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.