High in the Peruvian Andes, Michael Trainer sits with a maestro for a traditional coca leaf reading, a practice passed down from the ancestors. He asks three questions: how to walk his path well, when love will arrive, and how to call in his future children. The answers weren’t what he expected.
The Andean ancestors asked the same question we’re still asking: what keeps us alive?
The sun wakes us. Pachamama, Mother Earth, feeds us. The mountains give us water and medicine. So they honored them as fathers, mothers, and protectors. The ceremonies built on that gratitude have been passed down for generations.
In this video, I sit with an Andean maestro for four of them:
The coca leaf reading isn’t fortune-telling. As the maestro says, no one can know the future. What the leaves can show is whether you’re walking toward it well.
So I asked what I actually wanted to know:
What came back was simple. There was something blocking love, but it can be passed through. My purpose is already clear; I just have to stop hiding my voice. On the timing, the leaves didn’t give me the answer I was hoping for. And underneath all of it was the same instruction: listen to your heart. It is the wisest guide we have.
“You already know where you are going. Just follow.”