A Weekend Workshop by
Dr. Carlos Warter, M.D., PhD
Author, Lecturer, Therapist, Spiritual Mentor:
“I hereby want to invite you to take a retreat in Honolulu, Hawaii December 30, 2008 to January 3, 2009.”
Seattle Washington or Honolulu Hawaii to be decided.
Thank you very much!
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with Dr. Carlos Warter:
“I hereby want to invite you to travel with our group to Macchu Picchu of August 2008.”
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Our group journey to Macchu Picchu with Dr. Warter's, July 29 - Aug 6 2000.
We toured the magical Land of the Incas for 10 days and looked at the culture from many perspectives. We were on a pilgrimage to the Lost City of the Incas, but we went to many Incan ruins, some much higher than Macchu Picchu and some much older. Some were as high as 14,000 feet where we looked down into a vast valley and saw ruins of a pre-Incan civilization and wondered about these pre-Incan people who build their city in the shape of a partridge, and whose knowledge had been assimilated by the Incans. We could very clearly see the shape of the bird, which made sense in the context of the previously visited Incan ruins where we had seen many sculptured rocks and reliefs on the faces of mountain cliffs representing spiritual icons.
We wanted to see Peru from the perspective of the ancient Incans and these previous civilizations and from the view of the Kechuan Indians, the direct descendants of the Incans, who are keepers of ancient wisdom, handed down over generations by word of mouth since Incan times. So Dr. Warter asked us to release the preconditioning that we had learned from our history books and from archaelogists and to try to witness the perspective of a culture that knew things that we did not. He wanted us to receive and honor all that we could by connecting ourselves to the land the way indigenous cultures had, through the sacredness of the earth. He urged us to take a fresh view that was devoid of preconceptions and a linear, historical perspective. He coached us on how to witness and absorb this beautiful place, much as had described he had done in his book, “Recovery of the Sacred:Lessons in Soul Awareness.”
Our guide, Mariecella, was Kechuan Indian and walked us through areas of the Andes highlands where only the indigenous people lived. She taught us all about their history from their view of the sacredness of Pacchamamma, their spiritual connection to the mother earth deity and this very acceptable present day connection to Catholicism which was introduced by the Spanish centuries ago. She showed us how this process happened and showed us the historical view of the indigenous people. Dr. Warter contrasted this to the view of the Spanish conquistadors long ago. We were learning about two different historical views with two very different cultures which co-exist today harmoniously as one in present day Peru. Yet, we also learned about the hidden indigenous values through the filter of present day religious traditions that were integrated with Catholicism.
Sacred Site :The Andes Mountains were majestic. We learned how the high mountain villages are sacred habitats for the people and all about their way of life. They are a gentle, open hearted people that live very simple lives and organize themselves very functionally and spiritually as a community, relying on each other for support in cultivating and harvesting their mountain crops. They have over 200 different kind of potatoes and rare grains that grow at high altitudes. Their farms can often can be seen from afar as terraces on the sides, close to the top of the highest Andean mountains. They are comfortable living at high altitudes, and wandering amidst the Old Incan trails, and are amazingly strong and healthy people as well as deeply connected to nature.
Enjoying rafting:We had a lot of fun too. Among other recreational events, we took a rafting trip down the Urunamba River also know as the Sacred River. In ancient times, the Incans revered this river. We not only navigated the rapids the way the Incans had done, but we saw the land from the water and looked onto banks that were filled with cattle, llamas, and other livestock, houses, and ancient Incan bridges and trails, all intermixed.
Market at Pisac:After the rafting trip, we visited a colorful market at Pisac where we saw the everyday life of the people and sampled the beautiful crafts such as pottery and weaving. Having previously been to Chinchero, a very high altitude village that was known for its gifted female weavers (unusual in that weavers are often men), where we had had a demonstration, we could appreciate the quality of work that went into the items in the market that were being sold so cheaply. The market was also the central connecting place for many different populations and it seemed that much had not changed over the centuries.
Ancient Ruins:We witnessed a curandero healing ceremony from the ancient ruins, Palace of the Princess & Temple of the Sun, above a sacred Incan spring with ritual baths, where the waters were believed to have healing properties. This medicine man for a village community, named Pedro, walked one whole day form his village and then took a bus 150 miles to show us this traditional healing ritual. In his community, he is supported as the community healer where he is paid with gifts such as food and beverage. But half of the year, Pedro is a farmer. Here the curandero layed out a mat on which he placed sacred objects, many of which he had recovered during his training as a medicine man which involved a rigorous initiation, and which was passed down to him verbally from his father and his father before that, as in ancient times. Pedro is famous in the area of Cusco as a healer.
Temple of the Sun:Of the many amazing ruins of architectural feats, that we visited, Macchu Picchu was spectacular and most beautiful. As with the Sacsayhuaman Fortress/Tambo Machay (Incan sites outside of Cuzco) we had visited a few days earlier, it was surrounded by towering peaks and seemed like a navel in the middle of the earth. (The city of Cusco means navel which was an important theme to the Incans as they had a connection to mother earth.) Macchu Picchu had been a sacred city for the ancient Incan civilization, around which culture flourished. The glory they must have felt was easily apparent in this magnificent city that was a temple in itself. There we visited the actual Temple of the Sun and experienced intuitively the energy of the sun and how the Incans might have viewed it and other properties that were created from the position of the rocks and mountains. There were several temples and shrines in Macchu Picchu that were the remnants of a fantastically civilized and spiritually based culture and which Dr. Warter urged us to experience in the same innocent way.
Mummies and Artifacts:In the Lima and Cusco museums, we saw the mummies and artifacts of this Incan civilization, as well as the ones that were before them. We saw amazing things that challenged the imagination, like the manipulation of skulls into different shapes, the brain surgery that this civilization knew about, the mummification rituals, the beautiful gold and gemstone jewelry, the statues that represented earlier culture, and amazing sculptures of faces that suggested connections to other world cultures of the time. Dr. Warter challenged us to see this in a different way and to conceive of a world that operated in a way that was very different than our current civilization or even how we view the old ones.
Amazing Incan Culture Site:The museums helped us get a feeling of how to experience the ruins from sensing the values of these amazing Incan culture so that when, for example, we saw burial caves we could imagine the civilization that buried their dead outside their cities in these communal graves. The importance of laying to rest 4-5 people in a mummified sitting position together in a cave, with caves so numerous that it mystified the imagination, was deeply sensed. The mummies had been looted over the centuries because of their unique skull formations and for the clothes and sacred burial objects, much of which we viewed in the museums.
Beautiful Geography:It is said that there are many other undiscovered cities and burial sites. In fact, on the other side of the river, on a cliff side directly across from the Temple of the Sun at Macchu Picchu, another whole city ruins has been recently discovered.
Given the geography of this beautiful place, which is the gateway to the Amazon, it can be easily understood how there is so much more to be discovered. But given the experience with Dr. Warter of the teaching of fresh eyes and approach of a blank perspective, there is even more to be discovered in the context of our own inner connection to these places and to these ancient sacred lands.