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I teach the way of Qhapaq Ñan, the path of power, of feeling, the path of opening our awareness all the time. This is the Andean path. This is my ñan, my road, one I have traveled my whole life, and I feel I shall persevere on it up to my last drop of blood. I have handed my whole life over to this dream...
In spite of injustices toward our ancestors, I, don Alberto Taxo, am offering wisdom to people of the Eagle. This is the value of spirituality. The normal thing for indigenous people would be to not want to give more of anything because many injustices still exist and will exist for my people. Injustice, however, isn’t ended by injustice. Hate doesn’t end hate. Darkness is ended by light and hate by love.
It is easy to love people who love us, but it is possible and necessary to give love to people who have wounded us because this is where the spiritual opportunity lies. Give love to conquer hate. This is why spirituality is worthwhile.
Offerings of Great Love
The history of native people after the arrival of the Spaniards is very hard and ugly. When I was very young this reality filled me with sadness. I didn’t really understand when my elders gave offerings of great love to those who had caused them sorrow. At times I confused this with cowardice because they never reacted to injustice. Many times I was watching from the tops of trees and saw that we outnumbered those who had caused us such distress, and I thought how easy it would be for us to unite and destroy them.
One day I understood from my grandmother that life is not just this body, and that a great opportunity for advancing spiritually exists when you don’t return hate with hate. When we give something beneficial, we receive greater benefit. I have proved this in my life. When I lived on the street I received what I had previously given to someone. At that time I received food and what I needed. When I give more, I receive more benefits and support from others. This goes on, increasing more and more, indefinitely.
In my tradition, old people are the light on the path. Our elders, male and female, maintain this form of living. In the typical Andean family the grandmother looks after the grandchildren. They all live in the same house. When a daughter or son marries, their spouse forms part of the family. The whole large family lives in one house; this is very important for us. Everyone contributes to the wisdom; grandparents, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, teach us a lot. This is a school; the first great school is the family.
Thankfully this tradition has been able to survive. We don’t learn much because someone teaches us or we read, but because we watch in daily life what each one in the family does. We watch as well what nature and the elements teach us, how they change from day-to-day.
I don’t remember my grandfather saying to me, “Sit down, I am going to teach you something,” but he always invited me to go along with him to do the things he was doing. I was very happy being close to him and helping him. I never thought that one day I would have the responsibility I now have. It never dawned on me that one day I would become a yachak. I really wasn’t getting ready for this.
Harmony with All That Exists
Our traditions are directed toward harmony with all that exists. Everything that exists, everything that we see is a manifestation of love—love that flows from the Great Spirit of Life. We are part of that spirit of love; we come out of that principle of love. This is our form of living: to love we first have to feel.
Love is not a word; love is something spontaneous that comes from the heart without distinction. It is not possible to say, “I love this but not that, I love this animal but not the other one, I love my neighbor to the right but not the one to the left.” It is very important in my tradition to maintain harmony with all that exists.
Our elders have told us that in the same way that we give, so we will receive. And we are interested in receiving beautiful gifts. We want life to be good, lovely, happy, and for this reason we feel respect and love for all that exists.
Everything has life—minerals, vegetables, water, wind—everything is alive. It just has a different way of presenting itself, but the essence is the same. We all form part of the same existence. We are the crystallization of Mother Nature; we all belong to her.
Feeling Love for Everything That Exists
It is the opposite of what we think these days. We think we dominate nature, that it belongs to us—that plants, animals, minerals, and the earth lie at our feet. No. We are a very tiny part of the whole immensity of life; we come out of her. For this reason we must feel love for everything that exists.
For example, feel love for what we eat, eat with gratitude and feeling, not fill our stomachs mechanically. Feeling love also means not creating trash to be thrown away. If you love something you don’t waste it or dispense with it.
When you have love and gratitude for a gift of life, you don’t set it aside and chuck it. In every grain of rice and each lettuce leaf, the power of Creation exists. This is love and the wisdom of the Great Creator.
The power of the Great Creator exists in everyone. This is a belief that is highly valued in our tradition; it has allowed our culture to survive.
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BOOK: The Way of Abundance and Joy
The Way of Abundance and Joy: The Shamanic Teachings of don Alberto Taxo
by Shirley Blancke
Written with don Alberto’s permission and as further fulfillment of the Eagle-Condor prophecy, this book shares don Alberto’s teachings and his simple approaches for building a reciprocal relationship with nature, centered on Sumak Kausay, the way of joy and abundance. As a yachak, a shaman of the elements, don Alberto showed how to relate to and receive help from nature. When we are connected with nature on an emotional and spiritual level it creates joy that is deeply healing and can be accessed during life’s difficulties.
The book discusses traditional Ecuadorian shamanic beliefs and practices, including Andean Inca cosmology; how to connect with plants, animals, air, fire, and water in sacred springs, the ocean, or your shower; and Inca concepts like Pacha, the space-time era in which we live that is now transitioning to a new one of connection and love after 500 years.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as an Audiobook and a Kindle edition.
About the Authors
Shirley Blancke is an archaeologist and anthropologist, who has worked with Native Americans in Massachusetts, learned traditional sacred dance from Hawaiian kahunas, and hosted ceremonies for an Oglala Lakota medicine man.
She studied shamanic traditions with Hank Wesselman for 10 years and has worked with Ecuadorian yachak don Alberto Taxo for seven years.
don Alberto Taxo was a revered indigenous teacher and healer in Ecuador who devoted his life to the ancient Andean prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor flying together in the same sky. In service to this vision he came to the United States for over twenty years to teach his Condor wisdom to the land of the mind-oriented Eagle: how to connect on a deep feeling level with all of nature to experience nature as a nurturing mother.
For more information about don Alberto Taxo and his teachings visit DonAlbertoTaxo.com/
