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Oscar Miro-Quesada is a Peruvian-born transpersonal psychologist and gifted teacher of cross-cultural shamanism. He has been leading ethnospiritual pilgrimages to the sacred sites of Peru and Bolivia since 1986 and facilitating experiential workshops on the integration of millennial and contemporary wisdom teachings and healing practices in the USA and abroad since l979. The following link will take you to a previous Conversation with Oscar Miro-Quesada in 1998: http://www.lightworks.com/MonthlyAspectarian/1998/July/0798-03b.htm

Guy Spiro: Oscar, we last talked in the summer of ’98. What’s been going on since then?

Oscar Miro-Quesada: Many moons have passed and many things have also been born. One such thing is The Heart of the Healer Foundation which is an international community of men, women, and children dedicated to growth honoring service on the planet. As a result of that, my teaching has focused much more on the creation of sacred community on a worldwide level. I still do my apprenticeships in classical shamanism, but with more focus on ceremonial and ritual refinement of earth service rather than on individual shamanic empowerment. I hope you get my drift.

GS: Sure.

OM-Q: The Heart of the Healer Foundation has served as a vehicle to bring this very ancient technology of the sacred into the world in a way that people from all walks of life can go out to sacred sites, to pilgrimage destinations, landscape shrines, and do ritual ceremonial feeding, if we may call it that, of the unseen world in those places. Recognizing with reverence the sacred partnership that exists between humankind and our earth community as a whole, the vision of the foundation is born of that passion.

GS: We talked last time about the importance of the ancient indigenous spiritual technologies to modern humanity. What kind of progress have you seen?

OM-Q: I’ve seen a great deal of progress both on the visionary, as well as the pragmatic levels. I’ve seen progress in South America especially in the preservation of rainforests and other natural preserves that engage the cooperation of local indigenous communities which share their traditional ceremonial ways in a manner that respects the diversity within the ecosystem that they are living, and also are training those ecologists as well as ethnographers who come from outside of their culture in the ways to relate to the natural environment that are a little different from the common approach to preservation. So I’m seeing a beautiful bridging of the technologies of the sacred that our ancient ones have as well as the diversity of our ecosystem that comes from the West. From the spiritual perspective, I see a continuous resurgence of an earth-honoring consciousness, a state of mind and heart that allows people to feel more connected to the earth as well as be called to do a path of service that leads to peaceful cooperation. You may not feel this while listening to the news, yet I’m talking about different groups of people than those who produce the current media that we have.

GS: Most of what you get in mainstream media is that we’re still burning the rainforest, which of course has to be stopped.

OM-Q: There are projects underway that are reversing that trend. You just have to look a little deeper, such as at the Field Museum, or at the University of Chicago. There are some of the projects that we are cooperating with at the Heart of the Healer Foundation at present.

GS: It’s so heartening to me to see the indigenous teachings opening to what we call the developed world because, as we said back in ’98, it’s so important that both worlds collaborate and become one.

OM-Q: Well, yes. That is the main goal of our foundation—a cooperative exchange of wisdom from both the modern, developed nations and those that are considered developing nations. It all depends on where you stand to make that evaluation, of course. I have come to realize that there is no time left to withhold the sacred teachings of our peoples. I respect the pain and suffering that our indigenous populations around the world have experienced over many centuries that have made them reticent to share their wisdom ways with Westerners. Yet, at the same time, it creates that holding back, more separation, retarding the process of change and transformation that is so needed on the planet. That’s why these conferences bring renowned scholars that are recognized in the Western world together with respected elders from indigenous communities, doing ceremony together and sharing their understanding. So we create a common language that can reach many more people.

GS: What an incredibly powerful combination this could evolve into.

OM-Q: That’s the idea, unity in diversity. First of all, respecting our diversity, acknowledging it as an inherent aspect of life, and then finding the power of unity within that diversity to be part of an earth community.

GS: You said a moment ago that there is no more time not to do that. But we don’t want to be operating in a panic mode. There are reasons to be optimistic, yes?

OM-Q: Certainly, at least from my experience and the circles that I choose to collaborate with. It’s very optimistic. I’ve also been very fortunate to be involved in indigenous issues at the United Nations and also at the spiritual caucus of the United Nations, the organization of American States program for mainstreaming indigenous folk healers into the public health system in developing nations, and other organizations that are world renowned that are under pressure by developed nations to promote economic development. Yet at the same time, to do that with sensitivity to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous traditions. That’s very heartening and very optimistic in my experience.

GS: I have to laugh when people say that we already have more people on the planet than the earth can support. The earth could support ten times the amount of people that we have if only we worked cooperatively with Her.

OM-Q: You got it exactly. If we manage our resources in a way that is respecting of the natural ebb and flow of the earth, that’s the trick. It just requires willingness, number one, and remembering that our thoughts, words, and actions will have an influence upon seven generations and beyond. If we can maintain our conscious awareness that what we do now will influence many generations after we’re gone, it will make a huge difference in the ways that we decide to approach our relationship to the earth.

GS: Living in a universe that appears to be made up of consciousness, consciousness would be the answer to almost any question, wouldn’t it?

OM-Q: Totally. Consciousness structures matter. You know, we are encapsulated in that, whether you want to call it “reality” or “illusion,” this is a material plain, so the more refined our consciousness is, the more refined our experience of the material world. That allows many more sacred dimensions than we believe possible at this point.

GS: Well, most people anyway. It tickles me that the acronym for your organization is THOTH, the ancient Egyptian god who was the namer of all things in the universe.

OM-Q: Well, it really was coincidental. Prior to the foundation receiving its not-for-profit status, my own workshop offering was called, “Heart of the Healer Seminars. I decided to just apply that to the organization, Heart of the Healer, because everybody felt very comfortable with that. Then when we added the “T” to the Heart of the Healer that I had it before, it became “THOTH” and so we found that quite serendipitous because there are some parallels.

GS: Synchronicity “is,” huh? Tell us a little about what you’re doing with THOTH and then let’s talk about the event you’re having in Michigan.

OM-Q: THOTH is a not-for-profit, 501 (c) (3) chartable and educational foundation. It was basically created to preserve and revitalize indigenous, earth-honoring wisdom and ceremonial healing practices, and also to protect ancestral sacred sites, pilgrimage destinations, natural landscape shrines and similar sites. And to import the prophetic vision and mythic reality of native peoples as expressed through their creation stories and other forms of cultural identity, such as art, music, dance, song, travel legends, ceremonial rites of passage, and shamanic healing practices. Then also to disseminate the practice of the Pachakuti Mesa which is a lineage that was brought by myself from Peru in the early ’80s on the bequeath of my beloved teacher or mentor prior to his passing and involves the ritual art of using an altar for healing. Yet, mostly the organization is dedicated to helping indigenous peoples preserve and revitalize their very ancient and reverent traditions for the modern world. You can find information on our website that has recently gone live and all of that can be seen there, in terms of the individual projects that we are funding, especially the ones that involve children. They are interested in carrying their traditional ways into the world for future generations.

     The gathering, Wiracocha’s Dreaming, is one of the important activities that we sponsor yearly that brings together Western scholars and renowned speakers and authors who have a dedication to earth-honoring ways, together with very respected tribal elders and indigenous ceremonialists from all parts of the world. We have a great shindig. It is a beautiful celebration of life as a sacred gift. The purpose is to create a sacred community that is sustainable. Hopefully, when you leave the gathering, you are able to carry this experience into your world and remain part of the circles that are growing so exponentially on the planet.

     Wiracocha’s Dreaming is the Andean indigenous languages’ term for “great spirit” much like the Mayans’ “maker and creator of all things, the mover.” The dreaming of this supreme being has formed everything that we experience and it really helps a person, much like those who understand the dreaming notion of the Australian aborigines, that when you encounter yourself as part of this great spirit’s dream, that your actions can mirror the most elevated expression of this great spirit’s purpose for us in the world. So, it’s a mirror between spirit and matter in a way. In our tradition we understand that spirit is a refined form of matter and matter is a denser form of spirit. It’s all about vibrational frequency. It’s like quantum physics is now a testing the multidimensionality proposed in super string theory. We understand that all of these states of being exist based on how one positions oneself to the vibrational quality of those strings or of the sacred dimensions of the world itself.

     So we hope that when we engage in ceremony that is very ancient and repeated over many, many moons upon sacred ground that that allows our dreaming to remember that we are both a divine embodiment of spirit and matter, and as such we can, as you said earlier, through that more enlarged state of consciousness, truly contribute to benevolent societal transformation just by maintaining that state of consciousness as a whole among many people. I don’t know if I’m getting a bit too cosmic here, but I’m trying to summarize the purpose of these gatherings in the best way I can in a language that is accessible to the Western audience.

GS: You’re not getting too cosmic for our readers. Is there anything that you want to say about events that will occur at this gathering?

OM-Q: We’re going to have various keynote speakers that are experts in their fields, such as Douglas Sharon, he’s the director of the University of California at Berkeley Hurst museum of Anthropology and is the author of Wizard of the Four Winds. He’s considered basically the world’s leading expert in shamanic healing in the world, together with his anthropological counterpart from the Utah State University, Bonnie Glass-Coffin, also the author of A Gift of Life which focuses on female spirituality and healing in Northern Peru. Both of them are considered the foremost experts in male and female contemporary shamanism in Peru and much of Central America as well.

     Then we are honored to have Hans Guggenheim from MIT as well as a visiting scholar at Harvard who is the founder of Project Guggenheim for Traditional Arts. It uses art in native cultures to maintain traditional identity of the peoples. He will be presenting on the various projects that he has around the world and engaging people in the use of these, especially the children attending the conference.

     We have also the great honor of having John Rice, Bear Clan, and Deina Bomberry from the Eagle Clan who is a First Degree Midewiwin from Canada. They are the invited elders representing the native traditions together with Salvador and Florence Yepa who are traditional Wala Towa Elders from the Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico. Also, Xavier Quijas Yxayotl who is an extraordinary ceremonial musician that was honored to do the opening ceremony at the 2004 Nobel Peace prize awarding in Italy. So we have these individuals and very powerful sacred partners because they are complementing the Western scholarship that these renowned authors will be bringing to the mix.

     Then you have yours truly basically doing the emcee job in terms of creating the visionary theme to the gathering and orchestrating most of the ceremonial work there with the invited guests. Then a paratheatrical ensemble, Matt Mitler and Dzieci Theatre Group, that is also superb in bridging the indigenous ritual awareness with modern theater. It engages the whole audience in that participation. Sacred Fire will be involved, the pilgrimage to Lake Michigan with ritual offerings will be involved, dance, song, earth-honoring offerings. Very much the dialogue, also.

     As you know, Guy, with these types of events, you get this level of beauty together and then you just have to respect what is born of it, so I don’t want to set anything in stone right now. Just to say that we’re very fortunate to have the caliber of experts as well as the level of reverence of the Elders that they bring to this gathering together in one place, unifying the visions of our original peoples and those of our Western earth-honoring stewards.

GS: It sounds like a great event.

OM-Q: It is. I want to encourage people to go to the website. There are three bullets on the flyer there that say “preserve the wisdom traditions of our past, honor life as a sacred gift within our present, and create an earth-honoring global culture for the future.” Those encapsulate what this work is about. We are working on transforming the world through sacred living. There are five components to that. One is to remember your influence upon seven generations and beyond. The second is to teach love by the way you live. The third is celebrating life as a sacred gift, which is one of my favorites. I always like to celebrate the sacred. The fourth is to foster the practice of compassionate altruism by example. Altruism is very, very powerful, and you combine that experience with compassion and you have true service. The fifth aspect is how we can transform the world through sacred living, which is to serve the emergence of peaceful, earth-honoring global community in whichever way you can. Those are the five tenants of this work.

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Oscar Miro-Quesada will present “Wiracocha’s Dreaming: The Mirror Within Spirit & Matter,” a ceremonial celebration honoring our indigenous wisdom traditions, on September 22–25 at Camp Miniwanca, Shelby, Michigan. For complete details, see the advertisement in this issue and visit www.heartofthehealer.org.

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