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Panti wanted to consult his sastun to verify that the Spirits had indeed<br />
sent me this gift. He lifted the little clay jar out of the rusty Oval-tine can<br />
where he stored his sastun.<br />
He removed the washcloth that he kept stuffed into the neck of the jar to<br />
prevent the sastun from rolling out. Then he blew into the jar before spilling<br />
out his round, translucent marble into his hand. It sparkled, having just<br />
received its weekly bath, in rum, to cleanse it of the many questions he had<br />
asked it during the week.<br />
He blew on it three more times, then placed it back into the jar. <strong>My</strong><br />
crystal sat on the tabletop, while he twirled the jar around it, uttering a<br />
<strong>Maya</strong>n chant. I heard the word sastun and my name repeated several times.<br />
He motioned for me to open my right palm to receive his sastun, just as<br />
I had seen him do <strong>with</strong> hundreds of patients. I took it in a loose fist and<br />
shook it like a pair of hot dice at a Las Vegas casino.<br />
As I shook, I began to get nervous. Could Panti be wrong about this? If<br />
it is a sastun, why was it sent to me through such an ambiguous path? If it is<br />
a magical instrument, what am I to do <strong>with</strong> it?<br />
Would the sastun draw patients to me? Did I want people seeking me<br />
out as they did him? How would I handle the types of cases that required a<br />
sastun?<br />
I felt like turning and running away.<br />
“Come to the doorway, where I can see,” said Panti, so excited he didn’t<br />
notice my confusion. “<strong>My</strong> eyes are terrible this week,” he continued. “I<br />
think I’ll be blind before long, then who will there be to pull me around?”<br />
he asked, not really waiting for a response.<br />
I opened my trembling palm and he moved it back and forth until his<br />
sastun danced about on my clammy skin.<br />
“It is done, my child. This is a sastun,” he said firmly. “The <strong>Maya</strong><br />
Spirits have sent it to you. They have accepted you.”<br />
I slumped onto a wooden stool and blankly watched him chant over my<br />
crystal in <strong>Maya</strong>n, moving his clay jarrito about it in some sort of merry,<br />
consecrating dance.<br />
<strong>My</strong> thoughts tumbled over each other in an unruly frenzy. I was thrilled.<br />
I was frightened. I believed. I didn’t believe. Was this foolishness or<br />
guidance?<br />
Closing my eyes for a moment, I leaned against the hot cement wall,<br />
drawing in a slow, deep breath and praying quietly, muttering holy words as