When a woman becomes pregnant, transformational energy from the Source of Life creates a path for a spirit to enter her body and grow into a human being. This spirit is alive, conscious, and incarnates with purpose and intention. From the moment of conception and even before, it is able and willing to communicate. Many of us know a growing fetus can hear sounds and words, but only a few realize it might have something to say. Communication is possible both ways, from mother to child and child...

I traveled in Peru for 10 weeks this summer with my dear friend, Salita. We were based in the Sacred Valley and spent time in many places including Machu Picchu, Cusco, Puno, Lake Titicaca, and the Q’ero village of Charkapata. If you read my last blog, Big Love and Health, you already know a little bit about the trip. For the most part, I stayed very healthy. I never had a problem with altitude (we have the best homeopathic remedies for this!) and high-potency garlic supplements took care of...

I'm off to Peru for ten weeks on July 1. How lucky can I get? This trip was conceived in January by myself and my friend, Salita. Over the course of the months between then and now, I've had various thoughts about going and have actually re-chosen it a few times. I've even been to Peru and back once. Last June when I was there with a group, I was asked to be the Madrina for the wedding of a Q'ero couple. Jorge and Aleja are getting married in mid-July in their village, Charkapata, which is in...

We open a ceremony in front of the Pachamama stone, and I give them blessings for their journeys. They're ready to leave. I stand at the gateway of the caves and Huaynu Picchu (the tallest mountain at Machu Picchu) and watch them hike away on the old, Inka path. The rain is gently coming down, and I walk over to sit in one of the little huts. I have a plan............. A young guard is there. I ask him if he knows Efraen, a guard I met here about two years ago, a deeply spiritual man who...

I’ve been in Gold Beach, Oregon for the past ten days. My friends have a condo and offered it to me for a writing retreat. I love it here. The kitchen table sits opposite a long, rectangular expanse of window. At the center is a sliding glass door that opens on to a deck. And beyond the deck, alive in all her glory, is Mama Cocha, Mother Ocean. I’ve been sitting at this table writing on my computer every day, sometimes for more hours at a time than I can believe. Talking out loud and staring...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain Dear Friends, I wish you a wondrous New Year, full of Love, Happiness and Good Health. Let's each explore and dream as if for the very first time. Here we are, in another present moment. Let's LIVE our lives. Awake and full-hearted. And offer our...

This came through me a number of years ago. I was teaching a Spiritual Healing Class at the time and opened up to the highest guidance of the Light to receive a teaching for the class. This is that teaching. It was so profound at the time that after it was complete, we listened to it again on the recording. I feel it's appropriate for everyone, always, and feel called to share it with you now. Take a few minutes. Breathe. Open your heart. Receive. HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON TO ALL From Annie and...

I’m discovering my creative flow. As a result of all that led up to and culminated in the powerful shamanic rebirth experience I had at Healing Quest this past summer, I’m out of my way and into writing. My book, that is. One of several trying to come through me for too many years. So many starts and stops. With the past now behind me, I can finally be a vehicle for the flow of words. This is what my life has been looking like since mid-August: I go into a “cave of writing” as I’ve begun...

“Not until a person dissolves can he or she know what union is. There is a descent into emptiness. A lie will not change to Truth with just talking about it.” Rumi   Shamanic Rebirth is a template for healing and awakening. It offers an opportunity to participate in conscious death and rebirth within this lifetime. We name an unhealthy theme or pattern we’ve been struggling with, and with the help of an ancient Q’ero ceremony, sometimes known as the "ceremony of the black pant," (see...

The Sacred Khuya Ceremony   The Khuya Ceremony takes place within the soul, or energy bubble as the Q’ero call it. This is the field of living energy surrounding our physical bodies that expands, contracts, and defines our personal space (or lack of.) Khuya stones are used to open, cleanse, empower, and connect the seven major energy centers of the body via a series of chunpis - belts of power. During this interactive experience, heavy energy of all kinds is released, and by the end, a...