The Mesa: The Q’ero Medicine Bundle and the Art of Healing with Stones

A Portable Altar of Living Relationships

In the hands of a Q’ero paqo — a healer, mystic, and keeper of the ancient Inca spiritual tradition — there is an object more precious than gold, more sacred than any temple. It is the mesa: a medicine bundle wrapped in a handwoven cloth, containing a collection of stones, crystals, and sacred objects that together form a living altar, a portable map of the cosmos, and a powerful instrument of healing.

The word “mesa” means “table” in Spanish, but in the Q’ero tradition it refers to something far deeper: a consecrated bundle that holds the paqo’s entire relationship with the living energy universe. Each stone in the mesa is not merely a mineral — it is a khuya, a power object infused with consciousness, memory, and the capacity to channel energy between worlds. The mesa is the paqo’s most intimate possession, carried with them throughout their life, growing and deepening as their spiritual practice evolves.

The Mestana: The Sacred Cloth

Every mesa is wrapped in a mestana — a handwoven cloth, typically created by Q’ero weavers using traditional techniques passed down through generations. These cloths are not decorative. Every motif, every color, every pattern woven into the mestana carries meaning. The designs encode cosmic knowledge: representations of Inti (the Sun), the mountains (Apus), rivers, the serpent, the condor, the puma, and the stepped cross of the Chacana.

The Q’ero are master weavers, and they understand that weaving is itself a spiritual act — the interlacing of threads mirrors the interlacing of energies in the kawsay pacha (living energy universe). When a paqo unfolds their mestana to open their mesa, they are symbolically unfolding the cosmos itself, making the invisible visible, creating a sacred space within which healing can occur.

Khuyas: The Healing Stones

The khuyas are the heart of the mesa. The Quechua word “khuya” means “power object” or, more poetically, “affection stone” — an object through which love and power are expressed and channeled. Each khuya is a living entity, a seat of consciousness that connects the paqo to a specific nature being, energy, or dimension of the cosmos.

How Khuyas Are Acquired

Khuyas come to a paqo through many paths, and each path is significant:

Gift from a teacher: When a Q’ero master passes a khuya to a student, they are transmitting not just a stone but a lineage of relationship. The stone carries the accumulated energy of all the paqos who have worked with it before, creating a living link between the student and the ancestral chain of healers.

Found in nature: Some khuyas are discovered by the paqo during pilgrimage, ceremony, or daily life. A stone that “calls” to a paqo — that catches their attention in a riverbed, on a mountainside, or at a sacred site — is understood as a gift from the living landscape. The place where the khuya is found determines its energetic qualities: a stone from Apu Ausangate carries the mountain’s power, a stone from a sacred lake carries the energy of the Nusta (water spirit) that dwells there.

Received through initiation: During karpay (initiation) ceremonies, specific khuyas may be given as part of the transmission of power. These stones mark milestones on the paqo’s path and carry the energy of the particular initiation they represent.

Transformed through healing work: In some traditions, khuyas represent wounds that have been transformed. Each stone may correspond to a personal challenge or suffering that the paqo has worked through and transmuted into wisdom and power. In this way, the mesa becomes a map of the healer’s own journey of transformation.

Types of Khuyas

Different khuyas serve different functions:

Chumpi khuyas are banded or striped stones used specifically for working with the energy centers (chunpis or belts) of the human energy body. There are traditionally five chumpi stones, each associated with a different energy band and direction.

Mountain khuyas hold the consciousness of specific Apus. When a paqo works with a mountain khuya, they are drawing on the protective, guiding power of that particular mountain spirit.

Water khuyas connect to the Nustas — the spirits of lakes, rivers, springs, and other bodies of water. These carry healing, cleansing, and emotional nourishment.

Directional khuyas correspond to the four cardinal directions and their associated energies, animals, and qualities.

The center stone — the thirteenth khuya in a complete mesa — traditionally comes from the paqo’s teacher and represents the axis around which the entire mesa is organized. It holds the center, connecting all directions and all worlds.

The Structure of the Mesa

A complete Q’ero mesa typically contains twelve main khuyas organized in a specific pattern, plus a center stone. The twelve stones are arranged in groups of three — one group for each of the four directions. Within each directional group, the three stones represent the three worlds: Hanaq Pacha (upper), Kay Pacha (middle), and Ukhu Pacha (lower). This creates a three-dimensional mandala: the four directions multiplied by the three worlds, with the center as the point of integration.

This structure mirrors the Andean Medicine Wheel — a cosmological map that organizes the energies of the living universe into an accessible, workable pattern. When the paqo opens their mesa and lays out the khuyas in this pattern, they are creating a miniature model of the cosmos, a sacred geography that allows them to navigate the flow of energy between worlds.

The South holds the energy of the Serpent (Amaru), connected to Ukhu Pacha, to the earth, to shedding old patterns and healing ancestral wounds.

The West holds the energy of the Jaguar (Otorongo), connected to transformation, death and rebirth, the courage to face the shadow.

The North holds the energy of the Hummingbird (Siwar Q’enti), connected to the epic journey of the soul, migration across vast distances, the ability to accomplish what seems impossible.

The East holds the energy of the Condor (Kuntur), connected to Hanaq Pacha, to spiritual vision, to seeing from the highest perspective.

Healing with the Mesa

The mesa is not merely a collection of sacred objects to be admired. It is a working instrument of healing, used in active ceremony to diagnose, treat, and transform energy imbalances in the people who come to the paqo for help.

Diagnosis

A paqo may use their mesa for diagnosis by inviting a client to intuitively select a khuya — whichever stone they feel most drawn to. The stone that calls to the client reveals the nature of their condition. Each khuya connects to specific energies, directions, and aspects of life, so the client’s choice provides information about where the imbalance lies.

Additionally, the paqo may hold khuyas near different parts of the client’s body, sensing through their own hands and intuition how the client’s energy field responds. Blockages, heaviness, or disruption in the poq’po (personal energy bubble) become perceptible through the khuya’s interaction with the field.

Treatment: Breathing into the Stone

One of the most common healing techniques involves asking the client to breathe their issue into the selected khuya. The client holds the stone, focuses on whatever is causing them suffering — pain, fear, grief, confusion — and exhales into the stone with full intention. The khuya then begins to “mulch” the problem, absorbing and transmuting the heavy energy through its connection to the larger forces it represents.

This is not a metaphor. In the Q’ero understanding, the khuya is a living intermediary between the human energy field and the vast energetic capacity of the mountain, lake, or sacred site it is connected to. A mountain can absorb and transmute enormous amounts of hucha (heavy energy). A human being, working alone, may struggle. But a human being working through a khuya connected to Apu Ausangate is drawing on the energetic capacity of a 20,000-foot mountain. This is the practical power of the mesa.

Energy Clearing and Balancing

The paqo may pass khuyas over the client’s body, sweeping energy, clearing blockages, and rebalancing the flow of sami (refined energy) through the energy centers. The chumpi khuyas are particularly used for this purpose, each one applied to a specific energy belt to restore proper function and flow.

Ceremonial Use

During larger ceremonies — despacho offerings, community healings, initiations — the paqo’s mesa is opened and placed at the center of the ritual space. The khuyas serve as anchors for the energy being called in, intermediaries between the human participants and the cosmic forces being invoked.

Building Your Mesa Over a Lifetime

In the Q’ero tradition, a mesa is not purchased or assembled all at once. It is built over a lifetime of practice, each khuya arriving at the right moment, each addition marking a step on the spiritual path. A new student may begin with a single stone. Over years of training, initiation, pilgrimage, and ceremony, the mesa gradually fills.

This organic growth means that every mesa is unique — as individual as the paqo who carries it. No two mesas are alike because no two spiritual journeys are alike. The mesa becomes a physical record of the paqo’s life, relationships, initiations, healings, and encounters with the sacred.

When a great paqo dies, their mesa may be passed to a student, or certain khuyas may be distributed among their apprentices, carrying the lineage forward. Some stones are returned to the places they came from. Some are buried with the paqo. The mesa, like the paqo’s life, eventually completes its circle.

The Mesa as a Map of Consciousness

At its deepest level, the mesa is not about stones at all. It is about consciousness. Each khuya represents a relationship — with a mountain, a lake, a teacher, a wound, a direction, a world. The mesa is a map of the paqo’s connections to the living cosmos, and working with the mesa is the practice of navigating those connections consciously.

In a culture that has forgotten its relationship to the living earth, the mesa reminds us that consciousness is not confined to the human brain. It lives in stones, in mountains, in rivers, in the weave of a cloth. And when we learn to relate to these presences with respect, attention, and love, something remarkable happens: they relate back. The stones begin to teach. The mountains begin to speak. The mesa becomes a two-way channel of communication between the human heart and the heart of the living world.

This is the gift the Q’ero offer through their tradition of the mesa: the understanding that healing is not something we do alone, with our limited personal resources. Healing happens when we connect to the vast, inexhaustible, loving intelligence of the living cosmos — and the mesa is the bridge that makes this connection tangible, practical, and real.