January 28-30, 2005
We are in a transformational time for humanity and for our earth. No matter how elegant and useful all the advances in science and technology, there remains a yearning to return to the core that explains the world-wide resurgence of shamanism. For the shaman, everything is alive and interconnected.
The shaman travels between material and spiritual worlds, using techniques that allow us communion with the unseen world. We’ll explore cross-cultural notions of this fourth dimension: the Upper World and Lower World of Oscar’s people, the Bardo realm of Tibetan Buddhism, the Eternal Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines, and the Unconscious Psyche of modern psychology. We’ll explore shamanic guided meditation to become familiar with the power of visualization and we’ll learn the self-induced “magical flight.” Our goal is to form an alliance with the spirit denizens inhabiting the invisible realm so we can inform our everyday reality with an expansive vision for collective evolutionary change.
The Pachakuti Mesa tradition of curanderismo is a shamanic discipline focused on accessing hidden dimensions of visionary reality, healing power, and spiritual guidance. As a sacred ceremonial ground, the Mesa is an altar-like arrangement of ritually consecrated items and power objects reverently used to awaken profound states of non-ordinary consciousness. Derived from the ancestral kamasqa mesa curanderil lineage of northern Peru, it is a beautiful artifact of the natural world and a gift of spirit where ancestral wisdom keepers and spirit helpers feel safe and honored to reveal themselves and bestow their healing presence and visions upon us. Only by responding to the urgent call of a deeper voice that speaks of our sacred interdependence within the living universe may we embrace a genuinely cosmic sense of what it means to be human.
Oscar says his father, a physician, raised him with a very scientific approach, so his initial quest was to find a rational explanation to supposedly unexplainable phenomena. This immersion accounts for his comfort in the Western tradition. The veil that separates the seen from the unseen really is transparent, so he can access information from states of clairsentience, clairaudience, and clairvoyance as well as from the sensory world. It’s not about substituting one for the other; it’s the dance of both together in a system of teaching, knowledge, ceremony, and ritual that reaches peoples’ hearts. Please bring a ceremonial ground cloth, stone or crystal, sea shell, feather, white candle, personally meaningful power object, and a drum, rattle, or other sacred sound-maker.
Oscar Miro-Quesada began his apprenticeship in 1969 under the tutelage of don Celso Rojas from Chiclayo and received his initiation Paqokuna shaman/priesthood from don Benito Corihuaman of Wasao in 1985. Born and raised in Peru, he’s been facilitating experiential workshops since 1979 and has led pilgrimages to sacred sites since 1986. His involvement with the Organization of American States led to the first program that mainstreamed native folk healers into Peru’s national public health system. His work has been featured on CNN, Univision, A&E, and Discovery channels, and he’s a master at creating sacred community using the power of vision, the healing presence of nature, and the magic of joy, humor, and compassion. More important than credentials is that Oscar is a warm, loving human being who deeply cares about people and our planet and has an infectious belly laugh.