Despacho “Blessing” Ceremony
The Despacho Ceremony is a Peruvian Q’eros Shamanic tradition of blessing the land and asking for energetic protection.
In Native American traditions the land that you were born in and the land that you are currently standing on carry great energetic importance. We have learned from those who are most in tune with nature that each location carries a specific type of energy. You may have noticed the energetic difference of being at a beach compared to a lake, or a plain compared to a mountain, a city compared to the country.
In this ceremony we are taking a moment to pause and to acknowledge the energy of the land that we are standing on. We are asking the energy, the inherent Spirit of the land to help guide us in our quest, to protect us from any evil and to nourish our needs. This ceremony is performed before embarking on a serious spiritual journey and will be one of the first ceremonies we will join together.
Mother Earth is often referred to as Pachamama or Allpamama.
During the ceremony the local healer builds a beautiful mandala of offerings filled with many sweet foods, seeds, coca leaves and llama fat. You will notice lots of white, red and black colors going into the mandala. White represents purity, red represents the earth and black represents the mountains.
The ceremony is a co-creation and as a participant you will receive three coca leaves, the three leaves are referred to as a Kintu. When it is your turn to be blessed, the healer will ask you your name and what mountain, river, ocean or land that you come from. The healer will then perform a blessing honoring first the energy of the land by calling in the sacred mountains that surround us in the Andes, the healer will thank Father Sky and Mother Earth before speaking your name and the name of the land you are from. You will be asked to blow your energy and intention into the leaves, before you are blessed on the third eye and on the heart. The healer will then add your energetically charged coca leaves into the beautiful mandala.
When the mandala is finished and all the participants are blessed we build a fire. As the sun is setting we add the mandala to the fire as an offering to Mother Earth. We often unite in this moment through song and dance around the fire.
