Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I have had this terrible pain in my belly all night,” he whispered. “I
feel like there is a tiger in my guts. The pain is unbearable.”
I took his pulse, said the prayers for ciro, and massaged his abdomen.
Then I ran into the kitchen hut, started a fire, scooped out a gourd of Man
Vine from a sack, and put it on to boil.
“I am on death’s doorstep now,” Don Elijio wailed as I spooned the tea
between his dry, rubbery lips. “I can see Saint Peter beckoning to me,
calling me home. Last week I saw Chinda in my dreams, Rosita, for the first
time since she died. She looked so fat and well. She told me I looked pale
and thin. She whispered, ‘I’ll come to get you soon, sweetheart. Not long to
go now.’ I got up from the hammock to embrace her, but she said, ‘No, not
yet,’ and disappeared.
“I begged her to return but she didn’t,” he said as he clutched his belly.
Now that I had done what I learned from him, I decided to try an
additional therapy that I had found worked well in cases of stomach cramps.
I heated castor oil in a small clay pot over the fire and soaked a cotton cloth
in the warm oil. Then I put the cloth on his abdomen and placed a hot water
bottle that I had once given him over it.
The castor oil pack was to be on for an hour, so I sat on a stool next to
the hammock.
He was very depressed. “What’s wrong with me is old age and
loneliness,” he moaned pitifully. “Where I find the cure for this is six feet
underground. Has Saint Peter forgotten to call my name? What is an old
man to do? I am ready to die.”
He told me he wasn’t afraid of dying but he was worried about his sins.
Had he done enough goodness to make up for his transgressions?
“What do you mean, papá?” I asked, stroking his forehead.
“I was a drunk and I know that made Chinda suffer,” he cried. “My
horse would come home alone, and she had to ride out to find me sleeping
in a ditch. All alone she would pick me up, put me on the horse, carry me
home, put me to bed, and make teas for my hangover.”
“But you stopped drinking,” I said.
“Not until after poor Chinda died,” he said.
“We are all capable of sinning, papá,” I said. “I know that God sees the
good you have done. Just think of the thousands you have lifted up.”