Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

us braved the rain under slickers and umbrellas, not wanting to break the
spell of this singular, charged moment.
Within the hour, the storm gave way to an eerie stillness, and Panti
resumed his melodic cántico.
I was honored to hear that he mentioned my name with the respectful
prefix of Doña several times, then he gestured with his outstretched hand in
my direction. I still found it hard to believe that I, Rosita, an Assyrian-
Italian woman from Chicago, was standing in the middle of the jungle with
a Maya priest, being initiated into the realm of the ancient Maya Spirits.
Panti uttered the last phrases and was about to turn away from the altar,
when he froze on his feet. He peered slowly over his right shoulder, and we
all followed his gaze. The air was heavy and still; the palm fronds hung
motionless, as if they were posing for a still life painting. Yet the flame of
one candle bent three times toward the west, while the flame at the other
end of the altar bowed down three times in the opposite direction.
I glanced at Don Elijio. He only smiled and said, “They’re here right
now. They’ve come. They have heard our Primicia chant and have drunk
the spirit of the atole. Look there,” he added, pointing with his crooked,
brown finger. A few yards away from the altar, a lone palm frond
rhythmically waved back and forth, as if to signal the Spirits’ celestial
presence.
We all looked at each other in stunned silence, as if to say, “Did you see
what I saw?”
As we quietly collected the offerings and trinkets we had placed on the
altar, I shyly asked Panti what he had told the Spirits about me. He stopped
and whispered, “I told them that you have a pure heart and that I have
accepted you as my beloved disciple. I asked them to give you every
consideration they have given me.”
“Thank you, my friend,” was all I could manage to utter.
We loved the Copal incense so much, we added more resin and carried
it around the farm as a blessing. Panti said it would bless each and every
corner and shadow.
He instructed Claudia on how to gently wash and dry his beloved
jícaras, which he had used for hundreds of Primicias over the past halfcentury.
When she handed them back to him, he turned toward me with
outstretched hands replete with his magnificent gourds.