Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

everything,” he ordered with enough force to convince me to trust his
instincts.
While my arms and legs worked furiously, taking long, gripping strokes
with the rake, my mind and heart concentrated on intense praying, as I
pleaded for mercy for our home.
We fought the horrendous, unpredictable fire for nine more hours, never
stopping to rest or eat. We saved the houses, but the rest of the farm was left
a blackened surface of smoking stumps. Snakes ran out from every
direction, slithering only inches from our feet. They had been comfortably
nesting under the damp, cool piles of brush until the blaze surprised them.
At dusk, a particularly beautiful sunset in dazzling shades of orange and
purple filled the sky. We sat on the one unscathed hillside, wiping each
other’s faces, drying our tears, and reminding ourselves to be grateful that
we were still alive.
We went to join Crystal at the Flemings’. No words could describe what
we had gone through that day. Lucy put on some hot water for us to bathe,
made us dinner, and listened to our story, which got more palatable with a
couple of stiff drinks.
For the next eight weeks, we saw small brush fires ignite in old tree
stumps just beyond our clearing. It became part of the daily routine to
search out beds of smoldering embers that might burst into flame at any
moment with the right wind direction and velocity.
Greg grew more glum with each day, finally giving in to a dire case of
what we’ve learned to call “the Belize blues.” It’s a syndrome that plagues
most newcomers to the untamed jungle. When Greg wasn’t depressed, I
was.
After the fire I couldn’t leave the farm to visit Don Elijio, and I
suspended my stays in San Antonio indefinitely. I sent several messages to
Panti through his grandson Angel.
Although the fire had obliterated years of work, we returned to some
semblance of normal operations within two months, and I felt comfortable
about resuming my visits to San Antonio.
Early one Friday morning, I waded across the river on foot, as the water
was no more than thigh high at its deepest point during this particular dry
season. Soon I was reveling in the forest glen above the river-bank and
welcoming the bulging-eyed lizards and prancing scorpions. The jungle can
be hostile and unforgiving, but I had a deep, undeniable love affair with it.