The White Spring – InkaSpirit and Pacha Mama

On the 1st June 2012, Peruvian mystic and anthropologist Don Juan Núñez del Prado and his son Iván Núñez del Prado came with a group of students to lead a ceremony at the White Spring. Margaret had made the contact with us and arrived just ahead of the group to a warm welcome.

It had been raining but it was still a wonderful warm day. The group arrived wearing rain coats and each holding a misha; a bundle of sacred objects wrapped in fabric to help participants deepen their connection to this tradition.

We gathered in the garden for a few words before heading inside. Max and I were told that we were welcome to take part and help hold the focus. I went with the group whilst Max stood back watching the space. It is wise when a big ceremony is happening at the White Spring to have someone there to simply watch and hold the space.

Don Juan began to explain the process we would follow during the ceremony but the sound of the rushing water was too loud and some of the group couldn’t hear him at all. We went out into the garden again and he talked us through the whole ceremony. The main focus was the healing of Pacha Mama.

We would be using different places in the building to connect with the different ages of feminine energies. First we would focus on the child, then the teenager, then the mother then the grandmother. Each area had a colour associated with it, and we had to go to each area twice, working with these energies. After this we were to honour the energy of the wild man through the Grandmother, then the energies of the Emperor, and then to the Brigid bower to receive a blessing from Margaret who was working with the energy of the Empress and Kwan Yin. After all of this we were instructed to take some time in the building to integrate the energies we had been working with into our own matrix or energy field.

Now I hadn’t been taking part in the extensive training that the other students had, so I simply followed the instructions to my own understanding and using my connection with the White Spring to help integrate the work with this sacred space.

It is remarkable that the places within that had been chosen for each different focus were so very apt and in harmony with the building. The child at the place where the water enters the building, the teenage at the water falling from the deep healing pool, the mother at the central pool, the grandmother at the place where the water falls from the central pool on the side close to the King of the Realm of Faery shrine, the Emperor by the back doors and the Empress in the Brigid bower.

We all gathered at the first spot and focussed in silence. I felt the child in me, the beauty and innocence of youth pure and unsullied. In the teenager I felt a woundedness, and then a fear arose, self-doubt … I questioned … am I doing it right? I focused then on the mother, and felt the power of this, a growth into wholeness and then a feeling of being held in the arms of Gaia. As I passed to the side of the Grandmother I remembered my daughter and my granddaughter, and how just recently I have embraced the role of grandmother. I opened up in that place to the wild nature of man, and as Don Juan had instructed, I felt I had the ability to handle him – he said, ‘For it is only in the wisdom of the Grandmother that the wild man can be handled’.

I moved to the area by the back doors and focused on the Emperor energy. It was interesting that Don Juan had chosen this spot; it’s the most unadorned area of the building, in fact it’s just functional and not that pretty in comparison to the rest of the well house. It is also the area where we wish to build a shrine in honour of the ‘bright masculine’; and a place where, in the ethers, there are already vague plans forming for the structure and focus of the shrine. The Emperor, the colour gold, the kingly aspects of man was a most appropriate expression here.

We went around a second time before going to the Brigid bower to meet Margaret and receive a Kwan Yin blessing. When I entered she welcomed me and placed her hands on my head. I felt a powerful energy move through me as she gave me the blessing. One by one everyone received the blessing and then each of us did whatever we felt to help integrate and combine those energies. Some people stepped in the water. some sat by the shrines, some singing, all very gentle and light-hearted.

I noticed Ivan, Don Juan’s son and co teacher, was particularly taken by the Black Madonna statues that sit in the shrine to Our Lady. He asked me about them and I told him how they had both arrived within one month of each other, one carried here from Montserrat in Spain, and the other from Einsiedeln in Switzerland. The devotees that had brought them to Glastonbury felt guided to bring them here and offer them as a gift to The White Spring. Ivan told me he felt that was very powerful.

After the group had finished we gathered outside and talked a little about the experiences that people had during the ceremony. The feelings people had with the Emperor were quite something, some people had envisioned a king sitting in a grand throne in that area – interesting that just a week before I had been sketching different styles of thrones, considering if it would be appropriate to build a giant seat in the chamber by the back door.

The group left to go up the Tor to work with the wind and the sun and Max and I put out the candles and closed the doors. The sun came out as we rounded the Tor on our way home, and I was glad that the group had some sunshine on their walk to the summit.

Whether the shrine manifests as a throne is yet undecided, one thing that I have learnt at The White Spring is the principle, ‘Thy will, not mine, be done,’ and although I am helping to make this place more beautiful, it is in co-creation with the Divine. Some things take a lot of time to come to fruition at The White Spring, but all in its own time; there is no need to push the river to make it flow, most often it’s worth waiting for.

The new doors for instance, Oh wow! What elegant craftsmanship – well worth waiting for. I will post some pictures and tell you more about them next time – until then … soak up every ray of sunshine you are blessed with.

Bright blessings

Lisa