HUACHUMA: WALKING IN RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
To speak of Huachuma is to speak of relationship, not medicine. It is not something to consume, a tool, or a remedy. It is a living presence, a teacher of the heart, humble and confident, offering its wisdom with quiet certainty. Unlike more assertive medicines that arrive with intensity, Huachuma has nothing to prove. It teaches through presence, not spectacle, revealing that healing is about remembering what has always been whole and learning to move in right relationship, or Ayni, the sacred balance and reciprocity that sustains all of life.
My path with Huachuma led me to a profound initiation in the Andes of Peru with the Q’ero lineage (the last descendants of the Inca), under the guidance of Don Eduardo Chura Apaza and Rami Abu-Sitta In ceremony I received the nine Karpay Rites: sacred transmissions and seeds of transformation. They are not instant knowledge but living potentials that must be tended to and nurtured. Each carries a gift: a memory, a wisdom, a connection and a capacity to open the heart, calling us to listen, to attune, and to walk in reciprocity with all that is life.
In the Q’ero worldview, everything is alive. Mountains, rivers, plants, stones, and the sky are conscious, relational beings. The world is a garden of spirits, each teaching us if we take the time to listen. Everything exists across three worlds. Hanan Pacha, the upper world, holds the sky, the stars, and the ancestors who watch over us. Kay Pacha, the middle world of the living, is the rhythm of daily life, with all its beauty and challenge. Uku Pacha, the underworld, contains memory, roots, and unseen forces that shape our being. Huachuma teaches us to navigate these three worlds, to feel their presence woven into our modern lives, and to plant these seeds in our hearts, nurturing them with intention, patience, and reverence.
In my work, I carry Huachuma as a living current flowing through tradition and modernity. It does not separate the sacred from the ordinary. It asks us to live fully in both, to honor the wisdom of the ancestors while meeting the realities of today. In ceremony, I hold space for these worlds to speak, for these seeds to take root, and for the heart to remember its capacity to feel, to love, and to heal.
For those struggling with substances or seeking wholeness, Huachuma is not an escape but a mirror. It shows us where we have gone numb and where our hearts are still tender and alive. It invites us back into right relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the wider web of the living world.
Walking with Huachuma is an invitation to drop from the mind into the heart, to move beyond thought and story, beyond strategy and control, and into a living connection with ourselves, with others, and with all life. The seeds Huachuma plants within us grow quietly and patiently, revealing that true healing is not a destination to reach but a relationship to nurture, moment by moment, with presence, reverence, and love.
