So thought I'd send you some of the pictures of the progression of the making of the despacho. As I mentioned a despacho is a offering of gratitude and prayers to the spirit world that so graciously supports us and supports us even more when we interact consciously.
To give you an idea of the evolution through it's making. I put together my own little kit and put in some traditional and less traditional items (kind of like me, a melting pot). In despachos, you typically have some animal fat to feed the physical aspects of your life, flowers for the emotional aspects (I forgot the red carnations I had sitting in the North of my altar, I'll go back later and offer but no worries, I had some dried rose buds from one of the most joyful birthday celebrations I've ever had), minerals for the spiritual aspects and man made objects for the mental. Then you add some libations, incense, sweets, grains, herbs, etc... I'll explain some that I added to give you my personal reasoning (I won't give you details on every piece).
So we start with the initial mesa. In my tradition, the NW to SE access is considered the routa de wirachocha (route of great spirit) and is considered the path of manifestation. So in the NW I put each of your gratitude messages. And at the end, the point of manifestation I put your creations. You'll see I printed each on origami paper and then folded them into hearts which felt quite appropriate.
I started with the initial consecrations using florida water, corn meal, tobacco and coca kintu and quickly started. The ashes of your gratitude. I burned them so they would be compost and put it at center of the entire despacho as a life centered around gratitude is great. I surrounded with coconut palm sugar (a low glycemic sweetener so you can really digest and enjoy the sweetness), some quinoa (a peruvian staple grain for sustenance) and a circle of some pink sea salt for security & healing. Oh in the very center is the tradition shell with llama fat topped with a cross (mine was add hock made from a neem stick I had from India. Neem trees are considered the tree of life in India and every home has one in it's front door.
Below you'll see I started to turn this into a sun disk. With some more bath salts with copal (high vibrational sweet smelling incense) and chia seeds (talk about life force providing) rays and on the bottom some neem leaves (wanted not only the body of the tree but it's beautiful, abundant creations)
In the Northwest to SE you'll see dried flowers. These were gifted to me from someone and they were in meditation with Gurumai, a a beloved guru of the Siddha tradition) and the bar of chocolate is made by a place named Lulu. It's raw chocolate and chocolate aside from yummy provides dopamine and magnesium which is good medicine for the emotional/mental health and muscles (that help us move about in this world with fluidity), respectively.
Added more erms in the sun spokes with some salvia (visionary plant), sage (cleansing) & cedar (also cleansing)
Yes the metaphorical good & plenty plus licorice is also good medicine. Along with some gummy bears in the colors of the rainbow and some more yummy sweetness and I love the transparency of them) There are also those dried rose buds I mentioned from the most joyful birthday of my life (I laughed for 4 days except when I was sleeping but maybe then too), a turkey feather (although they don't fly, it's symbolic of your flight), so gold sun disks/glitter (yes get your glitterati on). You'll notice in the pink ream there are some gold and silver disks. Those are M&M's. I had them made for a ceremony with Mesa & Meditation, my too favorite M words and the symbolism of the gold is that it is the sweat of the sun and the moon is the tears of the moon.
Lastly was the placement of your hearts/creations. In front of each individual heart/creation is a pair of yanantin hauyuros. Hauyuoros are the red beands you see and they are for protection. Yanantin is sacred couple and it means it both literal and metaphorical way. There is a male (with black dot) and female (no dot, pure red) representing the balance of male and female energies. Although balance is always relative.
Then I tied it up snug as a bug in a rug with some gold and silver thread. I had been playing a playlist while making this despacho of songs that are more spiritually metaphorical for me. While I was tying this up, I realized I Want To Hold You Hand was playing. It reminded me of how much fun it is to share, to help others by holding their hands and, in turn, let's not be proud, let others hold our hands when we need it. I then bundled in a cloth and yes I took this to a New Years Eve spin class. I put this behind my bike so it had the exuberant, joyful and introspective intentions of the ride. Plus I rode for you people and I added some sweat to realize your dreams. We spun from 11 into midnight. It was the ride of a lifetime for sure. (I forgot to mention this and this is a post publishing edit. In a you can't make this shit up moment and how spirit works in mysterious ways. When I originally booked class I got bike 20 as the best available. Although not expecting anyone to cancel since it's a prime class, I asked to be put on a better bike list. Because you never know if you don't ask. This was with the hopes that someone else got a hot date to replace it Sunday, I received an email that I was on bike 9. 9 happens to be the number of completion leaving us ready to start a new. So couldn't have been a better number for the despacho to be behind ending 2012 and start 2013.
I later went over to the East River which is my NYC form of the Ganges and made a love offering. Thank you for sharing in this blessed event. As I said I was out of the ceremonial loop for a while and really enjoyed sharing this through the ethers with each and every one of you.
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