In my shamanic training, I learned a beautiful sacred ritual called “Despacho.” This practice has opened my heart and mind in ways I could never have imagined before. It speaks to the totality of my being, my body, mind, heart, and soul—as well as to Mother Earth and the whole cosmos. It has helped me rediscover and deeply feel my sense of belonging to this planet and to nature.

The Despacho ceremony is n ancient ritual of offering and prayer, and it’s a centrepiece of the Andean spiritual tradition, practiced for centuries by the Q’ero Nation of Peru and other highland communities.

the ceremony is made to create a "living energy" bundle for reciprocity, harmony, and gratitude with Mother Earth (Pachamama).

And as it’s explained by my Shamanic school teachers at Green Tara college:

A despacho is made by arranging objects on a sheet of paper during a despacho ceremony. Each object is placed with care and shamanic awareness, and carries the psychic energy of the participants. Once completed, the paper is folded up so the despacho forms a bundle, which is then tied to hold it together. This usually wrapped in a mestana or other sacred cloth. The despacho may then be used for other work, or not. Then it is disposed of in ceremony – usually burnt in a fire, but sometimes buried or scattered onto the winds or the waters.

Despacho ceremonies are performed to promote health, well-being and prosperity, or when calamity or misfortune befalls the client. Despachos are also used to thank for special events, to celebrate good luck, to help the soul of a deceased person journey into the beyond and to help grieving parents of a deceased child.

Despachos are performed to promote fertility in fields and herds, to cure illness, to undo harm, or bring customers to a business. Despachos are also performed when larger events affect the entire community. No matter what you are doing, a despacho is always appropriate.

Despachos can follow established formulas (recipes), or be improvised during the despacho ceremony. For the Shaman creating it, despacho is as much a performance and an action as it is an act of making. Mastering despacho is not a matter of learning recipes, but developing through three stages. In the first stage one makes a despacho. In the second stage one performs despacho ceremony. In the final stage one becomes despacho.

Despacho is a dance of ingredients and consciousness. Items are placed into a despacho “just so” – not in response to a rigid formula, but because the item and the placement feel appropriate. While making a physical object, every item is imbued with psychic resonances from the p’aqo and the despacho ceremony participants. The making is conducted with a state of mind which fuses munay (compassionate willpower) with yanchay (shamanic knowledge) with yankay (reverential service). The p’aqo serves the participants and the spirits to whom the despacho is aimed.