Billie Dean - Australian Centre for Munay Ki

Don Francisco, Spiritual Leader of the Inkan Q'ero, and Billie in September 2008

The Munay-Ki Rites are energetic transmissions from the Inka Q'ero nation. They have been released in an attempt to help people fast track their spiritual growth and personal healing, in an attempt to create Earthkeepers -- people who Walk in Beauty and understand how to steward the Earth. It is said they help anchor people into the new time to come. But by helping people heal themselves, we also help create the time to come. When people are released from their old stories, fears and limitations, they will Walk in Beauty with love in their hearts and service in their souls.

Energetic transmissions are common in all shamanic traditions, and in the past, the person who wanted to walk the shaman path would receive these initiations as part of their healing and training.

The Munay-ki were released so that people could bypass the 25 or so years of training and take a short cut. However the initiations themselves do not make a shaman or a healer, and without the benefit of training and guidance, the seeds ignited may not flourish.

In my training with the Q'ero and the Four Winds Society, I was taught by Doña Bernadina that it is important to cleanse and clear the body before giving rites of initiation. We do this with the shamanic healing practises taught in the tradition. Students are taught shamanic practises and processes to help with clearing negativity, and to ground and grow the seeds. The object of the training is to clear the chakras of sludge so they eventually shine their true rainbow colours -- creating the "rainbow warriors" of indigenous prophecy. This is not automatic. It takes working with the shaman to strip everything that is not your essential, authentic self.

Personally I found the Munay-ki, which translated, means "love power" or "be as thou art", stirs the pot of your essential self. Cleaning the sludge from the Luminious Energy Field can be easy and blissful, or difficult and challenging depending on the individual. Using the Munay-ki with the Healing the Light Body school training has shifted me 180 degrees on my axis. I feel lighter, empowered and am fulfilling my visions for creating a new world - a kinder, more compassionate world where people and animals live in sacred harmony.

My vision for sharing these initiations was always to create a community or tribe of people who would be human angels for animals. Healed people who cast no shadow on the animals they loved and would be ready and willing to be of service to the animal kingdom.

Path of the Wild Pure Heart is the training of the animal shaman - a transformational shamanic course which helps people understand the language of all of nature, the interconnection between animals, nature and humans, and the needs of animals as psychic and sentient beings.

Earthkeepers is the course for people who are perhaps more focused on their personal journey. Like Path of the Wild Pure Heart, it includes the rites of initiation, but also includes shamanic healing and guidance. People are helped to reconnect with nature and animals , as this is an essential part of our personal healing. This disconnect I believe, is what is the root cause of the problems of our planet today.

Both courses are transformational and shamanic in nature. This means you learn by experience and the learning goes beyond the class room. Training includes personal healing and ceremony, as ritual and ceremony helps bypass the limbic brain to create personal change. People will also be taught how to call in the lineage for help , healing and growth.

The courses are held in a group situation, but the work will be tailored to each individual as some people may have a more challenging time accepting energy than others.

My vision with my school is to create a strong community of healed people who can then work for change. Gatherings of apprentice shaman who are free of the web of stories which hold them, are a rich experience on many levels for all concerned and can contribute hugely to the health of the planet. These gatherings can be physical or connected by the world wide web.

Over the last two years I have had the great honour of being able to complete my training in shamanic healing, finishing all seven required courses, working with the Q'ero elders, and doing extra Master's courses and sitting at Shamanic Gatherings with other medicine men and women who were full mesa carriers in this tradition - to work on further personal and global change.

It is this depth and understanding that I bring to my teaching of the Munay ki, and of course a lifetime of communicating with animals and nature, which, according to Michael Harner, is the definition of a shaman.

In some traditions you are not a shaman until you can converse with all your relations.

The Munay-ki in its essential form is an Andean teaching and I would ask that all students come to class as an empty cup, ready to learn and experience something new, exciting and life-changing.