Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

“There is nothing more I can teach you, daughter,” he announced. “You
have learned everything I know and can do everything I can do.”
I stared at him. “Oh no, Don Elijio, that’s not true,” I exclaimed. “Every
time I visit you I learn something new, something I feel I never could have
put together on my own.”
He shook his head and continued, “I know it to be so. I’ve listened to
you take care of my patients. You have even become my doctor. Never once
have I felt that I had to correct you or that you gave bad advice. You have a
pure heart. This is your calling in life, just as it is mine.”
“But I still haven’t learned to read the sastun,” I reminded him. “I don’t
think I have the don, the lamp to see what the bubbles mean.”
He reminded me that reading the sastun was not the only tool at my
disposal. “You knew that the woman had envy from what she told you, and
it will always be that way. These things are no great mystery.
“A healer must accept his strengths and weaknesses, Rosita,” he added.
“The most important thing is that the Spirits are with you. They see you and
that you are working, and they will look after your needs. Long after I am
gone, they will be here. Have faith, my daughter, for with faith everything is
possible.”
I didn’t know whether I couldn’t read the sastun out of fear or because I
simply did not possess the psychic gift. I did know that my true love was
plants and my don was that my hands could see through flesh and tissue. Of
this I had no doubt.
I also had the gift of faith. I had grown to love and feel comfortable
with the Maya Spirits and felt as if they loved me in return. I sensed their
loneliness and their affection for me. I remembered that Don Elijio had
been concerned that they might not communicate with a gringa. But they
had—even speaking English, the language of my dreams.
Perhaps, it was possible that one day I would be able to read the sastun.
“Poco a poco, paso a paso,” he always said.
A village woman came in with one of Don Elijio’s many goddaughters,
asking for a belly massage. He climbed to his feet with a groan and led her
into the examining room. The child stayed with me, and we played the
Maya nine-stone game that always reminded me of jacks.
The woman and child left, and from the doorstep of the cement house
Don Elijio called me.
“Come, Rosita,” he signaled.