The Families in the Mountains: A Week with the Elders of Q’eros Nation, Peru

Join Indigenous Elder and Pampamesayok Don Agustin Machacca Florez, alongside his son, Lucas (Santos) Machacca Apaza, and their students Richard Wade Willis and Jane Mayer, for a week-long dive into the ancestral medicine of Qeros Nation, Peru. Together, they will weave 8 days, and 7 nights of teachings and karpays (shamanic rites) from the high Andes Mountains, transmitting thousands of years of Earth’s ancestral memory through workshops, ceremonies, and transmissions. This is their inaugural visit to the Unites States, and we are deeply honored to host them for this week retreat.

The Earth’s memory, wisdom and medicine, has been revered and kept alive for millennia through in-tact indigenous lineages like the Q’ero, a small community of less than 1,000 families, who are the direct (and last) descents of the Inca Empire that live in remote mountain villages. As humans on Earth are searching for more meaningful ways of relating— both with each other and with a rapidly deteriorating ecosystem, the Q’ero’s wisdom offers a clear path to true reciprocity with the spirit of the Earth, and the human heart.

This week-long gathering will include long-time students of Don Augustin and Santos alongside complete beginners, ready to deepen and grow their personal shamanic practices, and experience direct lineage teachings from elders. The retreat will also be supported by Richard Wade Willis and Jane Mayer, who will support in translating this wisdom to the modern world, and specifically activate and weave awakening through the elemental energies in Appalachia, building bridges between the indigenous memory of Peru, and the Earth in the Deep South.

As a part of this gathering, participants will receive direct transmissions (karpays), teachings in Earth offerings (despacho), direct instruction in mesa work (energy medicine from Q’eros), alongside opportunities for ceremony with the sweat lodge, ancestral medicine, sound and song circles, and excursions to sacred locations (mountains, springs and caves) in the area around Moon Rising. As a family, we will gather for meals, meditations, dreaming and fellowship, as we remember what it means to be human on Earth.

The official landing page and registration will open in late March. In the meantime, to be added to the waitlist, email richardwadewillis@gmail.com.