Awakening the Living Intelligence Within

For thousands of years, the curandero's Mesa (healer's altar) has been the medium of apprenticeship in the Paqokuna and Huachumero traditions of Peru.  This system not only holds the wisdom of an entire tradition, its personal use becomes a living teacher and guide on the path of life.

The three worlds of human experience (ukhu pacha, kay pacha, and hanaq pacha) are often challenging to navigate.  The inner world (ukhu pacha) is intangible, and often wrought with patterns built in shadow and forms of unconsciousness.  And, in contrast, the supremely illuminating nature of the transcendent world (hanaq pacha) can often be equally challenging to access and navigate if one is not ready for deep reflections of truth. Mastery in both of these worlds is required to walk an awakened life in the here and now (kay pacha).  

The Mesa is a living map of these ever-evolving realms.  And learning to work with a Mesa in ritual and ceremony has a way to move these three worlds into precise alignment.  As such, it is pristinely designed to provide the resources needed to facilitate harmonious transformation, healing, and alignment to the sacred dimensions of life. 

This retreat is designed to unlock the essential elements of this system, breaking down the use and function of many of the medicine items used in the mesa, and provide deep insight regarding how to employ this system in your everyday life.  In addition, this system is designed to connect us more deeply to the landscape, and the wisdom that nature holds unendingly, but often goes unnoticed. The pace of nature’s language arrives slower than the mind normally digests. It requires slowing down to a ceremonial pace to decipher.

Simply spending a few days slowing down to the pace of nature can work wonders when it comes to cleaning up the inner and outer worlds of your life.  Providing descriptions of how that looks, or how it happens, in a workshop description is unfortunately an exercise in futility, as it emerges spontaneously in the ceremonial moment. And, it is quintessentially dependent on who shows up, and what each person is holding or carrying. This is the material that the teachings come through.  

The invitation is to come exactly as you are. Arrive in whatever state of guarded or unguarded vulnerability feels safe for you. And let the time-tested system of Peru’s indigenous medicine systems work their magic. Let the space move you toward cohesive wholeness at your own pace. Let it restore power to your places of apparent weakness. Let it excavate the unconscious regions of shadow and resistant forms of defense. Every second spent in this place of ceremonial willingness to drop into authentic states of being can work wonders on the journey of the soul’s liberation.  

Deepen Your Understanding Of Medicine Items  

This course will discuss many of the medicine items from the Peruvian tradition of both the Northern Coastal Huachuma Lineage and the Southeastern Andean Paqokuna traditions of Peru. 

This series will cover what makes medicine items so powerful, and illuminate how they are able to come to life in ritual and ceremony. 

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 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 29 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: