Sami and Hucha are critical and foundational concepts for those studying Andean Healing Traditions, and essential for anyone serious about living by the values of Andean Nature Mysticism with any degree of mastery. Sami and Hucha exist on a continuum as Yanatins, sacred twins or duality of complements. That is, the light, effervescent energy of Sami is the complementary, balancing energy to the heavy, dense energy of Hucha. Because of this inherent dynamism, it's better to try to understand Sami and Hucha in terms of how they are created, interact, and transform rather than to try to think of them in a separate or static sense, and ultimately to comprehend them (to "know" them) from the perspective of how they FUNCTION - how they are generated and consumed, and how they co-create and transform our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences.  Also critical to understanding this subject is the acceptance that the Mind/Body/Spirit is whole and contiguous with Nature (the microcosm recapitulates the macrocosm), and that anything that creates an effect (or change in quality) on one aspect will affect all aspects (in a fractal manner).

Sami

Described as a nectar-like energetic substance (nectar being the spontaneously generated reward for pollination offered by flowers to their pollinators - Ayni!), the conditions for the creation of Sami in humans are Ayni (Sacred Reciprocity - energetic and material exchange, creating harmonious exchange between beings), as well as fun, joy, love, service, dance, nature, healing, ceremony, connection, and relationship. Sami simultaneously is generated by and generates movement, transformation, and progression toward higher vibration/complexity. 

Sami can most easily be created by cultivating joyous interaction with others, particularly as "right" or harmonious relations. We sense Sami through our Mind/Body/Spirit as a feeling of lightness, ease, peace, and  most especially contentment, the manifestation of the coherence between our intention and the present moment: the full awareness that "all is right with the world". (Transformation of a talent into a gift requires that it be freely given and graciously received.)

Hucha

The primary condition for creating Hucha in humans is fear, an important, functional feeling that ideally triggers and facilitates actions toward the enhancement of survival. In the face of a life threatening situation, fear prompts the hard wired Fight/Flight Response that stimulates and directs the actions necessary for the immediate continuity of life. The Fight/Flight Response activates the Sympathetic Nervous System to seek conditions which will allay the feeling of stress. Without thinking, we know how to get ourselves out of danger, into safety, and onto stabilization. However, humans appear to have adapted to experience fear even in response to non-life threatening situations (e.g., the “stressors” of the perception of threat of damage to the Ego, unhappiness with the present moment or “discontent”, or physiological discomforts,  including acute and chronic illness), and to get "stuck" there. Since the Mind/Body/Spirit is unified, all aspects of Self will experience this heavy, imbalanced state in non-life threatening situations. Mental, emotional, spiritual, and physiological symptoms will manifest, develop, and continue to intensify until the body has escaped or fully released the stress, finally and ideally relaxing into a more harmonious state with the Parasympathetic Nervous System more dominant. Any unresolved sensations of unease or discontent will continue to propel us forward, seeking relief and creating Hucha, until eventually the Hucha crystallizes into disease of Mind/Body/Spirit.

For our purposes on the Paqo path, fear in the face of non-life threatening situations is a transgression of Ayni, which causes Hucha to build in our energy systems. It is most important to understand that Hucha is not the wound or injury itself, but rather, is created by the response to the wounding or perceived threat - the attachment to and/or desire for NOT being in the present moment, what I refer to as  "regret-ment" and "futuring", respectively. The wound or injury is a legitimate engagement of the Fight/Flight Response, but problems occur when the wound or injury has healed but the response to it persists.

In Traditional Asian Medicine we have the concept of “xie qi”, usually translated as “evil qi”, but which is better understood as simply “uncooperative qi” - that is, the right stuff in the wrong time/place. Drawing on this wisdom we can recognize that Energy is not the illness, but the nonfunctional/function-disrupting aspect is what is at issue. This is a great way to think of Hucha: it is the dam of fear and attachment we build that obstructs the river of flowing, healing life energy.

Much is made in Western contemporary culture of tools such as psychoanalysis, behavioral and medical interventions, and other therapeutics to identify and explore trauma, personal, familial, or ancestral histories, congenital issues, physical ailments, etc., and attempt to control their manifestations. However, the good news is there is another way.  Approaching density of energy as Hucha permits us to deal with it cleanly, simply, nonjudgmentally, and we can more easily relate to its redirecting/release/etc. In our training as Paqos we learn diverse, effective techniques and skills for recognizing and releasing Hucha while consuming and generating Sami, including but not limited to Mikhuy and Chakhuy. We learn to view both Hucha and Sami as energy that can be a gift of nourishment and connection to the Nature Beings, and eventually how to feed the flow of Sacred Reciprocity which is the foundation of a healthy, harmonious life. 

The Paqo must attend to her/himself as a whole and integrated being, taking time to listen with both cunning and compassion to the communications of the unified Mind/Body/Spirit.  Many customs and conditions considered “normal” in our contemporary society can be quite problematic (comparing ourselves to others, striving for excessive material gain, ignoring the needs of the body, dismissing the expression of the creative spirit within, worrying about the future or the behavior of others, etc.), especially when they take us away from ourselves and our true nature, which can generate discontentment, triggering the creation of Hucha. 

When we identify our Hucha as simply the uncooperative energy of discontent, energy that is not coherent with our intention, we can easily release it as compost for Pachamama, to be recycled into new and fresh possibility, returned to the energetic cycle of the Cosmos-Earth loop, thus allowing us to effortlessly achieve AYNI. This is the profound and simple beauty of the Paqo Way.

It was the living vital essence of these places upon the Earth that have their own personality and stories and memories, that kept showing themselves to me over and over again.

The Apus weren't initially frolicking and playing in my vision. They were actually coming out of a deep and long sleep or hibernation. They were waking up to the insistent voices and songs of the Ñust`as, who were calling to them: "Awaken, Awaken, Awaken. It is time, Beloved Brothers. Awaken Now."

And I realized that the Spirits of the Mountains had been asleep for good reason. Many of them had experienced significant destruction to their bodies - mountaintop removal, mining, cut through roads and tunnels - things that you could only imagine would cause one to want to check out and disconnect for a bit.

I saw, as I was shown their massive mountain bodies, the corollary in human terms; battle wounds of once strong and able-bodied soldiers lying in hospital beds, missing limbs...and the frail depleted frames of cancer patients, at the end of their life, overcome by torturous growths. And I could feel their pain, their aching, groaning pain as they awoke to feel the scars and the open wounds still festering in places.

It is a pathway of healing. 

For I was witnessing not just to the destruction and the pain. I saw the healing, the reversal of past transgressions, and the awakening of these Mountain Beings to a deep remembrance of their majestic nature. I saw them being honored, adored, and walked upon with reverence by the same humans whom had once been so unconscious in their actions. I saw them dancing in their own slow and almost imperceptible way, with their sisters, the Ñust`as who were spinning circles around them as they bubbled, frolicked and laughed their way down the mountainside.

And I saw how this sacred dance of the feminine and masculine - harmonious, loving, honoring - was sending out a signal, a frequency, that others could feel, that humans could feel, that was helping us to harmonize the warring aspects of the masculine and feminine within our own selves and within our close relationships.

And I knew, deep inside my being, that the Mother was showing me all this because she was asking me to be a voice for this emerging possibility. She was tasking me with carrying this Vision forward as part of my Walking Prayer of right action.

Looking back now, three years later, I can see that she has indeed been instructing and guiding me this whole time, giving me the tools and the skills and (most essentially) helping me to clear away all my deep doubts and fears, so that I can stand at this time in clarity and deep knowing that there is a pathway forward for this Earth, and that it simply involves remembering how to respect, honor and care for all our Brothers and Sisters - in the natural world, and in the human world. And that as we do that, there will be a reciprocal action of healing that we receive in our lives, until, over time, we find ourselves living on a balanced and harmonious planet once again.

We might also learn of the essential gifts that they offer to us for our very survival, which are many.

And in this initial connection, just as if we were meeting our new neighbors for the first time, we would be kind and generous and gracious and respectful, in the hopes of nourishing a supportive long-term friendship. We would bring flowers perhaps, and wine and delicious food, as a token of our gratitude for the connection. For we all need neighbors in times of emergency, and yet if we haven't taken the time to get to know them, if we haven't offered something from ourselves first, will we feel comfortable calling them up when we most need their assistance?

Over these last three years, as I have opened myself to listen more deeply to the natural world around me, becoming more familiar with the distinctive voices of the different Apus, Ñust`as, and other voices of Mother Earth, I have come to understand now how it is that this Vision can come to fruition.

If we can feel our Earth Mother's pain as our own pain, and if we can see her healing as our healing, we can begin to walk with a new level of connection to her, each moment of each and every day, not just on the one day a year where we choose to consciously honor and acknowledge her.

If we can see that the Superfund Sites, mining pits and waste dumps that litter this planet are the cancers in our bodies, and that her clogged waterways and polluted streams are the diseases of our circulatory system, we can begin to understand where to take right action in our own communities, in our own local areas. 

Can you imagine what would change if even just a few people in every town in America began to treat their local mountains and local streams as their own Brothers and Sisters?

I have been shown that humans are an essential part of the return to wholeness that is upon us, because we have the tools and skills to reverse all of the destruction. But we must move forward from a place of reverence.

Have these words I've shared today begun to stir a place within you that desires to remember this connection? 

Is there a space opening up within that asks you to take the risk, right now, to step outside your door and head to a mountain, a river, the ocean, or to your chapel, church or synagogue, or to your community dance floor...where you will engage with Spirit in your own way, and call out with an open and pure heart:

How can I help?

How can I be of service?

What is it that is mine to walk with in this Great Turning of the Ages?

What is mine to do to help birth this New Earth into being?

I am holding the Vision of the harmonious dance between all beings, and knowing that this time is coming...is just around the corner now...

And I am grateful that I am being called all over the earth to teach about these ways. It is a beautiful dream coming true.

He stood in front of her, his gentle open countenance inspiring trust and peace in her being. And he asked, silently (she could "hear" everything he was thinking) if she was ready. 

With a catch in her throat, she admitted: "I'm a little scared, actually". 

He smiled gently and replied "Okay. I'll go first, then." 

Stepping forward just one small step, he lay his body down on the soft earth...

...and she watched as his body turned into the body of the land...all of his human contours expressed perfectly in the contours of the land. While it may have seemed strange to her in another time or place, in this space it was the most natural thing to see him do this. Familiar, somehow. Just right.

And then his human self, his human form, lifted up from the earth, and he was standing there next to her again, but with his body also lying in front of them...his body that she she now realized had become a garden waiting to be tended to.

And so, together, side by side, silently and reverently, they knelt and began to move their hands through the soil of his body, coming upon the rocks, clods of dirt, twigs and other obstructions buried beneath the surface. 

Somehow, as she worked carefully and methodically next to him, taking every clod of dirt in her hands and gently breaking it apart until each piece was thoroughly integrated back into the increasingly smooth soil, retrieving each rock and carrying it over to the pile they were constructing on the edge of the garden, she knew that they had been waiting for this meeting for a long time, and that this was not a scary proposition for him - to open his body in this way. 

In fact, it was more like one big long sigh of relief...one big exhale.

The Kogi were able to take scientists with them as they made this film explaining their world view and perspective, to show them the changes that they were noticing. 

In a beautiful unfolding, the scientists were able to confirm the Kogi's explanations by using their more Western scientific methods and terminology.

I found it an amazing opportunity to see how two peoples, from very different backgrounds, world views, and with different words to describe what they were noticing, were able to come to an understanding that they were saying and seeing the same thing. 

Within 24 hours of watching this film, my mom called me to let me know that a blood clot had been discovered in my Dad's leg, and they were trying to figure out how to most safely deal with it, to avoid the possibility of it moving to his heart or his brain. 

As I processed my fear of losing my Dad to a stroke (which had been the fate of my grandfather - his father), I couldn't help but think of the damming of mountain streams, and the ways in which human interference had changed the ecosystem of the mountains where the indigenous communities lived, causing them to come down to attempt to educate and share about the changes they were experiencing that were impacting their very survival.

Life suddenly felt very tenuous.

I have a running theory, which, like any theory, needs to be held until proven or disproven, that humans are way more linked to the land than we might realize, and that the cancers in our bodies are in many ways the same as the cancers (superfund sites, mining pits, etc) that we find all over our urban and rural landscapes these days.

But I also have this idea that if the landscape that we witness outside of us feels just a little too overwhelming for us to tend to, rather than shutting down and giving up, we might instead start with the landscape that lies within. 

In truth, we can work in both realms. And perhaps the tending to the garden of the body/soul as well as the garden of this world needs to happen in tandem. I do not know. It is likely a different pathway that each of us will be called to in these times.

But since I hope to inspire and encourage with these monthly missives, I would like to suggest that the pathway of inner healing is always a wise choice, regardless of whether you live across from a verdant meadow or a municipal dump.

"In a human body, if there is one more healthy cell than all the diseased cells, then it's called a healthy body. Isn't it our obligation to be a healthy cell in the global body?" - Mark Nepo (paraphrased)

I wonder what would happen if we could just be courageous enough to recognize and tend to the stuck and constricted emotions that live in the very cells, organs, bones and nervous systems of our bodies, these emotions that pretty much all come down to the three biggies - fear, anger and grief - though I might add that deeper even than these three might be shame....

In my limited experience within the landscape of my own body and the work I do with my clients, I have been able to learn that with appropriate witnessing and healthy release, we can find a pathway of inner balance and harmonization that affects our outer reality in the most positive of ways. 

In fact, might it be that the suppression of these unexpressed feelings and emotions is what is contributing to some of the disharmony that we are witnessing in our outer landscapes? Some wise teachers I turn to for guidance seem to suggest that. 

Ever yours in questioning, opening, and searching out the most fruitful pathways for healing in these times.

- Ellen