Folk Arts in Season: Honouring Bundles

The Autumnal Equinox is a natural time to celebrate harvest. One way of doing that (besides feasting with others - grin) is to create an Honouring Bundle.

Bundle-making is part of many wisdom tradition practices from around the world. Despachos, Prayer Ties, Blessing Bundles, etc. are all examples of ways in which humans have interacted with the spirit realms for generations.

Bundles can be made for a variety of occasions - births, deaths, rites of passage, healing, divination requests, etc. As a sacred creation, the bundle holds your intentions and prayers by utilizing symbolic elements. Putting your energy into making a bundle amplifies the intention you are working with and sets magic in motion by enhancing connection to the non-ordinary realms. In turn, this potentiates energy towards beneficial outcomes.

How to make an Honouring Bundle:

• Tissue paper is a wonderful start to a bundle. Any paper or fabric can be used, as long as it’s something that can burn or decompose in the ground or water. Tissue paper offers colourful options and acts as a good wrapping for the offerings you gather.
• Open the tissue paper and lay it down on a flat surface. You can choose to keep the tissue paper folded once or twice for some thickness or open it fully for more space to work with it. It becomes your foundation.  
• Place whatever ‘ingredients’ best symbolize your intention. For example, herbs, plants, flowers, etc. that have meaning to you or are from a significant place. You may add wooden shapes that represent specific things (like the shape of an airplane in wood that represents travel). You may add feathers, small bits of food, written notes, images, etc. 
• As you place the items on the tissue paper, offer your intentions, prayers, and blessings to each item as you set it down. You can choose to create a pretty design of all the ingredients or simply pile all things together in the centre of the tissue paper.   
• Take time to contemplate your intention, enjoying the beauty of the design you’ve created.
• Once you feel complete with the process, it’s time to bundle your design. Don’t worry if the design shifts and moves as you bundle. It’s meant to mix together at this point. Fold or roll the tissue paper, in whatever way feels best, bundle up all your ingredients in a packet, and then wrap natural thread around it to secure it in place, tying off the thread (ideally cotton or hemp).
• It could be a nice addition to place a natural object into the tied off thread, as a final element of beauty and acknowledgement (flower, leaf, feather, etc.).
• Once complete, you can allow the bundle to ‘steep’ (sit) for a number of minutes, hours, days or weeks. When you feel ready … give your offering to the spirit realm by way of water (moving river or stream), earth (buried), air (released to the wind), or fire (burned).