Living Communion By Christina Donnell

Drop quote: The art of communion does not belong only to clergy, those literally engaged in what is considered sacred.

We are on the holy mountain, Apu Ausangate. We are making our descent from an altitude of 19,800 feet. It is the vernal equinox - spring in South America. Being early spring the temperatures are temperate; the snowcaps are melting and the rivers are flowing with run off from the peaks. The descent to the headwaters of the Amazon is a good three days with nature providing the wind to help us along. El vento, the wind, helps to relieve my fatigue and altitude headache. Every step at this elevation is a full pregnant moment of life.

Three days later we arrive at the headwaters, our destination for the evening. Dona Bernadina, a Q'ero medicine woman, Karina, her apprentice, and I soak our feet in the running water. Dona Bernadina pulls a teacup from the mastana she carries tied to her back. She dips it into the river, prays to the sun and the earth, offering her breath to the cup. She smiles and in Quecha intones, "Salute. These are the tears of the Apu that cried itself into existence. Please drink with me. We are the Amazon."

In a state of pure exhaustion, I bless the Amazon and sip it from the cup. I become the Amazon; it was flows through me. I awaken the next morning with no sign of fatigue and I know the power of being one with all of nature.

It is through the Andean priests and Q'ero people of the highlands of Peru that I was awakened to the art of communion. Each time I return to the Peruvian highlands, I am deeply moved by the depth of their wisdom. They are quintessential masters of living communion.

The Q'ero are a simple people who live in complete harmony with nature. They speak directly to their mountain, the rivers and the sun, and their medicine people call in the thunder and rain. They are quiet, mindful of life unfolding around them. They are a people who live in reciprocity with all of nature, in a near-constant state of reverence for creation itself. They area able to achieve what Henry David Thoreau believed was the highest art - to affect the quality of the day.

The art of communion does not belong only to clergy, those literally engaged in what is considered sacred. All of life is sacred. We can live in a place in our hearts where each moment unfolding is a gift, pregnant with the spirit of life itself, where we can feel the moment while participating fully in it. This is communion.

To be mindful of life unfolding around us is the first condition we must cultivate to enter a state of communion. Mindfulness is an appreciation for the present moment and the cultivation of an intimate relationship with it through continually attending to it with care and discernment. It means paying attention in a particular way: in the present moment, and without judgment. When we commit ourselves to paying attention in an open way, without falling prey to our own likes and dislikes, opinions, prejudices and expectations, new possibilities open up and we have a chance of entering into a state of communion.

There are two key points to being mindful, or what I sometimes call Ôheartful.Õ There is this concept of bringing all of you to the moment unfolding. And there is learning to be intimate - fully participatory in the exchange. Bringing all of you to the present moment is its own reward. Being fully participatory in the exchange is an invitation to intimacy, a fullness, sensing both the creative and destructive forces of the universe.

Such moments are glorious and gorgeous, mysterious and tormenting. And when we cultivate an intimate relationship with these moments, they contact us, bend us - Ð shut out squeeze out every vestige of pretense, compromise and inauthenticity. We are free to touch and be touched. Some call these moments magic. Others call them synchronicity. Some may even call the state madness. It has all these elements and more. I call these moments taken together living communion - the natural urge of the heart to know itself, the drop that becomes the sea.

Awakening the lost art of communion requires something of us. We must care for, appreciate and cultivate an intimate relationship with the present moment. To live in a state of communion is the greatest of challenges. This revolution of the spirit demands that we open our hearts. Sometimes it means being intimate with that which is abhorrent and kissing each heartbreak as divinity itself.

Christina Donnell, Ph.D. is a classically trained clinical psychologist. She has studied for fourteen years with the Q'ero Shaman, direct descendents of the Inca in South America. She has been initiated by the Q'ero medicine people, and in 1996, established The Winds of Change Association, Ltd. to share with others the healing traditions of these ancient Native Americans. She is an author, a national consultant and teacher. She resides on the island of Kauai where she is currently completing her first book, The Lost Art of Communion. To learn more about Christina's upcoming workshops or expeditions visit www.wocaassoc.com or email windsofchange@verizon.net

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