Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

Her lower back and the entire musculature of her spinal column were tense
and rigid.
Shajira responded nicely to tickles and pinches, which was very
encouraging. But every time I put pressure on her right upper back she
screamed out in pain and tried to wriggle off the table. Moment by moment
I was feeling more confident that I would be able to help her. I wasn’t sure
how much of the function of her legs and torso she would recover, but I felt
the general prognosis was good.
It had taken me many years to be comfortable enough with Don Elijio’s
healing techniques and plants to incorporate them into my own practice.
But here I saw a perfect opportunity to blend his system and mine.
I told Shajira’s parents that I thought a pocket of infection left over from
the flu virus had settled in her spinal column at the very point of a nerve
plexus. This, I thought, was causing her paralysis.
“She will need two naprapathic treatments each week for a while and a
series of steam baths in between the treatments,” I counseled. “I would also
like her to take something for that virus and have a good purge.
“Are you willing to follow this therapy?” I asked the worried parents.
“Doña Rosita, we have no other hope,” said the father. “Thanks be to
God that you are here and there is hope for our daughter. We have four
other children who are all strong and healthy. Shajira too has always been a
healthy child. I can’t bear to see her like this. She sits in the window
looking down on her brothers and playmates, longing to run and play. Yes,
we agree. Of course we do. We will do whatever you say.”
“Good, then,” I answered, pleased to have their cooperation and
understanding of the task before us.
I gave little Shajira a naprapathic treatment, paying special attention to
her upper and lower back. She winced and cried out when I applied
pressure in order to restore proper circulation of blood and nerve currents. I
hated to hear her cry but remembered the words of our professor at the
College of Naprapathy: “Sometimes there is no gain without pain.”
I tried to be as slow and gentle as I could, breaking the intensity of the
discomfort with soothing massage to her neck and shoulders. She was
obviously relieved when I finished.
I left her parents to dress her and asked them to wait for me on the
veranda while I went into the forest behind our farm to search out the Che