Category Archives: Ways of Knowing

Deep Intent

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Oakley Gordon

When we look back at some of the Andean meditations I have shared in this blog–connecting with the world through our llankay, munay, or yachay; operating from our left side or our right side; opening up our energy or withdrawing into ourselves–what emerges is our having a choice in how we interact energetically with society and the Cosmos. Often this is not just a choice of which behavior to exhibit, or how strongly to be connected to what is going on around us, but a choice of which facet of … Continue reading →

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Right Side / Left Side

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Oakley Gordon

The Andean Cosmovision draws distinctions between various aspects of our Being in many overlapping, non-mutually-exclusive ways. In an earlier post we looked at the Three Centers of Being; the llankay, the munay, and the yachay. In this post I would like to examine the distinction between the quality of energy we have on the right side of our body and that on the left. Our right side (called paña) handles our activities in the everyday, ordinary, realm of our life, in other words, that aspect of our reality which is … Continue reading →

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On Doing Not Doing

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Oakley Gordon

Out beyond ideas…there is a field, I’ll meet you there. Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) I first ran into the concept of ‘not doing’ in the works of Carlos Castaneda. His early books, particularly Journey to Ixtlan and Tales of Power had a big effect on me when I was a young man. Later in my life I ran into ‘not doing’ again when I began working with don Americo Yabar. And more recently, I have run across it, in a most beautiful and pragmatic way, in the book A … Continue reading →

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The Three Centers of Being (Part 2)

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Oakley Gordon

If you have yet to read Part 1 on this topic I recommend that you read it first. This post covers the same concepts introduced in the post The Crazy Ape (which I also recommend that you read), but with a slightly different slant that we can now consider given what we have covered in this blog. The three centers of being (yachay, munay, and llankay), when applied metaphorically to cultures, provide a useful way of thinking about the environmental crisis we face and how we might approach it. Western … Continue reading →

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The Three Centers of Being (Part 1)

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Oakley Gordon

In the Andes they identify three centers of our being; the yachay, the munay, and the llankay. Each center is located in a different part of the body and each provides a different way of perceiving and understanding reality. The yachay is located in our head. It is our ability to think, in other words it is the intellect. In our culture, at least in my world of science and academia, logic is viewed as the epitome of thought. In the Andes, however, wisdom as a quality of thought is … Continue reading →

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Lesson of the Mask

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Oakley Gordon
Sacred Dan Mask

Joseph Campbell, who in my view was the world’s greatest comparative mythologist, wrote a book about the role of masks in ancient ceremonies (The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology). He was interested in the experiences of people who participated in sacred rituals where a performer wore a mask which portrayed her or him as a deity. The people at the ceremony often knew the identity of the person wearing the mask, it may have been–for example–their uncle, so what did they believe about the person when he was wearing the … Continue reading →

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Andean Cosmovision: The Basics

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Oakley Gordon

One overriding factor to take into account when contemplating the Andean Cosmovision (view of the basic nature of the Cosmos) is that it is fundamentally different than that of Western* culture. This means that we can’t simply force their ideas into our own conceptual categories. The temptation to do so, however, is strong and rather automatic for we are accustomed to making sense of new things by relating them to what we already know. We in the West essentially have two ways of viewing the basic nature of reality; through … Continue reading →

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Why a Swan?

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Oakley Gordon

Our intellect is a very important part of our existence. It’s main task is to determine what is true and what is false. This is the context of both science and Western religion. While they differ in how they determine true from false they both take on this task. Let us consider a performance of the ballet Swan Lake. A ballerina appears on the stage dressed as a swan. This is not the appropriate context for the scientist to leap up and shout “Don’t be fooled, that is not really … Continue reading →

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