Winter Solstice Ceremony

2025 Ayni Despacho Winter Solstice Ceremony

Hosted by Debbie Benvenisti Broadman and Frank Finochio. Please bring something for the community altar (a picture, crystal, or shell). 

Please join us to celebrate and honor the Winter Solstice by creating a prayer bundle, an Ayni Despacho. Ayni means divine reciprocity. A Despacho is an offering. When we work in ceremony we are working at the level of the soul to bring to bring healing, harmony and union.

In the Q’ero lineage of Peru, the medicine men, medicine women and wisdom keepers have worked with this ceremony for hundreds of years. The understanding is that the universe is benign and “seems” out of balance when we are out of balance. Our world mirrors back our own state of “right relationship.”

This ceremony is a gift, an act of love and a reminder of the interconnectedness we share with all beings, spirits, nature and the elements…We give back in gratitude for all that we receive every day.

This divine exchange brings balance into our lives and the right relationship between our secular and sacred worlds. This living mandala, created with sacred elements, flowers, seeds and sweets, is a potent ritual. It is filled, with prayers to the Earth, the elements and Spirit for reciprocity, synchronicity, reverence and gratitude.