The Despacho then is the complete ritual.. there are no empty words here, no words or actions that mean anything other than that which each person present brings in the moment.

‘My thanks for the tree that I loved to climb as I grew up’ ‘my thanks for the teachers I have in my life’ ‘my thanks for the grass.. the skin of the earth’ ‘my thanks to my father who was my greatest teacher’.

‘A song of celebration of difference that brings harmony to my world’

The ritual itself depends on the ‘presence’ and ‘intention’ of all those present. The beauty and grace of this ceremony means that although if may be a ritual that is 500 years old, it is totally fresh and new each time it’s done because it relies for its fresh aliveness of the presence of those it serves.

This is no empty remnant of some long past forgotten ceremony; I believed this is the difference between what has become dogma/religion in the Western World and what a truly Spiritual Practice. When we are being told about it by someone else and then asked to use another’s words or actions then a ritual can begin to lose it’s meaning for the participant, especially over time it becomes a bit like Chinese Whispers. We end up not knowing why we are saying these words because we lost (or in some cases never knew) the original meaning.

Alternatively, when we have the Direct and Full experience, when we bring ourselves fully into it, when we know that each one of us has a Vital Part to Play, then it becomes something that Lives within us, that we fully understand, and then we get it at a deep, cellular level.

Its like life.... If we really knew and understood that we each of us has a place in the UNIVERSE that only we can fill, then we would step fully into it with pride and joy for who we are. What happens in our world today is that we aren’t encouraged to think of ourselves as unique human beings with a place that is ours to fill.  The myth that we live by is that we have been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, that we have sinned from the beginning of time, and we have to earn our place, to struggle and fight for our place.... or in most cases we end up living lives of quiet desperation because we didn’t know there was a place for us here at all.

We are all human and that very fact connects us to each other.... and that as humans we all have underneath the same longing for connection to something bigger than ourselves, the same yearning for meaning and purpose in our lives.

One of the participants in a Recent Despacho Ceremony said that as the Coco Leaves (Bay Leaves) were being passed around and each of us blew our ‘selves’ into them she felt the threads of light that connected us all.  Then as the second set were passed around and we all blew our dreams into them, she felt the threads of light connecting us outwards into the world. So that she truly felt the connection that we all have with each other and with life itself.