Tending to Kausay by Deborah Bryon, Ph.D.

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

Paqos live their lives by tending to kausay and learning from the abundance in nature. Kausay is the building block of shamanism and Incan medicine. It is the fuel, life force, and the energy of creation, experienced in the body as a vibration, and in the heart as a feeling of universal love. In the Mind, kausay is often seen as an intense light, or experienced as clarity, bringing sense of all-knowing wisdom. It is also experienced in altered states of ecstasy when paqos enter into the spirit world of energy. Medicine people learn to source, or draw the life energy of kausay from Pachamama because Pachamama is constant and always there.

Sometimes a manifestation of kausay comes as an unexplainable event that as Westerners, we would identify as “strange, weird or magic. You may remember times when you invariably experienced the flow of Kausay energy through you if you think about it. A time when you felt very alive and “in the flow,” a time when things were clicking.

The expression of kausay occurs by being in ayni, in an open reciprocal relationship with Pachamama. What is taken from the land is returned to the land in gratitude so that it can be born again. Everything in nature, and all living things, occurs in the order of “right relationship,” or kausay pacha. Everything comes from and returns to Pachamama.

According to Inca cosmology, being in ayni (“right relationship”) comes as an expression of munay (unconditional, universal love) with the collective. In Inca shamanism, the definition of “collective” is much broader than in modern Western culture. Instead of using the term to refer to “mass culture” and society, shamans use the word collective to speak of the energetic relationship existing between all living things. For paqos, this consists of plants, animals, humans, and anything belonging to the physical and/or energetic realm of the natural world.

EXERCISE I: BUILDING KAUSAY IN CONNECTION WITH PACHAMAMA

Find a comfortable place to sit, cross-legged in a meditation position. If you are seated on a chair, make sure your feet are placed firmly on the ground. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling from your belly and close your eyes. As you exhale, feel yourself sinking deeper into your body, moving further with each breath into a receptive and peaceful state. As your attention gradually shifts more fully into what you are experiencing in your core, your breathing will become easy and relaxed, falling into a gentle rhythm. As you continue breathing from your belly, feel your awareness dropping even farther into your interior, as you are sensing through your body.

Now, using your intention imagine a star of light located in the deepest part of your interior and visualize it growing, becoming stronger and larger. Using your intent, imagine feeling the energetic rays reaching down through your legs, through the bottoms of your feet, and deep into the earth. Again, using your intention, allow the rays of light to carry your focus, moving deep into the earth with the light.

From the place of sensing deep within the earth, sense your connection with the earth and with all living things. Feel yourself held and nourished in the loving and powerful presence of Pachamama, as the energy exchange begins to strengthen and expand between you and the earth. Giving the Pachamama rays of light emanating from the light star in your belly and in exchange receiving the nourishing energy from Pachamama in an exchange of ayni, of right relationship

Using your intention, fully receive Pachamama’s gift of energy by allowing it to move up through the bottoms of your feet, through your legs, into your belly, throughout your entire body.

You may experience Pachamama’s nourishing energy as an orange energy vibration, or as warm sunlight, or golden honey. Allow yourself to be fed by her energy, while making connection with her through the light emanating from the star in your belly. Breathe the energy in and breathe it out through exhaling, directing it back, deep into the earth.

When you feel complete, open yourself to the feeling of gratitude for Pachamama. Thank her for gift and for being present. When you are ready, in your own time, gradually bring yourself to your outer awareness and open your eyes.

(Excerpt from “Lessons of the Inca Shamans Part II:Beyond the Veil,” Deborah Bryon)

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