What exactly is a mesa and what is it used for? I am going to attempt to concoct the most comprehensive of definitions (with a little explanation of course).

Courtesy of Ej Johnson

Put very simply: a mesa is an altar that is used shamanically for healing and connection with the natural world. One way to see the mesa is as "a living control panel, co-created by Spirit and the curandero [shaman], to become a vehicle for experiencing the ineffable." (1)

The word  mesa is a Spanish term meaning "table." It denotes the typically flat surface area in which a mesa is generally used.  The mesa geographically comes from the Latin Americas, most specifically Peru. There are many styles and variations depending on both the region and the individual user. This makes pinpointing a distinct and categorical definition of the mesa sometimes challenging. In essence, there is no one way or tradition of the mesa that is the way.

An altar is a created space where religious rites are performed to gain access and connection to whatever source of spiritual awareness one may have (God, Goddess, Nature, etc.). Anyone can use a mesa, there is no special priest or priestess hierarchy to go through in order to work with it. It is a very personal, individualized tool one uses in their spiritual work, though there are certain traditions and lineages that are worthwhile to recognize and honor as well. Here are some listed below.

CURANDERISMO

The curanderos (curers) of Peru are shamanic folk-healers with roots dating clear back to the ancient Chavín culture, approximately 900 BCE. The layout of a curandero's mesa usually consists of a type of cloth laid on the ground (or sometimes a table) with an assemblage of sacred artifacts (called artes) arranged on top of it. These artes act as tools for the curandero's use to conduct healing on others, assist in divination, and commune with the unseen world of spirit.

The assemblage of these objects is very personal in accordance with a curandero's own spiritual guidance. however there does seem to be an overall theme most curanderos in the north-coastal region of Peru follow. A curandero's mesa is generally divided into three vertical fields, or sections, called campos. Each one of these campos designate the type or style of healing that is performed on the client. For instance:

• Left side: called the campo ganadero, this field of mesa deals with releasing dark, dense energies.
• Right side: called the campo justicerio, this field works with raising lighter energies in the client.
• Middle: called the campo medio, this is the field generally associated with balance. 

" . . . the mesa can be regarded as a representation of divine (rather than human) scales of justice where the goal is equilibrium and order, not a weighted outcome in favour of 'light' or 'dark' . . ." (2)

From El Comercio.pe

PAQOKUNA

The paqokuna are a class of shamanic priests within the Quechua ( also known as the Q'ero) peoples of the Andes Mountains. The Quechua are the direct descendants of the Incas (1400 CE) and have maintained as much of their heritage as possible through centuries of colonialism. Unlike the open mesa of the curandero, the Quechua paqokuna (or paqos) operate their rites with the mesas closed in a bundle. Most paqos very rarely open their mesas, if at all. The bundle is full of sacred artifacts similar to the curandero's mesa, though they generally refer to these artifacts as khuyas.

The bundled nature of the paqo's mesa is very fitting to cultural framework of the Quechua. The Quechua are farmers and lama herders, they spend a lot of their time walking the landscape of the Andean highlands, toiling in the dirt. So, their mesa are conducive to this environment.

"Much like North American medicine men who carry the objects of their trade in a bundle that they keep by them at all times, Q'ero paqos carry objects they find in the mountains, that come to them directly from other dimensions, or that are given to them by another shaman." (3)

Courtesy Teri Gilfilen

THE PACHAKUTI MESA

The version of the mesa that I use can be considered a mix between the curandero and paqokuna lineages. The Pachakuti Mesa was developed by don Oscar Miro-Quesada, a kamasqa curandero from Peru who established a more cross-cultural component to the use of the mesa.

don Oscar

The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition facilitates a particular placement of various artes on the mesa cloth (also called a manta or banco) that honors the directions of the compass, as well as the elements of Nature. When invoked, these directions/elements create a generative field of energy that assists one in their medicine work. Using terminology from the Quechua, the directions/elements honored are:

• Pachamama: South/Earth
• Mama Killa: West/Water
• Wiracocha: North/Air
• Inti: East/Fire
• K'uychi: Center/Aether (Soul)

Although the Pachakuti Mesa follows this distinct regimen of unity, every single altar space is completely unique to the individual carrier of the mesa. Note these glorious examples from Pachakuti Mesa carriers across the globe:

Courtesy Michael Schuver

Courtesy Nancy Salmons

Courtesy Pamela Hess

Courtesy Shea Armstrong

Courtesy Rosanna Murphrey

Courtesy Aeyrie Silver Eagle

Life is never stagnant. It changes, goes through phases, and like a person who is often growing from one day to the next, so does the mesa. Mesas change and transform over time, and that is exactly the way it should be. For the mesa is not only a "control panel" to interact with the unseen forces of Spirit, but also a reflection of the inner realms that exist in every one of us. My own mesa is dynamic and has evolved over the years:

My Mesa from 2012

 "The Mesa itself is a mirror, a microcosm of the all-encompassing Self, which is paradoxically both internally experienced and externally expressed throughout the universe." (4)

Hope you enjoyed this brief introduction to the mesa. Stay tuned for more information on the philosophy and application of the mesa here on the Daedalus Thread.


FOOTNOTES

1. Magee, Matthew. Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakuti Mesa. p. xvi
2. Heaven, Ross. The Hummingbird's Journey to God: Perspectives on San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision. p. 57
3. Wiiliams, J.E. The Andean Codex: Adventures and Initiations Among the Peruvian Shamans. p.47
4. Magee, Matthew. Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakuti Mesa. p. xvi

The Flammarion Engraving (1888)

The other day I was in counsel with one of my fellow apprentices in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition Apprenticeship Program. She had sent me a raving email earlier in the day venting about the bombardment of negative feelings in her life. We had met for coffee later that evening to discuss it; by that time she was calm and the day had transpired from negativity to a heightened illumination then into something more manageable.

Nodding, I mumbled something like: "Hmm, moving through those realms."

"What?" she asked with a look of mildly contorted confusion.

"The realms, the shamanic realms. Remember that definition I gave in the first weekend of apprenticeship, the more generic definition of what shamanism is?"

While she slumped in her seat muttering a collection of "Ums" and "Ers," I recalled the source I always use to provide what I believe to be the most comprehensive definition on the practice of the shamanic arts, by Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.:

"Shamanism can be defined as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) interacting with other entities, often by traveling to other realms, in order to serve their community." (1)

"What are you talking about?" she retorted. "I didn't travel to any realms."

"Sure you did, the three realms."

In the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition (PMT), there is a three-realm cosmology we use to describe the framework of the universe. This framework is not just PMT, nor mesa, centric. It is a universal paradigm ascribed to many spiritual-religious traditions across the planet, particularly shamanic.

"The shaman's world of spirit is often seen as divided into three distinct regions: the Middleworld, the Upperworld, and the Lowerworld." (2)

The three worlds, or realms, are where the work is done in the shamanic arts. A concise description of each can be:

• Lowerworld: the world below; the inner realm; the place where is stored our most repressed aspects of psyche. This is the place of shadow, where we go to face those parts of ourselves we rarely wish to see.
• Middleworld: this world; the here and now; the physical plane of existence. From the other realms, this is the place where the shaman returns to do their work.
• Upperworld: the world above; the transcendent; the realm of the highest state of consciousness. Often thought of as celestial or angelic, this place can be thought of as aspiration toward one's better self.

The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, stemming from the Peruvian worldviews of North-coastal curanderismo and Andean paqokuna, has its own terms to apply to these three realms. These terms are in the language of Quechua, from the Quechua peoples of the Andes, the descendants on the Incas. These terms are:


Take a look at the graphic below and see how these realms interact with the human body. The Ukhu Pacha in the lower section, connecting the feet to the Earth below. The Kay Pacha section existing where the hands exist, those instruments we use to bring our work into the world. The Hanaq Pacha at the crown, where we ascend to higher planes for inspiration.  


Relating to the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, shamanic practitioner (and fellow PMT mesa carrier) Matthew Magee has correlated the experience of these three realms with the hero's journey. The hero's journey is the universal story Campbell found in all myths and spiritual traditions around the world. Magee suggests:

"In the hero's journey, a person must leave the familiar in order to fulfill a destiny (usually divinely inspired), overcome difficult obstacles, and finally, return to his or her community to share the message learned and to restore or enhance the lives of the people he or she represents. Campbell depicts this universal myth as having three stages: 'separation - initiation - return.' Similarly, in the shamanic journey the curandero leaves the realm of the familiar and either ascends to the Hanaq Pacha or descends to the Ukhu Pacha, gains otherwise inaccessible knowledge or power, then returns to the Kay Pacha." (3)

What initially confounded my fellow apprentice was the literal perspective of traveling to these other realms, and viewing them as external dimensions or realities. Although that could be taken into consideration, I asked her to view these realms in the perspective of psychology: as psychotherapeutic states of being.

Notice in the graph above the realms are separated. Andean mysticism suggests that at one time these realms were highly integrated, in fact are meant to be integrated, and it was humankind's fall from grace that separated these realms. In fact, it is because these realms are separated that our society remains in its collective malaise of self and global destruction. Anthropologist Catherine J. Allen, Ph.D., through her own inter-personal work with the Quechua, reveals a way in which we can begin to integrate these realms:

"The power of the inner world [Ukhu Pacha] is the inverse, a kind of crystallization, of the power emanating from the upper world [Hanaq Pacha]. We human beings live at the interface, in this world [Kay Pacha], where exchange and transformation take place." (4)

Now take a look at the graphic below. Imagine life before the hero's journey, before apprenticeship/initiation into any shamanic or mystery tradition. The three worlds exist separately, without interconnection.


Imagine the timeline of a person's life, your life, running left to right on this graphic. If we exist in a state of being without integration with these realms, we walk throughout our lives unaware of the shadow, the repressed notions of psyche hidden deep within the Lowerworld, the Ukhu Pacha. If these shadows are not tended to, left unchecked they explode unexpectedly into our lives, often leaving a fallout that bleeds over into the Middle World, the Kay Pacha: hurting ones we love, undesired consequences, depression, etc. See graphic below:

This state of being leaves one out of balance and affects the rest of the realms negatively. Unattended, these shadows can become worse, more out of control, and harder to manage as time goes on.

Now, when beginning an apprenticeship in the shamanic arts, and specifically in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, the first realm one learns to interact with is the Lowerworld, the Ukhu Pacha. This is because the work of the curandero, of the medicine woman or man, is to learn to manage the energies of the Lowerworld. Part of this is to harness what is necessary from these shadows and return the rest back to the below, to be composted in the regenerative soils of Mother Earth. So, when one works with this realm correctly, life begins to look a little more like this:

So, even though we have mitigated the out-of-control qualities of shadow arising from the Lowerworld and into the Middleworld, we can see that they still interact. Shadow doesn't go away. However, it can be managed and integrated more harmoniously into the interface of the Middleworld. But, the integration of the three realms is still out of balance . . . we need interaction from the Upperworld, the Hanaq Pacha, in order achieve this balance.

While we are spending our time working with the Lowerworld and its many teachings, it often helps to receive guidance from on high. The Upperworld acts as a sort of beacon here in the Middleworld, a guiding post helping us aspire to be the best we can absolutely be. We sit in the Kay Pacha, looking to the Hanaq Pacha while working with the Ukhu Pacha. This is just one way, out of many, to envision working with the shamanic cosmology of the three realms both in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition and in other psycho-spiritual modalities and traditions as well.

So, in a nutshell this is what I explained to my fellow apprentice. That within one day she brought up a stream of negativity (of shadow from the Lowerworld) and due to some illuminations (the Upperworld) she found a balanced, manageable state of being (in the Middleworld). It was her excitement over this new way of looking at the three realms that inspired me to write this column. I hope others can gain a little extra insight as well.



FOOTNOTES

1. Walsh, Roger. The World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition, p. 15-16.
2. Rysdyk, Evelyn C. Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, p.37.
3. Magee, Matthew. Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakuti Mesa, p. 13.
4. Allen, Catherine J. The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community, p. 48.

This interview was published on Reality Sandwich at: http://www.realitysandwich.com/beat_shaman_interview_byron_metcalf

In their book The Universe Story, mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme and historian Thomas Berry discuss how our primal ancestors used the drumbeat to establish an integral connection with the psychic or spiritual dimensions of the universe: "Their aim was a life in resonant participation with the rhythms of reality."

Byron Metcalf is a musician in touch with this resonance and rhythm of mysteries in the unseen realms of the shamanic experience. As a drummer, percussionist, record producer, counselor, and educator, Byron Metcalf wears many hats. However, his vision remains unchanged: to use music as vehicle for transpersonal healing.

With an award-winning portfolio of albums under his wing, and performing in such venues as Carnegie Hall and The Tonight Show, Byron Metcalf has evolved from a pop/country music session drummer to shamanic practitioner. Using his years of experience recording and producing, along with his education in transpersonal psychology, Byron's mission is to "provide support to people in developing their capacity for soul-based and heart-centered living as they contribute to the spiritual healing and maturity of humanity."

With a couple of new releases in the works -- the latest collaboration with ambient musician Steve Roach called Tales from the Ultra Tribe, as well as a follow-up to one of his most successful works, The Shaman's Heart II -- I sat down to talk with Byron about his work and his processes, as well as his interest and influence by shamanic states of consciousness.


So let's talk a little bit about your background, get a sense of where you came from.

Well, my father wasn't a musician, but he was a record collector, so I grew up listening to all kinds of music. There was always music playing in the house. And it was a wide variety, so I was exposed to music from a very early age. I loved rhythm and so as an early teenager the drums just caught me. The Big Band stuff drew me, like The Gene Krupa Story, Benny Goodman and all that.

So I started playing in Phoenix, in bars . . . wherever, I didn't care what kind of music it was. I just wanted to play. A lot of it was country music because, you know, I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. But, it didn't matter to me; just to get paid for playing music, when all my buddies were sacking groceries or pumping gas . . . it was great. I did a little studying, but not much training. I'm pretty much self-taught. I left right out high school, went to L.A., played in bands, played in Vegas, worked on recording sessions. Even when I ended up going to Vietnam, I had a band there.

When I came back from ‘Nam, I went to Nashville. I was there for many years, playing on records. My experience there was great. I learned a lot about record production and engineering. I had a recording studio and started playing everywhere: European tours, played on some platinum records, played The Tonite Show, Carnegie Hall, all that.

After going through some alcohol and drug abuse -- you know occupational hazard kind of stuff in the ‘70s -- eventually, I just got bored. I wanted something more meaningful. I went back to school and started doing some volunteer counseling for alcohol and drug abusers, got my Masters in Counseling, and later my Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology. 

During this time, I got involved in the Holotropic Breathwork of Stanislav Grof. Stan introduced me to shamanism and I began to see the true value of medicine work, including psychedelic substances. It flew in the face of everything I was taught in substance abuse training. As soon as I started reading Stan's research I thought, ‘I've been getting lied to here.' So, I had to find out about this stuff myself. And once you do that with a clear intention, everything opens up after that. Being influenced by Robert Moore's work with the shamanic approach and Jungian archetypes, I really began to integrate drumming with shamanic healing work.


Can you elaborate further on how your music interacts with your interest in the shamanic arts?

I'm interested in studying the continuous tempos and frequencies prevalent in these shamanic states of consciousness, using modern technology with ancient primordial rhythms to shift consciousness in specific ways. I've been doing research at these ancient primordial caves and temples, investigating the frequency responses that are present there. These are frequencies you can actually tune in to. Of course, it's something that shows up as Theta brainwave states, which is the primary journey state.
I say that in terms of honoring the ritual, the ceremonial component of this work. I think without that, even to minimize it, minimizes what the spiritual journey is all about. The ceremonial setting is the most important. To me, the medicine, or psychedelic substance, is secondary. Not to minimize that either, but if I was to shift one or the other, if I was going to have to minimize something, I would minimize the actual plant medicine itself. I wouldn't minimize the ceremony or facilitation. That's where the magic in this stuff is.


I agree. We can take medicine and we can go really deep, but to what extent? You know, what do we bring back? How are we actually changing parts of ourselves so we can bring that back into the real world? How can I change myself for the better, and for the benefit of those around me? And that may mean I don't do medicine again for a very long time, or ever even.


Right, exactly. It's been a decade for me. I had an eight year period of very intense work, and there's a lot of material to deal with there. It's all about doing integrative work now. That doesn't mean I would never do it again, and if the opportunity presented itself and it felt right, then okay. If so, fine; if not, that's fine too. But, you have to follow and trust your guidance on that. 

I recall something Terence McKenna said in one of his talks, he said, ‘What are you going to do with the information?' That's the key. There are many methods to being able to open ourselves to all there is or all that will be; that is available. But, I think a lot of people's lives just get messier because they are not integrating it, or bringing it into the world in a sacred way. As Ralph Metzner says: "A change of consciousness does not necessarily translate into a change of life".


My favorite album you did with Mark Selig, Wachuma's Wave, happens to be an album that is associated with the shamanic sacrament San Pedro, also called Wachuma. What was the process for creating that work? Did it involve partakng of the medicine?

Mark is a psychologist, but also very involved in medicine work and shamanic rituals.  He had been going to India for 20 years or so, a follower of Osho, and would go to his ashram in India to meditate for months at a time. He has a very rigorous meditation practice. Mark and I knew each other from the Grof network and he had referenced some of my research in one of his papers. We had a common interest in medicine work as well. Mark was just getting into playing the Bansuri flute and we thought about making a CD together.  It was initially going to be some of his flute playing along with some drum grooves I had created.


One evening, Mark sent me this CD of some stuff that had some overtone singing and some wild drones -- just amazing stuff -- I couldn't believe it. What he told me was that he was in his ashram and had taken some San Pedro, just enough to put him in the zone. He had never done overtone singing before, the overtones just started coming to him as a result of the waves of the San Pedro moving through him.  It changed everything in terms of the direction we were going with the CD project, it became deeper and more shamanic.

I said, ‘Mark, Is there more of this? We need to make some more of this kind of stuff!' It was about six months before he could get to my studio in Arizona and we could start recording. I had already been working on some percussion grooves based on the demo tracks he had already sent me. But, we wanted to recreate it for recording in the studio. We decided, let's try to see if we can get back into that zone, so we did some San Pedro. We found out it wasn't enough so we did some more, until eventually we found the place where we could tap into that wave again. So, we began recording and that is what is on the album.

The essence of Wachuma itself is definitely there in that album, so that's why we called it Wachuma's Wave. I get a lot positive feedback on that album from those that work in those San Pedro realms, because the essence of the medicine is infused in the music.  

 
Have you had other experiences with San Pedro? What was your most significant one?

Yes, I have. The experience that stands out the most has to be when I was assisting and hosting a shamanic retreat in Arizona. The shamanic practitioner who was facilitating worked mostly with San Pedro. I was assisting the practitioner and I took what was called a ‘working dose.' It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had. I finally got to see how the shamans really work. I was able to see into the participants, see what was going on inside them, and the process of healing.

I've had lighter experiences of being able to see energy, see the vibrations around and within people, but not at this level. It was really stunning and opened the doors to my own vision so that I could do that more often, even in individual counseling sessions . . . seeing into the person from the shamanic perspective. It opens the doors more fully to the vibrations and the energy fields that are there in a visual and felt sense. It really bridged the gap between a theoretical and a personal experience.


You do a lot of collaborations with Steve Roach, who is on of the preeminent names in the ambient/trance music scene. How did you meet him and start working with him?

Yes, Steve is one of the three or four pioneers of the ambient music genre. His body of work is second to none; he's so prolific. Around the time when I was working with Grof, I got turned on to Steve from his album Structures From Silence. It was used in meditation and guided imagery a lot and that's how I first got turned on to his work. Then he came out with his first shamanic work, which is Dreamtime Return and it was phenomenal and ground breaking.

I began using his music in a lot of the breathwork I was involved in. When I completed my first shamanic CD, Helpers, Guides, and Allies, I just sent Steve an email on his website, introducing myself and my CD and asking him if he would be willing to review it. So, he did. We eventually met and talked . . . he was really into what I wanted to do with music and shamanic healing. Later he made a verbal agreement to co-produce my second CD, the follow up to Helpers, Guides, and Allies.
In the interim I was doing a component of my doctoral research which involved people doing breathwork in a shamanic circle. I asked Steve if he wanted to come and join me in providing the music together. It went so well, he said, ‘You know, we just need to do a full collaboration, rather just having me help produce your follow-up.' That eventually turned into the The Serpent's Lair. And it just went from there. We've been doing work together ever since. 


Can you explain a little about your latest project, Tales from the Ultra Tribe?

Well, it evolved. The original idea behind it was to do a follow-up to The Serpent's Lair at the 10-year anniversary of Steve and myself collaborating together. We've always been sharing grooves and sounds back and forth via the internet and the mail which allows us to work in our own studios at our own pace. Steve and I have been working together for so long that our collaborative energies have matured and evolved to a different kind of thing.

So, it's really different than The Serpent's Lair. We felt like our collaborations weren't going in that direction necessarily, although it was deeply shamanic and tribal. Working with all of Steve's sequencer percussion grooves has inspired me to be very precise with my own percussion playing. The way he creates his grooves is very organic and it doesn't sound very sequenced at all, but it is: it's very quantized and locked in, with tempo and rhythmic precision. 

When I first started working with him, trying to play like that in a live setting was very challenging. So, originally he would just do stuff around my percussion grooves, but over time I've really learned to take his stuff and play with it in a very precise, yet totally live, organic way. So, that's the direction we wanted to go with it.


The title ‘Ultra Tribe' is really about who we are, where we've come as far as tribal/ambient music and the way we do it: the blend of Steve's electronica and my drums and percussion. So, what we've done for this album is unlike anything we have done before. For most of the tracks, Steve first put down his basic rhythm grooves and then I put my parts on top of them; which is just totally opposite of the way we have worked before.

The way these rhythms and grooves move in and out, when you hear it, sometimes you won't know what's electronic and what's live percussion. It's really exciting; a very new sound. I would almost call it 4th dimensional. We initially made enough material to create a box set, but throughout the process we thought we would just try the release in a single CD format and see where it goes from there.


 
After all these years of making shamanic music, what project do you consider your greatest achievement at this point?

The one that comes to mind the most is The Shaman's Heart. That was a conceptual thing I wanted to do regarding the heartbeat and incorporating the shamanic beats per minute when one is in the Theta Zone, or in a shamanic trance state. I used 220 beats per minute for this shamanic journey, so a subdivision would be 110 and then 55. It incorporates drums and rattles and other tones that initiate this state particular state of consciousness shamans typically utilize in their healing work.

The Shaman's Heart has been my most successful work and has only grown since its inception. I began to do workshops based on The Shaman's Heart theme, and created a self-learning audio series with core exercises for people to use at home. It eventually grew into The Shaman's Heart Program, which incorporates a 4-CD package for groups and workshops to use these sounds for healing purposes.

It really stands out as the synthesis, the theoretical path that encompasses almost all my work: my music and teachings and theoretical understanding of transpersonal and shamanic healing. This is what I teach and how I live my life. That original CD definitely stands out as my most significant work. Steve collaborated on the follow-up to that as well, The Shaman's Heart II, which really takes the original material to a whole new level for journeying to these shamanic states.

*      *      *      *

Tales from the Ultra Tribe, The Shaman's Heart II, and the rest of Byron Metcalf's work can be found on his website at: http://www.byronmetcalf.com


For more information about Byron's HoloShamanic Strategies program:  http://holoshamanicstrategies.org