Mateyo Empie has spent 40 years learning and practicing everything that she could find taught in English and Spanish regarding personal growth, spiritual development, healing, and shamanism, in the U.S., India, and Peru. For the last 15 years she has focused on Peruvian shamanism, including living in the Peruvian Andes at 12,000 feet for months at a time. When not teaching throughout the United States, she lives in a loft in downtown Ypsilanti, MI, with her husband and numerous house plants. In this world the plant and stone people are her most important advisors.

Why do you teach?

I teach to be of service to Pachamama and Wira Cocha, the Great Creator, and to in a small way to repay my spiritual teachers, who have given me so much more than I asked for, or even thought was possible.

In the fifteenth century A.D. a mighty Empire the size of the United States was centered in Peru. The Inca had irrigation and roads equal to those of ancient Rome; their systems of social security, agriculture, and medicine surpassed any in the world. Few peoples have approached their metaphysical knowledge.

The Q'ero were the medicine people, the healers and seers of the Inca. Visions revealed that the Spanish conquistadores would soon arrive to destroy the Empire and their way of life. To escape this fate they went high into the mountains from Cuzco, the capitol city. Only when they reached the punishing altitude of 14,000 feet did they stop. Modern mountain climbers begin to use bottled oxygen at only slightly higher elevations.

For nearly 500 years they remained undiscovered on the remote Amazon side of the Andes Mountains, preserving their traditions in pure form. Not until 1948 did the first outsiders reach their three small villages.

The elders of the Q'ero have honored me with their wisdom and highest initiations. Their primary North American students and other indigenous Andean and jungle medicine people have also been my teachers.

My specific goals in teaching are to create an atmosphere of calm and trust that is required for spiritual openness. Then I step out of the way of the group, so they can have a genuine initiation, and experience their own miraculous natures of Love and Wisdom and Power. In this way can people grow in a profound and practical way. Nothing is more transformational than a group of open hearts, open minds, open souls, meeting in sacred space for the highest good of not just each individual, but for the group as well.

Would you please explain what you mean by "genuine initiation?"

The word initiation is often used to indicate some sort of exotic experience that one goes through. Too often the word indicates that which one feels is mysterious enough that it must mean something, but no one seems to know what it means. Except for a transient sense of wonder or puzzlement, there is no change in the participant, and certainly no lasting change in behavior that an objective person would notice. Such 'initiations' are usually done with little or no preparation or follow-up.

A genuine initiation is an experience intentionally gone through (perhaps without intellectual knowledge of its 'meaning' beforehand) but by the end of the experience there has been a palpable change in the soul, or spirit, of the participants. There is always a guide, human and/or spirit, presiding. The internal change makes a difference in one's feelings, thoughts, and actions afterwards -- a growth in that person's level of consciousness -- noticeable to an observant stranger. On reflection it should be possible for each participant to put that change into words.

What do you expect from students?

expect people to bring their full selves - their body-mind-spirit - to this work. This requires the ability to extend a bit of openness and trust to more-or-less strangers, but only in the very beginning, as we never stay strangers for too long! Being acquaintances, and then ayllu brothers and sisters, requires that we are as honest as possible with ourselves first, then with the group, about our abilities, our inspirations, and our limitations. Only when we know where we are at can we journey somewhere else in a deliberate manner.

What is an ayllu?

In the sense used here, it is a working shamanic group, part personal support group, part coven, part therapy group. It is not a new family, because family-type relationships always carry pathologies from our past with them. Once we step free of our pasts (in the work of Cleansing in the Depths, part of the Hampi Muyu Ñan, or Healing Power Path), we are able to work with those family energies more easily, but not before then.

Another definition of an ayllu would be a band of spiritual warriors. We promise to guide each other, to help each other in our battles, to unite for a good cause and give it all the Power, Love, and Wisdom we possess. We will do our very best to be honest and true to the group purposes and to ourselves.

Do you use any medicines such as ayahuasca in workshops?

No. Our culture's attitude toward such substances is so poor that it wouldn't, in the long run, be beneficial for the students. There are a lot of people in recovery out there, and I wouldn't want, in any way, to spark off any 'backsliding.'

It's not that there isn't a place for Plant Spirit Medicines in shamanism. I have used them myself - after 20 years of substance-free apprenticeship. I consider its place to be after a lot of hard work, so that the substance can be introduced as just another tool, not as a novelty, or as entertainment.

Many magazine ads for trips to Peru and other places feature the use of such substances in a large-sized font. Since the trip is open to anyone who can pay the fee, regardless of level of maturity, mental health status, or shamanic experience, it's clear to me that the leaders of such trips are just trying to make money by selling what amounts to quite an expensive 'high.' This disgusts me, since for me such experiences are sent by the Gods, not to be auctioned off to the casually curious. I feel the same way as a devout Christian would feel if they heard that a particular congregation was getting sloshy drunk on the wine as a standard part of the Eucharist, that, indeed, they had forgotten that there was anything more to the Eucharist than getting drunk!

I have read a lot about shamanism. What makes your practices different?

I use the Q'ero traditions because they work - they allow us to improve our lives and the lives of others in a genuine and sustainable way. Their path has been around for long enough (at least 5,000 years, probably closer to 10,000) that they have worked the bugs out of their system and know how to handle nearly anything that can happen to someone who is seeking to enhance their ability to experience, affect, and enjoy the world. Obviously, we must modify the teachings somewhat to allow for the world we live in here in the U.S., but it's quite possible to do that without changing the inner spirit of the traditions, the motivations or the rewards.

Another difference from many popular forms of shamanism is that I don't practice a 'generic' or 'desacralized' system like Michael Harner's. I don't see anything wrong with his approach -- it obviously works for a lot of people -- but I personally enjoy carrying on traditions that are thousands of years old, traditions still practiced by people we can visit and learn from today.