creating (i.e., healing, transformation, gratitude, alignment, etc.). 

6. Invocation – Call in support from the unseen world, or rather, call yourself into deeper awareness of the support already in your midst. Move into a conscious recognition of Spirit’s grace and abundance. 

7. Activation – Use a form of ritual expression (spoken prayer, medicine song, artistic creation, etc.) signifying that the medicine prayed for through the invocation is awakening and being made available, and can be used to bring this sacred space to life. 

8. Pause – Once again, deeply observe the silence and stillness. Give yourself fully to present-moment awareness. Allow yourself to drink in what your senses perceive. 

9. Transmission – Channel and send the medicine and guidance you received during the Pause out into the ceremonial space or into the person(s) you are working with. This can be expressed in any number of ways, including spoken word, feather or staff work, or through a creative ritual act like blowing into the top of a person’s head or into their heart, etc. 

10. Completion – Close the sacred circle using a form of ritual expression, such as toning the directions three times each. 

11. Integration – Remember that you are now carrying the medicine from this ceremony out into the world. Be conscious of living the ceremony, and the medicine you have experienced and received, in your everyday life. 

© Mateo Magee 2016

MEET OUR FACILITATOR

Mateo Magee has been serving communities as a spiritual teacher, guide, and expedition leader since 1998. His book Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakuti Mesa (2002) was the first written account of a lineage that spans thousands of years, bridging the Northern Coastal Huachumero and Southeastern Andean Paqokuna traditions of Peru.

Though he holds multiple university degrees, Mateo regards his true education as having come from decades of immersive living and apprenticeship with traditional Indigenous communities across North and South America.

With 27 years of dedicated study in the Peruvian systems of curanderismo, his current work explores the power of receptivity in nature, stillness within movement, and the profound teachings found in silence and solitude.

One of Mateo’s core gifts lies in his ability to be a student at all times.  This mindset allows him to make complex and often elusive spiritual principles both accessible and deeply relatable to his students. His inclusive teaching style fosters a safe, expansive spaces where every soul can stretch out in, evolve, and ultimately find their way home.    

OUR RETREAT CENTER AND CEREMONIAL SPACE

The property is on 10 acres of forest-covered hills, the ecological “gem” of which is a living spring that feeds the local creek, and is home to crawfish, turtles, snakes, fish and more. Other wildlife on the property include deer, armadillo, red fox, snakes, a number of birds, and insects who pass through the land on their annual migration. This spring has been continuously occupied for thousands of years, and features the archeological remains of many tribal peoples, most recently the Apache. These lands have a long history of traditional ceremonial work.

The temple is a dodecagonal maloka with a 36’ diameter, loosely styled after the Munay Sonqo maloka in Peru’s Sacred Valley. It features a beautiful spiraled roof design centered over a selenite altar.

TESTIMONIALS:

WORKING THE MESA

In a time when there was no written counterpart, the use of a Mesa is was the primary tool to pass down the history, cosmology, mythology and forms of healing artistry of Peruvian tradition from generation to generation. 

The Mesa is a ceremonial altar containing ritually empowered objects, which are aesthetically arranged on a sacred textile. The Mesa we will be focusing on in our retreat was born through an amalgamated synthesis of both the Paqokuna (southeast Andean) and Huachuma (Northern Coastal) traditions of Peru. 

The focus of our ongoing apprenticeship will be the break down of this ancient system.  You will learn its use and how it works, just as it has been passed down for millenia... through direct ceremonial experience.  

REVIEW TOPICS FROM PREVIOUS RETREATS

LEARN TO WORK WITH HEALING TOOLS

In the Northern Coastal Huachuma roots, staffs are among the most commonly used tools for limpia or ritual cleansing. These staffs, known as varas, are commonly carved in the images of specific patron saints of curanderismo, such as San Cypriano de Antioquia (St. Cyprian of Antioch). Totem animals and iconographic symbols are also frequently implemented into the designs of staffs. A few examples are Vara de la Señorita (Staff of the Single Woman, often analogous to concepts of Pachamama), La Mano de Dios (the Hand of God), Vara de la Luna (Staff of the Moon), Vara del Rey (Staff of the King/ Divine Masculine), Vara de la Lechuza (Staff of the Female Owl), etc.  In this retreat we will learn how to work with staffs (varas) to address various physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual issues for both self and other. 

UNDERSTANDING KAMAY

THE APUKUNA

The Apukuna, also referred to as Apus, are the spirits of the sacred mountains of Peru (and parts of Bolivia and Ecuador as well). They are considered to be the most powerful of all nature spirits and are the main source of spiritual connection and protection for curanderos in most regions of Peru (the exception being certain parts of the deep Amazonian rainforest). These majestic peaks stretch toward the stratosphere, connecting the Earth to the Heavens, functioning as the Divine’s guardians of the Kay Pacha.

The mystical capacity of the mountains has been sung into legend and myth by nearly every culture of the world throughout history. These havens of life and death emerge into form through volcanic rebirth, and consume all that are unprepared to journey to their highest peaks. Journeying to the liminal space and thin air of a sacred mountain peak is essentially a pilgrimage to meet the God of your understanding directly.

It brings one closer than ever to the pronounced essence of our own labored breath, and reminds us of how closely related the pattern of life and death relates to simple inhalation and exhalation. As such, the Apus are considered regents of supernatural power and function as the closest and most potent representatives of Wiraqocha (Creator/ Creatress) available to humanity in the physical plane. This pure resource of divinity serves to influence our own lives in the same way that the great mountains influence the weather patterns of nature.