90 Minute Workshop
Explore a powerful way to set intentions based on a traditional Andean practice of preparing despachos, or prayer packets. After a brief meditation, this workshop provides participants with hands-on experience making despachos using symbolic items from their own cultures, and examines how to use them to set intentions before labyrinth walks and other meditative practices.
Abstract
Setting intentions is a profound way of making shifts in one's life, inviting us to align, change, and branch out with the understanding that we are able to transform the stories we tell about our lives. However, for many, the term ‘intention,’ as well as the actual practice of working with intention, can be vague and difficult to fully grasp. This workshop will explore the power of setting intention as a constant flow of communication with our deepest heartfelt desire, and use the labyrinth as a sacred ritual to honor and release them. Using a hands-on, interactive approach, this workshop explores intention and guides participants in the custom of preparing despachos, or prayer packets, with objects of symbolic significance. Traditionally, Andean despachos are made as offerings of thanks-giving or atonement, or as petitions for assistance or guidance. Bundles are carefully arranged, wrapped, then burned as a way to "dispatch" prayers. This workshop will also explain how intentions are strengthened through the consistent watering of their seeds, and how reaffirming intentions creates strong roots. Participants will learn to express creativity and make their own artful prayer packet, allowing them to plant intentions into the quiet field of pure potentiality. Participants can then use the packet on a labyrinth walk, as well as a tangible daily reminder of their intentions until the season is right for them to bloom.