Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

esembles a basement. There is a clamor of noise outside the only window.
A group of angry people are shouting at us, hurling rocks and insults. I am
quite frightened, even upset. I search the man’s eyes for meaning. He looks
at me with compassion. I expect him to say something comforting, but then
he laughs and laughs until he is doubled over in fits of mirth. At the time of
Don Elijio’s passing and for many years prior, I, like Don Elijio, was at
times an object of ridicule and scorn in Belize. I interpreted the dream to
mean that we can’t get upset or angry at people who laugh, insult, or
threaten our work. Like Don Elijio and the Amazonian man, I must simply
keep laughing.
The second dream came on the fifth night following Don Elijio’s
passing. I am sitting inside a hovel somewhere in Central America. It feels
and looks like Guatemala, but I am not sure. There are three Maya women
in traditional handwoven and embroidered dress sitting on a dirt floor with
me. The little hut has only three walls made of chicken wire. The back is
propped up against a high stone wall that seems to be the property of
someone wealthy. Five bland-faced children in torn and patched clothing sit
on the dirt floor. I get a clear sense that these people are not here by choice,
but by need. The wood door creaks opens. An unseen person shoves a rusty
tin plate of old, dried beans onto the dirt floor. It looks like something that
would normally feed a dog. Each of the women holds a bundle wrapped in
embroidered cloth. They unfold the cloths and inside are stacks of corn
tortillas. The women spread the dry, stale beans on the tortillas and pass
them out. One of the women hands me three bean-filled tortillas. Emotion
wells up within me as I am overwhelmed by their generosity and poverty. I
say, “No, señora. Feed your children.” One of the Maya women looks
deeply into my eyes. Hers are wide, bright, and beautiful. She smiles at me
and answers. “No, señora, eat—because the more we give the more we
receive.” I came to believe that this dream was in response to the great fuss
regarding an erroneous statement made during the funeral that Don Elijio
never charged or expected payment for his healing. That was not true. He
was happy to treat people whether they could pay or not, but he believed
that if they could pay, they should. He said that people who could afford to
pay and were generous with their donation received more blessing from
God and thus got well faster.
For two years, I contemplated Greg’s dream of Don Elijio’s last words
about the children of Belize. The question I asked myself was “How can I