Finding Meaning

Friday, September 28th, 2012

In our last meeting together during my most recent visit to Peru, the Q’ero shamans said to those of us who had received Mosoq Karpay and Hatun Karpay initiation rites, “We have been chosen by the mountain spirit for a path of service and must take the ancestral knowledge we have been given back to our communities.” Andean shamans have had the prophetic vision that time on our planet is speeding up and that great change in the nature of our world is beginning to occur. Although we are on the verge of planetary destruction, we are also living at a time of great opportunity for change, which is brought about by existing in a point in history when things are shifting rapidly and are in a state of flux. For this reason, Andean shamans are, for the first time, passing down their lineage to Westerners such as myself. They are giving us the wisdom of their ancestors’ teachings. The shamans believe that the next group of medicine people will come from the West.

In exchange for being given the sacred teaching and initiation rites I promised to bring this information to others in the West. My focus has been on exploring how to make meaning from numinous experience after intense shamanic initiation, while in the process of cultural re-assimilation, based upon my personal journey training with the Q’ero shamans. As a psychologist and Jungian analyst, I have explored this phenomenon through the lens of a shaman and a psychologist–and from my own human experience.

Through this process, the life lessons that I have learned are:

1)    The best way to manage stress is through living a full and meaningful life.

2)    Meaning is found through creative expression, being in connection. Connection can be with nature, other people, and some version of spirituality, which for many people is a means of “giving back.

3)    We heal and develop a sense of freedom by experiencing what we are the most afraid of and from these experiences, we are able to create meaning.

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!