This weekend I will be making a presentation in Pisaq, Peru about the ceremonial practice called a Despacho and linking the ritual practice to both the Sacred Geometry found within the Chakana and the Mandala.
A despacho is an offering.
It creates a “right” relationship between us and the spirit world on all three planes of existence through the practice of ayni.
Ayni is a reciprocal non-monetary system of exchange that enhances relationships between people, families and communities. It comes from a place of Munay or love and allows people to live in a balanced, harmonious and sustainable relationship with the people in their lives and the world around them on this plane as well as the plane of the spirit world.
Performing a Despacho ceremony is a unique way for us as humans to connect with the energy in the universe and the spirit world - including the Apus, Pachamama and and Awki - Nature Spirits.
When the seed is nourished properly it will grow and in this sense the despacho is a tool used to manifest what we would like to attract into our lives.
By expressing love and gratitude from the bottom of our hearts and offering food, sweets and other objects or symbols of importance, we are demonstrating in the strongest way our intentions of good will, love and understanding to the spirit world - this right relationship is the basis for creating harmony balance and sustainability within the Kausay Pacha (The entirety of all the life force energy in the universe)
Every item placed within the despacho represents a part of the Andean cosmology.
Paqos or Andean practitioners of the Inka tradition typically perform Despacho ceremonies outdoors to be physically close to Nature.
Q'ero Elder Don Manuel Q'espi, in a presentation at Canyon de Chelley in May 1997 (translated by Jose Luis Herrera), spoke of despachos this way:
"The despacho is a gift--a giving back of what we receive everyday in our lives. We seek, through the despacho ceremony, to bridge the ordinary and non-ordinary realms; to establish new patterns of relationship and possibility. The despacho places us in right relationship, right ayni, with the Pachamama. It establishes a linkage between our three centers of interaction in the kaypacha (the physical universe); our llankay (our personal power and source of action, located in our solar plexus), our munay (the source of our love, located in our heart chakra), and our yachay (wisdom, sourced from our foreheads or "third eye").
"The contents of the despacho are in part determined by its purpose. The various elements that comprise the despacho energetically interact to permit access to portals or bridges from the ordinary and non-ordinary worlds. When working in ceremony with the despacho, one is accessing the non-ordinary energetic dimensions, the source of things. Though the contents may have symbolic significance, the despacho, when performed with the correct intent, transcends literal and symbolic domains and directly accesses the archetypal and energetic realms.
"In order to build a good co-existence with nature, the only real choice we have is to enter with our heart, wisdom, and our action. We call upon the spirits of the waters, of the mountains, and of the Pachamama to come and help us prepare the offering. We have the intent of seeking to establish and maintain a continuous dialogue with the Mother and to bring balance and harmony to our lives, and to all our relations. It is through the dynamics of love, of right thinking, and of right action that our lives become bountiful.
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