HEART OF THE SHAMAN: foundations of shamanism online course
Join us from wherever you are
Our foundations of shamanism online course connects us with some of the fundamental teachings of the Medicine Wheel; it gives us the opportunity to tend our own relationship to the lineage; and it is a chance to do our own personal healing work – the most important foundation of all. The dates for our Autumn 2025 course are below, and we would be honoured to see you there.
Chris will be sharing some of the foundational teachings of the lineage, and then we are joined, live from Cusco in Peru’s Sacred Valley, by Don Pascual Apaza Flores, who will creates a healing Despacho ceremony for the group, a wonderful opportunity to receive healing from a Q’ero shaman! (We hope that his wife, Doña Santusa Flores Quispe, will also be able to join us too.)
Chris teaches this course each year in Autumn and it’s open to everyone – no prior experience is necessary. You are welcome to join us for an entire course, or session by session, as your time allows.
In this lineage, the foundations remain essential to our practice, no matter how experienced we are – it’s always a case of ‘beginners mind’. So you’ll find members of the teaching teams and past Medicine Wheel students alongside those joining us for the first time – all of us on our own personal healing journey, and grateful to be with our ‘allyu‘, our tribe of kindred souls, and our teachers from this wonderful tradition.
ALL BOOKING OPTIONS AND LINKS HEREA living connection
In these courses, we are fortunate and honoured to be joined live online from Peru by Don Pascual Apaza Flores (and sometimes also by his wife, Doña Santusa Flores Quispe). Both are part of a long lineage of healers and a powerful and ancient tradition that is alive and thriving to this day.
As part of this course, Don Pascual creates a healing Despacho for us every week, and will also be sharing some of the rites of the lineage, giving you an opportunity to make your own direct connection with this lineage of the Q’ero.
Course dates and times…
Wednesday 12 November, 7pm-9.15pm UK (FREE event!)
Wednesday 19 November, 7pm-9.15pm UK
Wednesday 26 November, 7pm-9.15pm UK
Wednesday 3 December, 7pm-9.15pm UK
Wednesday 10 December, 7pm-9.15pm UK
Friday 19 December, 7pm-9.15pm UK
The first event in the series is FREE! Thereafter you can join us session by session as your time allows (scroll down for the booking links and details of each session)… OR you can book for all five at the SUBSCRIPTION RATE!
BOOK YOUR 5-CLASS SUBSCRIPTION
Awakening the inner shaman
WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER
To the Q’ero, everything has meaning, everything has a spirit, and their world is deeply connected to Mother Earth (Pachamama). The Andean Chacana is a map for life, a map of human consciousness, and is a sacred symbol that we find all across Peru’s Sacred Valley, most commonly as stone and water altars. The Chacana is their map to these connections, and Chris explores how the chakana helps us to find peace, harmony and balance in our own world. This is an introduction session with Chris Waters, and is free (Don Pascual joins the course from next week for the remaining five classes). We hope this will be especially useful if you’re joining us for the first time, or sharing this event with someone you think might enjoy it.
Book for the FREE event here!The power to heal in your own hands
WEDNESDAY 19 NOVEMBER
Do you find yourself collecting stones wherever you go? One of the main tools that our Q’ero shamans work with are the stone people. They use stones (called khuyas) in their healing work. Some stones seem to call us, and these may become our healing allies. In this session, Chris will share a process using stones to help cleanse your luminous energy field, which, if you have ever been with us to Peru and received healing from one of our shamans, you’ll know they do this at the start of every session.
In this session, Don Pascual (and we hope his wife, Doña Santusa, will also be with us) joins us live from his home in Cusco, where he will create a Healing Despacho ceremony for us as a group and offer us the Healers rite, planting the seed of reawakening our ability to heal ourselves. If you have a Mesa, you may have received this rite over and over, perhaps even in Peru with us – every time it’s a new experience, and every time is a gift…
BOOK NOW for Wednesday 19 November only
Connecting with the universal forces of nature within
WEDNESDAY 26 NOVEMBER
The four unifying principles of creation, archetypical energies that inform our luminous energy field become powerful allies in helping us to stay deeply connected to Mother Earth, and come into balance and harmony with our world. These principles have names, Serpent, Jaguar, Hummingbird and Eagle-Condor, but they are not animals that we can domesticate! They are forces of nature, that help us to see the world with new eyes. In our training we have a personal relationship with them that we grow over time so that we know we are held and supported by the same energies that create all life.
Tonight Don Pascual (he may also be joined by his wife, Doña Santusa!) will join us live from his home in Cusco, where he will create a Despacho ceremony for us as a group, and share with us the rites of the Ayni Karpays. These rites connect us with these archetypical allies, helping us as we embark on a journey of balance and harmony with the world around us and all living things.
BOOK NOW for Wednesday 26 November onlyThe path of rites and initiations
WEDNESDAY 03 DECEMBER
This lineage is a tradition of rites – energetic initiations that are shared by those who have received them, most commonly through a medicine bundle called a ‘Mesa’. Chris tells the story of the initiations that we receive on our Medicine Wheel training programmes, on our Peru journeys, and in the Munay Ki class. We always approach them with beginner’s mind – so you’ll find our group includes people new to this work and people who have trained with us for many years.
Tonight, Don Pascual and Doña Santusa join us live from their home in Cusco, where they will create a Despacho ceremony for us as a group, and then they will share the rites of the Pampamesayoq, the rites of the Daykeeper, the one who is always in right relationship with the Earth, the one who gives voice to the words of the great Mother, the creator of altars in the landscape, the healers and the midwives. This is a beautiful and very special story that Chris will share beforehand, so that we have a heartfelt understanding of the rites of the Daykeeper before receiving them in ceremony from Don Pascual and Doña Santusa.
BOOK NOW for Wednesday 3 December only
A path of fire and deep transformation
WEDNESDAY 10 DECEMBER
Since the beginning of time, we humans have gathered around fire, to dance, to tell stories, to connect, to warm ourselves and to hear the voices of our ancestors. We share with you how we can use fire as a great ally to assist us in releasing those things that no longer serve us and how we honour through the fire ceremony our own healing. The spirit of the fire brings us together in circles and helps us to remember our soul’s longing for connection and belonging.
Tonight, Don Pascual will create a Healing Despacho ceremony for us as a group, to help us all release those things that do not serve who we are becoming. Each Despacho they create for us is taken by Don Pascual and Doña Santusa all the way up to Ausangate, one of the sacred mountains of this tradition, where they hold a fire ceremony. In this tradition of fire, the element of fast transformation, the Despacho is returned to spirit.
BOOK NOW for Wednesday 10 December onlySolstice celebration
FRIDAY 19 DECEMBER
For our final week this series, we will be celebrating the coming of the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere. Don Pascual will create for us a beautiful Despacho to rebalance, renew, and restore us, inviting us all to let go of the things that no longer serve, so that we can indeed create together a world that is different from the past.
On this auspicious night, you’ll bring with you the dream that you wish for the future of our world; you will plant this ‘seed’ into the Despacho for our children and future generations to inherit. Bring also your personal dream-seed to plant, so that as the light returns these seeds will begin to grow towards the light and manifest into reality. And finally, bring a candle (and the means to light it!)
BOOK NOW for Friday 19 December only
How to book
The first event in the series is free – but you’ll need to register via the link below.
REGISTER FOR THE FREE EVENT HEREFor the remaining five sessions:
- EITHER join week by week via the links above.
- OR! Book a subscription for all five remaining sessions for the rest of the course.
A community of kindred spirits
This course is also about being part of a community, a village of like-minded and like-hearted people who want to create positive change — both within ourselves and in the world around us.
The magic of the HEART OF THE SHAMAN lies not only in the simple yet powerful techniques you will learn, which require no specialist equipment or cost, but also in the depth of connection that we feel being part of our group, our allyu, as we make this journey together.
“I have self-confidence and boundaries now, something I didn’t have before. Working with this medicine has changed my health, and my life.” Debbie
