I read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield when it was first published. James’ vision describing vibration through energy levels, and the mystical setting and sense of adventure of the novel galvanized me. I knew intuitively that, one day, I would visit Peru and bring students with me. Exactly six years after reading the book, six students and I arrived in Cusco, living the dream. We arrived on the 19th of July on the Feast of the Mother of Mt. Carmel, a festival widely celebrated in South America.

Our first ceremony was honoring the wind element and the spirits of wind at Sash-a-Say-human and Ollantambo, where we burned despacho—a collection of objects offered to the elements in the Incan tradition—with Shamans under the hot Incan sun. Peru—a space that quivers inside you when life is accelerating—is about surrendering to the quickening, as the Inca Nustas High Priestess heals you. The grandeur and harshness of the country bring strength as the mountain spirits of the sun temple of Condor joined with us. Machu Picchu’s Pacha-Mama (Mother) received our blessings and greetings from Australia’s Mt. Warning, NSW Australia, where I had conducted a ceremony a month earlier.

Pacha-Mama gave me her personal symbol as I gave the Goddess of All Light attunement to a Quero Shaman. Often, we have to return to a country to release an aspect of a past life and I felt my Incan soul trapped on the mountain. Rapidly accelerating ascension is the Peruvian experience. The invisible world is real and everyday becomes more real as your consciousness becomes one with all life.

Our journey took us across the country, merged with the snow-capped Andean peaks, and arrived at Lake Ticaca’s Island of Love. Sylvia greeted us with a traditional Aymuriam welcome. A Shamaness born on the mountain, she introduced us to her mother, a devotee of Pacha-Mama, and our offerings to her are ritualistically given to the mountain. Lake Ticaca is the largest inland lake in the world and became our temporary home as we sailed past floating reed islands where families live permanently (some with five children).

The Goddess anchored herself in me at Aramo’s Doorway (known by the Spaniards as the Devils Doorway), where each student experienced a vision. The doorway is an initiation. In experiencing the energy of the Andean and Aymurian civilizations, both powerful cultures, we journey to Sullisumi Funnery Towers located on the hills were the dead were taken long before being buried, ceremonies are conducted still to this day to let go of all aspects of our old self, release fear and clear all aspects of karma. A contrast to fertility temples located nearby were women and men (women wishing to become pregnant and men with impotency problem) come to give offerings of flowers and oil,  rubbing the 8-10 ft tall monstrous circumcised phallic symbols bringing powerful new life and abundance. I reflected that the rituals of these civilizations created order and peace.