Desconsos

Roadside desconsos on Thousand Palms Road, CA.

At around four in the morning, I woke to sense a soft glow in my usually extreme dark bedroom. Not even an LED light is glows in the space of my sleeping sanctuary. But this morning, a warm contiuous light source brought me to remember last evening's little ritual. Outside my bedroom door, on the patio, was a candle and a "desconsos" altar.

 Desconsos is literally, "a place of resting" as defined in Spanish. In New Mexico, there are many shrines along the road, where someone has come to rest, as in killed in a car crash. We've all seen the markers, with the names of the deceased, plastic flowers and spent or dusty once burning candles. Desconsos may have its roots in the tradition of taking a break. When the deceased are carried in caskets, there may be places along the route to the church where the casket was set down and the pall bearers could take a break or a rest. This is desconsos.


I created a desconsos altar, to give some of the things I've been carrying around with me a break. The creating of this altar helped me to ritually put some of that which is holding me back from happiness, or energetically keeping me in unconscious discomfort, a place to rest.   Using a candle with the steep glass container, I decorated it radomly, with symbols, words and pictures. Things appeared to me that I long-ago forgot about. Those items, seemingly forgotten, still had meaning in my life. They called to me that they were ready to be put to rest. With the reverence of deep sacred ceremony, I placed the altar outside of my bedroom door, on a private patio.

Patio desonsos, a resting place for unconsious clutter.

 The candle was lit. Like a devotee placing flower petals at the guru's feet, I sprinkled rose petals around the things that were crying to be put to rest. I prayed and chanted, then let the flame and the long night of New Year's Eve take each bit of long forgotten bitterness to its own cremation grounds. When I woke early this morning, I sensed a warm glow in the room. I opened my eyes to remember that I offered a resting place to that which I no longer need to carry. With this desconsos, I feel a lightness and a place where I can birth a new life in 2014.

Desconsos outside my bedroom door.