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Shamanic Practitioner and Arts Counsellor

What’s in a Mesa? (or Medicine bundle)

Here I will give a brief explanation of what the Q’ero Medicine men and women call a “Mesa” or “Misha” – we would call a “medicine bundle” in the West. This bundle is a symbol of the paqo’s personal power. 

A Mesa is a Spanish term for what is traditionally called the Misha. This is a medicine or ritual bundle containing objects sacred to a paqo. A paqo assembles their mesa in the ceremony,  whilst working along their sacred path. They can also use their mesa to release hucha (heavy energy) in healings.

A Mesa Mastai

My mesa is definitely a part of me, it’s a cosmic power pack. It brings me many blessings, extra positive energy, a good life, harmony, and peace. The Khuya’s (stones) are now imbued with compassion and love. They can now help me inspire a client on their journey to wellness. 

It is a really important tool to have, like a musical instrument. Without a musical instrument you can’t play, you can’t receive your initiations or make offerings without a Mesa. 

Inside the mesa, you have sacred stones, they hold the mountain energy and “karpay”. It holds your sacred healing energy, so it’s important to have a strong connection with your mesa, which connects you to all your energy bodies, as well as your physical body.

I feed my mesa regularly with homemade Florida water and ultimately my love. I talk to it and sense what it needs, sometimes I open it under the full moon to recharge the stones. To me, my mesa is another living being. I don’t have it open all the time, only when I’m working with it in ceremony or when I’m with a client.

Being a paqo has led me to so many treasures and given me the strength to face any challenges in the way. I cannot believe it’s over 14 years ago that I started this incredible medicine path.

The Khuya’s connect us to different nature beings and they help our energy work to be more balanced. They can help with initiation, protection and also represent particular helpful energies that we might need. They act as a bridge between us and different nature beings, like rivers, mountains, and power places. Some people in Q’eros have a mesa just for themselves, as not everyone is a healer in Q’eros.

Creating a Mesa

In ancient times, the Inca ancestors came into people’s dreams and guided them towards which nature beings needed to be in their Mesa’s.

Traditionally, the medicine khuya’s are connected to each mountain. At the beginning of the Inca times, there was one temple at Macchu Picchu that held all the mesas. They were then used in order to connect to different places and their mesas were always connected to this temple. My mesa is like a partner. The cloth also stores the energy and the khuya transmit the lineage energy from many years ago.

Each Khuya is a wisdom keeper and has been on its own journey for many thousands of years before it has got to me. 

We believe that the stones and crystals of the earth are the wisdom keepers and they play an important part during any healing ritual. They will hold a client’s pain whilst the heavy energy in the luminous energy field is gently released and brought back into balance.

You need to ask permission and offer prayers before you take a khuya from a powerful place. If you take a stone, then you may receive visions to confirm that this is the right khuya for you. The Altomesayoqs say that there are special stones in nature that we are meant to have for our mesa’s and we are always shown by Pachamama which ones these are.

I go into how to create a Mesa medicine bundle in more depth in my Mystical Path Training

Don Augustine’s Healing Tools.

Pampamesayoq Don Augustine Machacca Apaz showed me his mesa and the main healing stones (Khuyas) he used recently.  The word Mesayoq means mesa carrier in Quechua, the language of the Q’ero people. It means that you are receiving karpay or energy transmissions and that you have power in your mesa that can help other people.

The stones in Don Augustine’s mesa that I was especially drawn to were a splendid black khuya from the river, which used to be his Father’s, and a white khuya from Huaman Lipa, his holy mountain (this was reflecting the concept of Yanantin, a perfect balance of complementary opposites). 

The black khuya has a direct connection to the lower world, helping Don Augustine to release heavy energy for his clients. He also had an eagle stone that connected him to the upper world when necessary.

There were a couple of chunpi stones in there too, huge chunpi stones that connected Don Augustine to the moon, stars, and other nature beings. Chunpi is a Quechua word meaning “belt.” These energetic belts are woven in ritual and ceremony around the body and form an integral part of the Andean energy system. 

Chunpi stones are used to weave these energy belts and there are different chunpi stones for different belts that connect to nature beings, such as Inti Tayta Father sun, Pachamama the earth, W’ilka energy or water, and the silver light of the Mama Killa the moon, Papa Wayra the wind and Hatun Ch’aska the star nation.

The other stones in his mesa held the energy for him to use for his healing sessions. So the other khuyas represented the mountains that he felt really connected to like Apu Ausengate and Salkantay.

What do the patterns on a Mesa cloth mean?

My mesa cloth is also really special, as it’s been woven specifically for this purpose of carrying my khuya’s. Each motif or pattern represents a specific nature being, like Inti Titi for the sun, the river, the mountain spirits (Apu’s). Each step of our spiritual paths is woven intricately into the cloth as the Q’ero are master weavers themselves. I love weaving myself but when I look at these mesa cloths, I have no idea how it’s been woven. I also made a felted inner cloth for my mesa in sacred space.

Instead of writing, the Q’ero ancestors wove silver and gold threads, wool from animals, and long hair to express their ideas. They also wove the sounds of the Andes: the wind, water, and every spoken word. 

They wove the brightness of their father the sun and the braids of mother earth. They wove the mystery of the creator wirracocha. They wove their love, they wove infinity, they wove everything. They believed that weavings are the world. They recorded what happened in their weavings and they asked the sacred coca leaf what lay ahead. They told stories, many stories, so that memory would never become unraveled.

Mesa cloths are woven on a small frame loom. They are normally hand-spun, hand-dyed, and woven in alpaca or baby alpaca.

The main motif can be very different according to each person. Don Augustine loves Inti the sun and also the native ancestors from the Amazon called Chuncho. There is a special pallay or pattern for the pre-Incan wild ones, who lived with the moon in ancient times. It is believed by the Q’ero people that the sun was too bright for them, they were so sensitive that they gradually became trees in the jungle.

( Left Photo) Don Augustine performing a Despacho Ceremony near Salkantay, Peru.

I have such gratitude for all my teachers, seen and unseen along the way. It has been a humbling experience to be in their presence, to see the beauty of their hearts as with a simple bell or a song they would open a way for spirit and for dreams to become reality.

The Q’eros know that the only way that the earth can survive these times is to bring their teachings to the west.

Some people feel that you need to be careful who you show your mesa to but I feel it’s good to trust your intuition and be discerning. Each Khuya can be carefully cleansed by blowing any stale or heavy energy (hucha) to a candle flame or holding it gently above the flame and moving it around until you feel it’s clean. If you would like to experience the power of my Mesa for healing – you can find out more in the healing section of my website

May you fly with beauty

For all our relations

For more info about the Mesa or Misha, I would recommend Joan Parisi Wilcox’s book: ‘Masters of The Living Energy’.

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