09/08/2026
Yesterday was spent creating my own personal Mesa with the support, love & guidance of Willow Ferguson, Chrissie & Franca 🩷
We all did some inner work using the Trinity technique & shamanic divine feminine rattling & Journeying 💕
There were lots of tears, tantrums, sh*ts & giggles 🤣 & cake, lots of cake 🩷
In the afternoon we all made a personal intentional Mess 🩷
To my amazement I actually managed the folding without help💝
I will be making a Mesa to use within my healing treatments, but not right now xx
Right now I have to sit with my personal one and align with it xx
Learning and growing should never be rushed xx as you may tick all the boxes in theory, but you miss the deep internal learning and alignment ###
A shamanic mesa (often spelled mesa, which means "table" or "altar" in Spanish) is a portable medicine bundle or living altar used by shamanic practitioners, primarily originating from the indigenous Andean and coastal traditions of Peru and Bolivia.
It serves as a physical and spiritual map of the cosmos, representing the practitioner’s personal healing journey, their relationship to nature, and their connection to the spirit world.
Core Components of a Mesa
A traditional mesa consists of three essential physical layers:
The Mesa Cloth (Mestana): A woven textile, often featuring geometric patterns that represent the cosmic balance between masculine and feminine energies. It acts as the physical outer boundary and working surface of the altar.
The Inner Cloth (Unkuna): A smaller cloth placed inside the main textile to hold, protect, and cleanly separate the sacred objects.
The Mesa Tie (Watana): A braided cord wrapped tightly around the bundle to seal the items, symbolically anchoring the practitioner's focused intentions and prayers.
What is Inside? (Las Artes)
The items kept within a mesa are referred to by Andean paqos (shamans) as las artes (the arts). They are viewed as alive, conscious extensions of the shaman rather than inert objects. Items include:
Medicine Stones (Khuyas): The most critical element. These are stones imbued with power, often retrieved from sacred mountains (Apus), meteorites, or passed down by ancestral lineages.
Natural Artifacts: Feathers, bones, seeds, shells, or traditional plant medicines like to***co.
Cleansing Tools: Small ceramic vessels containing holy water or aromatic perfumes used to energetically clear heavy energy (hucha).
How it is Used
Energetic Map: A mesa is typically organized into a tripartite layout. The left side handles heavy energy and the underworld; the right side aligns with light, spirit, and the upper world; and the center coordinates neutral, balanced integration.
Healing Portal: During healing ceremonies, a shaman opens the bundle to channel specific energies, diagnose energetic imbalances, or pull heavy energy away from a patient.
A Spiritual Mirror: Shamans interact with the layout of their mesa to visualize changes they want to manifest, altering the symbolic landscape of the altar to shift the real, physical world.
