Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cross Vine Cruxi Paullinia tomentosa
A common, weedy vine whose leaves make up part of the Nine Xiv formula of herbal baths to treat
any illness.
I woke up early the next morning, my forty-seventh birthday. I hadn’t been
to see Don Elijio since healing Helena, and I was anxious to tell him about
what had happened.
Dawn was just breaking as I crossed the river and hiked to San Antonio
in record time. This day my thoughts were of the last four years I had spent
as Don Elijio’s apprentice. So much had happened. As I walked I was
joyfully aware of being able to recognize dozens of medicinal plants and
trees along the roadside.
When I arrived I found him sitting quietly alone in the doorway
scraping the Bayal vines he used to weave the Escoba palm leaf brooms.
“I cured a case of envidia, maestro,” I told him excitedly, still amazed.
“I did it just the way you taught me and it worked. The woman is
completely recovered.”
He looked unimpressed and launched into his usual sermon about envy
and greed. After all, he seemed to say, it wasn’t a miracle, just the fruits of
his teachings and the expected benefits of the medicinal plants and prayers.
Then I told him about my dream. That impressed him, and he wanted to
hear every detail. “I told you they were good friends,” he exclaimed. “Now
you know you can do this kind of work with their help and protection. We
are not alone.”
We finished the brooms together, piled them into a corner, and spread
out the canvas cloths and plastic sacks we used for chopping. He sharpened
our machetes and pointed to a gnarled pile of Man Vine. He seemed
uncharacteristically quiet.
He settled down on his seat across from me on the floor and grabbed a
twisted mass of sweet-smelling vines to pull them apart.