A Bundle of Joy

Greetings all,

It's Beltane!  I've been making my rounds.  Yesterday I led my first despacho ceremony for the year.  It won't be the last.  If you have a fire pit, I will do despacho.  It really is that simple.

I know I have explained what they are before, but for all the new readers just tuning in I will recap it. A despacho is an offering to spirit.  As you can see in the picture above they are quite colorful affairs.  We make a bundle out of pretty paper and fill it with goodies for the Pachamama (Mother Earth).  Into this bundle we place sugar for sweetness, because we all need a little sweetness in our life.  We also put some wine, because apparently she likes to kick back and enjoy a glass or two.  There is also candy and chocolates.  We certainly must remember the flowers and sparkly things.  This almost sounds like courtship doesn't it? Well we are trying to show our love to Spirit, because we also put our prayers into the bundle.

We breathe our prayers into every piece of the despacho.  The bundle of three bay leaves that we pass around are called Kintu.  Now if we were down in Peru we'd be using coca leaves but the government frowns on that so we raid the spice aisle at the grocery instead.  The first Kintu bundle I pass around is always for gratitude.  We start with thankfulness with what we have, most of us have quite a lot to be thankful for when we stop to consider our lives.  In that gratitude bundle we also always thank weather, because without the cooperation of weather we can't complete our ceremony.  After that first bundle goes around I send a few around that are what I call "freebies", they're for asking for the things that you want or need.  I usually send one around for our loved ones and what they need.  The final Kintu which will go on top once the despacho is sealed is for anything we have forgotten to ask for or for anyone we forgot to include.  I put a 3 day window on it, because sure enough I always go home that night and think I forgot to ask for so and so to get their promotion.

After we have sent the bundles around we all beam our energy from our hearts into the despacho.  Then I get out my tinkly bell and bless it with sound.  We then seal it up tied with pretty ribbon, the prettiest flower, and the final Kintu bundle.  So you're thinking we take it to the fire now right, but you'd be wrong.  Before we do that everyone gets smudged with the despacho bundle to take our heaviness from us to be burned away so we can feel light in our hearts again.  Now we take it out to the fire and if you're like me you're going to want to drum as it burns.

I always feel great after despacho.  I love making them.  It's a process and ceremony that really speaks to the innocence in me.  As I think on who I am without all my defenses, adaptions, and scars I remember the loving self I came into this life to be.  Despacho helps me to reclaim some of that, to be easy in my heart, more hopeful, and less defensive.  For someone who can be as distant and secluded as myself that is extremely important.  I relish any opportunity to either lead or participate in these ceremonies.  This time I was hosted by the Louisville Spiritualist Center.  They were extremely welcoming.  They even purchased a fire pit so that I could do this.  I've been really blessed to find people to share ceremony with, and the space in which to share it.  Being on a healing journey can feel solitary at times, so it is good to come together and burn our cares.

So why am I telling you this?  Well ceremony is a powerful thing, particularly when done in a group. All of us need support.  There are no lone wolves on the healing roads.  We all need our circles now.  The world can be a scary place full of dark corners.  So we light the fires of spirit with each other.  Sharing our own light.  It can be hard to see our own flame, but when we share we get the chance to see it reflected in the hearts and eyes of our loved ones.  Creating a bundle of prayers that we birth with fire is just one way to call in our joy.  There are many other ways from many other traditions.  So in the coming season of fire I suggest you gather with some folks of like heart and hold your own ceremonies.  If you're not too far off a Mooneagle might fly in and create a bundle with you to gift into the sacred fire.  Who knows what could happen, it's magic after all.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

P.S.  From myself and the Faeries, HAPPY BELTANE!