Don Pascual: A Q’ero Shaman

Don Pascual, Q’ero shaman

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 This evening, April 27, we drove to Palm Beach Gardens for a ceremony with Peruvian/Q’ero shaman Don Pascual Flores.  We weren’t sure what to expect.

The ceremony consists of creating a despacho –  a medicine pouch – that holds the wishes and desires of everyone in the room.

In the 1990s, we attended a despacho ceremony with another Q’ero shaman who had been brought to the U.S. by author Albert Villodo.  That was held in a rather large auditorium, with more than a hundred people attending, and a group of Q’ero Indians preparing the medicine pouch on stage. When the despacho was finished, everyone in the audience came forward one by one, for a limpieza – or cleansing – of his/her energy field with the medicine pouches made on stage.

This event was held at the Jamar Enlightenment Center, a yoga studio. As soon as we walked in, we knew the ceremony was going to be considerably smaller and much more personal. There were 22 of us seated in low meditation chairs, in a large circle. Don Pascual and Carey Stokes, the American who brought the shaman to the U.S. for a limited tour of South Florida, sat at the north direction of the circle. That direction is represented by the hummingbird.

Rob and I were sitting to the east, symbolized by the condor. I rather liked that since condors and hummingbirds feature in  both Esperanza and in Apparition, the 3^rd book in the series, which comes out in November 2013.

Before the ceremony opened, before Don Pascual even sat down, he went around the circle and hugged everyone hello. Then we were invited to place anything we wanted to on a cloth, where the object would be blessed with the despacho  at the end of the evening.  I put my watch  there. Rob had brought along his mesa, a collection of objects that he has gathered over the years in our travels – crystals, stones – and put that on the cloth.   

The ceremony opened with an homage to each of the four directions. We all turned to face the particular direction, Don Pascual uttered a prayer in Quechua and Spanish. Some people had brought rattles, which they shook during the prayers. Honor to each direction ended with Don Pascual blowing into a large conch shell, using it like a horn.

Then the making of the medicine pouch began.   Carey explained that there are hundreds of types of despachos.  This one was called Ini and its purpose is to restore balance in our lives.Everyone in the room was given three bay leaves; in Peru, they use coca leaves, but since they’re illegal here, bay leaves were substituted. Apparently you can make do with what you have because it’s the intent that matters. 

We breathed on the bay leaves and poured our wishes, dreams and hopes into them.  We did this while Don Pascual began to build the despacho  on a square piece of fabric. A lot of stuff goes into it and I wasn’t able to scribble notes fast enough to record everything:

The petals of red and white flowers, anise, sugar, dollars from the Dollar Store (representing abundance), sprinklings of wine and Florida water – known as Spirit Water – and objects that represent the 7 chakras. We were each invited to come forward and place our bay leaves inside the despacho.

When I sat on a pillow in front of this shaman while he performed this ritual with my three bay leaves, it felt extraordinary. Something powerful emanated from this man. He’s short, maybe five feet tall, with a kind of angelic face, small, dark eyes, and was decked out in full shaman poncho, pants, even a woolen cap.  He was barefoot, like the rest of us, and I remember looking at his small feet at one point and thinking, Wow, these feet are genuine. They’ve walked at 14,000 feet in the Andes. We later learned that Don Pascual’s teacher  was considered to be the Q’ero equivalent of the Dalai Lama.

He blessed my bay leaves, told me to breathe on them three times, then he did the same. The leaves were then pressed together with a white flower petal and placed just so inside the despacho.

 We also breathed our wishes and dreams into a kernel of Peruvian corn, which was probably the largest corn kernel I’ve ever seen. Then we each went up and placed the kernel in the medicine pouch.

By the time Don Pascual had finished placing everything in the despacho, he positioned a candle in each of the four directions and lit them.  Only then were we allowed to take photos. Here’s what it looked like. All that color is Don Pascual’s clothing and cap as he’s leaning forward. The medicine pouch is in front of him. Here, it resembles a birthday cake.

After the candles were blown out, Carey Stokes did a limpieza on each of us with his mesa, then we sat on a pillow again in front of Don Pascual and he blessed each of us with the despacho. Here’s Rob, receiving his blessing:

 Again, when this little guy placed that despacho on my various chakras – crown, throat, heart – and murmured his prayers – I felt steeped in a kind of cultural alchemy. I was reminded that trees don’t grow at 14,000 feet, but potatoes do. I was reminded that a pilot must use oxygen at 14,000 feet and above. I was reminded that when you live at this altitude, there are no grocery stores, drug stores, malls or doctors. The village shaman is your doctor. So he or she must treat the absolute bottom line: the imbalance in your energy field.

Don Pascual is the real deal.

On April 28, Rob has a one-hour healing session with him.