cover image Lessons in Courage: Peruvian Shamanic Wisdom for Everyday Life

Lessons in Courage: Peruvian Shamanic Wisdom for Everyday Life

Bonnie Glass-Coffin and don Oscar Miro-Quesada. Rainbow Ridge, $16.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-937907-18-1

With Glass-Coffin, an anthropologist as well as his apprentice, Miro-Qesada introduces his Pachakuti Mesa tradition, which he describes as "an open-ended field of creative possibility that brings grace and beauty and healing into the world" through an integration of many practices and sources. This "tradition" arose from personal visions, shamanic training in his native Peru, recovery from trauma and substance abuse, and psychological studies in the United States, where he now lives, and he uses his tumultuous life story to illustrate the book's step-by-step instruction in this spiritual practice. Miro-Qesada focuses on meditative techniques centered around the creation of an elaborate altar (the "mesa") honoring and invoking spirits of the four directions. His influences are wide-ranging, including Western mystery schools, '60s guru Maharaj-ji, and a Peruvian extraterrestrial-contact group. As presented here, the unique qualities of the Pachakuti Mesa tradition may be hard to discern. But its rituals and methods are described with ample clarity and detail for readers to try them out and, if interested, pursue them further. (Nov.)