Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

opposite bank. In Belizean fashion, he pointed with his lips, letting me
know where the hidden trail began. It led up the hill connecting the bush to
the main road to San Antonio. Waving good-bye to my daughter, I took the
first step on my journey.
I was plagued with guilt about leaving Greg alone on the farm. He had
the daunting task before him of hauling dead trees and logs into a pile,
which would later be burned. With the onset of the winter rains, our
homestead would become a snake den, with the creatures lurking under the
dozens of piles of rotting brush we’d created. We still had so much left to
clear, since the jungle was less than a dozen feet from where we slept at
night.
He’d had such a small breakfast. I worried how he’d have the stamina to
pile up tree trunks, and the mental image of his eating lunch alone was
painful.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go today, love,” I had protested, but he had insisted
that I go.
He had assured me he’d be able to cope, and our neighbor Mick
Fleming was coming by to lend a hand. Mick and Lucy and their children
were our only neighbors for miles. They were slowly and lovingly
converting eighty-seven acres into an elegant jungle resort.
As I climbed up the bank the farm disappeared from view. Decades of
treading bare feet had left an almost invisible sliver of soft, brown earth
under the jungle growth. With one arm acting as a blind navigator I stepped
into the thick brush. My machete tore through the vines. I took steady blows
for a hundred feet until the workout tired me and my clothes were soaked
with the sap-laden dew dripping off the plants.
I turned for a moment to gaze at the Macal River. It was steaming with a
mist that swirled up from the surface like a Chinese dragon. Droplets of
moisture ran off the trees and steadily plopped into the water, bursting into
rainbow-colored rings of light that shimmered with the images above them.
Hundreds of hidden chachalaca birds sang out in a chattering disharmony,
piercing the morning quiet. This was a glorious moment for me. I felt
welcomed by the forest and reveled in being surrounded by the abundant,
luxuriant growth of plants and anticipating the key of knowledge that would
unlock the secrets they held.
I remembered why we loved Belize so much. We were far from smog,
the roar of traffic, and city grays. I stood above the bank, captivated by this