El Brujo- The Mesa of Sorcery

Dear readers, this is when the story of my ethnogenic adventures in Peru becomes stranger. There is much that I am going to attempting to describe in this blog, as honestly and lucidly as possible, and much of this stretches the typical westerner perspective. So, please know that none of what I say is fabricated or exaggerated. We live in an infinitely magical world, the door to which opens, when we learn ask it. Strangeness abounds and I am finding that once embraced can be a source of much solace in a world that is abundant in dualism. There is an infinity of nows all interwoven in this magnificent tapestry of life, all paradoxically true. (To the right Howard, our fearless Huachuma leader, a beautiful soul!)

We left the Tucume hotel and headed south for our next Mesa. An hour and half out side of Huanchaco (a cool little beach town full of Peruvian and foreign surfers, Cebiche, and the hot equatorial sun.) Here there is a huaca called El Brujo, the Witch. This is a large site spanning at least a dozen acres. We started the day by setting up the Mesa along the beach, from which all but one of the pyramids there were out of site. After a ceremonial drinking of two cups of the Huachuma and instructions from Howard to keep our energy flowing each of us spent an hour meditating on the beach. The waves crashed hard here and the force of the ocean was sensorially all encompassing. I walked in the water, allowing the waves to just reach me, and spent this time sinking into the strange Huachuma induced clarity that I had begun to feel more comfortable with. At a certain point I felt an internal call to return to the mesa. As a group we walked up from the beach to reach the Huaca.
At El Brujo there are two huacas one symbolizing the feminine and the other the masculine, one the light and the other dark, one healing and the other life taking. I had been told that this was a Moche site where ritual human sacrifice was performed. It was done here because the full brute force of El Nino hits this area of the Coast. El Nino is a weather pattern that still exists, I´have known it in my life as the bringer of much needed moisture to the dry highlands of northern Arizona. The effect here is much different, storms lash the coast flooding cities, wiping out crops, and killing many. But some how amidst this threat, that often occurs every decade, people have successfully inhabited this area for over 3,000 years.
The question of how leads one into a world of ritualized magic, harnessing and channeling the power of human life force to protect the coastal area. The human sacrifices were chosen through a ritualized combat using blunt objects and hand to hand frightening. Those felled were brought to the Cao Viejo Pyramid where, in ceremonies involving hundreds of priests and lay people, the sacrament of Huachuma was ingested, and then the sacrifices made. There is extensive evidence, through it´s depiction in recovered artifacts from these cultures, that Huachuma was used throughout Peru for the past 3,000-4,000 years . The very best of the young warriors would participate in this battle, the defeated were bound, and from a small incision on the neck, drained of their blood. This blood was collected into communion bowls, from which all present drank, while focusing this energy to protect the culture from the forces of El Niño. Skepticism aside, the Moche live and thrived in this area for over 800 years, there are no adequate scientific explanations for how they succeeded in doing so in the face of overwhelming natural forces.
As we walked up to the site to stand in the huacas interior, I was bowled over by nausea. All of the others but my group member Scott were able to walkup and into the hollow, three walled center, but it took me a few moments of breathing before I was confident that I could handle the sensations running through my body. I felt electric, whips of energy were flashing up my body. From the moment we got there I did´t like the place. This was the feminine huaca, the huaca of healing, but even knowing that it did not calm my instinct to flee. We walked up the steep path to the top of the adobe structure. It was about 20 meters high, and from the top I could see across the beach to the endless ocean, and across acres of pitted land to the larger huaca. Each pit I knew to be a grave, long ago dug. The energy that was causing me waves of nausea so intense that I doubled over, was from what Howard said, the life energy captured by the thousands sacrificed here. (He was very clear that their souls were not trapped here, but the life force of their body, this place was vibrating with the energy of a thousand silent gongs, but was not haunted.) I had to focus all my concentration on breath. I wanted to leave. My ovaries had begun to ache as soon as i stepped on to the structure. And I felt like it wanted too much. I couldn't relax, and was boggled by how calm everyone else was acting. This place was pure energy, but i didn´t want any of it. This was the place where one could charge up on life force, but all I could think was what does it want for that energy exchange, and so I let it flow through me, but never tried to capture any of it for myself. It was here that I felt the latent life force in my ovaries and womb, begin awakening. I was freaked out sure, that my moon had begun, and although I couldn't feel blood, I couldn't imagine them vibrating so with out my womb shedding. One of my main reasons for coming to Peru to research Shamanic healing and Plant-spirit medicine was because my body was quite ill for quite a while. From the age of 14-22 I menstruated more often than not. For months at a time my womb would gush blood, leaving me so depleted that getting off of the couch was at times more than I could bear. I went to see over a 20 western doctors, naturopaths, and healers. No one could give me any lasting help. The western hormone medication made me sicker than I imagined possible, and one naturopath I worked with for a few years said that I was the most difficult case she had ever had. The levels of self-deprecation, fear, and anger that accompanied this process pushed me to my breaking point time after time. I not only physically hurt, but felt like I was some how spiritually flawed because I couldn't be helped. Doctors got fed up working with me because they couldn't help. I got frustrated to the point of finally giving up on the idea that anyone else was ever going to help me heal. I know this seems extreme and it was. I had given my body over time and again to the "experts" who while often helping me understand how the body works, nutrition, and how to take care of myself, could not do more. It took me finally taking the situation completely into my own hands, researching extensively everything I could around health and healing, and gently implementing changes to my whole life style. From the day I took complete responsibility for my own health, I have continued to get healthier and healthier. I now use western medicine for it´s tools of diagnosis. To see how the herbs, diet, exercise, meditation, and prayers are progressing in creating a state of perfect health. I have certainly pissed off my fare share of western doctors. I will go further into my insights on the medical industry when I begin discussing my experiences with Ayahuasca. All I will say for now is it´s a disgusting consciousness that gains it´s life on death. It´s an abomination, one that each of us will sooner or later face. (One of the things I am dedicating my life to is helping people learn about the alternatives that do not fit into the western medicine paradigm. If you know someone who is severely ill whether it be cancer, HIV, or any of the other big bad guys, there are many ways to bring the body back into a state of complete health. I have information to share about the paths to freedom in health.)
Back to the Pyramid. I stood looking out over the gray sea, wind rushing up, wet with salty humidity, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer infinity of reality that embraced this small body. Each in the group had their own experience here. Darcy and Erica were sitting in the Huaca´s depressed center with looks of ecstasy on their faces, which I learned later was from having Kundalini awakenings. Orgasms for five hours straight. Darcy describes this well in his blog. Check out it out: www.sacredplants.blogspot.com

(This is the Huaca. Innocent looking, the quite strength of Peruvian magic lies in it´s vapid exterior.)

The group made it´s way down to the Mesa, it was still an hour or so before sunset. I felt wreaked my womb cramping in sharp violence. I spent the latter half of our time on the first Huaca dancing the energy through, but I felt physically pumled, and by the time I sat down to face the alter, felt like I had hit some sort fo breaking point with my physical discomrt. Howardx gr4abbed one of the wooden staffs that had been stabbed into the sand at the head of the mesa. On the top of it were the carved figures of a man and women embracing, and inbetween their heads was a small hole, I had previously thought was used to hold a candel. Howard called Neil to him, and poured some dark green liduid in to the whole. Neil plugged one nostral and deeply inhaled, and then precided with the other side. "Howard," I asked, "What is it?" Not quite ready to snort a weird dark liquid into my head without any consultaion. "Pure Magic." He said with a manical gleam in his eye. (I know to some the description of a manical gleam might bring to comic book conintations, but you must remember that we were hanging out at one of the largest human sacrifice sites on the planet, my womb was contracting and with out a bathroom I was sure I was bleeding through my clothing, and I felt a level of ignorance so all incompassing that I was fightening back tears offrustration by digging my nails into my palms.) After Neil, Dan, and Jack nasaly ingested the liquid, I said fuck it! Stood up facing the indiffernt dark water, brought the staff to first my right and then left nostral, handed it back to Howard, walked to the left 10 paces and crumbled to the ground. Knees splayed out, hands grasping sand, mucus freely flowing down my face, I gave it all up. In that moment I stopped resisting and walked into my own pain and fear, so fed up that I did not care if I ever got up again. I placed my head on the ground, and watched as the grains of sand, and pebbles before me turned into mountian ranges, and where the slightest movment of my body took profound effort. A disassoiated and distant voice asked God to tell my parents I loved them, because I was sure that I had come to this place to die. It was a relief actually, all I had to do was wait. In this space-time expericne, maybe a few moments passed of normal time, but what Huachuma has shown me is how very little we understand about the trrue natuer of time, for I was their an eternity, happily flickering in and out of non-existance.
What brought me back? No great moment of proufound insight but the figure of Darcy walking past me, kneeling and dry hurling. This made me wonder if I needed to purdge as well. With just the thought I started dry hurling. At this point Jack and Erica came to help me. Jack said to try to get it out, it was exactly the same for him the first time he tried Singara (that would be the phenotic spelling.) I couldnt throw-up, I felt grossly inbreiated I had ever been, so frustrated with myself for my resistance,the lurking shadows of fear, that I needed help. And because I couldent vomit, I started to sob. I was covered in sand, snot, tears, and spittle. Never had I been such a mess. Erica rubbed my back and whispered to me that this was the release I needed, that I was healing, and with each tender word and touch I was able to, in tears, let go. While I was in this world of my own, the rest of the group wrapped up the mesa, and with help walking we were directed to the van. We drove to the base of the next Huaca. It was over 1,000 meteres away and on every side of the road were the graves of countless warriors who had given their lives freely or not for hte good of all. As we approached the archeological site, we saw a cluster of rundown buildings, and a handful of super freaky looking dudes. At this point I wondered at the saintiy of our Shaman and knew that I was in a place few people, local or western had seen. I exited the van only to be greeted by a strange four legged created that was the most pity inspiring and scary site I have ever encountered. It was the Peruvian hairless dog. The photo posted here is indicitive of the odd grossness of these creatures, who I have been prized compainons here since antiquity, their remains uncovered at almost every achreological excavtion in Peru. Their famed to be loyal, smart, and cleaner than hair coated dogs, all that aside, my encounter with them reinforced my deep love of cats. (The photo posted here is an expectionally ugly demonic looking one.)
The group was milling around, waiting for instructions from Howard, when I saw that Nika was curled in on the seat, crying. The energy of this place was incredibly challenging for many of us. I curled her in my arms, and she cryed and cryed. Holding and comforting her, brought me back. The moments that she was in my arms called me the present. Slowly I felt whole again, and in this wholeness defiant. Defiant of my own fear, which had long been hiding behind insecurities, doubts, and overwhelm. I told it very clearly, that it no longer had a place to live within me, and it was time to go. It would take a few more weeks of traveling and the sharp scaple of Ayahuasca truly uproot it, but this path is one where disciplne and vigilance are required.
Howard led us up the pyrimid of Cao Viejo. This is where the sacrfices were performed, and eventually where the love of power corrupted the priesthood. Like all heirarchies it reached a point where corrpution and the love of power by the elite brought down the entire culture, and the area that for centuries housed rich cultures, became to unstable from storms, and civilaization crumbled and only the adabtable survived. The walls that have been excavated here have pictorial represntations in relief of what occured here. After the ceremonial battle " The conquered ones were led nude with a rope at the neck toward the temple... The sacrifice practices that appear in the iconograpghy of the Mochicha are presented in differnt ways: beheading, extraction of the heart and strong blows to the head... These ritual battles were developed durning the dry season, possibly from the begining of the summer solstice. " from El Brujo: Tradition and Religious Power by Regulo Franco Jordan
Looking into the power that is possible through intense, focused, ritual brought me to the raw sobriety that the darkest forces that have ever been on the planet are the ones birthed by men. I looked into the blinking eyes of a millenua old relief, it´s spirit promised me power and strength that no one could vanquish, I saw it wanting to flow into me, and sick with the place andthe cruliety possible by my own kind, walked away. To move through the intensity I focused on my breath, while generating feelings of love and kindness within me. I saw the life taker and life giver within me. At El Brujo I saw the cruelity of humanity, and the divine love of humanity. And I saw my weakness and my strength, and although the power of this place felt a hundred thousand times stronger than me, It could not seduce me. I chose Life.
We watched the sunset from the top of this Huaca. The test of El Brujo showed me that energy is not good or bad, it just is. Energy is indiffernt to morality, and on the Shamanic path one must constantly temper and purify themselves so as not to get drunk on the ir own capacity for power. Each left that day seeing how every moment is a choice, not between good and evil, but between service and selfishness.