12/15/2018
I was honored to photograph a traditional Peruvian ceremony while visiting the Sacred Valley this past November. The Despacho Ceremony is an Andean tradition in which the local shaman assists in dispatching your prayers through an offering made to Pachamama (Mother Earth).
"For a despacho ceremony, the shaman gathers a variety of symbolic offerings such as wine, sugar, incense, gold and silver threads, red and white flower petals, grains, seeds, shells, candies and more. Each item is placed on a large sheet of paper with great care and intention, arranged in a mandala-like shape. Prayers are blown into small bundles of leaves called kintus and added to the offering as well.
Building up the despacho can take some time, especially as participants remember more people and things they want to pray for - family, career, spiritual growth, forgiveness. But eventually the mandala is completed, the bundle is folded closed and tied up. Then the shaman will run the whole bundle over your body, drawing out any heavy energy that may be lurking there.
Finally, the whole bundle is ceremonially burned, the participants turning their backs to the fire to allow the spirits to "eat" the offering in peace. The incense takes the prayers up to the Mountain Spirits, any heavy energy is turned to ash for Pachamama to consume and compost, transforming into fertile ground for new endeavors."
Excerpt taken from: http://www.steppingintofreedom.com/ho/despacho-ceremony/peruvian-despacho-ceremony
