Cleansing Rites of Curanderismo

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Cleansing Rites of Curanderismo Limpias Espirituales of Ancient Mesoamerican Shamans ERIKA BUENAFLOR, M.A., J.D. A tutorial on the ancient practice of limpias to heal the mind, body, and soul • Offers step-by-step instructions for the practice of limpias, shamanic cleansing rituals to heal, purify, and revitalize people as well as physical spaces • Examines different types of limpia ceremonies, such as fire rites for transformation, water rites for cleansing and influencing, and sweeping rites for divination • Explores the sacred stories behind limpia rituals and traces these curanderismo practices to their indigenous roots

Exploring the essential tools and practices of Mesoamerican shamans and curanderos, specifically the ancient Yukatek Maya and Mexica (Aztec), Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D., provides a step-by-step guide for conducting the most common practice within curanderismo: limpias. These practical and incredibly effective shamanic cleanses heal, purify, and revitalize people and spaces with herbs, flowers, eggs, feathers, fire, and water. They are also powerful tools for self-empowerment, spiritual growth, soul retrieval, rebirth, and gracefully opening up pathways for new beginnings. Drawing on her 20 years’ experience as a curandera and her graduate studies focused on Mesoamerican shamanism, the author traces modern curanderismo practices to their indigenous roots. She explores the sacred stories behind limpia rituals and examines different types of limpia ceremonies in depth, such as fire rites for transformation, water rites for cleansing and influencing, and sweeping rites for divination. She outlines how limpias work holistically to enable one to let go and cleanse the body, mind, and spirit of limiting beliefs, traumas, and broken stories; heal acute and chronic illnesses such as depression, insomnia, and anxiety; and revitalize and activate sacred spaces by renewing their essence and clearing negative energies. She explains the healing properties of the plants used in limpia rites and how to perform the medicinal chants used by the curanderos. In addition, the author details how the practice of platicas, heart-straightening talks, supports limpia rites by encouraging one to vocalize their needs as they eject traumas and unwanted energies from the body, setting the stage for self-awareness and healing. Sharing the story of her own complete healing from a catastrophic injury with limpias as well as inspirational testimonies from others who have experienced limpias, the author provides a personal and thoroughly practical guide to the ancient shamanic method of limpias to promote healing and personal transformation in our times. Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D., has a master’s degree in religious studies with a focus on Mesoamerican shamanism from the University of California at Riverside. A practicing curandera for over 20 years, descended from a long line of grandmother curanderas, she has studied with curanderas/os in Mexico, Peru, and Los Angeles and gives presentations on curanderismo in many settings, including at UCLA. She lives in Altadena, California. Bear & Company • ISBN 978-1-59143-311-8 • $18.00 (CAN $22.50) Paper Also available as an ebook • 216 pages, 6 x 9 • Includes 8-page color insert and 15 black-and-white illustrations Rights: World • Shamanism

July 2018

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From Codex Magliabecchiano, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, pages 11–13. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Plate 1. Mexica xiuhpohualli calendar day signs.

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For Review Only Plate 2. Mexica tonalpohualli calendar day signs. From Codex Borgia, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, page 66. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.

Plate 3. Mexica platicas. From Codex Magliabecchiano, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, page 78. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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For Review Only Plate 4. Mexica fire limpia rite or fire drilling. From the Codex Borgia, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, page 46. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.

Plate 5. Mexica temāzcalli (sweat lodges). From Codex Magliabecchiano, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, page 77. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Plate 6. Maya fire limpia rites or fire drilling. From Dresden Codex, Ernst Förstemann version, page 5, middle row, last two images. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Plate 7. Maya fire limpia rites or fire drilling. From Dresden Codex, Ernst Förstemann version, page 6, middle row, first two images. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Plate 8. Chac Chel, pouring water, possibly to facilitate rebirth. From Dresden Codex, Ernst Förstemann version, page 39, second row, first image. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Plate 9. Maya divination with a water bowl. From Dresden Codex, Ernst Förstemann version, page 42, first row, last panel. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Plate 10. QuetzalcoatlEhecatl, Mexica wind deity with sweeping device. From Codex Borbonicus, Joseph Florimond, duc de Loubat Collection, page 22. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.

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Plate 11. Itzamna sweeping a path. From Dresden Codex, Ernst Förstemann version, page 34. Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA.


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Cleansing Rites Curanderismo

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Cleansing Rites Curanderismo Limpias Espirituales Ancient Mesoamerican Shamans

For Review Only Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D.

Bear & Company Rochester, Vermont

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Bear & Company One Park Street Rochester, Vermont 05767 www.BearandCompanyBooks.com Bear & Company is a division of Inner Traditions International Copyright © 2018 by Erika Buenaflor All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [cip to come]

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Text design and layout by Virginia Scott Bowman This book was typeset in Garamond Premier Pro and Avenir with Trump Rock and Fontin Sans used as display typefaces To send correspondence to the author of this book, mail a first-class letter to the author c/o Inner Traditions • Bear & Company, One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767, and we will forward the communication, or contact the author directly at www.realizeyourbliss.com.

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Contents

An Introduction to Limpias and Curanderismo

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PA R T I

The Intersection of Experience and Research

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1 Coming into Being

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2 Historical and Cultural Background

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3 Pre- and Postcontact Texts

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A Modern-Day Xicana Curandera

The Mexica and Yucatec Maya

Sources Used and Why

PA R T I I

Commonly Practiced Limpias from Ancient and Modern Perspectives

4 Platicas

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Ejecting Unwanted Energies from the Body

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5 Fire Limpias

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6 Water Limpias

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7 Sweeping

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8 Sacred Spaces

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Transformation and Renewal

Cleansing and Rebirth

The Way to Purification and Revitalization

Creating, Vivifying, and Renewing

Epilogue

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Index

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An Introduction to Limpias and Curanderismo I weave back my disassociated identities moving forward in unity and wholeness. Riding the undulating serpent. La Xicana, who long ago reclaimed a dynamic and eclectic identity that was hers to shape and adore. La Feminista, who now no longer pokes at, or intends to destabilize normative androcentric mores; this is simply incidental; her essence, presence, often stirs and shakes, it just does. La Curandera, who understands the illusory paradoxical nature of attaching to defined identities; her appropriation and negotiation of identities is a way of communicating, embracing, and weaving back all dissociated parts of herself into her sacred heart.

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Erika Buenaflor

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his book is an ofrenda (offering) of love. The material draws from over twenty years of practicing as a curandera; studying with curanderas/os and shamans in the Yucatán peninsula, the Sacred Valley 1

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of Peru, and a few botanicas in Los Angeles; and my graduate research on curanderismo and ancient Mesoamerican religious and shamanic practices.* This book focuses on limpias, which are Latin American curanderismo cleansing rites that can clear, heal, and revitalize the mind, body, spirit, spaces, and situations, as well as facilitate soul retrieval—recovering sacred essence energy that has left the body as a result of trauma. Limpias can also cleanse on the levels of different but interconnected dimensions, realities, and spaces. Limpias typically incorporate holistic healing practices, including, for example, the use of plants and meditative remedies. They can also be shamanic in nature, as the curandera/o often knows, sees, or senses energies around the subtle energetic bodies and can journey to different states of reality or consciousness to track and clear the issues that have caused disturbances. These aspects take practice and trust in our intuition, but after many limpias, subtle energies become easier to manage. Limpias can also draw from magical practices in order to change a likely but unwanted outcome to an ideal one. Limpias are incredibly practical in that their sacred tools and methods are very accessible and effective, even for complete novices. Limpias are the most common rites within curanderismo because of their high utility; they facilitate holistic cleansing, healing, positive transformation, renewal, and rejuvenation. This book provides the fundamental building blocks for the most prevalent types of limpias. It also provides examples of how they have helped my clients to attract ideal situations; heal from various forms of depression, insomnia, anxiety, and other types of illnesses; and experience what some would call miracles. I will explain what curanderismo is in more detail below. But for now, it is sufficient to know that curan-

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*The term Mesoamerica is a discrete cultural area that extends from north-central Mexico to Pacific Costa Rica. By 1519, the area comprised a diverse number of peoples whose cultures resembled one another. (Smith, The Aztecs, 5.)

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derismo is a Latin American shamanic healing practice whose foundations lie in ancient Mesoamerican shamanic traditions. In this book, I trace limpia ceremonies to the ancient Mesoamerica shamans, particularly those of the Mexica, also known as the Aztecs, and Yucatec Maya of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. My most influential mentors came from the Yucatán. They had either lived there all of their lives, or they had moved there at some point; at any rate, they were familiar with both Maya and Mexica or Nahua curanderismo and shamanic practices.* I focus on these two ancient indigenous peoples, the Mexica and Yucatec Maya, because my mentors identified with these traditions and taught me their modern practices. The different limpia traditions, and their ways of understanding, are as diverse as the thousands of indigenous peoples that have existed in the Americas. Clean lines of continuity between ancient and modern traditions definitely do not exist. These traditions often comprise jagged and idiosyncratic discontinuities of consciousness. Nonetheless, there are shared underlying methods, values, beliefs, and goals that have continued.1 There are three intertwined reasons for tracing limpia rites to their ancient Mesoamerican roots. First of all, being versed in the roots of a particular shamanic or healing practice enables the practitioner to be more comfortable and fluent in it, thereby making the practices more potent. I will explore the limpia processes and tools that the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya understood to procure cleansings, healings, purification, rebirth, birth, and revitalization. These processes were not necessarily seen as being linear in the sense that one process would result in a healing while another would facilitate a purification. Rather, limpia rites were often imbued with multivalent meanings and expressions; they could facilitate healings, purifications, births, and rebirths all at

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*As I explain in chapter 3, page [x-ref ], the terms Mexica and Nahua have often been used interchangeably to talk about the same group of people within the Aztec empire. The more modern term Nahua is typically used to describe the different indigenous peoples of the Mesoamerican plateau, ancient and modern peoples.

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the same time. By tracing these roots, I hope to improve the ability of both novices and advanced practitioners to conduct effective limpias. Secondly, tracing curanderismo practices to their ancient Mesoamerican roots allows us to reclaim indigenous healing methods that have historically been derided, ridiculed, and misappropriated. Reclaiming histories, ancestral medicines, and wisdom is often a critical component in the soul retrieval process for most modern Western peoples, who typically have no connections to ancestral medicines and wisdom, and often feel disconnected as a result. This reclaiming is medicine in itself, and it can inspire us to weave our disassociated ancestral wisdom back into our heritage, as well as learn from, respect, and honor indigenous traditions. Finally, intertwined in these goals is to enact the potential healing power of epistemology; claiming these histories as being worthy of being examined, further explored, and produced, embodying the power and right to choose how we shape and identify ourselves and our stories. Be shaped by someone or something else, or choose to shape yourself—limpia lesson number one. After I trace the most prevalent limpia practices to their ancient roots, I discuss how these traditions have influenced my own methods. I also explain how to conduct limpias and what should be considered when using each method and its related tools. In addition, I share how limpias have helped change the lives of my clients and myself. It has been argued that the term “shaman” is a Western-constructed term that is inappropriate for describing practitioners of the sacred traditions of indigenous peoples because it essentializes these traditions and obscures their rich diversities. This reductionism can also perpetuate racist views and understandings of the indigenous person as a “noble savage.”2 Although shaman and shamanic are not always the preferred terms among some scholars, I use them because they can also denote fluidity and dynamism. I use the term shaman to describe those among the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya peoples who could enact sacred and magical rites

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of cleansing, birthing, rebirthing, purification, and rejuvenation, and could see beyond the veils of different realities—the predecessors of curanderas/os. I use the term shamanic to describe the rites they engaged in. This is not say, however, that every ancient Mesoamerican shaman could perform all the limpia rites described herein, or would have performed them in the same manner. There were hundreds of different kinds of ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya shamans with different specialties. Nevertheless, because the critical study and categorizing of their specialties is fairly recent and ongoing, until I am aware of a more specific name, I will use the term shaman to identify these ancient curanderas/os, and shamanic to describe their rites.

BOOK SECTIONS AND CHAPTERS The first section of the book encompasses the first three chapters, and examines who and what influenced my practice as a curandera, as well as the sources I relied on. The first chapter discusses how I met my most influential mentors, the catastrophic accident and other events that inspired me to fully embrace becoming a curandera, and why I sought out ancient Mesoamerican limpia practices. The second chapter describes the Mexica and the Maya people of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in terms of their dominant religious beliefs, calendrical systems and ceremonies, and shamanic trades. The third chapter explains the precontact and postcontact sources I relied on to examine the limpia rites of these peoples, and acknowledges both the strengths and limitations of these sources. The second section, comprising the last five chapters, discusses the most common types of limpias performed by contemporary curanderas/os. Each chapter is broken into three parts: (1) a discussion of the ancient Yucatec Maya and Mexica limpia rites; (2) an account of how these ancient practices influenced my own practice; and (3) an explanation of how to conduct limpias. The specific rites and tools that I trace and explore encompass: platicas (heart-straightening talks), fire

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and water ceremonies, sweeping rites, and methods of activating and vivifying sacred spaces for conducting limpias.

WHAT IS CURANDERISMO? This perspective and introduction on curanderismo comes from the sacred heart of a Xicana curandera who has been on a quest to understand herself, what has or had compromised her, what drives her questions, and what she chooses to be now. And as a Xicana, lovingly welcoming back the fragmented parts of herself into her sacred heart— La India, La Española, La Mexicana, La Americana, La Africana . . . The root word of curanderismo, curar, means to heal. A curandera is a female healer, and a curandero is a male healer. A curandera/o is someone who heals on a holistic level—mind, body, spirit, and soul. We generally approach healing by integrating an understanding of the soul and spirit with that of the body and mind. We curanderas/os are trained to work with the person on a holistic level, and often use many tools to do so: our hands, our intuition, the spoken word, and the power of the mind. Nonetheless, there are some curanderas/os who specialize in the use of one particular tool. The following are some of the more common specialties.

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Sobaderas/os Sobaderas/os are known for using massage and acupressure points.* But sobaderismo treatments are not simply intended to relax the body or to heal it of physical aches and pains. Rather they are intended to release many kinds of wounds—emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical— that may be stuck in the cellular body, spirit, and soul. A loving touch generally tends to melt hardness and stubbornness, and can be incredibly effective in facilitating a limpia or soul retrieval. *Acupressure points are points in the body that, when pressed upon, stimulate its natural self-curative abilities by releasing muscular tension, promoting the circulation of blood, and working with the body’s life force to aid healing.

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One curandera who mentored me taught me to use massage and acupressure points to facilitate limpias and release energetic and physical ailments from my body. After a major hiking accident that broke many of my bones from the head down and placed me in a wheelchair for almost a year, I used the sobaderismo techniques that she taught me to relieve any pain and ensure that my muscles would not atrophy. I was able to walk with a completely normal gait in less than two weeks, after having been in a wheelchair for almost a year. Of course, I also applied many other tools I had learned from curanderas/os and shamans during my initial years of training; training that has been a continuous and ongoing process. But sobaderismo techniques were essential for helping to walk normally again. For the sobaderismo treatments I provide, I move stuck energies from the body using particular strokes, charged essential oils, and hot stones and crystals; then I release this energy with my intention and place pressure on particular acupressure points to facilitate a release. I have had clients begin to spontaneously cry or laugh as this energy is released from their bodies. Afterwards, they tell me that they feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually calm and rejuvenated.

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Parteras/os There are some curanderas/os who act as parteras/os (midwives). Parterismo is a distinct specialty in that most curanderas/os are not necessarily trained to work as midwives. Parteras/os provide prenatal and postnatal support for the mother, and sometimes for the entire family. Parteras/os act as dietitians, counselors, healers, doctors, and nurses to ensure the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of both the mother and her baby. They talk to the baby and the mother during and after the pregnancy. Parteras/os are typically familiar with massage and herbs, use their intuition quite frequently, and may work with other tools as well. Along with prescribing particular foods, drinks, and plants, parteras/os may also advise the mother about how to protect herself

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and her baby from unwanted energies that could have adverse effects on them. A partera/o may advise that the mother stay indoors during an eclipse. If an expecting mother goes out at night during a full moon, she is to place a red yarn that has been tied three times in her bra. If she believes that she will be around negativity, she should tie a red yarn around her belly. Parteras/os also give massages to the mother to ensure that the baby is being formed in the right position and is in constant preparation for the actual delivery. This tradition goes back to ancient Mesoamerica. Parteras/os would give sobaderismo treatments both inside and outside the temāzcalli (sweat lodge in Nahuatl).* In fact, recruiting a partera/o was an endeavor that involved the parents and grandparents-to-be, and took place over a ceremonial feast. The partera/o was thought to be highly responsible for ensuring the health of the baby and mother. During one of my mentorships in Bacalar in the Yucatán, when it was still a sleepy little town, I had the honor of experiencing a temazcal ceremony with an old partero named Pedro. After my first ceremony, I struck up a conversation with this very sweet man and learned of his specialty. I became incredibly curious, particularly because he was the first Maya partero I had ever met. When I asked him if there were any issues because he was a male delivering babies, he gave no indication that being a male partero was of any consequence. After his nonchalant response, I did not give a second thought to his gender; I was more interested in any stories he had to share. Pedro had spent decades delivering babies in temazcales. According to him, the family of the mother, the elders in particular, would be in the temazcal when the mother was

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*I use the traditional Nahuatl spelling of these terms to describe the ancient Mexica sweat lodges, temāzcaltin (plural) and temāzcalli (singular). But I use the terms temazcal and temazcales (plural), when I am describing my own experiences with temazcal rites. The words temazcal (sweat lodge in Spanish-Nahautl) and temazcales (sweatlodges in Spanish-Nahuatl) have been incorporated by many contemporary Maya and other indigenous peoples, despite their Nahuatl origins, the language of the Mexica. Temazcal and temazcales were the terms I learned to use, while studying in the Yucatán.

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in labor. They would sing songs and play the drum to honor and welcome the birth of the baby. Herbs were chosen to ensure a graceful outcome for the delivery, and were integral to facilitating the well-being of the baby and mother during the process. My interactions with Pedro showed that he was knowledgeable about plant medicines and their preparation. One lady from our group was experiencing severe nausea. He made a fresh tea blend of lavender, basil, oregano, and cinnamon sticks, which more or less instantly alleviated her dizziness and nausea. He also made a salve for me of spearmint, camphor, yarrow, and aloe vera, which relieved the itchiness and swelling I had from a bug bite. When I asked him about his training in working and healing with plants, he said that these remedies were common knowledge. But he had received special training from his mother, who was the partera that trained him, in working with plants to heal most of the common illnesses pregnant women may experience.

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Yerberas/os

Yerberas/os are curanderas/o who work principally with plant medicine. The name is derived from yerba, which can refer to an herb, weed, or plant. Many yerberas/os know how to heal and work with flowers, fruit, weeds, tree bark, vines, leaves, vegetables, flowers, fungi, cacti, and succulents. Most yerberas/os know the healing and magical properties of hundreds of plants, possibly even thousands. Some practitioners may work strictly with plants that grow in their area, often because they have established a particular relationship with the soul essence of these plants. This relationship may have developed from a diet whereby the yerbera/o ingests the plant, prays, and calls forward its essence repeatedly for a certain number of specified days. The soul essence teaches the yerbera/o where to find the plants, when and how to pick them, and how to prepare them. There are also some rites that require plants to be fresh and harvested at a certain time of the day or night, which also makes it necessary to work with local plants.

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While in Lamanai, Belize, I had the honor of meeting a yerbero whose local medicinal plants were located in a lush jungle. I took a walk with him in the jungle. He began the walk by welcoming me and inviting me to join him in a prayer, and tobacco offering for the plants. He could identify the healing properties of hundreds of different plants and knew how to prepare medicines from them. Over dinner, he told me that his greatest teachers have been the plants themselves. As a young man, he had a teacher that taught him how to begin spotting, picking, and preparing plants for medicinal and magical purposes. He would go with his teacher to spot the terrain where they grew, and the teacher taught him where to cut them so that there would be more for him to pick later. He watched and helped his teacher heal hundreds of people from many different types of illnesses with plant preparations. But his teacher particularly stressed how to listen and connect with the spirit of the plants, because they would teach him more than he ever could. Praying with, walking, and meditating with the spirit of plants were essential for him in developing his connection with their soul essence. My connection and work with plants has developed and evolved throughout the years. My first plant mixture was with rosewater when I was five, a gift for my mom. Then, when I was eight, I felt it necessary to steep bougainvillea in warm water and add lime for my sore throat. It turns out that bougainvillea flowers have been used by many curanderas/os for colds and sore throats. I dabbled a little here and there, and throughout the years I made various herbal and flower remedies to heal the body, spirit, and soul. During my quarterly trips to the Yucatán, where I received the bulk of my training, I always offered to help and pick up any necessary plants, either at the open-air market or from my mentors’ backyards. Typically, in exchange for lending a helping hand, the curandera/o was willing to teach me what the plants were being used for and how to prepare them for many things, such as sweats, magical preparations, limpias, and healing remedies. Throughout the years, as a curandera, I continued my training in

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working and healing with plants. Eventually I began my own healing garden, and dove deeper into connecting with the soul essence of plants and welcoming them in to teach me. The plants I work with regularly have and continue to be some of my greatest teachers. At my yerberismo classes, we cover different topics, such as ceremonies for connecting with the essence spirit of each plant; the plants’ magical and spiritual qualities; how to create magical and healing oils, tinctures, salves, ointments, liniments, and poultices; when and how to pick and prepare plant mixtures in relation to the time of day or night, the specific day, and the phase of the moon; and how and where to store plants. At each class, I always have my students work with plants to make tools, such as complex tea blends, tinctures, bolsas poderosas (magical power bags), smudge bundles, salves, ointments, oils, and blends for baños (spiritual baths). This way, they get firsthand experience working and healing with plants. Although I know a thing or two about these subjects, it is not necessarily my specialty, so I do not identify myself as a yerbera.

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There are other curanderas, such as consejeras/os, who principally use spiritual counseling to heal; espiritualistas/os, who connect with deceased spirits; mentalistas, who work solely with the power of the mind to heal; perfumeras/os, who use the scent of plants to heal and work magic; santeras/os, who work with the Santería religion to heal and cleanse; and hueseras/os, bonesetters, who work with broken and injured bones. Many other curanderas/os no doubt identify themselves or are identified by different names throughout Latin America. Research in the American Southwest on curanderismo identifies another type of specialty, the “total curandero,” one who is skilled at all of the specialties. Perhaps this label was appropriate when the Southwest was mainly composed of Mexican-Americans, but it is arguably outdated as a result of globalization and immigration. I am unsure whether a Peruvian, Cuban, or Puerto Rican curandera/o would be skilled at all of the same specialties as a Xicana/o curandera/o or vice versa.

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CURANDERISMO AND ITS ROOTS Curanderismo has evolved as a dynamic and eclectic practice. Scholars point out that curanderismo is rooted in Mesoamerican practices, African medicine, Spanish spiritual theories, Judeo-Christian beliefs, early Arabic medicine and health practices, Greek humoral medicine revived during the Spanish Renaissance, and, later, European witchcraft and African medicine.3 These complex processes of negotiating and appropriating beliefs and practices often allowed Mesoamerican peoples to continue to practice rites postcontact that were already familiar to them in varying degrees, prior to the arrival of the Spaniards.* But the question that is often left unanswered is, which specific curing practices have their roots in ancient Mesoamerica? Typically, what is discussed are the early Spanish influences on indigenous curing rites and beliefs. For example, many scholars who have written about the origins and development of curanderismo state that the Spanish theory of humors influenced the practice of curanderismo early on. This theory, which can be ultimately traced back to the Greek physician Hippocrates in the fifth century BCE, identified four humors: (1) blood; (2) phlegm; (3) yellow bile; and (4) black bile. Sickness developed when one of these humors was out of equilibrium with the others, and it was the healer’s job to ascertain the imbalance and correct it. Certain physical conditions were treated with the application of heat or cold, for example.4 Some scholars, such as George Foster, assert that the influence of Spanish medical theory is so great that it is difficult to discern what is truly Mesoamerican in origin with regard to the sixteenth-century medicinal documents written by indigenous scholars. Foster further claims that indigenous scholars had been trained using European books and were therefore influenced by Hippocratic-Galenic humoral theory,

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*I use the term precontact to denote the period prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, and postcontact for the period after their arrival.

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so references to a “hot” or “cold” remedy should not be considered indigenous. Unfortunately, this line of thinking has influenced the study of curanderismo, particularly as it relates to its Mesoamerican origins.5 Mesoamerican scholars, such as Alfredo López Austin and Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, however, have critically compared many early ethnohistorical records and disagree with this dehistoricization. Ortiz de Montellano points out that Francisco Hernández, King Phillip’s appointed physician sent to conduct scientific investigation in the Americas in 1570, often criticized Mesoamerican healers for misclassifying or mislabeling plants in relation to hot-cold applications. For example, when classifying memeyas, plants that secrete a milky juice, he claims that they are certainly of a hot and dry nature and disagrees with the Mexica’s classification of them as being cold and fighting against fevers. His criticisms of the hot-cold applications make no sense unless the indigenous peoples also had their own system of applying “hot” or “cold” labels.6 In The Florentine Codex Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, sixteenthcentury ethnographer, discusses how the Mexica treated certain illnesses with hot and cold therapies. When discussing a constant cough, he notes that one should abstain from fruit and other cold food and should only drink hot beverages.7 If they were healing an infected knee, for example, they would take the humor, or phlegm, out and place a poultice of powdered toloa foliage on the knee.8 In Primeros Memoriales, Sahagún also lists different cures for humoral imbalances such as bloody phlegm, white phlegm, and yellow phlegm.9 Many hot-cold designations were also related to the loss and gain of tonalli, a particular type of soul piece or sacred essence energy, an exclusively precontact Mesoamerican concept.10 The loss of tonalli, for example, was regarded as the result of a hot and cold opposition.11 Tonalli was regarded as an impersonal regenerative energy, composed of heat and light, that circulated throughout the cosmos, and one of three animating energies possessed by humans.12 As an energy within humans, it was a regenerative inner life force that provided vigor, heat,

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strength, and growth, and was determined by the character or sign of the day under which one was born. This inner life force was primarily received from the sun. The more tonalli something contained, the hotter it was; the less tonalli, the colder it was. In fact, every situation of fear produced a feeling of coldness.13 A loss of tonalli caused a state of coldness in the person, which could lead to severe illnesses, and sometimes death. A retrieval of the tonalli, performed by a shaman called the tetonalmacani, often incorporated hot and cold treatments. A comparative critical rereading of these early documents suggests that the understanding of hot-cold applications in curing traditions can be directly traced to ancient Mesoamerican practices. This is not to say that Spanish humoral theory couldn’t have influenced curaderismo. But before immediately assuming that Spanish humoral theory actually influenced curanderismo curing practices, the focus should be spatially and temporally contextualized with special attention to the quality of interactions and instructions between them. While there were a select few to whom the Spaniards taught their healing theories and practices, the sources suggest that most curanderismo shamanic curing practices can be traced to ancient Mesoamerica. In this book, I intend to explore the largely neglected contexts of ancient Mesoamerican limpia rites. I consider, when appropriate and available, the ritual and theatrical space in which they were performed. In addition, I also focus on their polysemic nature and on their consequent transformative power in healing, purification, birth, rebirth, and revitalization. I will then expand on what can we learn from these ancient practices and how they have influenced my own methods.

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PA R T I


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Coming into Being A Modern-Day Xicana Curandera

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y early childhood was full of stories of my great-great-grandmother, who was a very well-known and respected curandera, in Chihuahua, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). She was a short, large in frame, gregarious woman who, in addition to being a curandera, was a saloon owner and a bold businesswoman. People throughout Mexico and the Southwest came to her for healings and magic. She was known to be a no-nonsense, perhaps a bit gruff, curandera who wore a patch over her right eye. She had injured the eye when making a concoction that required many roses. She was reaching deep into a thick rose bush when a thorn punctured and damaged her iris. Although she was able to prevent infection, she was unable to repair the damaged iris and had to wear an eye patch. It eventually became her trademark, and part of her persona. She had her saints decorating her saloon and the private room where she worked with clients individually. She offered sobaderismo treatments, worked with various plants, and relied on platicas (heartstraightening talks) to help clients release and heal and to diagnose what needed to be done. She was also able to do divination through cooking, specifically by making tortillas. Her daughter, my great-grandmother, whom I was very close to, had the same skill. As a little girl, I was always amazed by how my great-grandmother would tell me who

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was coming to the door by the way the tortilla landed, and to my surprise she was always right. It was said among our family that one day the rambunctious Mexican rebel Pancho Villa came into her saloon and began harassing one of the waitresses. My great-great-grandmother immediately greeted him by placing a shotgun to his head and ordered him to leave. A man who had evaded the Texas Rangers for years, and who was known for taking and doing what he wanted, meekly followed her orders. He left and never came back. Although she had a hardness to her, my great-great-grandmother healed many people who were unable to pay with money. Even if they were penniless, they would pay her in the manner they could, with, for example, food, livestock, or clothes. Nonetheless, whether it was due to respect or fear or a little bit of both, people always paid for their drinks. My great-grandmother, her daughter, also knew how to heal and work with plants. But her daughter in turn, my grandmother, felt the pull toward a more modern life and pursued nursing instead of curanderismo. She eventually dropped out of nursing school to get married and become a mother. My great-grandmother lived a block from my grandmother, so I had the opportunity to be around my great-grandmother quite a bit. She told me many stories and shared many tidbits of curanderismo wisdom with me during my childhood. My father was shot when I was two years old. He was a foreman engineer at a maquiladora (factory) in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. At that time Mexico wanted to demonstrate that its border towns were a good place to invest in—with resources that could be polluted, and full of cheap, docile labor. The maquiladora where my father worked was trying to organize a union independent of the government union. My father allowed the organizers to talk to workers during their breaks, because this, he held, was allowed per the Mexican constitution. According to the police, the nongovernment organizers came in armed, held up the people they were trying to organize, and shot my father. The story is ludicrous, but as I learned when I got to college,

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this kind of incident was quite common at many places of employment. Much to my grandparents’ surprise, and displeasure, their widowed twenty-two year-old daughter, my mother, wanted to be the first in her family to go to college. Perhaps she was inspired by my father, who graduated from college with an engineering degree at the age of sixteen, making him the youngest graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso at the time. Whether it was from inspiration, despair, a desire to continue moving up the ladder of modernization, or all of the above, my mother started the family trend toward going to college. Because she was busy studying or working, I was able to spend more time with my great-grandmother, so as a young girl I was influenced by her stories of curanderismo. We moved to Los Angeles permanently when I was about nine. The move was very difficult for me. I was an only child, was incredibly lonely, and endured many years of sexual and psychological abuse by my so-called stepfather, a man my mother married after my father’s death. Fortunately, at a very young age, I became captivated by her metaphysical books, particularly those by Carlos Castaneda. Out of necessity and curiosity, I mastered the art of astral projection. When he came in my room, I left. My childhood and adolescence can be described as periods of extreme duality. The sexual abuse went on for almost a decade, until I spoke out against it. It was “remedied” with an apology to my mom and myself and a day trip with my bestfriend to my favorite theme park. The psychological abuse from my so-called stepfather came in many forms, including having this Mexican man constantly berate and ridicule anything I did that reflected Mexican culture, such as speaking Spanish. He constantly told me that people would assume I was a “wetback” because of my last name, Hernandez. When I was about twelve, I begged my mother to legally change my last name to her maiden name, and she did. I had been programmed to believe that her name did not make me sound too much like a wetback. Growing up, I never spoke Spanish, constantly dyed my hair to make it lighter, and got blue-eyed

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contacts as soon as they were available. It took a very long time and a lot of healing to love and adore my dark brown eyes and hair and olive complexion. Despite this grave cultural disassociation within myself, I knew even as a young girl that I had the don, the gift of healing, and was a curandera shaman; this knowingness kept me strong. Although my mother had allowed that man and others to stay in our lives, she nonetheless served as a source of inspiration. I knew that being a widow, being the first in her family to go to college, and learning how to speak English in school was no easy feat. I always admired her for that. I did not grow up with any type of religious affiliation. My mother was forced to go to Catholic school, but as an adult she did not identify herself as Catholic, nor did she require me to adhere to any religion. Nevertheless, as a young girl, I was very spiritual. I knew there was more to life than the naked eye could see, and always felt an incredibly strong bond with angels, fairies, Buddhas, and saints from various traditions. I sensed the divine, and I knew I was I loved by all that is divine. When I got to college, I began to experience an awakening of my spirit as a Xicana feminist. With the help of many Xicana/o classes, I finally had an opportunity to reclaim and love my history, culture, and ethnic identity. I had an opportunity to shine, and I did. I got A’s or A+’s in most of my classes, and got into an honors program at UCLA, which allowed me to take many graduate-level courses, giving me the freedom to choose what I wanted to focus on. I also sharpened my critical and analytical skills to an art, and questioned everything. I became acutely aware of the many forms of institutionalized discrimination and sexism, the health issues with genetically modified foods, the assortment of atrocities committed by First World countries, and many other types of injustices. I wanted to be of service and help to eliminate these injustices, so I decided I would become an attorney. But I also shaped my curriculum in a way that began to feed my hungry spirit and soul. Alongside studying political theory and the recent effects of economic globalization, I studied curanderismo.

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Law school was another period of stifling duality. I stuck through it because I was unaware at the time that I could create other possibilities for myself. My spirit was awakening, but my psyche was still very much wrapped up in a dualistic prison. Perhaps it was enduring thirty-plus years of repeated cycles of incredibly challenging traumas that motivated me to be diligent in continuously seeking out curanderas/os and shamans that were willing to train me, and enabled me to be incredibly disciplined in studying, learning, and carrying out their assignments.

MY TRAINING WITH CURANDERAS/OS After I survived my second year of law school, Breata, a high-school friend, and I planned a trip to Cancun to unwind and relax. We were both in school, and finances were tight, so we could not by any means afford a five-star hotel. Nonetheless, we spent a little more than expected in order to stay somewhere that still appeared to be a tropical paradise. On the day we were leaving for our trip, Breata’s car broke down, and we missed the flight. We were a little disappointed, but were still in great spirits. Missing our flight enabled me to meet Rob, a very interesting gentleman who helped make the world of curanderismo accessible to me again. At first glance, I never would have thought that this man, who continually identified himself as a “gringo,” would have served as my first bridge back to curanderismo. Rob was in his late fifties, about six feet one, with short gray hair, a large belly, and very skinny legs. He had buck teeth, which peered out a bit even when he closed his mouth. His eyes were full of life, but the layers of bags beneath his eyes suggested that he worked late too often. He was incredibly friendly and sparked a conversation with us immediately on the flight to Cancun. After establishing where we were going and what we did, Rob told us about his properties in Puerto Aventuras and Tulum, and entertained us with fascinating stories about these then-quiet cities. Rob also told us about his restaurant on the beach of Tulum. When

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you walked in, you were greeted by a white pathway adorned with hundreds of different kinds of orchids, coconut and banana trees, and a few casitas (small houses) to the left that were still being constructed. The restaurant on the beach was covered by a giant palapa (palm roof), reminiscent of a traditional Maya house. He also began to talk about the book The Celestine Prophecy. At the time I had never heard of it. I had my head buried in books on torts, constitutional law, and civil procedure for what felt like an eternity, and I welcomed hearing about something uplifting and beautiful. When the pilot announced that we were about to land in thirty minutes, Rob offered his beachfront house to us. He told us that he only intended to stay for a few days and that we could continue to stay there after he left. He proclaimed that we were not going to like Cancun; it was too busy and overrun with tourists. As much as we loved his stories, we were not sure if he had ulterior motives or whether his stories were actually true. We immediately responded with a gracious thank-you and turned him down. He then drew a map to his restaurant in Tulum on a paper napkin. This is where he intended to be most of the time, and where we could find him in case we changed our minds. The map did not have any street names; rather it was all landmarks, including the second tope (road bump) where we would make a left to find the strip of new construction that housed his magical temple restaurant. I took the map and put it in my purse. When we landed, we said our good-byes. Although I was grateful for meeting such a colorful, upbeat, and entertaining storyteller, who took the sting out of missing our first flight, at the time I did not think I would be seeing Rob again. When we got to Cancun, it was exactly as Rob described. Our hotel felt cold, not just from the uncomfortably blasting air conditioners, but from its artificiality. It was nothing like the natural tropical paradise we imagined. Although our room was nicely furnished, it had a lingering moldy smell that made me ill. They moved us to two different rooms, but the mold smell lingered throughout all of them. The town, with its dizzy happy hour of howling and whistling, was also not what we had

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in mind. After the second night, we decided to drive down to Tulum to visit our friend. Although we told each other that we were just going to visit, we packed our bags and took our luggage without any mention of why. After all, if we did not care for his place, we would immediately leave and come back to the room we had reserved and paid for. We headed down to Tulum in our little rented Volkswagen. The drive itself was invigorating. We were surrounded by gorgeous, lush green fields, and were heading to a possible adventure that sounded ideal. We laughed at ourselves for following a napkin map with landmarks, but we kept going, singing to our freedom. We got to the first landmark, the sign to Tulum, a very popular ancient Maya site. Then we simply paid attention to the road bumps, turned down the street to the beach strip that contained all of the new construction, and found our way to Rob’s Maya temple restaurant. We were amazed. It was as gorgeous as Rob had described it. We made our way down the white path to the restaurant. Breata and I looked around and saw we were the only potential customers. Almost immediately we were welcomed by Pancho, Rob’s right-hand man. We asked if Rob was around, and Pancho confirmed that he would be coming shortly. In less than five minutes, we heard Rob singing our welcome, incredibly joyful that we had decided to visit him. He had his staff prepare the most amazing dishes for us, and simply spoiled us. Over lunch, Rob mentioned his curandero friend at the lighthouse who worked with herbs and many other tools, such as candles and eggs, to do cleansings for people. My attention became fixed on his comments about this curandero. He realized that I was captivated by what he was sharing, and he told me that he also knew a few curanderas who worked with massage and herbs. He promised to introduce us to the curandero at the lighthouse and to arrange for us to meet the curanderas as well. Two years of law school had starved my barely awakening spirit. I was thrilled at the chance to nourish it, and to move beyond reading about curanderas/os to actually being in their presence again. After lunch, Rob introduced us to Puerto Aventuras and his

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beach house. It was in an interesting little gated community with its own streets, small downtown, and a place to swim with the dolphins. (Rob, however, immediately dissuaded us from swimming with the dolphins.) His beach house was breathtaking. He had a large private pool that overlooked the sea, and impressive glass walls providing full views from the bedrooms, the sunken living room, and the kitchen. We had not mentioned that we would be staying at his house. He nonetheless showed us upstairs and simply handed us the keys to our individual master bedrooms. That night he took us into Playa del Carmen, showed us around, and treated us to dinner. The whole time he was funny, and a perfect gentleman. He appeared to be happy to be seen in the company of two pretty young ladies that were mesmerized by his stories and laughed at all of his punchlines. The next day, as promised, Rob took us to the curandero at the lighthouse, Don Tomas. He apparently had taken and referred many people to Don Tomas. On our way there he told us more stories about the curandero’s miraculous healings for various types of ailments, chronic pain, depression, skin rashes, scars, and much more. When we got to Don Tomas’s house, he was busy attending to someone, with another person waiting to be seen in the living room. Don Tomas’s house was very minimal. The combined living and dining room was furnished with an old couch, a television that looked as if it was from the 1970s, a rocking chair, and a dining table with chairs. His nephew was also in the living room, glued to the television, mesmerized by the cartoons. The nephew acknowledged us for a quick second and went back to watching his cartoons. The wall had a couple of crosses, a Sacred Heart of Jesus painting, and a Virgin of Guadalupe collage. There were no visible altars. We sat at the dining table. A door next to the television led to what appeared to be the backyard. What caught my attention were the many vases with different flowers he had throughout the room. After we were waiting for about thirty minutes, Don Tomas came out. He was instructing the lady he had just attended, apparently

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reminding her what to buy and where and how she had to place it under her bed. He shook her hand and said his good-byes with a common Catholic salutation, “Vaya con Dios” (go with God). Don Tomas was a short, stocky man with a warm, gigantic smile. He knew a little English, and when Rob introduced us, he made sure to let us know that he also spoke Yucatec Mayan by teaching us how to say hello and greet people in the language. From our first interactions and many thereafter, I got a strong sense that he loved his culture and was very proud of it. Rob asked him to give us the limpia “especial” (special). After taking care of the payment for our limpias, Rob turned to us and told us that he would be back for us in a few hours. Breata and I were completely comfortable with this, and smiled in gratitude and agreement. Don Tomas took the other lady, who was there before us, to his working room and attended to her. I was curious, so I tried to listen to what he was doing in the other room. But the volume on the television was too high for me to hear anything. Breata and I sat there waiting patiently, and were in awe at the amazing turn of events. We were grateful that we had missed our flight and sat next to Rob. Approximately an hour later, Don Tomas came out and instructed the lady about what she needed to do and buy to continue the work. Breata and I had decided that she would go first, so he took her into the room. About twenty minutes later, he went out to his backyard and came back inside with a handful of plants. I could hear him preparing something in the kitchen for her, which took about fifteen minutes. Then he went back to the room with a pitcher containing what he had apparently concocted with the plants. They came out an hour later. Breata was wrapped up in white sheets. Don Tomas was leading her to another room to rest. Then he came for me and took me to the room where he did his work. Inside there were three main altars with saints: the Virgin of Guadalupe, San Simón, and another one that was cloaked with scarves. The altars were all decorated with different items and offerings, includ-

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ing water, earth, coins, flowers, corn, pictures, and petitions. He sat me down at the small table in the room and began a platica. At the time, I knew there was something missing in my life. But I had spent a lifetime burying my traumas deep inside and was unsure of what or why something was missing from my life. I told him that I did not have anything specific I wanted to let go of or heal. He asked me what I was currently doing with my life, and I told him. He basically said the same thing that all of my Chicana/o professors had said when I asked them for a letter of recommendation for law school, “What? Why would you do something like that?” He insisted that I was in the wrong career, and that the road to this realization was going to be very challenging for me. He told me that he was going to send a few additional guardian angels and saints my way with the limpia because, according to him, I would be needing their help. He got a bottle that smelled of cologne, herbs, and flowers, and began to sprinkle the liquid inside all over me as he was saying his prayers. He then handed me a bucketful of herbs and instructed me to get in the shower and dowse myself with what was inside the bucket. Thereafter I had to rinse myself off with very cold water. He explained to me that cold water dissipates dense or negative vibrations, and that I should always shower with cold water if my spirit felt heavy. Afterwards, I was to wrap myself in a white sheet he had waiting for me on the bathroom counter. I did as he told me, but even though it was a very hot day, washing myself off with very cold water was not enjoyable in the slightest. When I came out of the bathroom wrapped in the white sheet, he led me to the other room where Breata was lying down and sleeping. I also fell asleep. When I woke up, there was some cold herbal tea waiting for me next to my clothes. I calmly drank it. Breata’s comment, “Wow,” exactly reflected how I felt. Rob came for us a little while after we got dressed. The rest of the week was very much how Rob indicated it was going to be. He would be gone, and we would have access to the house with

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all of its amenities; it was what we were hoping for, and were ecstatic that it happened the way it did. When I came back to Los Angeles, I had a spark inside of me awakened. I wanted to return to the Yucatán as soon as possible. I remember Rob mentioning that he wanted to rent the house when he was not there, but did not have time to do so and had not found a person he trusted to help him do so. My instincts kicked in. I called him two days after returning and offered to rent out the house if he paid me a commission. This commission became my ticket for the next couple of years to allow me to return regularly to the Yucatán and begin my mentorship as a curandera. After I become an attorney, I was able to fund my trips to continue my mentorship. From 2000 to 2005, I returned to the Yucatán every four to six months. During this period, I principally studied with Don Tomas and another curandera/sobadera, Barbara. I also attended various sweats, and would spend a few days here and there learning from curanderas/os who facilitated the sweats. I also began to learn Mayan divination using the tzol’ kin calendar. The other set of master teachers in the Yucatán were the buildings at the Maya sacred sites. Every time I went to the Yucatán, I spent at least one day at the sites, meditating and journeying, receiving the wisdom they so gracefully shared with me. Sometimes the buildings taught me about the ceremonies that had taken place there, and about the multilayered reasoning behind the ceremonies. One of the most profound visions was seeing in my mind’s eyes various Maya and Mexica images of body postures, which gave me an understanding of their physiological and spiritual effects and providing a way to tune in into the energies of particular deities or sacred conduits. I felt these effects when I sat on top of a rock at Tulum while allowing my body to contort into various asanas for a few hours. Then I was guided to sit down and look at myself swimming in the sea as some kind of water serpent. I saw the etheric outlines of a sea serpent, and knew that it was me out there gracefully coming up from and into the

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sea. My most intense visions have been typically induced by prolonged periods of meditation and yoga. Almost a year after going to Don Tomas for limpias and consultations, he told me I was a curandera like my great-great-grandmother. I knew he was right, but I did not see a way of putting my knowledge into practice given my enormous and growing law-school loans. After he told me this, he invited to begin to mentor me. I jumped at this opportunity. Don Tomas taught me how to heal with plants, clear maldades,* and the basics of doing divination work with plants. He let me sit in when he worked, typically with clients who only spoke English, where I served as his translator and assistant. Don Tomas, who worked a lot with plants, taught me the essentials of picking plants for limpias: the number that should be taken, where to pick them, and the importance of leaving offerings for them. He also taught me how to dry and store the different plants. He had spaces in a little shed where he had various hanging plants. He also put some underneath the beds on top of a window screen, and he had the sturdier ones in cardboard boxes and grocery bags. Sadly, in late 2004, after not visiting him for more than six months, I found that he was no longer at the lighthouse. The entire area, house and all, was fenced off. At this time the property values in Tulum were beginning to skyrocket. I got the sense that he may have been forced off by someone who saw the financial value of a piece of land with an extraordinary view of the city. I sensed that whoever took the property paid Don Tomas for it, but likely nowhere near what they likely sold it for. This feeling was confirmed in 2008, when I drove around the area with friends who were real-estate agents, when the small hills of Tulum had been turned into pockets of plush gated communities. Barbara, the other curandera with whom I worked intensively

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*Maldades are negative energies that have been thrown someone’s way, intentionally or unintentionally. They usually manifest as streaks of bad luck.

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d uring my first mentorship period, was from Mexico City. When I met her, she was fifty-two but looked incredibly young. Barbara had been trained in both Aztec traditions, as well as in Yucatec Maya ones. She was the one who would invite me to many of my first ceremonies, including my first peyote ceremony. During the first two years that I worked with her, I hired her as a sobadera, partly because she had amazing healing hands, but also because I wanted to learn from her. Hiring her was the best way to ensure that she would teach me, as she was very popular in Puerto Aventuras and neighboring upscale gated communities. Rob was the one who first introduced me to her. On one occasion, when I returned to Barbara sometime in 2003, my energy and light had been vastly depleted. I was representing the partners in my law firm in a malpractice lawsuit, which would have been OK if they had not been at each other’s throats. There was a time when I actually called two grown men into my office and asked them to stop coming to me with chisme (gossip) about each other. And the gossip was the nicer part of it. The first year or so was tolerable, but when the malpractice suit was filed, all hell broke loose. When I came to Barbara, she was disturbed to see that I had rashes all over my body from the stress. I admitted to her that I was in a state of shock, and was terrified of the thought that I would have to work in this profession for any extended period. After seeing me in this sad state, she began to teach me her limpia methods, as well as different techniques to release stress from my body. From my treatments with her, I had already learned acupressure techniques to relieve pain from an aching back and shoulders. But after this point, my training began to encompass the magical side of sobaderismo. I learned the different ways to release and heal traumas within the body, and using the elements, such as water and heat, to facilitate cleansing. She also invited me to my first temazcal ceremony, which eventually became a common practice every time I visited the Yucatán. She also taught me about curanderismo soul retrieval, and working with the gifts of the cardinal spaces or skybearers to retrieve lost vital essence

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energy. I loved working with Barbara. In early 2005, she got married and moved to Kauai. Along with my Yucatán mentors, from 2000 to 2005 I took many other alternative healing classes, and became certified in quite a few when I was in the States. My interests were rather eclectic—everything from mindfulness meditation, tantra, shamanism, crystal healing, and sacred geometry to various energy healing modalities. I was also an avid yogi, and went to an average of two yoga classes a day. But at this time I saw my passion and love for integrating various healing modalities as a curandera mentee as ultimately a mere hobby, something I did on the side. In May 2005, a catastrophic injury changed this view and led me to fully embrace my don, the gift of healing given by God. On May 15, I decided to go to Red Rock Canyon in Las Vegas. I was in Las Vegas for a work convention, but I did not want to gamble afterward; I wanted to do something peaceful and go hiking. A few days before, when I was still at home, I had been walking to the kitchen carrying some plates. I saw a vision of myself in a wheelchair. I dropped to the ground and let the plates fall out of my hands. I knew this vision was going to happen, and cried out, “No, God, not like that.” Then I snapped out of the vision and went to get ready as if I had not seen it. Nevertheless, before the trip, I mapped out the two Bikram yoga studios in Las Vegas and found out about Red Rock Canyon, which was very close to the hotel where I was staying. On the last day, the convention ended early enough so that I could do a little exploration at the canyon. Some of my close friends had a tradition of activating spin cycles at particular earth-energy nodes. Despite my vision earlier that week, I felt compelled to go, as if the canyon was calling me. Although it reminded me somewhat of the Red Rock canyons of Sedona, the energy felt very different and dense. After hiking for thirty minutes, I sat down to meditate. I envisioned the earth’s crystalline inner grids, and at the particular points where I was, I saw the intersections begin to spin.

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After what felt like fifteen minutes, I looked at my watch and became alarmed. I had been meditating for more than two hours, even though I had only intended to stay at the canyon for about an hour. I must have resembled the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, scrambling in a state of panic, worried that I was going to miss my flight. I slipped, and fell off a cliff that was over thirty feet high. A couple hours later, I woke up as I was being airlifted out of the canyon. I was in and out of consciousness for the first three days. On the third day, when I was lucid enough, the doctor told me that my fall had resulted in a skull fracture, a brain hemorrhage, a left acromioclavicular joint separation, two fractured vertebrae, a shattered coccyx, three fractures in my left leg, and, on the right leg, bones fractured from the knee down and coming out of my heel. Six weeks later I also got severe osteomyelitis in my right heel and lost a third of the bones in my heel. I was also given a diagnosis that I would be in pain the rest of my life from the shattered coccyx, and was told that if I walked again, it would only be with some kind of assistance. The first day I received these dire diagnoses, I knew it was time for me to decide who I was and to fully embrace my don. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would be 100 percent free of pain, would walk with a completely normal gait, and would be dancing again. The next time I heard any dire diagnoses—and this was quite often—I would look at the doctor and ask when I would be able to return to doing my yoga. The doctor would usually give me a puzzled smile and walk away. I was stuck in the hospital for a couple of months because of the severe osteomyelitis. After the third debridement, the doctor came to tell me that it was very likely that they would be amputating my right foot that evening. After the doctor left, I heard a voice tell me that I needed to stay grounded and work with the earth’s energy grids, because there was going to be an earthquake. I got upset. I silently responded, “How I am supposed to stay grounded after I’ve just found out that I am going to have my foot amputated?” Right then, I felt an incredible lightness come over me, and was told to use the blue ray. I felt without a

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shadow of doubt that it was the Archangel Michael who had told me to use the blue ray. I had been exposed to a lot of different healing modalities, but at that time I had never had anyone tell me to use the blue ray. I snapped out of my self-pity, surrendered, and became the blue ray. The next thing I knew I saw a flash in my third eye, and felt myself shapeshifting into Krishna, Archangel Michael, El Morya, and other beings who embodied a divine blue light. I went into surgery late that night. The next morning, I finally got to leave the hospital, get off the intravenous antibiotics and, the best part of all, I got to keep my foot. The infection had changed in less than eight hours. I did not have to return to work right away, which gave me an opportunity to completely dive into the world of curanderismo. I put into practice many of the healing methods I had been studying. I applied them to avoid having to take pain medications, and to manage pain, release stress, and prevent my muscles from going into atrophy. I had been in a wheelchair for almost a year. After this time, in less than two weeks, I was walking with a completely normal gait. I was also completely pain-free. During the recovery period, what made me the saddest was the thought of returning to work as an attorney, rather than the thought that I might not fully recover. (I knew I was going to fully recover.) Prior to my injury, I had gotten to a point where I was really trying to make the best out of a situation I felt stuck in. I even started to tell myself that I loved what I did. But I knew this was a lie. In November 2006, a month after my last surgery, which removed the hardware from my left knee, and ten months after returning to work, I returned to the Yucatán. On this trip, I met my next mentor, Malina. Malina was a resident curandera at Laguna Bacalar. When I met her, I was with a group visiting the Maya sacred sites of Quintana Roo and northern Belize. And yes, I climbed up all the temples at the sites, including the great pyramid of Calakmul, which is 148 feet high. The ability to release fear in this manner, and to sit with my ancestors once again, was both exhilarating and incredibly healing. At the end of the day, my feet looked like swollen potatoes. But I knew rubbing

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techniques that would help with the swelling and discomfort. One of the places we stayed at the longest on this trip was Rancho Encantado. At the time, Malina was a curandera there. The first time I met Malina, I felt an immediate bond with her. She embodied gentleness and exuded power and strength at the same time. Interestingly, at that time I went by the name Malin, short for Malintzin. We both had taken on the name of a Mexicana-Xicana mythical archetype, who acted as Hernán Cortés’ translator and diplomat, and helped to defeat the disliked Mexica. Even though hundreds of Mesoamerican peoples allied themselves with the Spaniards to defeat the Mexica, for hundreds of years she was the one identified as the whore and traitor who sold out her people. When women do something that is out of favor or unsavory they are labeled as malinche or malinchistas. I took on her name to reenvision this archetype in a different light, one beyond the simple dichotomy of whore versus virgin. As a curandera, Malina had a very eclectic healing practice. She was from New Mexico, and incorporated New Mexican Navajo ceremonial healing practices, and would mention them when it was appropriate. She had lived in Maui, and had studied native Hawaiian balanced movements that could clear and raise energy, among other practical benefits, such as staying centered and focused. She had also been to China twice to study and advance her qigong practice. The way she honored and worked with saints and the soul essences of plants integrated Mexica elements and Yucatec Maya practices. Although I never had the opportunity to watch her dance, according to Don Fernando, another mentor to whom she introduced me, she was an extraordinary Aztec dancer. She was very sweet, tender, and stern, all at the same time. During my first visit at Rancho Encantado, when we were eating, I always made my way to sit next to Malina and listen to her stories. She talked about her training in northern Mexico and her experience with plant medicines. Once she told me that the following day was her day off and invited me to visit with her. Kimi, another lady from our group,

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and I decided we would pass on going to Kohunlich with the group and stay behind to hang out with Malina. The next day, Kimi, Malina, the then-owner of Rancho Encantado, a few other people that worked there, and I sat together for breakfast. As everyone was sharing stories, Malina instantly drew me in with the cadence of her voice and the look of her eyes. She asked me, “So, Malin, are you living your bliss, joy, and happiness?” She looked into me, into my very essence, as she asked the question and waited for my response. I was thrown off-kilter. A simple question, yet she pulled me in a manner that I had never experienced. I stuttered a bit and responded, “Well, yes, I am a happy person. I am a very happy person.” She refused my meek, fumbling response. She then pulled me in further. Among a table full of people, for moments that lasted for an eternity, we were the only ones there and there was nothing else. She asked again, “No, I asked are you living your bliss, joy, and happiness.” She stressed “living” as she drew me in further. I was completely dumbfounded and unable to answer her. Nothing came out of my mouth. She smiled and continued to share more stories. That day we walked around the grounds and talked about the healing properties of the lagoon and the hundreds of orchids at the property, and she showed me some balanced-movement steps to gracefully clear energy. Her question, however, was still lying on the cusp of my subconscious. Every night I kept hearing her question and seeing my inability to respond. A couple of months later, I realized that I could no longer live a lie. I knew that I definitely was not, by any measure, living my bliss, joy, or happiness, even after a near-death experience. I decided to pursue what I had become incredibly passionate about. A month later, I managed to sign up a group of people to take an extended energy-healing class with me, and also to tour the Maya sacred sites of Quintana Roo. As soon as all the people in the group put their deposit down, which was rather immediate, I called Malina and told her my plan. I was taking my first group of people to the Maya sacred sites in April 2007 and was planning on quitting my job. I was not entirely clear about what I

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would do in the other months or how I would pay my mortgage, hefty student loans, and all the other bills. But I was very sure I was leaving. One morning, I remembered a job offer I had gotten a couple years previously to serve as a private tutor to help people pass the California Bar Examination. This was nothing close to my ideal, but I wanted to secure some kind of income and work part-time. I felt the pull to pay a visit to the people who had offered that job on the same day I remembered the offer. It just so happened that a tutor had recently quit and they needed someone to help them, and so I resigned from my full-time job as an attorney. In 2007, I used my very flexible schedule to return to the Yucatán quite frequently and work with many new mentors, including Malina. Malina taught me various effective ways to clear and raise energy with touch and movement. I also started to learn Nahuatl medicine songs that were sung during sweats. Most importantly, Malina taught me the importance of discipline—the discipline of self-love, a discipline that gets easier and easier. She never put up with any of my B.S., and cut through it very swiftly and with strong love. I remember one occasion when she had sent me to work with a curandera she admired, Don Fernando. I was whining that Don Fernando had ordered me to sleep in a hammock hovering over a candle and other sacred tools for clearing work. I was not fond of the idea of sleeping outside with the insects and the wildlife that roamed the area at night. Disappointed, Malina looked at me and asked, “Do you want his help or don’t you?” I nodded. She responded with an obstinate look and said, “Well, do as he says.” Next to Malina, Don Fernando was the mentor I studied under the most during my second mentorship period. Don Fernando was Yucatec Maya, and spoke fluent Spanish and Yucatec Mayan.* At the time he was the principal caretaker of Kohunlich, a Mayan sacred site south of Chetumal, a few minutes from his house. When I first started going to

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*In alignment with current academic practice, I use the term Mayan when referring to the language, and Maya for everything else.

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him for limpias, he always made sure to do something radically different for me, and always explained what he was doing and why. I never told him that I wanted to study under him, but he knew. Eventually he began to invite me in when he worked with certain clients, and would teach me. He would ask me to return the next day with items from the botanicas of Chetumal and some rare herbs he did not have in his backyard. I always complied. From Don Fernando, I further developed my skills in conducting limpias and doing readings from them. He taught me how to read the yolk after doing an egg limpia, how to read a puro (cigar) after doing a limpia with one, and how to read the residues from a fire-based limpia. He taught me a lot about the magic and cleansing power of doing velaciónes (candle work), which included the candle formations and their purposes, the uses for the types and colors of candles, and when and what type of offerings to make. He also taught me sortilege divination. He would lay out day signs from the tzol’kin Maya calendar; arrange flowers, cups, and other tools; and throw flowers or corn to determine the likely outcome of events as well as the limpia work that needed to be done. Although I was and still am very grateful for my mentors, I wanted to go deeper into my practice as a curandera. I wanted to dive into ancient Mesoamerican roots of my practice and understand the rich indigenous history of curanderismo. My mentors gave me some insight into the indigenous background of what they were teaching me, but I was hungry for more. I was very inquisitive. I remember on one instance I asked why it was necessary to use a pencil when writing petitions, and where that tradition came from. I was asked in turn why I asked so many questions, and was then told that this is the way things were done and had always been done. I knew that generations of oral tradition were pervasive and necessary in our curanderismo traditions for many complex reasons, including survival and protection from the Inquisitions. But I was also aware that many of these ancient curanderismo traditions had been documented by early ethnographers, and

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that there were p recontact codices that had survived the Spanish fires. I wanted to further develop my understanding of the shamanic and ceremonial practices of the ancient Mesoamerican shamans; their methods; the tools used; who had access to these things and why; and the complex meanings behind these practices. I prepared to apply to graduate school late in 2007. After meeting with Karl Taube, a well-known Mesoamerican scholar, and a few other professors from the University of California at Riverside, I had my eyes set on this university. I got accepted to attend the following year, in September 2008. Until then, I continued to visit the Yucatán, took people on spiritual tours to the Maya sacred sites, and continued to study with my new mentors. While in graduate school, I gained access to an immense amount of information about ancient Mesoamerica. I went to school two or three times a week, and every time I came home with a cartful of books. I read them all, and was loving it! While in graduate school, I continued my practice as a curandera, but was very private about it. I basically went to school to get books. I also continued my trips and training in the Yucatán. Although I loved reading and studying, I did not care for graduate-school politics. I did not want to study curanderas/os; I wanted to be a curandera and practice what I was learning. I did not see graduate school as a place that would appreciate this desire, so I decided I would stop once I got my master’s degree. After I obtained my degree, I returned to practicing law while I figured out how and whether I would make the shift to practicing as a curandera. Although I had an opportunity to work on matters dealing with social justice—“good cases”—I found the work to be less and less satisfying by the day. I was able to get my clients money for being harmed. But this money was not going to help heal the wounds that had formed as a result of the harm. I became aware that bridging these two worlds, curanderismo and being an attorney, was not going to be possible, nor did I really want to anymore. I remember a case of a family who had lost a father and husband because the nurses became

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nervous and failed to perform the Heimlich maneuver in the hospital cafeteria. As a result, my clients’ husband and father died there. Yes, we got the family the full value of the case. But after I had come to know this family intimately, getting them money for their loss felt incredibly empty. I eventually walked away from my career to pursue what I loved, curanderismo. The books I gained access to in graduate school shaped and informed my practice as a curandera. I read all of the early postcontact codices as well as various books on the few Mesoamerican precontact codices that had not been destroyed by the Spaniards. I had been studying about curanderismo since 1996, in academia at UCLA and out in the field, so I was very familiar with curanderismo practices and could identify them when they were described in the sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century ethnohistorical records. Coming fully out of the closet as a curandera was, however, a process. Although I had been working with many clients since 2007, for some reason I was still sometimes hesitant to identify myself as a curandera. In 2014, our love for the grandmother plant, ayahuasca, inspired my husband and me to take our honeymoon in Peru. After several transformative ceremonies with grandmother and a very powerful private conversation with the shaman Diego Palma, I finally decided to embrace my don, my divine gift of healing, on a whole new level. I came back to Los Angeles with many layers of my psyche healed and fully stepped into my power as a curandera. Thereafter everything began to fall into place, and my practice almost immediately blossomed.

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2

Historical and Cultural Background The Mexica and Yucatec Maya

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pirituality, politics, and culture were highly intertwined in ancient Mesoamerica. Sweeping the house, for example, could serve as a limpia rite or as an offering that invited supernatural beings into a home or it could influence the success of a husband’s fight in the battlefield.1 The ancient Yucatec Maya and Mexica generally understood sacred objects and spaces as having animate qualities, with their own sacred essence energy. Ceremonial tools and sacred spaces, including buildings and altars, were understood to be imbued with sacrality, and were thought to contain a divine soul-like essence that made them living beings. The names given to these ceremonial tools and spaces were explicitly linked with the owner’s sacred essence energy, and naming them commemorated the renewal or activation of the object’s own sacred essence energy.2 This chapter introduces the ancient Mexica and the Yucatec Maya of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, their calendrical systems, and the various types of shamanic trades within their societies. This book focuses mainly on the limpia rites that were typically connected to their calendrical systems, because most of the information we currently have on these rites relate in some way to their calendars. Calendrical

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rites were likely the most commonly practiced ceremonies because of their importance: they were intricately tied to attempts to understand, divine, and influence nature, as well as human fate.3 Most ancient Mesoamerican peoples utilized the Calendar Round, which was composed of two calendars: a solar calendar of 365 days and a divinatory calendar of 260 days. When the 260-day calendar and 365-day calendar were set in motion in alignment with each another, it took exactly 52 years of 365 days, a total of 18,980 days, for a given date to repeat. It should not be assumed, however, that all the indigenous peoples of ancient Mesoamerica practiced limpia rites in the same way or ascribed exactly the same meanings to them. While all cultures throughout Mesoamerica made use of the same Calendar Round system, each one chose to give its own names to individual months, reflecting local environments and distinct agricultural necessities and activities.4 I will discuss some of these particular names and meanings of the Calendar Round system.

For Review Only THE MEXICA

Before discussing the Mexica, it is first necessary to explain the terms Aztec, Azteca, Mexica, and Nahua, as these terms have all been used in academic and popular literature to describe the same peoples, the Mexica. The terms Aztec or Azteca have been used to mean a number of different things, including the empire that encompassed the Anahuac plateau (much of modern Mexico); the people who were the masters of the magnificent lake city, Tenochtitlan; and the four Azteca houses, who left Aztlan, the people’s mythical homeland, in 1064, and finally made their way to Tenochtitlan in 1273.5 I use Aztec empire to describe the many different indigenous peoples living on the Anahuac plateau at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival in 1519. The term Nahua has also been used to denote the indigenous peoples of Central Mexico, mainly because the Spanish friars used Nahuatl as a lingua franca among these peoples. Recently the term Nahua is

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often used to describe the many indigenous peoples of Mexico and El Salvador. The term Mexica is generally understood as an ethnic marker that designates the Nahuatl-speaking group that inhabited Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, the two island settlements that later became the center of Mexico City. By the early sixteenth century, the Mexica had subdued much of the Anahuac plateau—extending from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and as far south as Chiapas and Guatemala.6 When Cortés and his army arrived in 1519, the Aztec empire consisted of 200,000 to 250,000 people, who lived in Tenochtitlan; approximately over one million people lived in the Valley of Mexico, and another two to three million dwelt in the surrounding valleys of Central Mexico.7 Although there were cultural and linguistic similarities among the peoples of the Aztec empire, many had their own sets of religious beliefs, different rites, and corresponding deities, and many did not use blood sacrifices, particularly blood sacrifices involving death. Once the Mexica had conquered a city-state or tribe, they tolerated cultural and some socio-organizational differences, as long as the conquered peoples paid their tribute.8 The Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, Templo Mayor, 60 meters or 197 feet high, dominated the landscape of the capital. The north side was dedicated to Tlaloc, the rain god, while the southern half was the principal temple of the people’s tutelary deity, Huitzilopochtli. According to various sixteenth-century sources, the southern side of the Great Temple symbolized the mythical mountain of Coatepec, the birthplace of Huitzilopochtli.9 Tenochtitlan contained more than seventy-two temples, as well as monasteries, nunneries, colleges, seminaries, artificial ponds, ball courts, botanical gardens, skull racks, and a special dwelling place for foreign gods.10 Their deities were organized in a hierarchy reflecting that of people. They had familial ties, affections, jealousies, and many other complexities. They had potential influence over the very existence of the world. They also had the capacity to affect the forces of nature. Patterns in

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nature were explained by the interaction of the forces of the supernatural world with those of the physical one.11 The concepts of duality, equilibrium, and fluidity were integral components of their cosmology and religious philosophy.12 Duality was a dynamic principle that was constantly changing and gave its impulse to everything. Duality was conceived in a fluid manner, manifesting itself on all planes of the cosmos. This included a dynamic femininemasculine dyad that was fundamental to the creation of the cosmos and to its regeneration and sustenance. At the apex of the dyad was the creator, Ometeotl (double god or spirit of duality), who was associated with the origins of the universe.13 Ometeotl embodied a divine pair whose masculine and feminine poles were, respectively, Omecihuatl (lord of duality) and Ometectli (lady of duality). Ometeotl manifested itself in many other divine pairs, and was an active principle that gave foundation to the universe at the beginning of each new age.14 Although Ometeotl was the ultimate source of all, it was the divine pairs who performed the actual deeds of creation. Ometeotl was often portrayed as an aged being with a sagging lower jaw. The Mexica and many other Mesoamerican peoples associated old age with the accrual of more life force.15 Many of the Mexica deities also had overlapping and competing attributes. Some had a pantheon of attributes and a corresponding deity over all of them for those particular attributes. For example, there was the Teteo innan complex, which has been identified as a complex of goddesses that were variant aspects of one earth goddess.16 The goddess Toci was also known as Teteo innan (“mother of the gods”) because of her grandmother status within the complex. Toci was associated with spinning, weaving, sweeping, healing, midwifery, divination, and acting as a protector and warrior.17 The ritual instruments that shamans utilized to invoke or personify her included the shield, the broom, the weaving spindle and batten, and the temāzcaltin.18 Other goddesses, such as Cihuacoatl and Xochiquetzal, were also part of the Teteo innan earth-goddess complex.19

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Typically, the supernatural was always present in the daily lives of the Mexica. Rain would come if the rain deity was properly honored and appeased. Wind would come and blow strongly or too weakly if a rite dedicated to the rain god had not been done correctly. Spirits could inhabit or embody inanimate objects, such as houses, altars, and statues, as well as natural creatures and wild animals. Auguries and oracles could predict the success or failure of any activity. The ceremonies and rites of the Mexica were, in their worldview, fundamental to cosmic change and recurrence: they ensured both order and transformation. The most elaborate religious rites were the state rites associated with the Calendar Round. Various beliefs about eschatology and the need to keep the world in cyclical motion and equilibrium during periods of unpredictable liminality, such as seasonal transitions, were integral to these and were observed by many in the Aztec empire. The world of the Mexica was always in a state of flux, while at the same continuously reestablishing itself.20 Ceremonial rites were art forms incorporating devotion and sacrality—understanding, honoring, and working with the infinite interconnectedness of all that is. They were seen as essential to the world’s regeneration. The Mexica’s 365-day xiuhpohualli calendar was composed of eighteen twenty-day “months.” Each of the twenty days of the month was designated by its own name and symbol (see plate 1). The five days that were left over were regarded as unlucky days, nameless and profitless. 21 The symbols representing each day of the month also functioned as letters. They were used in writing describing native history and lore, memorable events in war, victories, famines and plagues, prosperous and adverse times. They also taught the days on which to sow, reap, till the land, cultivate corn, weed, harvest, and store crops. If chili was not sown on a certain day, squash on another, and maize on another, for example, people felt there would be great damage. These activities also correlated with the observance of feasts for the gods. Each month, or a period of twenty days, they dedicated to a god, except for two of the months, in which they celebrated the feasts of two gods for each month.

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And so although there were eighteen months, the feasts celebrated in them were twenty.22 The 260-day calendar, the tonalpohualli, was the fundamental tool of ritual prognostication and divination (see plate 2). The secrets of the divinatory calendar were shown and explained only to a few. 23 There were twenty day signs, and it was said that they reigned over thirteen days each, making 260 (13 x 20) days altogether. The good or bad fortune of a day sign could be tempered by their coefficient number of repeating cycles of 1 to 13, which would cycle numerically and pair with a day sign: 1 Cipactli, 2 Ehecatl, 3 Calli, 4 Cuetzpalin, 5 Coatl, 6 Miquiztli, 7 Mazātl, 8 Tōchtli, 9 Ātl, 10 Itzcuintli, 11 Ozomahtli, 12 Malīnalli, 13 Ācatl; and then return back to 1, 1 Ocēlōtl, 2 Cuāuhtli, 3 Cōzcacuāuhtli, 4 Ōlīn, 5 Tecpatl, 6 Quiyahuitl, 7 Xōchitl, 8 Cipactli, 9 Ehecatl, and so forth.24 Divinatory specialists, tonalpouhque, would construct auguries for individual days using their multiple associations in one or more almanacs, interpret the meaning of their multiple auguries, and render a prognostication for the timing of both daily and ritual activities, such as the fortune and life events of those born under them. This calendar was believed to express the relationship between time and space on the one hand and the world of the divine and the gods on the other. Each day sign was dedicated to a god or elemental force, the provider of tonalli (sacred essence energy, solar heat) for the day.25 The tonalpohualli was consulted for various types of matters, including marriages, deaths, and when to initiate battles and feasts. 26 The 260-day calendar is still used among some Oaxacan peoples.27 There were many different types of shamanic trades, with particular specialties. There were some shamans, who resembled priests in that they did not marry and often served a particular deity:* the c ihuatlamacazque

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*Although the postcontact codices typically describe these figures as priests, it appears that were able to perform magical and sacred rites of cleansing, birthing, rebirthing, purification, and rejuvenation. Because I define shaman in terms of these functions, I identify these figures as shamans.

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(female shaman), tlamacazqui (male shaman), and tlenamacac (higherranked shaman who was responsible for performing human sacrifices and the New Fire Ceremonies).28 Some other shamans and their trade specialties include: temacpalitotique (who could possess people to do things); tlacatecolotl (sorcerer); temixiutiani, tietl, or tlamatqui (midwife); mecatlapouhque (who used strings to divine the origins of illnesses); nahualli (shape-shifting shaman); teteonalmacani (a diviner and shaman who restored tonalli); and telacuicuilani (who sucked out illnesses).29 Sahagún describes many others. He tells of some who could breathe evil on people, cast the evil eye, and perform sorcery.30 Other shamans were skilled at opening pathways to good fortune for people and conducting platicas.31 Some shamans were highly skilled at healing with herbs, trees, stones, and roots. Others could set bones, give emetics, and create healing potions.32 Still others could press places in the body, totlatlaccaia, to heal the mind, body, and spirit.33 There were shamans whose specialty it was to conduct dream interpretation.34 It is likely, in fact, that there were hundreds more different types of shamans, possibly each with their own different specialty. Because sacred objects and places were often seen as having a soul essence, and were consequently treated in some ritualistic way, shamanic rites were a common part of life for most people. Being incredibly skilled warriors, the Mexica rose to power very quickly after their arrival in 1273. By the fifteenth century, they had formed a triple alliance with two other very powerful city-states, Texcoco and Tlacopan. But first Tlacopan, and then Texcoco, found their privileges and power diminishing under the unyielding pressure of the Mexica. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, their alliance with the Mexica was more honorary than actual.35 When the Spaniards arrived in February 1519, the Mexica were undergoing a social transformation because of extraordinary prosperity procured by military conquest and great expeditions.36 Tenochtitlan was headed toward becoming a single-headed state. Many of the indigenous peoples of the Aztec empire and the surrounding areas were resentful of the Mexica, tired of paying taxes to this young and ambitious city-state,

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which had aggressively risen to power so quickly, and as a result many peoples joined forces with the Spaniards to finally defeat the Mexica on August 13, 1521.37

YUCATEC MAYA Before talking about the Yucatec Maya, I will discuss the terms Maya and Mayan, as these terms have been used differently by academic and popular scholars, and they have not necessarily been adopted by all indigenous peoples. The meaning of the term Maya has changed notably over the years. From the time of the Spanish conquest up to the twentieth century, the term Maya only applied to the natives of the northern part of the Yucatán, people who spoke the language, Yucatec Mayan. This area was known as Mayab before the arrival of the Spaniards. At this time no indigenous groups outside of the Yucatán ever used the words Maya or Mayan to refer to themselves; rather, they came to be applied by anthropologists and historians to the many different peoples and languages of the area, including those who never even made use of the terms in referring to themselves.38 Currently, relatively few K’iché’ or Tzotzil people, for example, identify themselves as Maya: the term has little ethnic meaning or frame of reference for them.39 Some indigenous peoples from regions identified as being part of the Maya civilization have for many reasons appropriated the term Maya. Individuals may even identify themselves as “Maya elders,” even though they may not be from the Yucatán or speak Yucatec Mayan.40 What has been identified as the Maya civilization rose and developed over the course of many centuries, and encompassed most of the course of Mesoamerican history.* The Maya were neither politically

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*Throughout this book I use the term Yucatec Maya to identify the indigenous peoples of the northern part of the Yucatán. I use the term Maya when the source I am relying on does not specify the name of the peoples; rather they are identifying the peoples as being from the “Maya civilization.”

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nor culturally a single, unified people. There were approximately thirty distinct Mayan languages in the sixteenth century, and most are still spoken today. The Maya civilization consists of three principal periods, each reflecting its own particular art styles and architecture: Preclassic (400 BCE–250 CE), Classic (250–909 CE), and Postclassic (909–1697 CE). The core characteristics of the Preclassic period of the Maya was the use of the Long Count calendar and stelae (slabs of stone) that were placed in front of their ceremonial centers and political buildings. These stelae were generally carved with hieroglyphic inscriptions accompanying historical portraits, reflecting the rise of a new political ideology and dynastic kingship. The Classic period is typically identified with the height of the Maya, who expanded into more than sixty kingdoms in central Mexico.41 There were relatively few Maya languages spoken during the Classic period. The number of languages increased as the culture fragmented over time.42 The Postclassic had the bulk of the populations largely concentrated in the northern Yucatán and southern areas of Guatemala and Belize. During this period, the Maya no longer used the Long Count calendar or stelae to express the institution of divine kingship.43 Despite the diversity, Maya culture remained remarkably homogenous throughout the lowlands, from the Petén to the Yucatán Peninsula.44 Ancient Maya religion was largely polytheistic, having several divinities, often with overlapping and competing attributes, as well as deity complexes that had multiple manifestations of a single unity of being, where a single deity could be part of more than one complex. Despite their diversity, the religions of the various Postclassic Maya peoples, the peoples I principally focus on in this book, shared many traits in common. Some of these include introductions from Postclassic Mexico, which had close political and economic ties to the Maya region. An example would be the central Mexican deity, Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, who was called Kukulcan by the peoples of the Yucatán and Gucumatz by the highland peoples.

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Most shared religious elements derive from a deeper level of Maya culture, and appear in the texts and art of the Maya lowlands in the Classic period. Their images of deities likely represented forces of nature, as well as supernatural beings.45 The Classic Maya term ku or ch’u, which can refer both to specific gods and to the general quality of sacredness, reflects this understanding.46 Itzamna was one of the principal creator deities, and appeared throughout Classic and Postclassic art.47 His consort was Ix Chel, who had an array of attributes and a corresponding deity for each of them. The moon deities, and sometimes the moon-earth deities, reflect this complex.48 Friar Diego de Landa, a Spanish missionary and sixteenth century ethnographer, identified this complex and the variant names of Ix Chel, goddess of the moon, childbirth, and medicine, as being Aixchel, Ixchebeliax, Ixhunié, and Ixhunieta.49 Currently this complex of deities is often grouped together into two gods: Deity I and Deity O.* Deity I is identified as having both youthful and aged aspects, whereas Deity O is the aged deity who is associated primarily with the term chel (“rainbow” in Yucatec Mayan).50 The younger Deity I has been identified as Ixik Kab (“lady earth,” in Yucatec Mayan) and is associated with earth, fertility, weaving, and lunar aspects. Deity O is associated with weaving, aspects of the moon and agriculture, fertility, midwifery, divination, medicine, and sweat baths.51 The Maya observed calendrical rites associated with both the Long Count calendar and the Calendar Round. The Long Count is a remarkably sophisticated and complex calendric system that incorporated massive periods of time, and had the 360-day period called tun as its basic building block, with five units of time.52 Typically, the

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*Paul Schellhas was one of the first to attempt the systematic identification of the deities that appeared in the Maya codices. Instead of using specific names, Schellhas utilized designations in which each deity was labeled with a specific letter. Schellhas’s system of designation continues to be particularly helpful because it is more appropriate than using Postcassic Yucatec terminology to refer to Classic Maya deities, because of the different Maya languages. (Taube, Major Gods of Ancient Yucatán, 6.)

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highest unit was the bak’tun (roughly 400 years), the next was the k’atun (roughly twenty years), then the tun (360 days), then the winal (20 days), and finally the k’ in (a single day).53 Long Count dates are typically presented with the bak’tun first and the k’in position at the end, followed by the Calendar Round (e.g., 9.15.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 13 Yax, which corresponds to August 20 in the Gregorian year 731 CE).54 Various limpia rites were performed for particular Long Count unit endings. The books of Chilam Balam, a Maya prophet credited for auguring the coming of the Spaniards, encompasses the most important corpus of colonial Yucatec information concerning the auguries of the K’atun.55 The Maya’s 365-day calendar, the ha’ b, is comprised of 20 days and 18 periods, with 5 unlucky days at the end of the year. These 5 days were referred to as the wayeb’ or xmak’aba’ k’ in (the un-named days).56 The day signs may refer to food, plants, seasons or other telling characteristics of a particular period. For example, yaxk’ in is “dry season” or “winter;” mol means “harvest.” Periods were also probably understood as animate beings in their own right.57 Each period had its own limpia rites of cleansing and renewal, and particular tools to facilitate these processes. The 365-day calendar is still observed by many modern-day Maya communities as a type of civil calendar. Currently, the K’iché’ Maya of Momostenango, Guatemala refer to the calendar as the masewalq’ ij, “the common days.”5 The 260-day divinatory calendar of the Yucatec Maya was the tzolk’in (a term invented by archaeologists).59 There were twenty day signs, each of which reigned over thirteen days. The thirteen days ran in sequence, and then started again. The Yucatec Maya used this calendar largely for divinatory and shamanic purposes. 60 Each of the twenty day names had a specific association and supernatural patron, and many had associations with natural phenomena. 61 The tzolk’in calendar is still used throughout highland Guatemala and parts of Mexico, such as communities in Oaxaca, among speakers of the Mixtec language. 62

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Figure 2.1. Eighteen months of the Maya ha’b. SD-4101. Drawing. Maya. Glyphs and names of the [eighteen] months of the [ha’b] or 365-day solar calendar. Drawing by Linda Schele. Copyright © David Schele.

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Figure 2.2. Twenty days of the tzolk’in. SD-4100. Drawing. Maya. Glyphs and names of the twenty days of the tzolk’in or 260-day sacred calendar. Drawing by Linda Schele. Copyright © David Schele.

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The Yucatec Maya typically had a high shaman whom they called ah-kin may or ahuacan may. He was held in great reverence by all the chiefs and by many shamans, who routinely gave him offerings and contributions. The ah-kin counseled chiefs on many matters and answered their inquiries.63 Other Yucatec Maya shamans and their trade specialties included the chilán (diviner within the town), ah cunal can (animal charmer), ah cunal than or pul yaah (spell caster), ah dzac-yah (doctor and surgeon), ah pul cimil (who was able to cause illnesses in others), ah uaay or ch’a-uay-tah (shapeshifter), and nacoms (war officer, who was imbued with the spirit of the gods).64 Other shamans healed by the use of herbs, ceremonies, and rites. There were shamans who specialized in the calendrical systems and the many related ceremonies, the administration of their sacraments, the omens of the days, different forms of divinatory work, and remedies for different types of sicknesses.65 The Yucatec Maya soothsayer shamans were excellent statisticians, diligently assessing and documenting historical patterns, looking to the past to see what might happen again, and assessing related variables. They often used limpia rites to influence healing, purification, birth, rebirth, and revitalization.

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3

Pre- and Postcontact Texts Sources Used and Why

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his chapter examines the precontact and sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century postcontact sources that I have relied on to examine the limpia rites of the Mexica and Yucatec Maya. I first discuss the precontact codices, including a brief description of what codices are; the texts’ names, age, and provenance; and their limitations as sources on limpia ceremonies. Thereafter I explore the postcontact sources that I have relied on. Most of these were written by Spanish missionaries, as well as a few mestizos and some indigenous peoples, each having their own distinct biases and agendas. The biases in each have made it necessary to compare various sources. They nonetheless contain a wealth of information concerning limpia rites. For the sake of accessibility, I have drawn mainly from secondary sources to examine precontact Mesoamerican codices.

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PRECONTACT CODICES Fewer than twenty precontact codices, from various regions of Mesoamerica, are still extant. They include three classes of books: Mixtec histories, Maya religious books, and highland religious books.1 52

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The codices of Mesoamerica are typically folded in accordion fashion, with both obverse and reverse sides containing pictures. They were often made of long strips of leather, cotton cloth, or bark paper, and were occasionally protected by wooden covers. Codices, sometimes referred to as auguries or almanacs, were used to foretell the likelihood of an event; to determine how to influence its outcome with ceremonial rites; to anticipate the beginning or transition of a season for scheduling ceremonies and activities, such as harvesting; and much more. Divination work for the Mexica and Yucatec Maya was not simply about prophesying. The diviners were also shaman statisticians, who spotted recurring patterns and used ceremonial offerings and rites to continue a trend or change it. It is only fairly recently that these codices have been deciphered. The last three decades have witnessed an explosion in the scholarship of epigraphy and iconography, but there is still much to be done. While scholars have been able to work out much of the calendrical order and to recognize some of the deities, creatures, and objects depicted, the contexts in which they have been portrayed are still not fully understood. The content of these codices is more difficult to decipher. They often deal with divinatory or shamanic practices, providing private, less accessible information.2 Only a select few were taught how to read and practice the divinatory rites contained in these codices. This has made their decipherment more challenging, although not impossible. The most important corpus of precontact imagery related to the ancient Maya is contained in a group of three Yucatecan Postclassic codices: the Dresden, Paris, and Madrid codices. A fourth text, the recently reported Yucatecan Postclassic codex, the Grolier, is ten pages of a once larger screen-fold and is primarily concerned with deities and calendrics pertaining to Venus.3 I have principally drawn from the Madrid and Dresden codices because there has been substantially more work done in deciphering and interpreting these two books as they may relate to limpia rites. The Dresden Codex provides the clearest and most precise

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information regarding the attributes and names of the Maya deities.4 During the bombing of Dresden during World War II, the codex suffered extensive water damage. Fortunately, Ernst Förstemann had issued photographic reproductions of the codex in 1880 and 1892, and most scholars largely rely on these. Compared to the Dresden, the quality of execution of the Madrid Codex is generally poor. This is not simply a matter of crude craftsmanship; in addition, frequent scribal errors can be detected.5 Anthony Aveni posits that the Madrid almanac postdates the Dresden almanac by 131 years, and that the subtle differences in the iconography and intervallic structure of the Madrid example represent intentional changes made to provide a better fit with later astronomical and meteorological events.6 Codices focused on various activities that had ceremonial dimensions, such as drilling fire, harvesting corn, anointing, and weaving. According to the traditional interpretation, each of the almanac’s frames were associated with the series of dates in the 260-day tzolk’in calendar that could be used for determining an appropriate day for the activity represented in the almanac. For example, the following tzolk’in days—4 ahau, 4 eb, 4 kan, 4 cib, and 4 lamat—were considered good for anointing objects, temples, and shamans with blue paint.7 Blue, as depicted in the Madrid Codex, appears to be related to rainfall and abundance, and was used to bless and anoint various objects. 8 The deciphering of these codices reveals that they were also likely used to schedule activities or rituals in relation to the 365-day ha’b calendar, providing, for example, prognostications for the corn crop for the year in question.9 Many of the activities that the codices depict can be linked to particular months in the 365-day ha’b calendar. The codices were then likely consulted to schedule a ceremonial rite per both the ha’b calendar and the 260-day tzolk’in calendar, predict a likely outcome, and suggest how to change or continue the outcome. Six codices and two additional fragments constitute another set of

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precontact manuscripts, known as the Borgia group.* The Borgia group is one of the most important precontact screen-fold books concerned with the religion and rituals of the Aztec empire. It was likely written by the confederacies of Eastern Nahuas also known as the ToltecaChichimeca, who dominated the Tlaxcala-Puebla region.10 Because of the more extensive work done on research and interpretation of the Borgia group, I was able to utilize both primary and secondary sources concerning these texts to understand their view of limpia rites. The Borgia group depicts ritual calendars, religious content, and ritual information.11 Like the Maya codices, the Borgia group employs both the 260-day tonalpohualli calendar and the 365-day xiuhpohualli calendar.12 The first eight pages of the Codex Borgia enumerate the 260 days of the tonalpohualli together with images that seem to carry information about the qualities of these days. The next five pages depict twenty deities, which carry information about the supernatural qualities of each of the twenty days. We know Borgia tables were consulted regarding the timing of feasts and the planning of rituals dedicated to the gods who presided over the movable tonalpohualli feast days. The Codex Borgia features numerous divisions of the tonalpohualli calendar applied to prophecies for births, marriages, deaths, and feasts.13 Recent studies suggest that pages in the Codex Borgia may also concern the timing of 365-day annual rituals, implying that certain almanacs in central Mexican screen-folds could have functioned as real-time calendrical instruments. Scholars note various references to the 365-day xiuhpohualli calendar in the Codex Borgia.14 Another codex, known as Codex Borbonico or Borbonicus, because it is located in the Bourbon Palace in Paris, today the National Assembly of France, is the largest (approximately 39 by 39.5 centimeters) of the known codices concerning the 260-day tonalpohualli rites. It was produced by the Mexica at the time of the conquest. Because of its date

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*The Borgia Group consists of the Codex Borgia, Codex Cospi, Codex FejérváaryMayer, Codex Laud, Codex Vaticanus B, Codex Rios, and two other related documents, Fonds Mexicains and the Codex Porfirio Díaz.

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and detail, the Borbonico is recognized as one of the most important sources for the study of the beliefs and rituals of the ancient Mexica.15 The Borbonico is completely accessible online, but the context and meaning of its frames are still being interpreted and deciphered, particularly concerning information that may inform us about limpia rites.

POSTCONTACT ETHNOHISTORICAL RECORDS In addition to writing calendrical augury-type codices, we know that the city-states of the Mesoamerican plateau maintained records that were specific to their own polities and traditions. These books were known as amoxtli.16 Each royal family had a designated individual within the lineage who not only inherited the texts, but was responsible for preserving them, keeping them current, and making certain that they passed to the proper heir.17 Sadly, the Spanish conquest of the Mesoamerican peoples resulted in a systematic eradication of thousands of their books, along with countless other abuses and injustices. The ostensible conversion of these peoples to Christianity became the legal and moral justification, or excuse, for Spanish imperialism.18 The missionaries who came to convert these peoples saw their books as a threat to their own mission, so they engaged in massive and methodical book burnings. We nonetheless have a substantial number of postcontact records and books that are incredibly informative about the daily life, polities, and religious practices of these peoples. A few missionaries, who were greatly influenced by Renaissance humanism, helped to preserve this past and its memory. Those priests included Andrés de Olmos, Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, Fray Juan de Torquemada, Friar Alonso de Molina, Diego Durán, Gerónimo de Mendiata, and their disciples, including the famous group of mestizo and indigenous students of the Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco (the Imperial College of the Holy Cross of Tlatelolco). Friar

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Diego de Landa, also influenced by Renaissance humanism, wrote his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Account of the matters of the Yucatán), documenting some of the Yucatec Maya history, polities, religion and traditions. The Spanish friars that produced these works had their own distinct agendas and attitudes, which included eliminating what they viewed as idolatry and other practices that impeded their proselytization and culturalization efforts; improving their own linguistic skills to be able to communicate with the indigenous peoples; and drafting ecclesiastical treatises in native languages for the Mass, the confessional, and the catechism.19 A handful of indigenous and mestizo historians and poets, including Alvarado Tezozomoc, Juan Bautista Pomar, Juan de Tovar, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, Chimalpahin, and Muñoz Camargo, also attempted to preserve elements of the amoxtli tradition postcontact.20 They did what they could to ensure that future generations would have a record of their illustrious past. Tezozomoc, for example, was a dynastic noble and was concerned with Mexica history. His book contains a mixture of migration, genealogy, and altepetl (city-state)history, and chronicles the history of the Mexica from the first to the last ruler. Tezozomoc’s contemporary Chimalpahin wrote about the society and politics of Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, and Texcoco, and documents the precontact rulers of these city-states. Ixtlilxóchitl wrote about the history of many of the indigenous peoples of the Aztec empire, and also documented some of the precontact medicine songs. Tovar’s Tovar Codex, also known as the Ramírez Codex, contains detailed information about the rites and ceremonies of the Mexica. The codex is illustrated with fifty-one full-page paintings in watercolor, which are highly reminiscent of precontact pictographic manuscripts. Thanks to the work of Franciscan monks, Andrés de Olmos and Bernardino de Sahagún, we have many of the discourses of Mexica sages and old men. The monks spent decades gathering these didactic or exhortative speeches, which aimed at instilling basic moral p rinciples in the minds of children, young people, and adults. These speeches were

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gathered from the lips of elderly survivors who had memorized and recited them before the conquest.21 Bernardino de Sahagún was also responsible for compiling and transcribing the General History of Things of New Spain or the Florentine Codex, which comprises 2400 pages organized into twelve books and approximately 2500 illustrations drawn by native artists using both native and European techniques. The Florentine Codex documents the culture, religious cosmology, ritual practices, society, economics, and history of principally the Mexica, as well as relaying an account of the conquest of Mexico.22 Sahagún came to the Americas, or “New Spain,” in 1529. In 1536, he helped establish the first European school of higher education in the Americas, the Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. The school served to evangelize its indigenous students, trained and recruited them into the Catholic clergy, and was a center for the study of native languages, particularly Nahuatl.23 In 1558, Sahagún was commissioned to write in Nahuatl about topics that would be useful to the church’s evangelization efforts. Thereafter he conducted research for about twenty-five years and spent approximately fifteen years editing, translating, and copying. 24 He wrote the Florentine Codex to enable missionaries to learn about indigenous beliefs and worldviews, so they could become more effective in their evangelization. The manuscript became part of the collection of the Laurentian Library, a library in Florence, Italy, after its creation in the late sixteenth century. Scholars only became aware of its existence after the bibliographer Angelo Maria Bandini published a description of it in Latin in 1793.25 The works of Dominican monk Diego Durán are also extensive and insightful in documenting Mexica culture and limpia rites. He produced three works: The Book of the Gods and Rites, a remarkably detailed description of the life of the Mexica civilization; The Ancient Calendar, one of the main guides to the intricate Mesoamerican system of counting time; and The History of the Indies of New Spain, which traces the Mexica from their beginnings to their conquest. 26 These

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sixteenth-century books were the result of diligent and arduous consultation with reliable sources, which included written materials and conversations with living informants. Durán was meticulous in validating his information, and on occasion would travel many miles to ascertain a single fact. The written documents he relied upon included the codices, some of which he was trusted to look at in secret.27 His informants encompassed hundreds of native informants, as well as Fray Francisco de Aguilar, who had been a soldier under Cortès.28 Like Sahagún, Durán became aware of the continuation of Mesoamerican religious practices, belief systems, and ceremonial rites. The ongoing observance of Mesoamerican religious practices frequently included alleged indigenous converts to the Christian faith. Often these practices, he thought, masqueraded as being Christian, but in reality were continuing indigenous traditions in many respects. Consequently, he felt it imperative to understand these ancient beliefs so that the missionaries could successfully convert these peoples.29 Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, by Franciscan monk Friar Diego de Landa, was pivotal for understanding Yucatec Maya polities, religious beliefs, and practices, as well as the ha’b ceremonial rites. De Landa wrote this work when he was on trial for atrocities he committed in the Yucatán. It is questionable whether he would have written the book at all had he not been put on trial. This work was likely a way to defend his barbaric tactics and provide evidence for his more humane methods of evangelization—facilitating the understanding of the Maya to help ensure their conversion. This work has been critical in understanding ancient Maya culture, and has greatly contributed to the recent explosion in the decipherment of Maya epigraphy and iconography. The principal informants for this book were Gaspar Antonio Chi and Nachi Cocom. Gaspar Antonio Chi was a Maya noble of Mani, and worked primarily as a translator between the Spanish and Maya. Nachi Cocom was the last ruler of the Cocom lineage, and he showed de Landa some of the sacred Maya writings. De Landa later found out that Nachi, along with many others, were still practicing their ancient

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religious ways after they had been baptized. As a result Nachi was executed.30 A decade before de Landa’s arrival in the Yucatán in 1549, Spanish bishops had met in Mexico and ordered, among other things, that whipping and flogging should not be used to enforce obedience to the church or in matters of faith.31 De Landa, however, declared himself “apostolic judge” under the papal bulls of 1535. He proceeded, without process or previous information or any other steps, to imprison all indigenous people he believed were still practicing their ancient ways, and he used torture to get information and set examples.32 Because of ongoing reports of de Landa’s heinous actions, he was sent to Spain for trial in 1562, and remained there until 1573. He wrote his book in 1566. He defended his countless atrocities against the indigenous peoples of the Yucatán by contending that the Spaniards, being so few in number, could not have reduced so populous a country without the threat of terrible punishments.33 I also draw from the Ritual of the Bacabs, an eighteenth-century Yucatec Maya manuscript on curanderismo curing rites and incantations.* The text reflects ancient Maya beliefs along with Christian interpolations, evidencing an ongoing line of recitation going back to colonial days. A few curanderas/os that I worked with incorporated medicine songs from the Ritual of the Bacabs, and taught me to do the same. Finally, I refer to the sixteenth-century K’iché’ Popol Vuh and a Chorti legend poem. The sixteenth-century Yucatec Maya were no doubt unique and different from the K’iche and Chorti. There were, however, some common threads concerning tools used to conduct lim-

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*The Ritual of the Bacabs comprises forty-two main curanderismo incantations with fragmentary supplements. It is principally a manuscript of song and the spoken word, which a curandera/o may utilize to heal various kinds of illnesses. In many of these incantations, the curandera/o often calls upon the four chacs (guardians of the four cardinal points) to garner their healing power and wisdom. (León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 398; Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 527–50.)

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pias. I use these other sources only where I have a comparative Yucatec Maya source, mainly de Landa’s ethnographic work. I place this ethnographic data in dialogue with other sources on the Maya, so they may amend, deepen, and possibly correct our understanding of Yucatec Maya limpia practices. The Popul Vuh is a Santa Cruz K’ iché’ bible written in the sixteenth century using Latin script. It is apparent that this book is based on various sources, including codices, as well as traditional oral recitations. It is largely an ontological work composed of myths, legends, history and ethics. The Chorti poem is less well-known, but it adds to the richness and understanding of sweeping, renewal, and limpias.

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PA R T II

Commonly Practiced Limpias from Ancient and Modern Perspectives For Review Only

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Platicas Ejecting Unwanted Energies from the Body

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n curanderismo, platicas are heart-straightening talks, in which a person vocalizes and releases that which weighs heavy in their heart and soul to facilitate a healing, purification, renewal, and/or rebirth. A platica serves as a way to purge toxic emotions and imbalances, enable one to begin to stand in one’s own power, and beseech metaphysical help. The curandera/o sets and holds sacred space for this type of limpia; asks questions to facilitate the purge, realization, and renewal; and says prayers or magical invocations calling for divine aid. A platica can also be a way to determine what other, if any, kind of limpia may be helpful or necessary. Platicas are different from standard therapy. The latter typically focuses on simply healing the mind or psyche of the client, who may then have to go to another source for spiritual or physical healing. The curandera/o, on the other hand, will address the mind, body, spirit, and soul during a platica. The ethnographers writing about ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya platicas often identified them as “confessions” or “rhetoric.” Platicas do resemble the Catholic tradition of confession: both typically involve an absolution of wrongdoings through confession and prayer. The “rhetoric” that is mentioned is indeed graceful and poetic, as Ixtlilxóchitl frequently points out. It is nonetheless more than just poetic rhetoric;

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it is imbued with sacrality. The context of these ancient platicas reveal that they contained shamanic elements. The shaman held space for, and invoked divine aid from different dimensions to facilitate healings, purification, energetic releases, rebirth, and renewal.

THE PLATICA RITES OF THE MEXICA Platicas for the Mexica could release wrongdoings, emotional or mental woes, and illnesses, and typically involved invoking supernatural aid. These wrongdoings, or straying from one’s truth, were believed to dislocate the heart from its proper place, which could then cause disease, community disdain, or bad fortune. Straying from one’s truth could encompass failing to think good thoughts, laxity in endeavors, or not being diligent in performing offerings of gratitude.1 Platicas could also serve as prayers or offerings to deities and as eloquent poetic requests for absolution, purification, and aid (see plate 3). Platicas were done frequently and in many settings, including during state calendrical rites, in households or temples, and as absolutions before death. The cihuatlamacazque (female shaman) or tlamacazque (male shaman) would restore internal order to the individual’s physical being by returning the heart to its proper place, from which it had been dislocated. Repeating the problems out loud ejected their associated energies from the body, thereby curing the individual.2 Two principal deities presided over the platica: Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl. The Mexica believed that Tezcatlipoca, who was invisible and omnipresent, saw everything.3 Tezcatlipoca was one of the four sons of the creator deity, Ometeotl, and was associated with the night sky, night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war, and strife. Tezcatlipoca, whose name is often translated as “Smoking Mirror,” typically appeared with a smoking obsidian mirror at the back of his head and another replacing one of his feet.4 Mirrors were often

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Commonly Practiced Limpias from Ancient and Modern Persprctives

used for shamanic rituals to see the circumstances concerning past, present, or future events.5 Platica rites were a common practice prior to the commemoration of Tezcatlipoca, which took place every four years, and was known as the Feast of Toxcatl. People throughout the Aztec empire began to engage in a general remission of wrongdoings and a call for divine help ten days before the feast.6 In Tenochtitlan, the image of Tezcatlipoca was made of black obsidian. Obsidian and pyrite were the materials that were commonly used to make mirrors; this association reinforced Tezcatlipoca’s role as a diviner or sorcerer. In other city-states within the Aztec empire, Tezcatlipoca was made of wood, carved in the form of a man, and completely black from his temples down. He was typically dressed in lavish native garments. Images of him usually had his head encircled with a band of burnished gold, ending in a golden ear painted with fumes or scrolls, used by the scribes to indicate speech. The gold ear in his headdress indicated that Tezcatlipoca heard the platicas of the people.7 The people of the Aztec empire prepared for the platicas and the Feast of Toxcatl by dedicating all the shrines of Tezcatlipoca with perfumes, incense, copal, tobacco, flowers, and food. It was also common to abstain from eating and engaging in sexual relations for several days before the platicas and the feast. Fasting was both an offering and a way to cleanse the body.8 Ten days before the Feast of Toxcatl, the shamans dressed Tezcatlipoca in his finest attire and accoutrements—all the best that could be given to him. After he had been meticulously dressed, the door or curtain covering him was removed for all to see. A hierarch of the temple, the titlacahuan, set the stage by acknowledging and honoring sacred space before the platicas commenced. He would be decked out as the mirror image of Tezcatlipoca, wearing exactly the same clothes and fanciful accoutrements, and carried flowers and a small clay flute in his hands. He turned to the east, south, west, and north, playing the flute.

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The flute gave a shrill sound, waking and calling the spirits and ancestors of all four directions.9 Next, all those who could hear him placed a finger on the ground, smeared earth on it, and ate the earth that stuck to their finger. This practice was often understood as honoring the deity of the Earth, Tlaltecutli, and served as a declaration to the truth of what one was saying.10 Thereafter they invoked the aid of Tezcatlipoca through speaking out and declaring their wrongdoings. They often cried and humbly requested to be absolved of their transgressions, as well as to have their difficulties alleviated.11 The other shamans at smaller temples of Tezcatlipoca held the physical space for the energy to be released from the troubled stories told during the platicas. Tezcatlipoca and the spirits of the four cardinal spaces also held the metaphysical space for the release of the energy, and, if asked sincerely, would render divine aid for whatever ailment or misfortune needed to be lifted. This elaborate state-sponsored platica ceremony served as a mass purification for the peoples of the Aztec empire and procured their well-being. Deities were said to reveal themselves through the inspiration of spoken poetry and sacred songs, as well as through cries from devotees. Poetic spoken words and sacred songs were invocations to deities, requesting their absolution and aid.12 When the huey tlahtoani (ruler) had been installed, for example, he invoked the aid of Tezcatlipoca to fulfill his mission through poetic rhetoric.13 Caretakers of the sacred songs would issue a summons so that the singer shamans would be taught these songs.14 The pipiltzin (noble) daughters were told to awake and arise promptly, at the parting of the night, and to speak and cry out to the master, the lord, to him of the night and the wind. It was said that these deities or deity would aid those who called upon them ritually, humbly, and genuinely.15 Tlazolteotl, the goddess of both restoration and filth, was also believed to remove people’s impurities during the platica, while her earthly diviners were responsible for listening and inquiring.16

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Tlazolteotl, known as the Great Spinner and Weaver or the Filth Deity, was associated with sweeping limpia rites, fertility and childbirth, the moon, menses, the steam bath, purification, sexuality, witchcraft, healing, and sexual misdeeds. She absolved sins, healed illnesses, and forgave.17 Before death, it was common to summon a tlapouhqui, a shaman of Tlazolteotl skilled in the reading and interpretation of the sacred books, so that the dying person could confess all wrongdoings. If the confessor was a person of importance, the platica would take place at his or her house; if not, the person would go to the tlapouhqui on the day advised. The two would sit on new mats beside a fire. The tlapouhqui threw incense into the flames and invoked the deities while smoke filled the air. The tlapouhqui would call out to the deities, letting them know of the confessor’s request to have a heartstraightening talk to heal and pacify the heaviness from his or her heart. Then the tlapouhqui instructed the confessor to confess without restraint or shame.18 The confessor touched the earth with a finger, swore to do so, and told of his or her life at length, recounting wrongdoings. The person was supposed to tell all and conceal nothing. The tlapouhqui typically commanded the confessor to engage in penances, such as making restitution to persons harmed, engaging in fasts, and piercing the tongue. Once the penance had been completed, the confessor was absolved and all actions were balanced, and he or she could no longer be punished for previous trespasses.19

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THE PLATICA RITES OF THE YUCATEC MAYA As with the Mexica, platicas for the Yucatec Maya could release indiscretions, emotional or mental woes, and illnesses, as well as invoke supernatural aid. Wrongdoings were believed to cause disease, community disdain, or bad fortune, such as plagues. During times of illness,

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plague, and danger, platicas were a critical tool for the people to be purified and freed from these difficulties, and also served to implore the aid of deities. The individual would confess his or her wrongdoings to the shamans. If a shaman was unavailable, then the person would confess to parents or spouses. Everybody in the community was expected to engage in this spoken release of wrongdoings, both during challenging times and on a regular basis. Offerings of incense and prayer typically followed the platica.20 During the elaborate caput-sihil ceremony for Yucatec Maya children, platicas served as a way to release wrongdoings and secure a rebirth. When parents of children between the ages of three and twelve determined that the child had reached an age of social transformation, and could even marry, they informed the community’s shaman, the ah-kin, who would then perform this ceremony. It was intended to predispose the child toward good conduct and habits and an honorable life, and to keep the child free from harm. Friar Diego de Landa identifies this ceremony as a baptism. 21 But as I say in chapter 8, [x-ref] the manner in which the principal ritual space was set up—mirroring the cosmos and creating a central bridge that connected the mundane with divine realms—makes the ritual more reminiscent of a cosmic rebirthing ceremony than of a Christian baptism. Typically, Christian baptisms are centered on acceptance into the faith. By contrast, the elaborate cosmic staging and performance of the caput-sihil ceremonies suggest that they purified the adolescent and marked a transition into another period of life—a kind of rebirth. Hence I use the terms rebirthing or coming of age to refer to this ceremony. The ceremony typically involved the rebirthing or coming of age of a group of children from the community. A ceremonial fiesta was given for the rebirthing ceremony. On the day of the fiesta, the children and their families gathered at the house of the host. The patio was meticulously swept and cleansed. The boys and girls were placed in separate lines on the patio, where an older woman and man of the community cleansed them with fresh leaves.

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Then the ah-kin cleansed and prepared the house for the children’s renewal. The four men who had been chosen to act as chacs,* representatives of the gifts and wisdom of the cardinal spaces or skybearers, then placed white cloths on the children’s heads. At that point, the ah-kin would have the oldest child, representing the whole group, confess any wrongdoings. If there were any indiscretions to confess, they were separated from the others and would confess before the ah-kin. Thereafter the ah-kin began to bless the children with long prayers and to sanctify them with hyssop. The act of confessing, followed by prayers, were critical components of the process. 22 Verbalizing any wrongdoings ejected them out of the children’s bodies, purified the children from these transgressions, and prepared them to undergo a cosmic rebirth into a new stage of their lives. The spoken word, in the form of poetic recitations, was a means of facilitating the release, and could also serve as part of the offering for divine help. The recitations known as the Ritual of the Bacabs are often sung or chanted to cure various illnesses, such as fever, gout, smallpox, rattlesnake bites, wasp bites, and asthma.23 The K’iché’ Popol Vuh indicates how the spoken word served as an offering to the deities. According to this text, the creators first created four-footed animals and birds, then told them to praise them by speaking and calling their names. The creators, who had sought to be nourished and sustained in this way, were dismayed to find that the animals could not speak and could only hiss, scream, and cackle. Because the animals were unable to honor them through speech, the creators decided that they would serve as food and would live in the ravines and woods. The creators then made beings from the earth, but these simply melted away. Then they created manikins, beings made of wood, but they too were unable to speak. As a result, the creators killed them with a great flood.24

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*Chacs were identified as the skybearers that held up the sky at the cardinal spaces and were also the quadripartite rain gods often associated with a particular cardinal space.

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For Review Only Figure. 4.1. The breath or spoken word as offerings, from the Madrid Codex, pages 24 and 25. Illustrations by Carolina Gutierrez.

INTEGRATING ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN WISDOM We have created a society that has been dissociated from the Earth, her elements, and ourselves, so it is no wonder that many people suffer from depression and discontent, and are unhappy with their livelihoods. I have gained indispensable insights from the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya that have greatly enhanced the effectiveness of my platicas. The platica mirrors a path I encourage my clients and students to take and embody—treating life as sacred, and being in a constant state of awe, wonderment, and gratitude. The more we are in these states, the more we connect with people and are provided with circumstances to

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be grateful for. Thus I encourage people to engage in small ceremonies and to begin to treat life as a sacred ceremony, especially if they are experiencing any degree of depression. In a platica, I navigate people through a cleansing and healing, and, if they are ready, a renewal of power. People who come to me with various levels of depression, stagnancy, or confusion begin to have focus and drive again after only a few sessons. They discover and activate new talents, feel renewed vigor, and often step into their power to create their reality. Of course they must do the homework I assign. (I will say more about this homework below.)

PLATICAS AS SACRED CEREMONY

1. Preparing for the Platica Treating the platica as a sacred practice in and of itself facilitates the healing, clearing, and revitalizing aspects of this limpia. For the session (like any other), I always wear white, which represents purity. Furthermore, I was taught that white, as well as lighter colors in general, will not absorb dense energies. I also make sure the healing room in which I perform my sessions is cleansed and ready to receive people. (I discuss how to cleanse rooms in chapter 8, page [x-ref]). I generally do not fast or ask my clients to fast, unless we are doing the final stages of soul retrieval and a platica is part of this work. I do however eat clean, light, nonprocessed vegetarian meals before my platicas. Is this necessary? Every person’s body type is different. It is critical to learn to listen to our bodies so that we are always focused, grounded, fully aware, and performing at our peak. Eating very clean food has been ideal for me as a curandera. Whether I am working with the client remotely or in person, before I begin I tune into their energy and prepare a complex blend of herbal teas to make the platica more effective. I am aware of the medicinal and magical properties of plants, and call upon their soul essence to help heal, cleanse, and revitalize my client’s mind, body, spirit, and soul.

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Of course, if the session takes place in person, I share the tea with my client. If it is remote, I thank the soul essence of the plants to work through me on my client’s behalf. The combination typically involves three to five plants, and reflects what I tune into or already know about the person. Depending on availability, I may get fresh plants from my garden, or use ones that I have already dried. I use 1.5–2 teaspoons of dried herbs, or 2–4 teaspoons of fresh herbs, for 8 ounces of water. Here are some common emotionally-related ailments and plant combinations: Depression: lemon balm, St. John’s wort, sage, bergamot, damiana, chives, geranium, echinacea, rose hips, or sunflower petals Anxiety and stress: echinacea, lemon balm, basil, chamomile, sage, lavender, bergamot, or cilantro Insomnia: chamomile, sage, peppermint, valerian, passionflower, lemongrass, damiana, lemon balm, thyme, chives, or fresh flowers from an orange or lemon tree Broken hearts: dandelion, peppermint, rosemary, lavender, geranium, lemon thyme, basil, or red roses Anger (either directed at or coming from my client): basil, mugwort, oregano, lavender, chamomile, or peppermint Shock: lemon balm, chamomile, or basil Envy (either directed at or coming from my client): snapdragon, crushed dill seed, geranium, chamomile, or parsley

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If I feel beforehand that the energy is going to be very dense, I prepare a white fire with a couple of handfuls of Epsom salts, a splash of rubbing alcohol, and dry plants such as basil, rosemary, chamomile, rue, mint, tobacco, and/or parsley to help clear dense energies. (I talk more about how to do a white fire limpia in chapter 8, pages [x-ref].) The density typically has to do with volatile emotions, such as anger, rage, deep resentment, or grave envy related to the story that will be shared. I usually burn the white fire after the person has shared the story with me in order

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to transform this energy into a much lighter one. As I indicate below, I may have the client throw something into the fire, or I burn it while I am cleansing the client with a feather fan, rattle, and Florida water.*

2. Conducting the Platica When I commence any platica, I always begin by lighting a charcoal tablet and placing copal, frankincense, and myrrh on it. This is known as a New Fire, and is symbolic of creating a new path. (In chapter 5, pages [x-ref], I explain further what a New Fire signifies and entails.) Burning these resins set the stage for the platica, acknowledging that the space where it is being done is sacred, and signaling that whatever is being said is to be treated with the highest regard. The offering is for all of my, and the person’s, divine helpers, inviting them to join us. These resins are also known to clear and drive out dense energies. If people are unfamiliar with these resins, I further prepare the space by explaining their purpose. My mentors taught me that a platica was a way to help people eject the energies of whatever troubled them. The person should be made to feel comfortable to share their story and whatever is troubling them or what they need help with. I was never to interrupt the storytelling; rather I was told to listen and ask questions. I require that the first session be a minimum of ninety minutes, so the basics of the story and the energy connected with it can be more fully discussed and released. My first question is always open-ended, to see if the person has a story or stories they would like to share, or if they would like me to direct the questioning. The open-ended question may be something along the lines of “So, love, what brings you here today?” I navigate the platica to have us deal with one story, or interrelated traumas, at a time. I get the client to agree on a core issue and on the related energies they would like to clear. The basic questions I may ask often include: Who

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*Florida water is a cleansing liquid that contains alcohol as its base, spring or blessed water, and aromatic cleansing flowers and herbs. You can buy Florida water at pharmacies that have an ethnic section or make it from scratch.

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was involved? Why does it matter? Why did it happen? When did it begin? Where did it happen? How does it make them feel? What are they willing to do to shift the energy of the story? If it appears that the person has brought up a completely unrelated story or issue, I find out whether it’s related to the core issue. If it’s unrelated, I navigate the platica back to the issue that we have agreed to deal with. I may also interrupt if I hear people making negative characterizations about themselves, or if they define their circumstances as being determinative or describe themselves as being stuck. Inspired by my ancient ancestors, I understand on a deeper level that the spoken word is sacred and we create with it, particularly when the words are charged with intense energies. I encourage the person to refrain from identifying any situation as unchanging and from continuing to feel bad by saying more bad things about themselves. This is never helpful. I always guide them toward self-awareness with self-reflective questions. People often cry, lament, and sometimes even laugh afterwards—all of which help to promote the purging process, and the platica is always a purging process. I also use the platica to provide further insight into which additional limpias could be used to complement and further cleanse, heal, and renew the person and the situation. After the platica, I conduct another type of complementary limpia; the kind I perform depends on what I have gathered from the platica. These are some typical complementary limpias and scenarios: Sweep limpia, or barrida, with a feather fan. After the platica, to enhance the cleanse and clear pathways for new beginnings, I often do a barrida (sweeping) with a feather fan, Florida water, a rattle, and a prayer or invocation. I have the client lie down, blow Florida water on them to deepen the energetic cleansing, run a rattle up and down their bodies to shake away residual dense energies, sweep their body with a feather fan, and say an invocation on their behalf, thanking all that is divine to assist them on their path. As I was taught, my invocation is private and is only for the ears of my client. The barrida with a feather fan signals that they are stepping onto a new path, a more prosperous

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and graceful one. (I explain how to do sweeps with feathers in c hapter 7, pages [x-ref].) Remote sessions and breathwork. If the session is remote, like the Mexica wind deity Ehecatl, who was known to clear pathways with his breath, I use the breath to clear residual dense energies from their bodies. First, I have the client join me in breathwork. One breathwork exercise I typically do in all of my sessions is the cobra breathing, because it facilitates a trance state for both the client and myself. While it is not necessary for the client to enter into a trance state, it can help deepen the clearing, because they are more relaxed and open to it. Cobra breathing involves having the client place pressure on their temples with their index fingers while using their pinky fingers to put pressure at the bridge of the nose. The temples and the bridge of the nose are acupressure points, which, when pressed and complemented with breathwork, help people to become more focused, centered, and grounded. The middle and ring fingers are slightly above their eyebrows. I instruct them to keep their hands in the cobra position and take quick breaths, inhaling from the abdomen, contracting the abdomen, and bringing the breath to the chest. I count silently to either 11, 22, or 33, and then we exhale out the mouth. I ask them to refrain from exhaling while while I am counting. I repeat this breathing exercise three times with the same set of counting to 11, 22, or 33. Afterwards I close my eyes and request that the client do the same. I scan their bodies and blow away dense residual energies from them. Egg sweep. I use this type of limpia with clients who have stated they are ready for a fresh or new start, and I sense that any negative energy they have been experiencing has taken a form of its own, manifesting in a series of unfortunate incidents. I once had a lady come in who had experienced, in a period of two weeks, being laid off and finding her fiancé with a woman she thought was her closest friend. She came in feeling very lethargic and incredibly depressed. She was having a very difficult time getting out of bed. The platica and the egg extracted from her body the dense energy that was weighing her down.

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The day after our session, she e-mailed me and told me that she was cleansing her house with a white fire, had been to the gym that day, and had applied for two jobs. She was feeling like herself again. (I explain how to do an egg sweep in chapter 7, pages [x-ref].) Fire limpia with a puro (blessed tobacco in a cigar). I generally conduct this kind of limpia for clients who have had series of unfortunate incidents take place and who say that someone or a group of people may not be wishing them well. As I explain more fully in chapter 5, I conduct the fire limpias in a series, reflecting the incidences of bad luck. So for example, if the misfortunes have occurred on a weekly basis, I request that they come in and see me on a weekly basis for a minimum of three times. This typically stops the streak of misfortunes. (I explain how to do fire limpias with puros in chapter 5, pages [x-ref].) Fire limpia with a white fire: If the person has been plagued with bad habits and negative thought forms, I conduct this kind of limpia to expel this negative energy into the fire. I will have people write down what they are ready to let go of and have them vocalize what they are releasing as they are throwing their paper or pieces or paper into the fire. I then hand them offerings for the fire, such as chamomile flowers, and have them state what they choose. Water limpia with a baño (spiritual bath). If the person has been suffering from severe anxiety, depression, stress, and/or insomnia, I will prepare a baño for them or advise them to do so on their own, with a combination of herbs, such as sage, bergamot, rose hips, chamomile, and lavender. Because of the time involved, I often recommend that they conduct the baño at home. The water and herbs cleanses the mind, body, and spirit, easing the severity of their ailments. I often recommend that they continue taking baños at least once a week for two months. (I explain how to do baños in chapter 6, pages [x-ref].)

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3. Homework Before the end of the platica, or possibly in the middle of this limpia, I always assign some kind of homework. This is an assignment whereby

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clients can continue to heal themselves, put a plan we develop together into action, or move forward toward a process of renewal and new beginnings. Many people that come to me for platicas have given away their power and energy on some level, so it is essential to provide an assignment that helps them to step into their power and take charge of their life. Often when referring to this work, I make an analogy to the Mesoamerican Calendar Round. Coming to see me was the magical, shamanic, and faith-based part of clearing the pathway for something to come into being, reflecting the magical-shamanic 260-day calendar. Moving forward with their assignment is how they bring something into being in this linear, 365-day dimension. I hold the space for a path to open up for them, but they must take the first steps to walk down the path. This process is necessary for the magic to work. The assignments I give vary. If, for example, the client is choosing to be with their ideal partner and I find out that they have not taken any action to meet this person, I recommend that they begin to engage in more activities they enjoy but normally do not engage in; I may also suggest that they peruse websites like Meetup and go to their events. If clients have come to me with health concerns, I recommend that they try plant-based alternatives, and suggest blends in the form of teas and/or tinctures. I may ask them to drink the tea or take the tincture first thing in the morning every day for two to three weeks straight. I also encourage them, before taking this medicine, to connect with the soul essence of the plants and thank them for their healing and magic. This concept may be foreign to some, but I notice a remarkable difference with people that follow through with this assignment. They begin to gain a renewed appreciation for simplicity and nature, and generally become happier and more grateful. On various occasions, I also suggest that clients do some magic of their own. Here are some examples.

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Sunny and Vic Get Their Ideal House I had clients who had moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles. When they came to see me, they were living with her parents. Although they were grateful that her parents had opened their home to them, after many months of looking they were ready to move into their own home. They had found one they really liked, but after six weeks, the negotiations broke down. They had not heard from the landlord for a few weeks, and the landlord was no longer responding to them. After their respective platicas, I assigned them two separate assignments. One of them was to approach the landlord again and propose a favorable resolution to a fence issue that had come up. The family wanted to secure the safety of their family, their current toddler and future ones, with a fence, but the owner did not want a fence around the home. We opened pathways for the landlord to be

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receptive toward their suggestion for an aesthetically pleasing fence. The other assignment was to do a velación (candle work; I explain how to do this in chapter 5, pages [x-ref]) for their ideal home at the present time. If this was to be their ideal home, it would open up for them. A few weeks later she e-mailed and informed me that they had moved into the house they really wanted. They approached the owner about the fence again and did their velación, as I had instructed. The platica had opened up a path for their ideal home and for the owner to be more receptive about the fence they wanted. Their work complemented the platica and brought into being what they had chosen.

Susana’s Severe Depression Dissipates Susana came to me with severe depression. She had been in a longterm relationship for almost a decade, lived with this person for most of those years, and thought that he was “the one.” He broke up with

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her in a way that seemed out of the blue. Although the breakup itself was rather peaceful, it caused an emotional whirlwind of confusion and depression for her. Almost eight months afterward, she was still very depressed, was experiencing crying spells, had become something of a hermit, and had mild suicidal ideations. During the platica, I held the space for her to release, and then I began gearing her toward focusing on what she still enjoyed and made her happy. She indicated that she enjoyed nature and the warmth of the sun. While she shared her story, I picked up on the fact that she had given a substantial amount of her sacred essence energy to her ex-boyfriend. Consequently, I told her to spend three to five minutes every day before leaving for work presenting herself before the sun. This was in order to set the intention to work with the sun and breathe back in her tonalli, her sacred essence energy or soul pieces. The sun would warm and recalibrate pieces of her soul, allowing her to gracefully accept her sacred energy back into her sacred heart.

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She came to see me again a couple of weeks later. Her energy had almost completely changed. She was alive with life and energy and was even laughing—very different from the first time. For this platica, I helped her to further release energies associated with treating her life as meaningless without him, and with the scars of his leaving her. At the end, I gave her the next homework assignment, which was to leave an offering of gratitude to the nature spirits on her doorstep, stating what she was grateful for. A month later and after another platica, she was completely radiating, and felt at peace with completely letting go and moving on. She told me that these assignments gave her something to look forward to, and filled her with a greater sense of wonderment and awe.

The ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya treated the platica as something sacred. It had the power to release energy connected to traumas, sadness, illness, and troubles. The shaman prepared themselves, and the

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space, to clear these dense energies. They used the power of the spoken word to facilitate the clearing and to invoke divine help. Like these ancient shamans, I recognize that the word is sacred. I encourage my clients to be mindful of their words and remember that they create with their words. I also intend to inspire clients to create beautiful realities for themselves. The questions I ask are aimed to awaken self-awareness and liberation from dense energies. The assignments I give are intended to continue to seal the healing, and to inspire my clients to step into their power by doing something healthy and loving for themselves—embodying the discipline of self-love.

PLATICAS FOR SOLO PRACTITIONERS It is also possible for solo practitioners to engage in platicas on their own. In fact, sometimes this is the work I assign for my clients. I basically have them follow all of the outlined steps, starting with the preparations. I encourage them to cleanse their space and to dress for the ceremony, preferably in lighter-colored clothes. I recommend that they eat clean and light food beforehand. I request that prior to the ceremony they write down a prayer or invocation for divine aid. This request can encompass any and all belief systems. When the preparations are complete, I advise that clients start the platica with a New Fire and with an offering in the form of a candle and/or incense. Thereafter I encourage them to write down or state what has been weighing heavy in their hearts and/or something they want to manifest in their lives, and then to beseech divine aid. After this, I have the client declare the actions they are willing to take to change these events or circumstances and to bring into being whatever they are choosing. I also ask them to recognize the activities that lift their spirits and make them feel happy, preferably exuberant. Their homework is to engage in these activities, or to imagine themselves engaging in them, and to allow themselves to feel into this v isualization,

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as well as to take action to manifest what they choose. The platica as a form of release clears pathways, taking action brings something into form from the ethers, and the feelings of happiness are the fuel that realizes the request. These solo platicas are simple and practical, and are an excellent way to promote self-awareness and to manifest what we choose in our lives.

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5

Fire Limpias Transformation and Renewal

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ire is one of the most common limpia tools. It can establish a gateway to the supernatural and can be used as a divinatory tool to assess past, present, and highly probable outcomes. (As I was taught, the future is composed of highly probable outcomes. Limpias help to push the outcome toward one that is desired.) Fire clears away dense influences affecting a person and/or circumstances surrounding that person. Fire limpias can be used to create a path toward a more graceful and positive transformation and to mark a new beginning. The tools used in limpia healing sessions are frequently burned to destroy the causes of the affliction. Limpia tools can also be cleansed or renewed by being placed over a fire while saying prayers to the fire and tools. Fire in the form of a candle, as used in a velación, can link the suppliant with divine beings who have the power to grant a petition. The flickering candles repel unwanted spiritual beings and energies from a situation, and also attract divine beings and benevolent spirits. Velaciónes can transform a difficult situation into an ideal one, and can ensure a more effective clearing, healing, and renewal. Fire ceremonies were among the most common limpia rites in ancient Mesoamerica. They were multifarious in purpose and meaning, and could be prognostic. They activated and/or renewed the sacred essence energy within buildings: homes, temples, political spaces, sweat

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baths, and ritual spaces.1 Igniting a fire could also denote the termination of period-ending ceremonies as well as the inauguration of calendrical renewal, marking a new cycle. Fire rites using candles honored and housed deceased family members, appealing to them to join the living for a period of time.

THE FIRE RITES OF THE MEXICA The fire ceremonies of the Mexica commemorated and inaugurated periodic cycles of death, rebirth, and renewal. Fire limpia rites also served as gateways to conjure and communicate with deities, and could cleanse and renew ritual tools such as medicine bundles. The fire from a candle could attract and temporarily house a deceased individual during particular calendrical ceremonies. In many temples, certain shamans were assigned to ensure that the fire in braziers, rooms, and courtyards were constantly lit day and night.2 The elaborate fire limpia Xiuhmolpilli, “binding of the years,” typically identified as the New Fire Ceremony, played a critical role in perpetuating and renewing the world as the Mexica knew it. The rite was held every fifty-two years, a complete cycle of the Calendar Round. For this New Fire Ceremony, the Mexica, unsure whether the sun would continue to rise or whether the world would be destroyed, would hold a somber feast. In preparation they would put out the fires in all of the homes and temples in the Aztec empire. (Homes, like temples, usually had hearth fires burning at all times.) The passing of this fifty-twoyear cycle called for the termination of these fires. Homes and temples were also diligently swept and cleaned. They also disposed of old idols, rubbish, and household items.3 Byron Hamann suggests that breaking and disposing of certain ritual and household items was critical, because these items had been created in a soon-to-be-passing cycle, and did not belong in the new one. These items were “matter out of time,” a form of chronological pollution.4 When night came, the peoples of the Aztec empire were frightened.

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They believed that if fire could not be drawn that evening, the sun would be destroyed forever. The Tzitzimimeh would then descend onto earth and devour humans.* The movement of the heavens would desist, and all would end in darkness and eternal night.5 During the first quarter of the night, the shamans and servants of the temple of Tenochtitlan went to the summit of the mountain near Itztapalapan, which they called Uixachtecatl, reaching it at midnight. The summit had a great pyramid on it from they could pay close attention to the movement of the Pleiades. They waited for the constellation to reach and pass its zenith. When it had, they knew that the movement of the heavens had not ceased and the sun would not be destroyed. They would perform a New Fire Ceremony to facilitate its recreation.6 The ceremonial drilling of the New Fire was said to have been created by rubbing two sticks together quickly to ignite a flame—a reenactment of the sun’s birth from a divine turquoise hearth.7 The fire atop the pyramid was seen from all the surrounding mountains, letting people know that the world would be renewed for another fifty-two years.8 The New Fire Ceremony signaled the termination of period-ending ceremonies and the inauguration of calendrical renewal celebrations. Annual year-end ceremonies in central Mexico likely incorporated scaled-down versions of the rites described for the more grandiose Xiuhmolpilli.9 Plates 29 through 46 of the Borgia Codex tell an elaborate story of its central character, Stripe Eye, who is transformed into a respected shaman or community leader. This event is marked by a New Fire Ceremony, signaling a new era. Stripe Eye performs a long ritual journey to activate a sacred medicine bundle and effect a new beginning. Although he is not in the last two scenes, in which the New Fire Ceremony actually takes place, his ritual journey appears to invoke

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*Tzitzimimeh were deities associated with stars that could be seen during an eclipse. They were believed to be attacking the sun during an eclipse. They were often depicted as skeletal female figures wearing skirts with skull-and-crossbone designs. (Klein, “The Devil and the Skirt,” 23–27.)

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deities who will kindle the fire for the new era. The five enclosures of plates 29 through 32 seem to depict preparations for this limpia and the associated journey that Stripe Eye will embark on.10 Plates 35 through 38 provide an account of a medicine-bundle ritual performed before the Temple of Heaven. These pages appear to be portraying a complex medicine-bundle ceremony, in which a person is elevated to the role of shaman. The ceremony involves a series of activations of the bundle with smoke, fire, and a sweeping device similar to the one with which the wind god Ehecatl is often depicted (see plate 10). After the long journey and the opening of the bundle, the shamans impersonating or embodying principal deities are no longer performing actions on behalf of Stripe Eye. Instead they are acting as his assistants. The activation and opening of his bundle has transformed him into a shaman who can now lead ceremonies.11 The last plate of this story, plate 46, features beings drilling a fire with a flint stick within the heart of a combined image of the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli and his nahual, Xiuhcoatl, a mythological serpent with a sharply back-turned snout and a segmented body.* There are four directional xiuhcoatl surrounding a central image of the burning hearth. The four xiuhcoatl represent the emergent smoke and flames to the four directions. This scene likely refers to the fiery creation of the sun during the Xiuhmolpilli.12 Drilling the New Fire brings the ceremonial sequence to a close, as well as inaugurating a new era.13 Fire ceremonies were also performed to conjure gods. Xiuhtecuhtli, for example, was often depicted as being conjured by drilling fire on top of a mirror. Mirrors were likely used to garner the reflections of the sun’s glares to make fire.14 Xiuhtecuhtli typically appeared to people through his nahual, Xiuhcoatl. Images depict Xiuhcoatl as having mirrors on its body, with beings drilling fire on the mirrors. Mirrors also served as tools of prognostication and self-reflection, as a way to

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*A nahual is often thought of as a supernatural guardian animal that can share a soul with a person or deity.

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connect and communicate with deities, and as passageways for souls.15 Mirrors, like fire, were bridges to supernatural realms. According to the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas (History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings), only two years after a great flood, Tezcatlipoca Mixcoatl, the red aspect of Tezcatlipoca,* “wanted [ . . . ] to feast the gods, and that is why he brought out flame from the sticks, which he usually did, and that was the beginning of fire-making out of flints, which are sticks that have a heart, and once that flame was obtained, it was a fiesta to make many great fires.”16 The flints that were used for the fire drilling were also believed to have an essence, to have a heart. Both the fire itself and the tools that were used to start a fire were understood as having their own soul essences. The Mexica also studied the way in which fire burned for divinatory purposes and made offerings to Xiuhtecuhtli. They fed him pulque, incense, quetzal feathers and other precious feathers, sprinkles of blood, minerals, and tobacco.17 They listened to the ways in which the fire crackled and the embers creaked in order to prophesize. They also watched how the fire would smoke and sparks would leap to divine a situation.18 The ritual objects and offerings they made to the deceased children and adults during the ninth month, Tlaxochimaco (Bestowal of Flowers), and the tenth month, Hueymiccaihuitl (Great Feast of the Dead), of the xiuhpohualli calendar, included chocolate, fowl, fruit, great quantities of seed and food, and candles. These offerings attracted the deceased, and again, the candle likely served as a conduit to temporarily house and welcome the deceased into the realm of the living. These feasts and festivities resemble our current Dia de los Muertos celebrations, but instead of three days, the festivities for the deceased would continue for twenty days during these two months. They were celebrated with rejoicing, ceremonies, and many elaborate offerings.19

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*Tezcatlipoca was often understood as having four aspects. Each aspect was associated with a color, cardinal space—a quadrant of universal space, and an element. (León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 46.)

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The early ethnographers of the Mexica were not especially interested in the meaning and purpose of candles left to honor the deceased. My mentors, however, taught me that the fire of a candle could act as a bridge to other worlds, and, through the flame on the wick, could temporarily house the spirits of loved ones. I suspect that the Mexica used candles to honor the deceased for analogous purposes.

THE FIRE RITES OF THE YUCATEC MAYA For the ancient Yucatec Maya, fire was the medium by which curanderas/os conjured the gods through the offering of blood, copal, and other precious substances. Fire limpias were used to cleanse, renew, and vivify physical spaces and ritual objects. Fire limpias, typically referred to as fire drilling, are pictured in several almanacs of the Madrid and Dresden codices, again often signaling period-ending ceremonies and the inauguration of calendrical renewal celebrations (see plates 4–6).20 In these ceremonies, a New Fire was typically lit and fed with incense or resins to facilitate and commemorate a renewal or a new cycle. During the month of Pop’ of the 365-day ha’b calendar, the New Year, the Yucatec Maya engaged in many rites that involved renovation and renewal. 21 The shaman purified the temple while men and older women would gather in the court. The chosen chacs (typically respected elders of the community who represented the mythological skybearers holding up the sky at the four corners of the world) would then seat themselves in the four corners, and fastened a rope to one another. Participants would have to enter through the rope; in doing so, they purified themselves and continued to purify the space. Thereafter all the men began saying their prayers. The chacs lit the brazier, the temple’s symbolic hearth and heart, and made a New Fire. The shaman then began to feed the fire with incense. Then the chacs came forward to receive incense from the ah-kin (shaman) and threw the incense into the New Fire. The other men followed suit. The incense was an offering to the New Fire, ensuring a successful renewal to a New Year cycle.22

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The Yucatec Maya also created a New Fire during the month of Sip to cleanse and renew their medicine bundles. These bundles typically contained idols; am, small stones used to cast lots;* and other items they used to cure, cleanse, renew, and perform divinations. During this month, shamans gathered in one of their houses. The ah-kin leading the rite first cleansed the space. The shamans began to open their medicine bundles, and with great devotion called upon their deities of medicine: Ihcil-Ixchel, Itzamna, Cit-bolontun, and Ahua-chamahes. They then lit a New Fire and fed it with incense, cleansing and renewing their tools and the medicine bundle itself.23 Fire limpias were also used to activate or renew the soul essence of temples. These are sometimes called fire-entering ceremonies. The Maya would start a New Fire in the temple brazier and feed it with offerings. The New Fire was believed to create a bridge to supernatural realms, and to serve as a home where the gods would be fed.24 The brazier was both the house of the supernatural being and the place where it could be invoked.25 Fire limpias were also used to vivify the muknal, the dwelling of a deceased ancestor, thus charging it with the soul essence of the deceased.26 Fire limpias could also signal and sanction the accession of a lord, which often included a cycle of destruction and death followed by a rebirth. These accession ceremonies often inaugurated a transformative cycle that bestowed the new reign with cosmic significance, perhaps marking the rebirth of a principal creator deity as the new lord.27 The well-preserved hieroglyphs at Temple XIX at Palenque, in Chiapas, Mexico, for example, denote a possible rebirth of GI, a principal creator deity, on the same day of the seating of ruler K’inich Ahkal Mo’ Nahb. On the day of the ruler’s accession, he is depicted as wearing distinctive emblems associated with deity GI, such as a small heron grasping a fish in its beak. They chose the date of the king’s accession

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*Casting lots is a divinatory practice that involved throwing stones or other small objects to see into circumstances.

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to evoke cosmological significance. His accession took place on 9 ik, which was also the mythological date of the enthronement of GI. The ruler relied on GI’s creation story to legitimize his reign religiously and politically. The dedication ceremony of Temple XIX vivified the building with the accession of this ruler as GI. Through the ceremonies, buildings did not simply record this history; rather they were animated by the fire rite and then embodied this cosmological transformation.28 Although ethnohistorical records indicate that candles were used as offerings, they do not discuss the manner or positioning of the candles for limpias. Currently, however, candle ceremonies, or velaciónes, are used among many Maya peoples to activate new buildings with a soul, to clear clients of negative energies, to clear pathways, and to renew the earth. Among the modern Tzotzil Maya of Zinacantan, the Ch’ul Kandela (“Holy Candle”) ritual, which takes place soon after a new house is built, is used to give the house a soul. The ritual begins with the erection of a small cross, with burning candles and incense, outside the structure. Inside, the ritual continues with a prayer to the Earth Lord over a table with six candles on it. Candles and pine boughs are placed in the four corners of the house, and chicken broth is poured into the corners and at the house’s center. Then broth and liquor are poured over the rafters of the roof, feeding the house with these items.29 In

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neighboring Chenhaló, a similar house dedication ceremony includes lighting of the first hearth fire by an elderly couple to tame the “wild” new house.30

Tat Eliseo, a shaman elder in Nahualá, Guatemala, uses the element of fire in the form of candles on his three-level altar, where he practices rituals of veneration, protection for his clients, and renewal of the Earth. The highest table, running across the back wall of the receiving room, represents the upper vault of the cosmos and its principal deities. Separated from the first by a two-foot aisle, another substantial table, representing earthly matter and the owners of the Earth, is empty except for an array of representative candles that parallels the high altar. A third altar, connected to ancestors and the underworld, constituted

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of planks with candles and figures, sits on the ground under the second. The fire of these candles enables Tat Eliseo to conjure and invoke the aid of the beings of these three worlds.31

INTEGRATING ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN WISDOM Before I began formal training with any curanderas/os, I always honored the elements on one of my altars. Fire was often represented with a lit candle, and I knew to offer incense to it. (Curanderismo practices have always been second nature to me.) But after my training, both in the field and academically, I gained a greater understanding of my traditions and myself. Researching and understanding how the ancient Yucatec Maya and Mexica conducted fire limpia rites greatly deepened the sacrality of the fire limpias I offered. The level of faith of both the curandera/o and participant always correlates with how effective it will be. By equipping myself with the sacred meanings and practices of my rich history and culture, I became more grounded in and comfortable with these rites. I also began to put into practice nuanced ancient understandings and methods, particularly the knowledge that all the tools used have a soul essence. I learned how to work with these entities and for what purposes. I use some kind of fire limpia rite in all of my sessions. The different forms include igniting a charcoal and lighting a New Fire in my brazier; facilitating a white fire (see chapter 8, page [x-ref], on how to conduct a white fire limpia); using fire sticks; igniting a puro and cleansing a person with it; creating a fire pit; and velación. For example, I usually light a white fire at the beginning of a class. I chant a prayer to the four directions in Yucatec Mayan and English and ask people to release into the fire anything that may prevent them from being fully present at the class, or anything that no longer serves them. I typically only work with a fire pit in a ceremony where I have people honor the sun, moon, and

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fire and declare what they are releasing into the fire and what they are welcoming into their lives.

Changing Streaks of Bad Luck with Fire Limpias To change streaks of bad luck, I recommend at least three fire limpias on three consecutive cycles.* I will request that the client schedule three limpias that reflect the frequency of the misfortunes. If someone is experiencing difficult fortune on a daily basis, I suggest three sessions on three consecutive days. If the bad luck happened within a week, I will suggest sessions on a weekly basis on the same day and at the same time. Once the person is starting to reach a better position, I may recommend biweekly sessions, and then monthly sessions, always on the same day and time, if possible. The cycles of repetitive limpias are inspired by ancient Mesoamerican thought. They mirror the understanding that life is composed of constantly repeating cycles of change. Although a ceremony may be repeated in the same way, every cycle is unique. It is its own process, and every process enables the person to more gracefully peel away limiting core beliefs. After a time, they may attain a different point of reality, in which they discover what they truly love and begin to actualize it in their life.

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Lighting a New Fire Whether sessions are remote or in person, I always begin by lighting a New Fire in my brazier in order to cleanse and transfigure my clients’ energies and offer them a new beginning. I always use a wooden match to light the charcoal tablet, and then place it on my brazier. It is said that wooden matches have a soul essence and can garner more magic and aid in the cleansing. After I light the charcoal, I place frank*Streaks of misfortune can be distinguished from chronic or prolonged periods of misfortune. A streak is a somewhat unusual short period of misfortunes that have taken place within approximately one week to three months. On the other hand, prolonged or chronic periods of misfortune often require soul-retrieval work coupled with limpias. Soul retrieval helps someone to regain a lost piece of her or his soul, or sacred essence energy.

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incense, myrrh, and copal on it. I take the brazier in my hand and swirl it in circular motions as we begin the session. It is believed that circular motions entrap dense energies and clears them more effectively. I then place the brazier, with the copal smoking, relatively close to the client, unless the smoke begins to bother them. If so, I move it away from them, although I keep it in the room.

White Fire Limpias I may use a white fire limpia to help people release and reconstitute the energies of a situation they are ready to let go of. I also have them make offerings to the fire to invoke the assistance of the fire spirit and of the divine beings that are assisting them on their path. First, we have a platica to determine what needs to be released and what they are ready to release. Then we talk about what they are going to commit to doing to facilitate a release and change in their lives. Their commitment to doing some kind of work after the session is an ofrenda (offering) to themselves to ensure that they will continue to work toward releasing the circumstances they have chosen to let go of. I have clients write down what they are going to release and positively change in their lives with a number two pencil on a white piece of paper. Next, I may take clients on a shamanic journey to begin the purging and rescripting process. Not all curanderas/os facilitate shamanic journeys during their sessions; in fact most of the ones I came across did not. I nonetheless learned how to facilitate shamanic journeys through drumming, rattling, beating of brass instruments, breathwork, and adjusting the cadence and intonation of my voice to produce repetitive, trancelike intervals. The repetitive sound of a drum, rattle, or deep brass instrument produces changes in the central nervous system. The rhythmic stimulation affects the electrical activity in the sensory and motor areas of the brain. Deep, repetitive beats of lower frequencies transmit impulses along nerve pathways in the brain that induce trance states for both the practitioner and client. If you are starting out, drumming is recommended, and having

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someone else do the drumming or using a recorded set is advisable. The beating should be strong, monotonous, unvarying, and rapid. There should be no contrast in intensity or in the intervals between beats. Once you become experienced at entering shamanic trances, you can play deep brass instruments and use your voice—intonation and cadence—to take yourself and the client into the journey. Generally the tools I use to engage in journeying involve breathwork, shifting the cadence and intonation of my voice, and beating a Tibetan bowl with a mallet at repeated intervals. I use the drum and rattle when I am working with larger groups of people rather than with individuals; this is simply a personal preference. When I am working with individuals in a session for the shamanic journeying, we first engage in cobra breathing, and then I have them lie down and perform a barrida on them with Florida water, a rattle, and a feather fan. (I discuss how to do cobra breathwork in chapter 4 [x-ref], page [x-ref], and how to do a sweep in chapter 7, page [x-ref].) After the barrida, I beat the bowl at repeated intervals. I have the client tune into a reality or space that brings them into a state of joy and peace. In this space, I have them make a commitment to themselves to be aware of what needs to be released and what they are going to do to facilitate this release. I do not have them speak during the journeying. Instead I tune into and work their I Am presence, the divine presence within all of us. Any gifts of healing, clearing and rescripting are offered to their I Am presence. But I always vocalize the gifts that are being offered and ask the person to silently speak whether or not they choose to accept these gifts—honoring free will. I usually also inform them of the imagery I am seeing as I am seeing it. The most important elements in shamanic journeying are ensuring that the practitioner is the one on the journey and can navigate through the many realities the client is connected and associated with. How does a practitioner guide the client into this reality of joy and peace? Simple: the moment the practitioner stops questioning or doubting themselves, and knows without a shadow of doubt that they are able to do so, they

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are ready for journeying. But keep in mind that a white fire limpia does not require shamanic journeying. Often the platica and the practitioner’s intuition will be sufficient to determine what needs to be released and what the client is ready to do to release it. But typically I facilitate a journey if time allows. In any event, after the client has written down what they are going to release and change in their lives, I prepare a white fire for them. This consists of two handfuls of Epsom salt, a splash of rubbing alcohol, and dried plants, such as basil, rosemary, chamomile, rue, mint, tobacco, or parsley; all of which are placed within a pot that is only used for limpias. I throw a lit wooden matchstick into the pot, and I have the client proclaim their intentions as they throw their paper or pieces of paper into the fire. Then I hand them copal, herbs, and/or palo santo (a cleansing fragrant wood) and guide them to feed the fire with their offerings. As they are doing so, invoking the aid of the fire and of the divine beings that are assisting them on their path, I have them state what they are choosing and what they will do to commit and move forward toward their choice. Inspired by my Mesoamerican ancestors, I know this ceremony not only facilitates a release but also invokes divine assistance in actualizing the client’s choices. Sometimes after the limpia, I study the manner in which the resins and herbs burned, either in or away from my client’s presence. I soak the pot for five to ten minutes in water. The amount of residue stuck to it tells me how much the person has let go, which includes letting go of the identities and stories associated with related traumas or issues. No matter how much residue has been left, the fire limpia has facilitated a release. With every release, we change and become something new; I hold the space and encourage positive transformation.

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A Puro Cleansing The Mexica and Yucatec Maya used tobacco as an offering to their deities, and smoked it for healing and cleansing, and at their most prestigious rites.32 Tobacco has the soul essence of a grandfather plant,

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and can impart immense wisdom, clearing, and healing, if approached with reverence and respect. I often use tobacco in the form of a puro, which is blessed tobacco in a cigar. The puro, like all limpia tools, both cleanses and provides a divinatory window into the circumstances surrounding the issues. Before using the puro, I say a prayer to the spirit of the tobacco and thank it for cleansing and aiding my client. After I have given thanks, I get a red marker and make a straight line down the puro. I begin by blowing the smoke from the lit puro at the top of the person’s head, then I go to the neck, arms, chest, abdomen, hips, legs, and feet, and I have the person turn around and I follow the same sequence. I make sure not to inhale the smoke, so I can perform the limpia with the cigar burning down to the end. I use an aluminum container for ashes and spit into it as needed. Generally, if the puro burns to the top left of the red line as I am cleansing the person, this indicates clearing of unwanted circumstances that the person is aware of. If it burns to the bottom left, there is a clearing of unwanted circumstances that have been unknown. Burning on the top right indicates a change toward more favorable outcomes that the person has been hoping for, whereas burning to the bottom right indicates an unexpected favorable outcome. Throughout the cleansing, I recite prayers for the person, thank the spirits of the tobacco and fire, and have the person declare what they are choosing to release and to have happen in their lives. As the puro burns, holes can appear in it as I ask the person to declare the particulars of their issues. This often reveals that someone may not have been wishing the person well and that, for whatever reason, the person has begun to internalize this dense energy. If holes appear, I place a little bit of cinnamon powder on them, which transmutes this dense energy and typically prevents the hole from getting bigger. Through prayers and getting the person to state with conviction what they choose, we can get the puro to begin to burn evenly, which is the goal. The prayers I say for the person as I am blowing the smoke on their body are private and are

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only for their ears. I encourage practitioners to create their own prayers and invocations for performing limpias. These prayers should be special and should be shared only with the client. After the puro has burned to about one third of the way down to the end, the limpia is done. At that point the client and I talk about their homework and about what they are going to do to further the results. Anne’s Streak of Bad Luck Anne had just experienced a streak of misfortunes in a little less than four weeks. In this period, she had two car accidents, got laid off, been told that she had sixty days to vacate the apartment that she had been living in for three years, had her car declared a total loss from the second accident, and had been experiencing nightly bouts of insomnia—waking up at 2 or 3 a.m. and being unable to go back to

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sleep. I started the session by lighting a New Fire in my brazier and conducted a platica, holding the space to allow her to begin ejecting the energies of those traumas from her body. In our platica, she confessed that she had been somewhat unhappy with her job and often felt unappreciated. She had been with the company for three years, was only given one very small raise throughout that time, and did not see opportunities for growth within the company. Nonetheless, she did not see the layoff coming and was not financially prepared for it. Prior to the streak of misfortunes, she had broken up with her boyfriend of four years. Although she loved him, she had known for quite some time that she was no longer in love with him, so she finally got up the courage to leave him. He did not feel the same, which made her choice significantly more difficult. She also continued to mention that she thought it was very odd that this streak of misfortunes had taken place shortly after she had broken up with him. I told her not to worry about what seemed like peculiar timing; we would clear her of any dense energies. If she wanted to change her

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fortune, she had to keep focused on her great fortune and not worry about anything else. After the platica, I cleansed her with a puro. The cigar began to burn boldly on the left of the red line at the top and bottom. When I began to ask that she be cleansed of any dense energies, holes began to form at the bottom of the cigar. I placed cinnamon on them to change this energy and cleanse her from it. I had her declare multiple times that her life was full of great fortune and abundance on all levels and that she was going to get an offer for the ideal job. Toward the very end, as she was declaring her great fortune, the puro finally began to burn more evenly. Afterward I requested that she cleanse her house, particularly her living space, with a white fire limpia for at least three consecutive days. I also inspired her to work on her résumé, to start sending it out that day, and to contact former coworkers. I requested that she come to see me in two weeks, on the same day, at the same time. The next time Anne came in, she told me she had been sleep-

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ing better and loved doing the white fire limpias. Her apartment felt considerably calmer, even in the midst of uncertainty. But she was still stressed out because she had not yet found an apartment or a job. She also admitted that in a moment of desperation and confusion she contacted her ex-boyfriend and went out with him. She did not want to return to him, and reaffirmed her choice to him shortly after the incident. According to her, leaving him was the one thing she had recently done to free herself from a long period of complacency and waves of mild depression. Then the glimmer of hope came in. Two days before, one of her former coworkers e-mailed her back and told her about a possible opening that seemed like a great job opportunity. I cleansed her with another puro. It was burning on the left side at the top. I had her declare her great fortune and state that complacency was no longer an option for her and that she would get a great job offer within the next couple of weeks. At this time the puro began to burn on the top right side, indicating that she would get such an offer. Then, halfway

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through the limpia, the puro began to burn evenly, which indicated a new path of balance and happiness. At the very end of the session, I told her that the job was hers if she wanted it. For Anne’s third session, she came in ecstatic. She had gotten a job offer. Although it was only for a six-month contract, there seemed to be a high likelihood that it would become permanent. She had also put in applications for three apartments that she really liked. They were not in West Los Angeles, where she had been living, but they were closer to her new job, bigger, and less expensive. Nevertheless, she was worried because she only had ten days to move out. I taught her how to do a velación with a circle of eight white seven-day candles, and a principal candle, so that her application for her most ideal apartment would be accepted. (I explain how to do a velación in the next section.) After our platica, we did a white fire limpia for new beginnings. She wrote down a description of the complacency that had plagued her for years on a white piece

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of paper with a number-two pencil. She threw the paper into the fire. Then I had her proclaim all the things she was welcoming into her life, transforming the circumstances and the energies that had weighed her down. She e-mailed me six days after the session to inform me that she had gotten the apartment she most wanted and was able to move in immediately. Anne had been complacent for many years, in many aspects of her life. Shortly after leaving a relationship she was no longer happy with, the streak of misfortunes was triggered, possibly so that she would return to patterns of illusory safety and complacency. The fire limpias helped cleanse her from these dense energies and gracefully usher in a new path. Along with getting an ideal job opportunity and a wonderful living space, she was told two months after starting her new position that it would likely become permanent, and it did. She had also purchased an almost-new Toyota Prius, and got an e xtraordinary deal.

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Velaciónes During a session, I may also recommend that a client do a fire limpia with a velación. Fire limpias in the form of velaciones are very strong sources of clearing, healing, and renewal for persons and/or situations. People I have worked with have successfully performed velaciónes for a variety of circumstances, including: Obtaining ideal living spaces Realizing an ideal outcome in a lawsuit Securing ideal renters Getting an ideal job Increasing business flow Acquiring ideal employment contracts for various types of industries Softening hearts and healing relationships Removing various kinds of obstacles Revealing the truth

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Typically, if the person has a safe space to conduct a velación, I teach them how to do it. I rarely do velaciones for people; rather, I encourage them to step into their own power and do it for themselves. It is always exciting to get a call or e-mail a few weeks later and hear that what they had asked for in the velación came out better than expected. Guidelines for Velaciónes

To begin with, two fundamentals must first be stressed. When writing the petition for a velacion, (1) ask for an ideal outcome, and (2) understand that everyone has a right to their reality. Most of us have not experienced ideal realities. We may not even know what our ideal looks like or can be, so I recommend that the person ask for an ideal outcome and be open to such. While the person is waiting for this, I encourage them to maintain a positive, faithful, and grateful attitude and to expect to experience something ideal. These

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high energetic vibrations—happiness, faith, and gratitude—fuel the magic and intention of the velación. I have also had a few clients throughout the years ask me, “Can’t we make him or her understand, or do, XYZ?” Everyone has free will, so we cannot make anyone do anything if they are not willing. Nor can we make something happen to someone if there is no opening. Trying to do so can be a waste of money, time, energy, and is often flat-out unethical. We can, however, ask for and have a right to our own ideal outcome. To do a velación, the following will be needed: Seven-day candles. The number of candles depends on the formation and intention. Two four- to eight-ounce glasses. (Please do not use these glasses to drink from after this or any limpia. The items that are used for limpia rites are sacred magical items, and should be placed in a separate space, out of reach, so they are not mistakenly used for other purposes.) Filtered water. Parchment paper. A number-two pencil. Copal. Charcoal tablets. Wooden matches. A brazier, a steel urn for burning the charcoal tablets. An egg. A picture (optional).

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Start out by using a white fire to cleanse the space where the velación will be performed (chapter 8, page [x-ref], discusses how to make a white fire). Then write out the petition with a number-two pencil on a piece of parchment paper. (As my mentors taught me, pencils are magical instruments.)

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I start all petitions with “God, Company of Heaven, I Am That I Am, please and thank you with and by the sacred fires of God’s Light and Love for ensuring . . . ,” and end with “Thank you.” When I use the term God, it is free of any monotheistic religious associations; rather, it is the divine principle of the Highest Love. The sacred fires of God’s Love and Light clear and transmute any and all kinds of density to light. If the term God does not resonate with the person, I encourage them to refer to something they feel is a divine principle, one they feel has the power to clear and transmute, whether the prayer be to Krishna, Buddha, Hecate, or any other force or deity. Faith in a divine force or principle is what fuels the magic in cleansing and renewal. If a picture of the person or persons or situation is available, use it, and place the picture on top of the parchment paper. On top of the paper and picture, place the principal candle, as well as the glass of water and the egg. The egg is an offering. The glass of water and the egg should be next to one another, and the principal candle should be at the top, in the shape of a triangle. For the principal candle, garner the help of a saint, bodhisattva, angel, or master. Get a candle that reflects the intention. Here are some ideas for the types of divine help and some of their known specialties.

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Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Sacred Heart of Jesus) and Buddha: for any type of petition where divine help is needed Archangel Michael: to clear any type of negative energies Archangel Raphael: for healing and illumined vision San Judas de Tadeo (St. Jude Thaddeus): when asking for a miracle San Juan Soldado: for safe travels Virgen de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) and Kwan Yin: help stop family quarrels Angel de la Guarda (Guardian Angel): helps to look over you and family members Changó and Lucky Buddha: good luck

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Santa Clara: good fortune San Antonio (St. Anthony), Our Lady of Grace, and Yemaya: for love St. Lazarus: to guide in a new beginning Divina Providencia (Divine Providence): for prosperity Mano Poderosa: to help with work and business matters San Ramon: business prosperity San Simón: to have more financial abundance Santa Elena: to discover the truth Santa Lucia: to see with clarity Santa Marta: to gain strength Santa Teresa: to increase the power of a magical petition Siete Potencias: to get rid of bad luck Infant Jesus of Atocha: petition for help in any situation San Martin de Porres: petition for financial needs Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception: for fertility and health Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal: to break bad habits St. Francis of Assisi: for better understanding and peace

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Velación Formations

To strengthen the intention of the velación, place the principal candle and the parchment petition in the center of any of the following arrangements: Triangles: to strengthen a petition. A triangle is considered the strongest formation to strengthen an intention. To create a triangle, obtain three additional seven-day candles. (see figure 5.1, page 105) Circles: often used to influence a situation a certain way, this is probably the most common shape used. To create a circle, obtain eight additional seven-day candles. (see figure 5.2, page 105) Squares: often used for stability and to seal an intention. To create a square, obtain four additional seven-day candles. (see figure 5.3, page 106)

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Candle Color

As for the color of the candles, here are some meanings: White candles are all-purpose candles; they purify a situation, and garner divine help. Blue candles are burned for serenity and tranquility. Red candles are burned for health and power. Pink candles are burned for good will. Green candles are burned to remove a harm or a negative influence. Purple candles are burned to repel dense energies. Black candles are burned to bring closure to something or for magic. Steps for the Velación

After the candles have been placed in a particular arrangement, begin by cracking the egg in the glass jar and discard the shell. Light the middle candle with a wooden match. Then begin by lighting the other candles in a clockwise motion. Use one match per candle, and never use the breath to blow out the match or candle. My mentors taught me that using wooden matches empower the magical intention. I suspect that this belief has its roots in ancient Mesoamerican beliefs that wood or flint has a heart or essence, which can strengthen the magical intention. Once all of the candles have been lit, do not place anything inside the formation or blow out the candles. Let them burn out naturally (of course, make sure to do the velación in a safe place). Finally, light the charcoal and place copal on it. Plan beforehand to place the charcoal on a steel urn, as the charcoal gets very hot; leave the urn outside the candle formation. Make offerings of copal regularly, preferably at night before going to bed and in the early morning. During the velación, pay attention to how the candles are burning. If any of them has a very low fire, burn copal next to that candle.

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Figure 5.1. Velación in the shape of a triangle. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure 5.2. Velación in the shape of a circle. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure 5.3. Velación in the shape of a square.

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After the candles go out naturally, if the intention was to have something flourish, pour the water on a plant either inside the house or in the garden. If the intention was to clear any kind of dense energy, place the water in the toilet, or outside of the house in an area where nothing is growing. Place the petition on an altar or in a special place. When the request has come true, bury the petition. If the rite cleared away dense energy, bury the petition in a location where nothing is growing; otherwise, you can bury the petition anywhere. Phases of the Moon

It is unnecessary to begin the velación at night. But the phase of the moon should be known, especially when it comes to drafting the petition. New moon: new beginnings Waxing: increasing or expanding

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Full: bringing something to a close Waning: decreasing or clearing How the Candle Burns

Remember that just because they are called seven-day candles, this does not mean that they will burn for the full seven days. The time it takes for the candles to burn out depends on the situation. First lighting: when you first light the candle, if it emits black smoke, then it is transmuting dense energies. When the smoke is white, then the prayer will be answered, but there may be some struggles. A strong flame: working to send a lot of energy and power to manifest the intention. A weak or low flame: slowly removing heavy obstacles. Burn copal, other resins, or incense next to it to strengthen the flame. A jumping flame: spiritual warfare on your behalf. One or more of the candles goes out during the velación: there is, for whatever reason, a lot of resistance to this intention. Relight the candle that has gone out, and let it burn out naturally. If more than one candle went out, relight those as well. After the candle has burned out, redo the velación. But this time, ask that all energies impeding the petition be transmuted with and by the sacred fires of God’s Love and Light. Crackling sounds: the spirit of the fire is pleading your case. The stronger the crackling, the stronger the opposition. Candles burn unevenly: if two of the candles that are opposite to one another take more than a day to burn out, than there may be some delays. You can determine then if you want to do another velación to clear obstacles around the situation.

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Reading the Glass

Clear: if the glass remains clear, then your petition will be granted.

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A lot of wax residue: when there is a lot of wax residue on the glass and those candles have taken longer to burn, it is a good idea to redo your velación and ask for obstacles to be cleared. Turns black: if there is any kind of black, smoky residue on the glass or black spots at the bottom of glass, this generally means someone has been intentionally sending negative thoughts or energy your way concerning this situation, so be discerning. Give yourself a baño (chapter 6, page [x-ref] discusses how to do this), give your space a white fire limpia (chapter 8, page [x-ref], discusses how to do this), redo your velación, and if needed, seek help. Glass breaks: depending on the circumstances, this can indicate that someone or something may be working against you. On the other hand, the glass breaking indicates that the energy sent your way has been broken. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to still give yourself a baño, give your space a white fire limpia, redo your velación, and if needed, seek help.

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A Velación for Divine Intervention and Renewal

The following is a great example of divine intervention and renewing a situation with a velación. It involved a client that wanted me to help her brother, whom she believed had been bewitched by his fiancée. According to my client, the fiancée was principally after his money. The first time this client came to see me, she gave me a laundry list of the numerous things that were going on in her life, which included ongoing cycles of negative emotional outbursts and a failing marriage. After a platica concerning her stories and woes, she mentioned her brother’s engagement. I requested that we first work on her own life, and then we could work on her brother if it was needed. After a few months, my client finally got to a point where she felt grounded and happy, and the emotional outbursts were becoming a thing of the past. She requested again that we help her brother. She believed that the fiancée had had been placing something in his food, influencing him to act erratically and to pull away from his friends and

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family. When my clients bring up beliefs concerning magical work done against them, I do not discount these beliefs. I have seen and experienced too much to do so, but at the same time I know never to empower them. We are children of God, and I know that no one and nothing can ever touch us or do harm to us unless we allow it on some level. So if the client has permitted this to happen, it must be closed off for good. I recommended for her to do a velación with Archangel Michael as the principal candle in a circle of eight white seven-day candles. I instructed that in her petition she invoke the sacred fires of God’s Love and Light, ask that all energies that are less than love and light directed at her brother or between the brother and the fiancée be cleared, and to allow divine truth to be seen. After the candles went out, she threw the water down the toilet as instructed. That night the toilet began to overflow. Approximately two weeks later, the brother was inspired to ask the fiancée for a prenuptial agreement. Shortly thereafter, she broke off the engagement and returned to Europe. Velaciónes are very p owerful tools.

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The New-Year Fire My mentors Don Tomas taught me the importance of beginning the New Year, the first of January, with a New Fire Ceremony to set the stage for the coming year. He instructed me to thoroughly clean the house, let go of items that may hold energies that no longer resonate with me, cleanse and charge my ritual tools, and cleanse and feed the soul essence of my house. To clean the house, I typically make lemongrass and rosemary tea and place a cup of it in the cleaning solutions. If there are items that no longer resonate with me, before donating them, I usually smudge them. On one occasion, I let go of a crystal that had been given to me by someone whom I had a falling out with and had moved away from. I let go of it by burying it in the earth. I went hiking one day, dug a hole, and placed the crystal within the Earth, allowing all the energies of this situation to be released and healed by the Earth.

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I then cleanse and feed my house with a white fire limpia and perform sahumerios in each room with copal, frankincense, and myrrh (chapter 8, pages [x-ref], discuss how to make a white fire and a sahumerio). Afterwards, I leave a gorgeous platter of my favorite fruits on the dining table with a seven-day candle next to it. I do not, however, light the candle until the sun rises. I write my intentions for the New Year with a number-two pencil on a piece of parchment paper. I place the paper underneath the candle, next to the platter of fruit. When the sun breaks, I light the candle and let it burn out naturally. Then I eat half of the fruit on the platter and put the other half into the compost, sharing the fruit with the earth. The candle is symbolic of a New Fire for the New Year, similar to ancient Mesoamerican customs. Beginning the New Year in this fashion is said to bring in great fortune for the year. It has always been fortunate for me.

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6

Water Limpias Cleansing and Rebirth

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sing water in a limpia rite can purify the body, mind, spirit, and soul as well as facilitate spiritual rebirth and rejuvenation. Blessed water can also charge and cleanse other limpia tools, such as herbs, flowers, and eggs, and can revitalize sacred images. Water can be blessed or charged when placed with certain items during different times of the day and night. Bowls of water can be used as offerings to cleanse a situation, see into situations, or act as a portal into divine realms. Certain sources of water are preferred to perform limpias for particular purposes. Specific water temperatures are also preferred for certain types of limpias. Cold water, for example, is commonly used to seal a rite, especially if it started in hot water or in a sweat lodge. Water limpias were highly revered by the ancient Mexica and the Yucatec Maya. Bathing in water, being cleansed by water, and entering water fostered pivotal life transitions, including birth, adolescence, accession of shaman rulers, death, renewal, and resurrection. The ancient Mesoamericans performed water-limpia calendrical ceremonies for themselves, their sacred images, and their tools. Bathing was an act of cleanliness and a ritual act of absolution, as filth and dirt were associated with vice, laziness, and disgrace. Temāzcalli (sweat beath) rites were believed to heal illnesses, ensure the safety and health of newborns, and purify an individual from various kinds of vices.

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Like fire and mirrors, water could serve as a gateway to other worlds, where deities could be accessed, consulted, and conjured.1 Water-related deities were among the most pervasive in ancient Mesoamerica. The Mesoamericans honored a pantheon of deities associated with water, rain, and lightning, and called upon them during their water limpias. Pools of water such as cenotes (natural freshwater pools), springs, and bowls of water could be used to see into past, present, and future events. 2 Particular bodies of water were also frequently worshipped as magical sources of water, where water rites took place, and where water was obtained from for other limpia ceremonies.

THE WATER LIMPIA RITES OF THE MEXICA The Mexica, who greatly venerated water, had many elaborate water limpia rites. A love of cleanliness and bathing appears to have been common among the population. Everybody bathed often. Water could wash away sins and illnesses, and help keep the body, spirit and soul strong. Motecuhzoma (also known as Montezuma), the ruler of Tenochtitlan, was said to bathe twice a day.3 Abstaining from bathing was a sacrifice, and an offering. Merchants, for example, would vow not to bathe until and if they returned safely from long, dangerous expeditions.4 Water rites also helped procure a favorable transition into the afterlife.5 Water limpias were important for welcoming and cleansing newborns. When a baby was born, the tlamatqui (midwife) would first cut the umbilical cord and then bathe the baby in water. As she did so, she would call in Chalchuihtlicue, goddess of lakes, streams, agricultural fertility, purification, and birth to cleanse the baby of the parents’ vices and other possible iniquities, to purify their hearts, and to welcome in a good and peaceful life for them.6 After invoking Chalchuihtlicue, the tlamatqui would breathe into the water, place it in the baby’s mouth, touch the chest and head of the baby with it, and tell the baby that it had come from the place above the nine heavens and had arrived to earth.7

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Afterwards, parents went to the soothsayers to determine the kind of day the baby had been born on. The teteonalmacani (diviner or soothsayer) would refer to their books, paintings, and writings and would look at the tonalpohualli day sign and its companions to determine the baby’s tonalli. If the baby was born on an unfortunate day sign, they looked to see if the companion signs could improve its fortune.8 After these signs were prescribed, the teteonalmacani would determine the day to initiate the four-day bathing rite, the water limpia ceremony in which the baby was named, and her or his trade was determined. If the child was born on a favorable day sign, such as ten rabbit, they bathed the baby on another favorable day, such as thirteenth monkey, to strengthen and improve the day sign.9 During the preparation for the newborn’s bathing ceremony, the parents would generously pay the teteonalmacani with foods and goods.10 If the family was rich and prosperous, the bathing could be delayed seven days, so the naming of the baby could take place on the most favorable day.11 The poor probably did not have the luxury to prolong the bathing rite for too long, even if the baby had been born on an unfortunate day sign. The rhetoric of the tlamatqui during these water limpias suggests that the fate of someone born on a given day sign could change. The fate of a fortunate person who failed to be humble and disciplined in making offerings to the deities could change for the worse. Conversely, babies born and bathed on unfortunate day signs, could change their fate if they were observant in making offerings, humble, and ethical.12 The bathing limpia took place early in the morning, when the sun appeared. At the time of the bathing, an important banquet was held.13 Assignments were made and work was distributed for everything. First came the tobacco servers. Tobacco was served and smoked. The flower servers followed, providing flower crowns and garlands. Participants sat smoking and inhaling the fragrances. Then came the chocolate server. They sat and drank a frothy chocolate drink.14 The newborns of the pipiltzin (nobles) and well-off would be

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bathed in a basin for a four-day bathing rite, whereas most of the macehualtin (commoners) would be bathed in small springs or streams. The parents and family would make substantial offerings to the water.15 The tlamatqui would once again invoke Chalchuihtlicue, breathe into the water, place it in the baby’s mouth, and touch the baby’s chest and head with it. Often many tlamatqui and other shamans were involved in this four-day bathing rite.16 After the rite, if the baby was a noble girl, she was given miniature implements for spinning and weaving. If the baby was a noble boy, he was given a sword and a shield. Children of commoners received symbols of their future professions, according to what had been prognosticated by the sign under which they had been born. For example, if the signs indicated the baby would be a painter, he was given a paintbrush. If it was determined that the baby was to be a carpenter, an adze would be given.17 The Mexica also used tobacco and a water limpia to help restore a child’s tonalli. The tetonalmacani would invoke the spirit of tobacco through prayer to find and attract the child’s wandering tonalli. After invocation and prayer, the tetonalmacani would place some water on the top of the child’s head and spray its face with water. The child’s shuddering announced the return of the soul piece.18 Mexica calendrical rites also involved water limpia ceremonies. After the Pachtontli rite, which marked the end of the flowers and the coming of the cold season, they engaged in a water-cleansing ceremony. For this the tlamacazque, embodying the goddess Xochiquetzal, would weave the rejuvenation of flowers into the succeeding season with a loom.* Afterwards everybody was required to go to the rivers and bathe before the coming of dawn. This bathing served to cleanse sins and lesser transgressions committed that year.19 The shaman would warn the people that if they failed to wash and purify themselves, they would

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*The Pachtontli rite began on Xochilhuitl (feast of the flowers), October 6 per our Gregorian calendar, and ended twenty days later, the second feast of Hueypachtli. During the Pachtontli rite, the female goddess, Xochiquetzal made an appearance, marking a seasonal transition, and ensured the return of the flowers. (Durán, Book of Gods, 239, 244.)

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suffer ills and contagious diseases. Thereafter they would go to eat tzoalli, amaranth bread, regarded as the flesh of the gods.20 It was common to wash the sick, because the Mexica believed that disease came as a form of punishment, which water could cure by cleansing the related sins.21 If a person went to tell a shaman about their own illness, or that of a child or a spouse, the following prescription was given to them: to make and eat tzoalli by grinding amaranth seed, kneading it with corn, and mixing it with honey. But before doing so, they were to wash themselves and purify themselves of sins.22 The Mexica engaged in calendrical limpia rites to bathe and cleanse their sacred images. On Tepeilhuitl, the festival of the hills in the thirteenth month, they wrapped all of the wooden serpent figurines that were kept in people’s houses in amaranth dough. On the eve of the feast, toward sundown, they washed the surfaces of these figurines at their temāzcaltin (plural for temāzcalli) and at the shores of water. Thereafter they played wind instruments for the figurines and began to adorn them with human accessories. They applied liquid rubber to their faces, placed a spot of fish mixed with amaranth on their cheeks, dressed them in paper banners, and fitted them with paper headdresses.23 The Mexica also practiced the casting of lots into water to diagnose illnesses, foretell the future, connect with the deceased, and divine into many different types of situations.24 One of my mentors taught me this practice with flowers, glasses of water, and corn. Depending on where the corn and flowers landed, he taught me how to determine the source of a problem and perform a limpia to clear it. Exactly how the Mexica cast lots is not explained, but they did use grains of corn and a basin or water jar, and then looked into the basin or water jar to discern what was typically unseen.25 Certain waters, such as those found in caves and springs, were identified as sacred. The Mexica bathed in and obtained water from these places to perform cleansings.26 Tezcaapan (water mirror), for example, was the name of a spring where devotees came to bathe in fulfillment of their vows.27

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There were also sayings concerning bathing and cleansing oneself at sacred waters. Someone who recovered from a great illness or relieved of a great burden would say, “May I bathe myself at Chalpultepec!”28 For someone who had committed a heinous crime, there was a saying: “Nowhere is there water with which thou wilt bathe thyself, with which thou wilt cleanse thyself.”29 The Mexica frequently engaged in temāzcalli rites to cleanse themselves from illnesses, strengthen the flesh, and give health and strength to both the sick and the healthy (see plate 5). The temāzcalli, the place where the rites were performed, was a small, low hut that could typically hold ten persons in a squatting position. It was typically heated by volcanic stones and by the water that would intermittently be thrown onto them. Fire aided in heating and cleansing the participants. The water that came out of their pores purified and strengthened their bodies, facilitating a kind of rebirth; fire too aided in the healing and cleansing process. After thoroughly perspiring from the heat, participants would leave the temāzcalli and wash themselves with approximately ten to twelve pitchers of very cold water outside. Temāzcalli rites were so important to the Mexica that almost every household had access to one.30 There were shamans who specialized in heating temāzcalli and would perform special rites when doing so. The nobles had people who cleansed their entire bodies with cornhusks while they were in the temāzcalli.31 In addition, the temāzcalli for the high-ranking shamans were located at the cardinal points of Tenochtitlan.32 When an expectant mother was in her seventh or eighth month, the parents of the married couple consulted with a trained tlamatqui (midwife), who would bathe the mother-to-be in a temāzcalli throughout the last stages of her pregnancy, a process that was believed to strengthen the body of the baby.33 When the mother was beginning to experience labor pains, the tlamatqui would bathe and wash her. If she was wealthy and experiencing severe pain, her tlamatqui would place her in a temāzcalli.34 Like her baby, who would be purified by water at

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the time of birth, the mother was cleansed by the fire and water of the temāzcalli and the perspiration that came out of her. As soon as someone died, the person, regardless of their social status, would be stripped naked and washed carefully. After being washed, the deceased was buried or incinerated. The water was essential to ensure a full transition to a favorable passage after death and to banish the family’s grief.35

THE WATER-LIMPIA RITES OF THE YUCATEC MAYA The Yucatec Maya also used water limpias to mark and facilitate transitional stages of life. The rites purified individuals of vices and the illnesses that arose from them. They procured a cleansing and an ideal birth and rebirth, and enabled living people, supernatural beings, and the recently deceased to travel into other planes. They also enabled shamans to prognosticate the future and discern the circumstances that were affecting people. In addition, certain bodies of water were identified as sacred and as being able to cleanse people and ritual objects. Water limpias were performed when babies were born. Afterwards, the parents took babies to a shaman who would declare their fate and the office or post they would have, and give them their childhood names. The name of the child remained the same until the coming-ofage ceremony, the caput-sihil, when they took the name of their father.

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After they were married, they took the name of both father and mother.36

The elaborate caput-sihil ceremony, in which the child was initiated, or reborn, into adolescence, involved many different kinds of limpias, including a water rite. The child was anointed with a sacred blend of flowers, ground cacao, and virgin water taken from the hollows of trees or rocks in the forest.37 Whenever a parent wanted their child to experience this ceremony, they informed the ah-kin, who announced it in town. Afterwards four old and honored men were chosen to assist the ah-kin on the day of ceremony as chacs. For three

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days beforehand, the parents, as well as all officials, fasted and practiced sexual abstinence.38 On the day of the ceremony, parents, children, and officials assembled at the house of the host. They brought all the children who were partaking in the ceremony into the patio or court of the house. An aged woman cleansed the girls, and an aged man cleansed the boys.39 Afterwards they cleansed the house and had the children engage in a confessionary platica. Thereafter the ah-kin began to bless the children with long prayers and began to sweep them with hyssop. The director of the fiesta took a bone, placed it on the foreheads of the children, and wet the bone in a jar that contained a sacred blend of water. He anointed the children with the sacred water on the forehead, the face, and between the fingers of the hands and feet.40 Then the shamans’ assistants brought a bunch of flowers for the children to smell, and a pipe to smoke.41 The sacred water marked the children for a coming of age at which they could now take the name of their fathers. Water gathered from the dew of leaves and flowers, as well as from the hollows of trees, understood as virgin water (sujuy ha’), was also used to cleanse their idols and spaces, such as their temples. Shamans often consecrated areas by spraying this water from a serpent-tailed aspergillum. They also aspersed this virgin water during platicas and consecration rites.42 One of my mentors had me get up at dawn to gather the dew on particular flowers, indicating that both dew and flowers had magical properties ideal for limpias. The ancient and many modern Yucatec Maya associate flowers with the breath soul that symbolizes the life force, and with the process of death and rebirth (see plate 8).43 Florida water made from spring or blessed water, along with certain flowers, is still one of the most common tools for limpias of self and space. The Yucatec Maya bathed constantly, but principally for health rather than cleanliness. Vice caused illnesses, and it was believed that water could cleanse vice.44 They bathed frequently in cold water, especially after leaving the chitin (sweatbath). Like the temāzcalli of the

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Mexica, the Yucatecans’ sweat bath houses were usually heated by volcanic stones and the steam from the water that was thrown onto them. The water was commonly infused with cleansing plants.45 The sweat bath houses were sacred spaces, where people could cleanse themselves from physical illnesses to keep the body strong. Babies were also born in sweat-bath houses, and then bathed with water. They were also ritually charged spaces, where time itself took on different representations and where deities could be consulted, conjured, birthed, and rebirthed.46 The ancient Maya constructed both physical, functional sweat bath houses and metaphorical ones, pib naah shrines. The pib naah was a sort of inner sanctum, probably a private space where the elite Maya conducted sacred rites, including limpias.47 Cenotes were highly revered. They were the principal sources of water in the northern lowlands of Yucatan, where there are neither rivers nor lakes. At these cenotes the chacs, Maya rain gods, were worshipped. Surfaces of particular cenotes were also understood as having divinatory qualities. It was common for the Maya, especially in the northern lowlands of the Yucatán, to conduct pilgrimages, sacred ceremonies, and offerings at particular cenotes (see plate 9). The cenote at Chichén Itzá, for example, was likely one of the most important destinations for the precontact Yucatec Maya. The great round surface of water was likely perceived as a mirror for divination and auguring.48 The Classic Maya often depicted other worlds or underworlds as watery realms. From these watery realms, deities, such as the Maize Deity, could be rebirthed and travel.49 There is also strong evidence suggesting that the Classic Maya believed that at the time of death, the soul entered a watery underworld realm and went through a process of further death and transformation.50 Entering this watery realm was probably seen as a means of traveling through other realms to become something else.51 The Postclassic K’iche’ Popol Vuh also identifies a watery realm, or literally a body of water, as a source of transformation and resurrection. In the Popol Vuh, the hero twins enter the underworld of Xilbalbá and

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its many levels, such as the House of Bats, the House of Knives, and the House of Fire. The bones of the twins are then ground and thrown into the river, after which they are resurrected once again as handsome boys.52

INTEGRATING ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN WISDOM My mentors taught me early on about the versatile uses of water for limpias cleansing items, people, and spaces; they also taught me how water could act as a gateway to other realms, while at the same time serve as an offering. They provided me with important recipes for baños, instructed me about the types of limpias that were recommended for certain bodies of water, and about the use of certain water temperatures for limpias. Exploring the ancient Mesoamerican rites enabled me to develop my limpias with water and deepened my comprehension of the many benefits and uses of these rites. Inspired by my ancestors, I began to use them to mark and facilitate life transitions, and to activate, vivify, and renew sacred spaces. I also began leaving bowls of water at strategic places with the intention that they would serve as offerings and gateways to specific planes.

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Charged or Blessed Water For water limpias, it is necessary to use charged or blessed water. Typically, blessed water, as its name suggests, is understood to be water that has been blessed by a Christian priest in curanderismo traditions. Charged water, by contrast, has been blessed by someone who is not necessarily a priest. The term also refers to water that comes from a sacred source, whether it is one that has been identified as such by a shaman or one that has been widely revered. My first set of mentors taught me to always have on hand a glass of charged water for the day. The water could be used to prepare eggs

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for limpias; to dip my hands into before a card reading; to place on the forehead of my clients after limpias in order to seal the cleansing; to sprinkle on a bundle of herbs or flowers for a limpia sweep; or to leave as an offering on my altar. Some ways to charge water include: Water, crystals, and light. Put filtered water, or preferably springwater, in a clear glass or bowl, and place a clear calcite or clear quartz crystal inside the bowl. Then place the bowl on top of a parchment paper on which a prayer has been written with a number-two pencil. Leave the glass of water outside or on a windowsill for a full twentyfour hours to get both the magical energy of the moon and the stamina of the sun. Be aware of the moon phase: the new moon is for new beginnings; a waxing moon is for increase or expansion; the full moon, for completion; and a waning moon, for decrease. Keep in mind that even if it’s cloudy, the rays of the sun will go through the clouds to raise the water’s vibration. Water with plant cuttings. Water with plant cuttings that can produce roots is also a great source for charged water if it has also been getting sunlight and moonlight. Plants such as coleus, mint, African violet, oregano, basil, sage, lemon balm, thyme, and rosemary can grow from cuttings in a glass of water. Water the parent plant a day or two before taking cuttings. Take cuttings from a healthy, vigorous, and disease-free plant. Cut three- to six-inch sections of a stem that has a growing tip. Make a clean, angled cut just above a leaf node. Trim off any leaves on the lowest one third to one half of the cutting, keeping at least two leaves on each cutting. Place the cuttings in a water-filled jar so that the leafless portion of the stem is submerged and the remaining leaves are out of the water. Set the jar with cuttings and water somewhere that gets partial sun, like a windowsill. If the roots turn brown and mushy with rot, discard the cuttings and water. Prayer or invocation. Say a prayer or invocation over the water and send your loving intentions into it. If you are using a glass of water, it helps if you also place a label with one or two words reflecting what you would like the water to do for you personally or for loved ones.

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Water from a sacred site. Obtain water from a source that has been identified as sacred. Place some of this water into a glass of springwater or distilled water, say a prayer over it, leave the glass open, and let the water absorb at least eight hours of sunlight. After that point you can seal the glass, and you now have more sacred water.

Florida Water Limpia A Florida water limpia is an all-purpose cleanse that removes dense or stale energies, and then renews the person with charged or blessed water. I start out by taking a tiny bit of Florida water in my mouth (but not past my teeth) and spraying the person with it. I make sure to always get the head, heart, solar plexus (abdomen), root chakra (genital area), knees, and feet. If the person is sitting down, I also spray the spine. I run a rattle over their body to shake away stagnant or dense energies. I then sweep away these unwanted energies with a feather fan, flowers, herbs, or an egg (chapter 7, page [x-ref], explains how to conduct sweeps). Finally, I anoint the person with charged or blessed water, placing it on their forehead, throat, and heart chakra. The water at the end seals the limpia and facilitates a rebirth. (As I explain in chapter 7, page [x-ref], sometimes I will use an oil to anoint the person and facilitate a rebirth. The choice, of course, has a lot to do with intuitive guidance.)

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Water Limpias for Graceful Life Transitions Placing glasses of charged water in certain configurations is an ideal water limpia for going through a significant transition, such as leaving a job that is no longer in alignment with oneself, initiating a divorce or separation, or beginning a new business. The following items will be needed: Four- to eight-ounce glasses. The number of glasses needed depends on the kind of configuration that will be made with them. (Please do not use these glasses to drink from after this or

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any limpia. The items that are used for these rites are sacred and magical. They should be placed in a separate space, out of reach, so they are not mistakenly used.) Incense or charcoal and resins, preferably copal. Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol (to cleanse the space first with a white-fire limpia). Charged or blessed water. There should be enough water to fill the glasses of water more than halfway. A prayer or invocation. Begin by cleansing the space where the water limpia will take place, possibly with a sahumerio or white-fire limpia (chapter 8, page [x-ref], discusses how to conduct these rites). Then make a configuration with the glasses of water, and leave a space through which it will be possible to walk to the middle. Here are some basic configurations:

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Squares: to seal an intention. It is also recommended to use a square to inspire peace in families and nonromantic relationships. Four glasses of water will be needed (see figure 6.1, page 126). Triangles: to strengthen and focus an intention. It is common to use triangles for business or entrepreneurial ventures, or when clarity is needed. Using triangles is also ideal for enhancing the charge of an oil, tincture, salve, or mister. Three glasses of water will be needed (see figure 6.2, page 126). Circles: to influence outcomes. Circles can change misfortunes to great fortune, and can heal physical and emotional illnesses. The number of glasses to be used depends on the intention and intuitive guidance (see figure 6.3, page 127). Here is a little insight into numerology using basic numbers, as well as some master numbers: • Five: flexibility and freedom • Six: matters of love and compassion • Seven: good fortune and wisdom

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Commonly Practiced Limpias from Ancient and Modern Perspectives • Eight:

unity and divine power • Nine: securing divine aid and cooperation • Ten: completion • Eleven: connection between all that exists, that has ever existed, and that will ever exist • Twenty-two: actualization of the God within the self, recognition that God is in the totality of existence, and understanding of the God outside of the self • Three-three: ease in actualization and manifestation • Forty-four: metamorphosis and continued change After making the formation, walk into the middle of and close it with the glasses of water. Focus on the intention, and pour the water into the glasses, moving clockwise. Return to the center and focus on a rebirth. Sometimes I bring my brazier, charcoal, and copal in the middle to further cleanse the space and myself, as well as to serve as an offering. I sit with my intention of rebirthing, say prayers, sing a medicine song or two, and journey. If I am doing this limpia for another person, I may also do a barrida for them and/or take them on a shamanic journey while we are in the middle of the formation. I stay in the center until I feel the intention has been set and the limpia is complete. After I am done, I pour the water on a plant, so that the plant’s spirit helps to nourish my intention of rebirth and spiritual growth.

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A Water Limpia Petition A water limpia petition can be done instead of doing a velación to cleanse a situation or manifest something that is in ideal alignment with oneself. This rite opens pathways for ideal outcomes. The following items will be needed: Four- to eight-ounce glasses. The number of glasses that are needed depends on the kind of configuration that will be made

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with them. (Again, please do not use these glasses to drink from after this or any limpia. These are sacred, magical items and should be placed in a separate space, out of reach, so they are not mistakenly used.) Incense or charcoal and resins, preferably copal. Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol (to cleanse the space first with a white-fire limpia). Charged or blessed water. There should be enough water to fill the glasses of water more than halfway. Charcoal tablets. Wooden matches. A brazier or steel urn for burning the charcoal. Parchment paper. A number-two pencil. A picture that reflects whom or what the petition is for (optional).

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Begin by cleansing the space where the water limpia will take place, possibly with a sahumerio or white fire limpia. Write the petition or intention with the pencil on the parchment paper. (I highly recommend following the guidelines for writing petitions described on pages [x-ref].) Arrange the glasses of water in a geometrical configuration, and place the petition in the center. If a picture is being used, place it on top of the petition, and then place the glass of water on top of the picture. If there is no picture being used, then place the glass on top of the petition. Place a glass of water in the middle, and then place water in the rest of the glasses moving clockwise. Finally, light the charcoal and place the copal on it. Plan beforehand to place the charcoal on the steel urn, as the charcoal gets very hot, and leave the urn outside the geometrical formation. Make offerings of copal regularly, preferably at night before going to bed and in the early morning. Leave the water in the glasses and let the formation stay intact long enough to coincide with one of the following intentions.

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Figure. 6.1. Square Water Limpia Petition.


Figure. 6.2. Triangle Water Limpia Petition. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure. 6.3. Circle Water Limpia Petition.


New moon: new beginning; a three-day ceremony. Begin one day before the peak of the new moon, and end on the day after the peak. New moon transitioning into the waxing moon: new beginnings that will lead to the expansion or increase of something; a ten-day ceremony. Begin the ceremony on the day of the peak of the new moon, and end it nine days after. Waxing moon: focusing simply on the expansion or growth of something; a nine-day ceremony. Start four days before the peak of the waxing moon, and end it four days after the peak. Full moon: sealing an intention; a three-day ceremony. Begin one day before the peak of the full moon, and end on the day after the peak. Full moon transitioning into the waning moon: sealing an intention and clearing off residues that may not be in alignment

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with this closure; a ten-day ceremony. Begin the ceremony on the peak of the full moon and end it nine days after. Waning moon transitioning to new moon: winding something down prior to a new beginning; a nine-day ceremony. Begin eight days before the peak of the new moon, and end on the peak. What to do with the water after this rite: If a new beginning or an expansion was requested: Pour the water on a plant inside the house or in a special area of a garden, preferably somewhere where curanderismo work is done. Bathe in this water. Use this water in a mister. If a closure or decrease was requested: What to do with the water depends on the energy of what you asked for. If it is something dense, consider placing the water in the sun for a day while in the glass, and then tossing it into a dry area of land. If you’d like to get rid of the water immediately, flush it down the toilet. If the closure or decrease is not necessarily dense, place the water on a succulent or bathe with it.

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Baños and Bucket Cleansing Baños are baths that cleanse and revitalize the mind, body, and spirit, and can also aid in soul retrieval. For a bath, make sure the water is hot, not scalding, of course, but hot enough to produce a sweat. To further detoxify the body, add a cup of Epsom salts to the water. Here are some recipes for these types of limpias: All-purpose herbal cleanse and renewal. Use any or all of the following herbs: rue, rosemary, basil, parsley, mint, chamomile, sage, or vervain. It is very important to communicate with the soul essence of the herbs prior to using them, and to thank them for the cleanse and renewal. This will strengthen the effectiveness of the limpia. Place the herbs directly in the tub, or steep herbs in water and then pour the

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water into the tub. An easy and effective way to steep them is by using a coffee or tea maker. Typically, a twelve-cup coffee or tea maker and a handful of herbs will yield five to seven pots of steeped water. To improve fortune. For seven straight days take a bath with dew water, river water, well water, holy water from a church, coconut water, or goat’s milk. The dew water can be gathered from plants in the early morning. For calmness and removing negative energies. Carry out the same process as in the all-purpose herbal cleanse and renewal described above, making sure to use all of the following herbs: basil, rosemary, chamomile, and rue. They are great for ridding yourself of negative energies and for calming the nerves. To resolve money issues. Boil seven heads of garlic and take a bath with this water. Repeat this process for three straight days. After the third day, write a petition on a piece of parchment paper with a number-two pencil to clear any money issues and welcome in financial abundance. Light a seven-day candle and place the petition between a glass of water and the candle. For alleviating depression. Boil basil, rosemary, peppermint, cinnamon sticks, coffee grounds, and sugar together. Bathe with this water. Repeat this process for three straight days.

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As an alternative to using a tub, use a five-gallon bucket, and repeat the above steps by mixing regular hot water and the prepared water into it. Spread out the prepared water so that you can pour five to six bucketfuls over yourself, letting the water drench first the head and then the rest of the body. After a water limpia, wash off with cold water, the colder the better. Both hot- and cold-water hydrotherapy has great benefits for the body, boosting circulation, reducing stress, and stimulating the removal of toxins from the organs. The first time I experienced this water hydrotherapy, it was after a temazcal ceremony. I had several buckets of ice-cold water poured over me, which I was not expecting.

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Every part of me wanted to run away, but I was in shock and unable to move. I began to become more accepting of this practice after I experienced the amazing clarity and focus I had after this water limpia. Now, after every baño, I take a shower with cold water. My ancestors knew that this practice cleansed and revitalized the body, mind, and spirit, and I too have also embraced it. How a Water Limpia Helped Me Approximately in September 2005, when I finally came home after my catastrophic injury, I was hospitalized for a couple of months and was at my mother’s house for another month. Both of my ankles had fractures, but my right heel had been injured especially seriously: all of my bones knee-down had come out through it. Unfortunately, the doctors did not do a culture when they placed the bones back inside my foot, and six weeks later they determined that I had severe

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osteomyelitis, which caused me to lose many of the bones in the heel. They had been contemplating what kind of surgery they would do to close the hole up, but after they discovered the osteomyelitis, they delayed surgery because they wanted to wait and make sure the infection was completely gone first. In the meantime, they placed a wound vac on the heel to keep the open wound clean and help it to heal. When I came home, I was alternating between a wheelchair and a walker while I was awaiting surgery. Until then, I was told, I could not place pressure on my right foot. I had also been taken off the wound vac, leaving me still with an open wound. After a shamanic journey, I knew I had to charge some water, place my feet in it, and let the water heal my feet, so I’d be able to walk normally again. I placed a bucket of water outside in the sun for one hour and put into it pyrite, rose quartz, amethyst, black tourmaline, and a spikenard-based oil blend I had made. Spikenard releases fear and doubt, and I was ready to let go of any residual fear and

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doubt that I had about being able to walk again or being in constant pain, which I had been told would be highly likely. After the hour, I wheeled in my bucket into my sacred room and placed it on my lap. I opened the ceremony with a New Fire and lit a charcoal in my brazier and placed copal on it. I placed my hands over the water and said a prayer of gratitude. I thanked the water and all of the accompanying elements to help me to release fear and doubt and to help heal my feet. I placed my feet in the water. Immediately I began feeling electrical surges coming up from my feet and running up and down my body. The surges were not painful in any way; rather, they felt as if they were stimulating the muscles that had not been used for months. I continued to perform weekly water limpia ceremonies. In two weeks, the wound finally closed. The pain had also subsided, and I was able to get off the pain medications. After the surgery on my heel, I was walking with a completely normal gait in less than two

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weeks. I am grateful for both my spirit guides and human mentors who taught me about the amazing healing properties of water. My healing was realized because of their help and guidance.

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7

Sweeping The Way to Purification and Revitalization

I

n curanderismo, sweeping purifies and prepares an individual for a renewal, removing dense energies in order to open up pathways and invite supernatural beings to intervene on one’s behalf. Sweeping rites also serve as offerings to the divine and to the soul essences of the spaces where the limpias are being performed. As my mentors taught me, feed your space by keeping it clean and orderly, and it will feed you by rejuvenating you while you sleep and provide a peaceful living space. This understanding of sweeping can be traced back to the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya. Physically, sweeping was a way to remove filth and dirt, which were associated with vice, wrongdoings, and disgrace. Spiritually, it was necessary for paving the way for the coming of deities, newborns, and auspicious seasonal transitions. Sweeping prepared spaces for ceremonies; it also helped to procure a favorable shift to different calendrical periods and ages. As an offering, sweeping could help ensure the success of husbands and fathers on the battlefield, as well as staving off unwanted interludes with particular deities. This ritual act cleansed, fed, and sustained the soul essence of ritual spaces, whether they were temples, houses, or roads.

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THE SWEEPING LIMPIA RITES OF THE MEXICA It required the daily efforts of a thousand people to keep Tenochtitlan clean. According to Torquemada and Benevente o Motolinía, the Mexica swept and washed the public thoroughfares with such diligence that one could walk about without any fear for one’s feet.1 The importance of sweeping, however, involved more than a desire to be clean and orderly. Sweeping purified, rejuvenated, and secured the balance between chaos and order. Although sweeping was probably performed principally by the macehualtin (commoners), women, and shamans of all classes, the ethnohistorical records suggests that sweeping was revered by all. All men and women were required to aid in securing the delicate balance between order and disorder by engaging in ritual sweeping. When being installed as supreme ruler, the huey tlatoani, pledged to maintain the balance between tlazolli (filth in the physical and moral sense) and cleanliness within Tenochtitlan.2 Ritually sweeping the way, or purifying the person, path, and building were also necessary to procure the aid of regenerative forces. The broom was a weapon against dirt and disorder as well as an object of power—although an ambivalent one, because it purified but was also a carrier of filth. Sweeping represented the power to be an anchor of balance, an arbiter, between the two opposite poles of order and disorder.3 Too much tlazolli threatened the balance, order, centeredness, and very existence of individuals, homes, temples, and communities. The Fifth Sun, the era that the Mexica lived in, required ongoing and diligent cleansing, and purification.* Brooms were a principal weapon against the destructive forces of tlazolli. The act of sweeping maintained a balance against the destructive

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*Mexica mythology involves a creation story in which the Fifth Sun was preceded by four other cycles of creation and destruction (Taube, Legendary Past, 41–44).

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forces of tlazolli, and could transform it into something creative, regenerative, and life-giving.4 Sweeping, for example, was also associated with the power of female fertility. Certain deities had been conceived during the act of sweeping the tlazolli, transforming it into a life-giving force from the maternal earth.5 Huitzilpochtli, the Mexica tutelary deity, was conceived when Coatlique, an aspect of Mother Earth, tucked a bit of tlazolli into her skirt while sweeping.6 Chimalman, wife of Mixcoatl, god of hunting, found a piece of jade while sweeping and swallowed it. As a result, Quetzalcoatl, the god of wind, was conceived.7 Many deities, such as Tlazolteotl, Toci, and Quetzalcoatl, were depicted with a broom in their hands and were associated with sweeping and with its purifying and regenerative force. Tlazolteotl, the Great Spinner and Weaver, or Filth Deity, also known as Tlaelquani—she who eats filth and gives absolution—was associated with platicas, sweeping rites, the sweat bath, fertility and childbirth, the moon, menses, purification, weaving, sexuality, witchcraft, and healing.8 She served as an energetic function that buttressed all healing and regeneration, from plant to human life.9 Toci, also known as known as Teteo innan,* was often portrayed with a broom in her hand and a shield in the other—the ideal Mexica warrior.10 Durán’s Book of Gods, plate 24, depicts Toci sweeping the road for the coming of the gods.11 Toci was associated with spinning, weaving, sweeping, healing, midwifery, divination, and acting as a protector and warrior.12 Quetzalcoatl, also known as Ehecatl or Ehacatl-Quetzalcoatl, god of wind, was known to sweep the roads in preparation for the rain gods.13 As a master of the wind, Ehacatl-Quetzalcoatl cleansed and purified the earth’s surface of tlazolli, preparing the path for rain to come, and energizing and sustaining the earth’s vegetative regeneration. Although Ehacatl-Quetzalcoatl is depicted with a broom in his hand

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*The Teteo innan has been identified as a complex of earth goddesses that were variant aspects of one earth goddess (McCafferty and McCafferty, “Metamorphosis of Xochiquetzal,” 103).

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(see plate 10), it was said that he swept the way for the rain with his breath.14 Noble fathers advised their sons to sweep as an offering to their gods, but also because this rite was performed by respected members of the community. The Huehuetlatolli (Testimonies of the ancient word) record fathers advising their noble sons to rise promptly, seize the broom, and sweep at the break of dawn. The tecutlato, one holding rank and attributes of a judge, and the tlacatecutli, an assisting dignitary to the supreme ruler, whose duties were related to military affairs, swept at the rise of dawn, and, the text said, their sons should strive to be like these respected members of the community.15 The Florentine Codex also notes that noble fathers told their sons to sweep, clean, and offer incense to their gods as the first thing they did when they woke up. The sons that were vigilant about sweeping, offering incense, and keeping things orderly were the ones who proved to be worthy, devout, and gave themselves wholeheartedly to their gods; they were ideal men.16 Pregnant women were told to “be diligent in the sweeping, the cleaning, the arranging of things, the cutting [of wood], the fanning [of the fire], and the offering of incense.”17 By doing so, they secured the aid of the deities for a favorable birth and ensured that their child would be born into a world of order and cleanliness, in both a physical and a moral sense. At birth, midwives swept the way for the coming of a life. When an expecting mother was in labor, the midwife washed her and swept the house in which she was to give birth.18 Sweeping ensured that the baby came into a space of balance and order. At home sweeping was a magical shamanic tool. Women always kept their tlazoltectli (brooms) outside of their homes to repel discord. Women also forbade their children to play with the broom, because it carried the energy signature of its owner. It was said that if a man wished to seduce a woman, he would gather twenty straws from her broom. Then he could turn the broom’s power against its owner and

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force her to comply with his wishes.19 Durán describes a war against the Huaxtecs whose success was partly attributed to the wives’ ritual sweeping at noon, sunset, and midnight to honor the four corners of the sun’s path. Sweeping as an offering to the sun was believed to give their warrior husbands an advantage on the battlefield.20 For Mexica shamans, male and female, sweeping was an essential service of ritual purification.21 Ichpana (sweeping) was an offering that was performed by the shamans of all the temples at the crack of dawn.22 The Codex Mendoza notes that the shamans of high order were responsible for sweeping, or for seeing that others performed the task.23 The cihuaquacuitlin (an older, higher-status female shaman) watched over the younger female shamans at Atenchicalcan, the temple of Toci, and taught them how to do sweeping limpias as offerings to the goddess, purifiying her temple and thereby welcoming her presence. 24 The cihuaquacuitlin also taught the younger shamans the directions in which sweeping should be performed. The catalog of eighteen offerings to the gods in Sahagún’s Primeros memoriales (First Memoranda) depicts women performing the following rites: the laying of offerings (tlamanaliztli), the offering of incense in an incense burner (tlenamaliztli), the casting of copal incense into a brazier (copal-temaliztli), the ritual eating of earth (tlalqualiztli), bloodletting from the earlobes (necoliztli), and of course, sweeping.25 Sweeping the way was also often used as a metaphor for clearing and preparing spaces for a favorable transition. The Florentine Codex uses this metaphor for describing the settlement of Tenochtitlan by the Mexicas’ ancestors:

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According to tradition, the name of the priest who led the Mexica was Meçitli. . . . And since he led his subjects, therefore they were given the name Mexica. These Mexica, according to the account, came from the land of the chichimeca, from the desert lands. . . . In the distant past, which no one came here to disperse [their descendants] the grandfathers, the grandmothers, those who arrived

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[first], the ones who came [first], those who came sweeping the way, . . . those who came to rule this land.26

There were also calendrical rites that involved sweeping rituals. The Ochpaniztli (sweeping of the way) rite played a critical role in ensuring the purification of the Mexicas’ world, favorable outcomes on the battlefield, an abundant growth of corn for the next harvest, and a favorable seasonal transition from summer to fall. Ochpaniztli took place on the eleventh month of the xiuhpohualli calendar.* According to Durán, the major rite or feast of Ochpaniztli was celebrated on the first day of the month, which corresponded to September 17 in the Western calendar.27 That would place this celebration sometime on or around the autumn equinox, the transitional period from summer to fall. On the first day of Ochpaniztli, all of the streets of the town were swept before dawn. Everybody also cleaned and swept their possessions and every corner of their house. The temāzcaltin were also swept and washed.28 There was fervent sweeping of all buildings and roads by both men and women, which helped to procure the purification of the towns and remove all evils.29 That day, a woman about forty or forty-five years of age was purified and washed. After her purification, she was dressed like Toci, and was understood as becoming the actual embodiment of the deity.30 Seven days before the feast, she was taken to midwives. The old midwives entertained her with stories and mock battles with brooms and kept her from weeping, because if the Toci impersonator wept, this would be a bad omen. At a certain hour, the midwives took Toci to the front of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan and would have her weave a woman’s skirt and blouse. On the eve of the feast, Toci was led to the marketplace, so that she might sell the items she had spun and woven; she would also scatter cornmeal to ensure fertility. At midnight, the

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*Sahagún appears to identify Ochpaniztli as the eleventh feast day of the month, while Durán seems to identify it as the first day of the eleventh month. (Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:118; Durán, Book of Gods, 447.)

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midwives took her to the huey tlatoani to engage in sexual intercourse with the ruler as the embodiment of the deity. She was then killed and decapitated, and her skin was flayed.31 Next, a teccizquacuilli (very strong man), donning the flayed skin, of Toci’s feminine aspect, made an appearance at the top of the Temple of Tenochtitlan, the heart of the city’s religious precinct. He also wore the shirt and skirt that the Toci impersonator had spun, as well as Toci’s ritual accoutrements: a cotton garland, with her spindle whorls and carded cotton as a headdress, and a shield in the left hand and a broom in the right hand. The strong man, then believed to embody Toci, made his grand appearance at the top of the Great Temple. He proceeded swiftly down the temple’s magnificent steps before a crowd of thousands of onlookers, who trembled with fear. When Toci reached the foot of the temple, she began to sweep, ensuring the transformation and purification of the Mexicas’ world.32 During this ritual, the broom and the act of sweeping were particularly significant because of their associations with purification, transformation, and acting as weapons against invading dirt and disorder.33 Sweeping purified, and maintained equilibrium during a seasonal transition. In the New Fire Ceremony, Xiuhmolpilli, “binding of the years,” the time for world renewal, sweeping played a critical role. All homes and temples were diligently swept, and people would dispose of rubbish, old idols, and household items.34 Sweeping away the tlazolli, and disposing of items that no longer belonged in the new epoch, ensured the success of the New Fire and the continuation of the world.35

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THE SWEEPING-LIMPIA RITES OF THE YUCATEC MAYA For the Yucatec Maya, ritual sweeping of the dirt or trash also purified, maintained equilibrium, and facilitated the coming of a new age. It opened pathways for new occupational and life ventures, seasonal transitions, and the coming of the gods or their elements (see plate 11).

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De Landa’s description of the annual Maya Pop’ New Year describes how ritual sweeping played a fundamental role in these rites. The New Year sweeping and cleansing ritual began on the first day of the wayeb’ period of the 365-day ha’b calendar. The wayeb’ was a period of five nameless unlucky days at the end of the year that were added to the eighteen periods of twenty days to make a total of 365. These five days were believed to be a liminal time, when the veils between worlds were thin. During these five nameless days, ill-intentioned deities had greater access to the earthly planes and could cause many disasters.36 According to de Landa, cleaning and sweeping ensured the ceremonial rebirth of the world at the end of the wayeb’ period. Houses, buildings, and roads, particularly the roads leading into the city, were assiduously swept. The people also swept all four corners of their house. They got rid of and renewed many worn and used items, such as plates, vases, benches, mats, old garments, and the mantles around their deities. The frequent use of these items marked them with the energy signature of a year that was passing away. The people threw these items out, and swept up dirt outside the city on a heap of trash that no one dared touch, regardless of their need.37 Sweeping was also essential for clearing the way for the adolescent coming-of-age rites of the caput-sihil. At the beginning of the ceremony, the children were cleansed on a clean patio that had been scattered with fresh sihom leaves.* The boys were then placed in a line by an aged man, and the girls were placed in a line by an aged woman. Although it is not clear from de Landa’s description whether these aged men and women performed a barrida, sweeping the children with sihom leaves, as is done in many modern limpia sweeps, these leaves were clearly intended to complement the cleanliness of the patio. After this, the adolescents went inside a house to continue their cosmic rebirthing. They offered maize and incense to the center, the bridge between the profane and

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*Sihom leaves come from the sihom tree, an evergreen with compound leaves ten centimeters (about four inches) long.

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the cosmic realms. This performance purified them, according to de Landa.38 To make way for the next performance, the patio was swept and the sihom leaves removed. The patio was then blessed with copó leaves and the leaves were scattered everywhere, while the ah-kin changed for the next performance.39 From de Landa’s description, it is not clear who swept, but it is clear that sweeping in the middle of the ceremony was crucial for paving the way for the subsequent rebirthing rites. The importance of sweeping is also noted in the precontact Madrid Codex, whose final pages, 111a and 112b, show pictures of gods with brooms in their hands. The accompanying text, next to the gods, begin with the mi sign, which can be identified as the Madrid version of the syllable si. In Yucatec Mayan, the mi and si signs together spell the word mis, which means broom, trash, and the verb to clean.40 These images probably relate to apiculture, especially beehive cleaning, signifying the importance of maintaining the natural world in balance, with sweeping as a purifying force. Beehive cleaning likely correlates to present-day rituals in the Yucatán called santiguar. Santiguars are the most commonly performed healing ceremonies in the Yucatán and are used to heal a multide of ailments, including stomachaches, headaches, sore throats, and earaches. In the santiguar, the ajmeen (shaman or curandero) cleanses people of dangerous and harmful winds while praying over them and sweeping them with sacred anointed leaves. Another kind of santiguar is performed in order to protect the bees from dangerous epidemics and the attack of xulab ants. In these ceremonies the hmén (shaman or curandero) use brooms made of anointed leaves. As the hmén cleans the beehives, he recites prayers in which the verb mis describes the ritual performed.41 The K’iche Popul Vuh also describes the importance of sweeping and of keeping spaces and homes clean and pure. The Popul Vuh speaks of two ferocious demons, known as the sweeping and stabbing demons from Xilbalbá, who abhor trash and stab people to death if they fail to

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sweep their homes or if they leave trash around. Hence the best way to ward off the demons of Xilbalbá was to keep one’s house swept clean and not allow trash to accumulate.42 The books of Chilam Balam and contemporary Tzotzil creation narratives often use sweeping the path as a metaphor for ritual purification. It is understood as opening fortunate pathways for ventures, such as a marriage or a new occupation or living space.43 In a small contemporary community called Canquixaja, near Momostenango, Guatemala, at the close of the 260-day ritual calendar, each household ritually smashes its principal cooking vessel for boiling maize. The family carries the larger fragments of the pot to an ancestral shrine in the mountains and places them on top of a great mound of other shards that have accumulated over the years. An ajq’ ij (shaman or curandero) blesses each member of the family and cleanses them from any corruption that might have accumulated during the previous year. He calls upon various deities, saints, and the family’s own sacred ancestors to give them a healthy and abundant new year. Family members then thoroughly wash themselves in a river to remove any taint from the bad influences of the final days of the year. Immediately thereafter, they sweep, clean their home, and prepare a new cooking vessel to confirm the birth of a New Year.44 Part of a modern Chamula poem, “The Sweeper of the Path,” translated in English from Itza, an almost extinct Yucatec Mayan language, also indicates the symbolic supernatural role of sweeping.

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“I am the sweeper of the path. I sweep Our Lord’s path so that when Our Lord passes by he finds the path already swept. . . . I am the sweeper of the house. I walk when it grows light. When night falls, I sweep beneath the world. When dawn comes, I appear and sweep again, because that is my work. That’s why I am a star. Venus appears early in the dawn, say the people, but it’s me. I sweep Our Lord’s path. It isn’t just anyone’s path.” 45

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This poem tells of the cosmic significance of sweeping the path of the sun. By sweeping, the Chamulan girl cleanses the path, thereby facilitating the rebirth of a new day. In the Ch’ol language, misuntel is described as part of a limpia ceremony. When a person goes to be cured by a curandero, the first thing the healer does is to lay hands on them to know the reason for the disease. This tells the curandero if the sick person has fallen in the road, which means that their spirit has been left there. The curandero goes to the site where the person fell in order to call to their spirit. The curandero goes by the road, sweeping with branches to bring back the spirit of the person that fell.46

INTEGRATING MESOAMERICAN WISDOM When my mentors taught me how to conduct sweeping limpias, they focused principally on the methods and on how to read the tools that were used. We discussed how the sweeps removed unwanted energies, but never how the sweeps paved the way for something else, including new beginnings and restored balance. Learning the multifaceted aspects of ancient Mesoamerican sweeping rites brought more dimensions to my practice and made it more effective. Inspired by the ancient shamans, I always perform limpia sweepings at a transitory point in the session, that is, when the client has declared that they are ready to let go of the stories and issues that brought them to me, and to make way for a new story. Before I perform a sweep, I make sure the client is ready for balance and for moving toward a more favorable path. We have a platica and begin the releasing process. After we discuss their stories and issues, I ask them if they are ready for positive change. They usually affirm that they are. Once they do, I perform the sweep. If I am working with the client remotely, I perform the sweep with breathwork, like Ehacatl-Quetzalcoatl, who was said to sweep with

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his breath (see plate 10).47 I scan the person’s body, blow away dense energies, and also have the person engage in breathwork with me to complement the release on a physical level. (In chapter 4, page [x-ref], I recommend some breathwork exercises that can be done to facilitate limpias.) The sweeping limpia further purifies the person to clear and make way for a positive renewal, transformation, and rebirth. In the following section, I discuss how to perform ritual sweeping limpias with bundles of herbs, feathers, tobacco, flowers, and eggs. Some curanderas/os perform sweeping rites with actual brooms. My mentors, however, did not do so, so I will review the tools I was taught to use when performing these rites.

Sweeping Limpias with Herbs When my mentors did limpias with herbs, they often called them barridas, from a verb that means to sweep or wash away. There are many kinds of plants to do barridas with. I principally work with those in my garden because these are the ones I know intimately and have a close relationship with. I mainly use rue, mint, rosemary, lavender, parsley, oregano, and basil. Going into depth about all of the medicinal, cleansing, and magical properties of these herbs is outside the scope of this book. I will simply highlight a few predominant gifts of each of these herbs and make some recommendations about using them for barridas. Before deciding on the herb, be sure to stop to listen to it. When students say they are not sure how to listen to plants, I encourage them to begin by working intuitively. Go to the herb that calls out to them, let the plant know of their intention, and ask if it would like to work on this intention with them. If they get a yes, that is the plant they should choose. After the plant and person have chosen each other, the student should do some research on the plant’s uses and gifts. Knowledge gained in this manner seems to have a lot more resonance with the p erson, particularly because they usually find out that they were guided to the ideal plant for the situation.

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If possible, grow the herbs that are going to be used for the barridas. The love, respect, and attention given to them will be repaid in their healing, cleansing, and magic. Pinterest has many innovative ideas for growing an herb garden on the walls of small kitchens. All of these herbs are excellent at clearing dense energies, and here are a few of their additional gifts: Rue: fortifies energy fields and repels negativity.* Mint: lifts the spirits, and improves clarity and focus. Rosemary: fortifies energy fields and grounds. Lavender: induces a sense of peace and relaxation. Parsley: fortifies energy fields and repels negativity. Oregano: changes misfortunes to great fortune. Basil: clears away anguish and sadness, and opens up pathways. When picking an herb for a barrida, make a conscious effort to connect with its soul essence. If possible, consider leaving a gift for the herb, such as maize, tobacco, a crystal, a shiny object, Epsom salts, or even a kiss, and always project love and gratitude to it. Cut a good-sized bundle for the barrida. Thank the herb for cleansing the person and for any other specific intentions. What will be needed for a barrida with herbs:

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Water that has been charged or blessed. (An explanation of how to charge water is provided in chapter 8, page [x-ref].) A bundle of herbs (either of the same or different types). An oil that has been blessed by the practitioner (or continue using the charged or blessed water instead).

*One of mentors taught me that the more we focus on the need for protection, the more we attract circumstances that require protection. Instead I was encouraged to focus on keeping my energy fields strong and to strengthen them as needed. When our energy fields are at a low vibration, unwanted circumstances can occur, such as sickness.

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Dip or spray the herbs with the water. Share an invocation or prayer with the herbs and the client, and say them throughout the barrida. (As discussed in chapter 5, page [x-ref], an invocation or prayer is part of the cleanse and is an offering to the guides, angels, and masters working with the person.) Use your dominant hand to sweep the person with the herbs. Begin at the head and proceed down the entire body, front and back. End the barrida by anointing the person with the oil or the water, placing it on their forehead, throat, and heart chakra. The anointing fortifies the bodies—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—and seals their revitalization. After the barrida, thank the herbs, and have the person burn them, or place them back into the earth—somewhere away from the client’s house and from where the barrida took place.

Barridas with Flowers Limpias with flowers are ideal for opening pathways, changing a streak of recurring misfortunes to great fortune, and positively influencing new ventures. Many flowers have phenomenal healing and magical qualities related to happiness, balance, peace, love, and abundance. I particularly like to work with flowers in the springtime for a renewal, and in the fall to sow seeds of manifestation for clients. The ancient Yucatec Maya and Mexica adored flowers. Karl Taube has brought attention to what has been termed the Flower World, a Mesoamerican art style that conveyed complex, overlapping spiritual concepts, such as those of an Edenic solar realm and afterlife, flowerrelated portals into this realm, and flowers as the sweet and pleasant aromas that both invoke and make up the beings in this realm. Flower World was closely linked to the east, the place of the dawning sun. It was also associated with fertility, ancestors, warriors, the rebirth of maize, the feathered serpent, birds, butterflies, music, and the human soul. It was a mythical place of emergence for gods, and a paradisal solar afterlife that housed those that had been brave, virtuous, and ethical.48

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To do sweeps with flowers, follow the instructions above for herbs. These are some of the flowers that are in my garden and that I love to work with. Along with cleansing and purification properties, here are some of their additional gifts: Chamomile: changes misfortunes to great fortune and enhances our energy fields. Calendula (marigold): clears energetic toxins from thoughts and feelings. Lantana: dissolves harmful patterns that may be stored in our consciousness, energy field, home, or workspace. Lavender: helps to clear monkey-mind chatter, stress, confusion, and disharmony, and promotes peace and love. Rose: a very powerful source of purification. Enhances our energy fields and self-love.

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Barridas with Feathers

Like herbs and flowers, birds’ feathers have their own particular gifts to offer a barrida. Throughout the years, I have been given different kinds of feathers, particularly after making connections with certain birds. After I have been given a feather and before I use it to conduct a barrida, I connect with the bird who wore it, or sometimes I use the feather as a gateway to another bird by simply thanking the bird who donned the feather and setting the intention of working with another bird. After making the connection, I lovingly breathe on the feather. This is a powerful way to activate its healing energy. This kind of barrida can be done with one very special feather, more than two feathers that are the same, or an assortment of different kinds of feathers. I have made beautiful fans with different kinds of feathers that have been given to me by birds and my human friends. Doing a feather barrida can be particularly helpful when a person needs bird medicine and gifts. I also invoke the help of my bird animal coessence by using my feather fan, particularly if I am preparing the

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person for a shamanic journey or a soul retrieval.* Birds are phenomenal guides to other realms. My mentor Don Fernando told me that the ancient Yucatec Maya believed that one who listened to birds could divine the future. The Yucatec Mayan word mut means both bird and augury. Don Fernando believed that birds were bridges between heaven and earth and were ideal allies for vision quests and shamanic journeying. To do a barrida with a feather, the following will be needed: Water that has been charged or blessed An activated feather (activation is done by connecting with a bird and breathing on the feather) An oil that has been blessed by the practitioner, or charged or blessed water I follow pretty much the same process as when doing a barrida with herbs, except that I place the feathers on an altar I have for my feather fans. I keep them on my altar to cleanse them after use and to charge them. I always have them ready for a barrida.

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Sweeps with Eggs Don Fernando explained to me that some limpias, particularly those dealing with supernatural illnesses, demand that a sacrificial object be used. An egg, as an animal cell, qualifies as a sacrificial object. While “supernatural” illnesses have as much power as we give them, sometimes *Many Maya, such as the Tzotzil believe we have two souls. One, the ch’ulel, is invisible, indestructible, and divided into thirteen parts. It is the first spirit to become associated with the physical body and is the last to depart from the body several days after the physical death. A trauma can cause a person to lose a piece of their ch’ulel, a piece of their sacred essence energy. The second type of soul is called chanul, a coessence that acts as a supernatural guardian and typically takes the guise of a wild animal. The animal coessence shares a ch’ulel with a person from birth. (Gossen, “Animal Souls,” 83, 94–95). One’s chanul is often revealed in a dream or a vision quest; it can also be discerned by a shamans or assigned at birth.

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we unintentionally allow these unwanted energies to creep in, particularly in situations when we give our power away. When we have allowed these energies to creep in, it is important to cleanse and clear them. Because everyone has a right to their own reality, we all have the choice to permanently seal any of these gaps. Egg limpias have the power to absorb negative influences or harm. Egg limpias strengthen the bodies’ energetic fields and absorb energies that do not belong to us. They are also an excellent way to read people and determine what else may be needed. It is in a sense a reading and a cleansing in one. Typically, when I do an egg limpia, I also like to follow it with a barrida with herbs. The egg limpia absorbs unwanted energies; the herbs further clear away residues and provide additional gifts for my client’s healing and new path. Don Fernando, who had access to fresh hen’s eggs, recommended using these when possible. But for an urban curandera, fresh eggs are not that accessible. Instead I place the egg in charged or blessed water before using it. The length of time I keep it there depends on the intention that was set for the water. To do an egg limpia, the following is needed:

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Two glasses of water. One glass will have charged or blessed water, and the other will have purified water. The glasses should be big enough so that you can easily place your hand in them to get the egg. (Again, please do not use these glasses to drink from after this or any limpia.) An egg. A bundle of herbs. Anointing oil, or water that has been charged or blessed. Start by placing the egg in the glass with charged or blessed water. Then take the egg from the glass, place it inside both hands, and breathe a prayer into it. Then continue to repeat the prayer out loud while you perform the limpia. Use your dominant hand to rub the egg over the

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client’s body. Begin at the head and proceed down the entire body, with a particular focus on eyes, ears, lips, hands, belly button, and the bottom of the feet. Trace a perimeter around the person with the egg, as if you were drawing a pattern. If you intuitively feel that it is needed, rub the egg along the person’s spine, the back of the legs and sides. Then create a cross with the egg starting with the head, go to the shoulders (right and then left), and finally the heart. Have the client blow three times on the egg. Crack the egg, and pour the contents into the glass of purified water. Thereafter follow the same pattern given for the barrida with herbs, and end with anointing the person with oil or charged or blessed water. When the limpia is completed, the egg can be read or simply flushed down the toilet. Sometimes I will instruct the person to place the egg under their bed overnight directly below the head to further absorb the energies of any habitual negative thought patterns.

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Reading the Egg: Common Scenarios

Let the egg sit in the water for five to ten minutes before trying to read it. Here are some common scenarios of egg limpias and their associated meanings: Murky water: unwanted energies have been released. An oval over the yolk: a shadow of depression or confusion has been looming and is beginning to be released. Positive mantras identifying favorable characteristics about the person should be uttered repeatedly, along with repeated cycles of limpias, done at the same time of the day, day after day, until the person feels good. When the person feels good, limpias can be done less frequently. Specks of red or black in the yolk: jealousy, which may have been directed at the person and stifling them, has been released. Specks of white around the yolk: the person has not been honoring themselves.

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Something attached to the yolk: parasitic astral activity has been released. Shape of the yolk: the platica makes it possible to understand more about the shape. One common example is when the yolk has taken the shape of a fetus. Typically, this occurs when we have just begun to do soul retrieval work from a time when the client was a baby or in the womb. This is common for people whose birth was unexpected, and were told or treated as if they were not wanted. Clearing the Dense Energy of Three Friends Robert, one of my clients, periodically comes in to see me for cleansing from the work he does as a santero. During one of our platicas, I was strongly guided to do an egg limpia for him. Afterward the water was murky and showed three outlines of bodies with bubble heads that were detaching themselves from the yolk. I had a sense

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that I should ask about three people in his life with whom he was currently having issues. A story came out about two friends, whom he had known since his adolescence and who were still involved in shady activities. He was currently considering whether he should part ways with them. He had already parted ways with one of them, but was planning to see the other gentleman later that week. There was also another lady, who, according to him, kept sending him mixed messages about their relationship. He was confused about these three people. He indicated that ultimately he felt a relationship with them was no longer beneficial for him, but he still cared greatly for them. I guided the platica toward a further release, and for him to have a path of clarity and focus about what honored him in regard to his relationship with these people. He decided to stop associating with these people. He felt his relationship with them no longer honored his current path.

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Perla’s Fibromyalgia Is Resolved Perla had been suffering from fibromyalgia for almost two years. The symptoms were cyclical and seemed to be exacerbated by stress. She would feel pains and weakness throughout her body, coupled with intense lethargy, which was adversely affecting her work and personal life. The first time she came to see me, Perla broke down and cried as she shared her frustration with this inexplicable illness that did not seem to be getting better. After our platica, I did an egg sweep, followed by an herbal barrida. After our journeying to clear residual energies of this illness, I read the egg. It looked as it if had something attached to it, and the water was incredibly murky. I sensed that what had been draining Perla was something astral and parasitic in nature.

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Perla came to see me two weeks later. Her fibromyalgia symptoms had not surfaced in the meantime. But she admitted that she was still incredibly frightened that they would return. I knew we had to begin to do soul retrieval work regarding the trauma she experienced from her diagnosis and from having her life disrupted by something Western medicine could not treat. It took a few months to discover, heal, and release allowances that permitted the thing that had been released from the egg limpia from coming back. It has been fourteen months since she first came to me, and her symptoms have not returned.

CAN YOU DO LIMPIAS ON YOURSELF? Sometimes I am asked whether you can do a barrida or an egg limpia on yourself. I don’t recommend it. Rather I recommend fire limpias, such

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as sahumerios or white fire limpias with spoken prayers, velaciónes, or baños. But if an egg limpia strongly resonates with you and you really want to do one on yourself, place a red yarn over the hand chakra (in the center of the palm) of your dominant hand, and follow the steps above. The red yarn stops energy from coming back into you.

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8

Sacred Spaces Creating, Vivifying, and Renewing

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he spaces that are chosen to perform limpia rites are a critical consideration in assessing how effective the rites will be. Spaces have the potential in their own right to aid in healing, purification, and renewal. Spaces, especially living spaces, are not simply inanimate objects; they have a soul essence and can take care of us in many ways. If they are cleansed and fed regularly, they are more apt to provide a supportive energetic environment for sleeping, having company, or simply relaxing.

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THE SPACE LIMPIAS OF THE MEXICA The Mexica understood their sacred spaces, natural and constructed, as having an essence that had to be nourished and sustained. They performed limpias to periodically cleanse spaces; feed them (the limpia rite itself served as an offering); cyclically renew them; take possession of them; and prepare them for additional ceremonies. A space limpia ignited the soul essence of the house and connected it with its owners. The Mexica believed that naturally occurring spaces, including mountains, caves, and various bodies of water, were sacred—spaces 153

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where the veils of realities were thin and other realms could be accessed. Mountains were entry points to a paradisal flower mountain; they were also the dwelling place of the solar deity, Tonatiuh. A sixteenth-century song from highland Central Mexico reflects this understanding: “There our lord’s flowering mountain lies visible, lies giving off warmth, lies dawning. Its fragrance, its emanation, its scent lies far reaching, lies spreading over the land.”1 The Mexica also set up elaborate altars in mountain caves for offerings to the altars and to the mountains. 2 As mentioned in chapter 5, limpia rites often took place in or near bodies of water. They were typically adorned with sacred images, providing a space where deities could be accessed. The Mexica offered copal, paper, roses and tobacco to these bodies of water and to the sacred images that now resided there.3 Constructed sacred spaces were also often designed in concert with constellations and planets and reflected principles of the Mexicas’ astronomical cosmology. They used the quincunx as a building design and adorned their buildings with it. They performed limpia ceremonies to honor the shape. The quincunx was also reflected in their patios, principal roads, houses, and temples. They adorned these spaces with their images and made offerings of copal, flowers, food, and incense to them. Ethnohistorical records suggest that the Mexica quincunx depicts the primary solar movements as well as representing the four sectors of the cosmos corresponding to the cardinal spaces—east, west, north and south. We have already seen how during a war against the Huaxtecs, the Mexica warriors’ wives swept their houses at midnight, noon, sunset, and midnight to honor the four corners of the sun’s path. Sweeping to honor the four corners of the sun’s paths was done as an offering to the sun god, Tonatiuh, as well as the spirits and wisdom of the four c ardinal spaces.4 The Mexica also performed house limpias to activate and vivify its essence so that they could take ownership of the home. The

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Figure 8.1. Basic outline of a quincunx with four corners and a center.

Huexotzinco and Tlaxcala peoples continued a house-limpia rite known as calmamalihua well into the late sixteenth century, whereby they consecrated a new home prior to taking ownership of it, or after a renovation. They would eat, drink, and pour pulque in all four corners of the rooms. They shared their meal and pulque with the essence of the house, honoring and feeding it and marking it with their own essence. The owner would then take a newly lit firebrand and point it an all four respective cardinal spaces. Lighting a New Fire signifying a new beginning in all cardinal spaces, centering the owners in their new home.5 For the first day of Toxcatl (Dry thing), a feast honoring Tezcatlipoca, the shaman performed a sahumerio for every home, even the most humble. Early in the morning the shaman went from home to home with a brazier and would spread the smoke throughout every corner of the home, all the way from the threshold to the last corner. After smoking out the corners of the house, the shaman would smudge the furnishings, the hearth, the grinding stone, the tortilla griddle, pots, small vessels and jugs, plates, bowls, weaving instruments, agricultural implements, storage bins, and artisan’s tools. This would be done to cleanse and bless the home and its belongings.6

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SPACE LIMPIAS OF THE YUCATEC MAYA For the Yucatec Maya, limpia rites were always performed in spaces that were understood as being sacred, whether they were naturally occurring or constructed landscapes. Conversely, limpias could cleanse, activate, and vivify a space with its own designated essence, and could imprint the space with the essence of the cosmic rebirth of a deity through a ruler or a deceased person (see chapter 5, pages [x-ref]). Sacred spaces, natural or constructed, required periodic and ongoing care so that they could impeccably serve as portals to the divine and to serve as ideal spaces for rituals. Here one could seek guidance from or embody an ancestor, deity, or way (animal coessence); facilitate the death or resurrection of someone or something; secure a change, such as a prosperous season; reach into the cosmos to welcome in a new life into this world; see into the purposes of a sickness and heal; or facilitate a personal cleansing. Maya buildings and civic centers were laid out as microcosms, symbolically equating the architectural center of civic power with the center of the universe.7 The ancient Maya recognized many naturally occurring spaces as sacred—spaces where the veils of realities were thin, or where other realities could be accessed. Such spaces included mountains, caves, cenotes, water springs, and many others. Mountains, particularly the caves within them, for example, were believed to be places of birth and rebirth, and were sources of fertility, riches, and portals to other worlds.8 The Maya oriented architecture toward these sacred landmarks, reflecting a larger landscape, in order to sanctify and legitimize the city and by extension its leaders, as well as to situate primordial powers more firmly in the realm of human action and control.9 In the Late Classic site at Dos Pilas in Guatemala, for example, architecture and caves at Dos Pilas were strongly linked at multiple levels of architectural elaboration, including royal courts and commoner compounds. The Dos Pilas rulers placed two of three largest public architectural complexes in direct relation to caves and springs. Just below the palace platform

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lies the Cueva de Murciélagos, identifying the palace with this dramatic water source and proclaiming the ruler’s control over water and presumably over rainmaking and fertility.10 The ancient Yucatec Maya designed spaces and constructed buildings that mirrored natural spaces and were understood as sacred in their own right. These constructed spaces were more than a metaphorical representation of sacred natural phenomena; once activated, vivified, and cared for, they were an embodiment of sacrality itself. As David Stuart points out, “Nearly all Maya architecture was, at one time or another, ritual space. This was true not only for conspicuous elite constructions but also probably for humble dwellings as well.”11 The illustrious Maya temples were symbols of sacred mountains, both dwelling places of the gods and models of the cosmos. Great masks with gaping jaws in stone or stucco, known as witz (mountain deities), were often found in front of Maya temples. Witz symbolized the caverns and caves on the flanks of mountains, which allowed access to the underworld of Xilbalbá, as well as to a paradisal flower realm, and also provided a means of communicating with deities, ancestors, and way.12 Witz masks would feature mountains as living, animated entities, often decorated with flowers, maize, and water elements; mountains were also sources of food and water.13 The mouth of the witz gave access to a parallel dimension, a sacred space. The Maya also constructed buildings and ritual spaces to mirror solemn astrological phenomena, such as equinoxes, solstices, constellations, and planets, and to epitomize principles of astronomy and Maya cosmology.14 As with the Mexica, the quincunx was one of the most common geometrical designs that were reflected in the architectural layout of buildings and ritual spaces. The quincunx depicts the primary solar movements, the four paths that the sun takes on the seasonal solstices—two on the east and two on the west, with the central point representing the intersection of the paths on the solstices.15 The point at the upper right of the quincunx corresponds to the sun’s emergence on the summer solstice, and the point at the upper left represents the

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setting of the sun into the earth at the same time. The points at the lower right similarly reflect the emergence and setting of the sun on the winter solstice, closer to the southern horizon.16 The quincunx was a spatially defining point of the sacred, an elemental pattern of the operational principles of this world, and a space where cosmic purification and rebirth could be enacted. A house, with its four corner posts and hearth in the middle, and a community plan with four entrances and a central square, each expressed the quincunx. These spaces were often considered to be small-scale replicas of the cosmos, reflecting solar movement and structure.17 Even the most humble Maya home alluded to the cosmos and the creation of the world in both the plan and process of creation.18 The quincunx mirrored the four-part symmetry of humans and animals, with two arms and two legs and a heart in the middle; these ritual spaces, including houses, were also understood as having bodies and an essence.19 Architectural terminologies in Mayan languages reflect this notion by referring to parts of buildings as parts of bodies. In Tzotzil, for example, a door is ti’na or “house mouth;” a thatch roof is holol or “head of hair.”20 The conception of the world as a house is fundamental to both ancient and modern Maya cosmology.21 Space limpias were acts of cosmic renewal either within public ritual spaces or within intimate family settings. Sweeping, fire, and water limpias cleansed, fed, and nourished the space and prepared it for a renewal limpia with cosmic significance. De Landa’s description of the caput-sihil rite provides insight into how the Maya cleansed spaces and prepared them for ceremonies of cosmic significance. At the beginning, after the boys and girls had been cleansed in the courtyard, the house, the space where the rebirthing ceremony would continue, was purified. The ah-kin would bring out a brazier, ground maize, and incense for the children to toss into the brazier. The shaman would light a New Fire. The children would then throw the maize and incense into it, and further cleansed the space through a sahumerio. 22 Sahumerios, as I will explain in greater detail below, involve lighting a charcoal and placing

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offerings, such as resins and plants, on it; every space of the room is filled with this sacred smoke and is thereby cleansed and fed. In the caput-sihil, four benches were placed in the four corners of the patio, on which the four honorary chacs would sit with a long cord tying one to the other. This rectilinear ritual stage was likely intended to serve as a reflection of the cosmos. The children were placed in the center; another bench would be placed in the center for the ah-kin. The four chacs sitting in the four world directions, with the ah-kin and children in the middle, visually defined the space of the cosmos. The ahkin was a mediator between the levels of the cosmos, as well as a bridge between the divine and profane, while the chacs granted a mythical and historical aspect to the spatial scheme. Each chac held the space for a specific direction of the cosmos and its related colors, as noted by the Ritual of the Bacabs: chac, east and red; kan, south and yellow; ek, west and black; and zac, north and white. This ritual space and the performance of this limpia fused cosmic space and time with that of the living community. 23 The ceremony purified and revitalized the adolescents and introduced them into a different period of life.

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INTEGRATING ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN WISDOM Connecting with the ancient Mesoamerican methods of conducting space limpias added significantly more dimensions to my own limpias. I had witnessed how my mentors spoke to their sacred tools and spaces, but appreciating that these items had their own particular soul essence did not hit home until I delved deeply into these records. I now cleanse my living and working spaces not only to clear them from other people’s energies or my own, but also to ritually feed and take care of the space’s soul essence. Like my ancient predecessors, I vivify my working and living spaces with certain energy signatures. Before I discuss how to do this, I will briefly describe how I have performed these rites without formal preparation and outside my working space.

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I generally only perform limpias in spaces and at times when I am consciously expecting to do so. On the rare occasions where I conduct these rites impromptu, I humbly recognize that I am sacred space, embodying and serving as a conduit of sacrality. On one occasion, my beloved and I ventured out for a day hike to a quiet campground to sing icaros (medicine songs) and to enjoy and connect with nature. Although we thought it was just going to be the two of us, I was strongly guided to bring Florida water, a rattle, my drum, and a couple of my oil blends. When we got to the campsite, twenty minutes into singing our icaros, a few very sweet campers came over to our area and began to hang out with us. The next thing I knew, I was facilitating a platica with a woman. After the platica, I requested that she lie down, further cleansed her with Florida water, and moved stuck energy with the aid of the rattle. She opened up to me and told me about a horrific situation of domestic violence she had recently left. I did not stop to formally recognize the cardinal spaces or smudge the place where I asked her to lie down; rather, I accepted that the space, nature, and I were and are sacred. Nature would work with me to help facilitate the limpia and aid her in releasing the trauma. I instinctively acknowledged both nature and myself as embodiments of sacred space, so sacred space made itself known and felt. The room in which I typically conduct limpias is a room full of sacred expression, with a violet dodecahedron hanging from the ceiling. A dodecahedron is a geometrical solid with twelve faces. It is often associated with the basic pattern of pure life energy, the fifth element of ether, and the element of intention, and has many other sacred connotations. This sacred installation piece, which I created, is made of wood and encompasses the entire ceiling. To give it a slight three-dimensional effect, I have placed a lowered glass pentagon with a quincunx crystal grid in the middle. It is a physical and metaphorical portal to all that is Divine. The room also features strategically placed mirrors, various types of altars, displays of hundreds of crystals and other minerals, and photos and images of various teachers, masters, saints, and angels from various traditions with whom I resonate. I have always loved sacred art and

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sacred expressions of the Divine, so I turned a traditional large entertainment center with various levels and glass showcases into a Xicana artwork of altarity that honors, creates, and manifests a sacred space. This room is my sanctuary, which I share with my clients and students. Whether a physical space is adorned with one very simple altar or many elaborate ones, the most important thing is cleansing and feeding the soul essence of the space. I feed and cleanse this room, as well as my house, with white fire and sahumerios on a regular basis. Inspired by the traditions of the ancient Yucatec Maya, Mexica, and my mentors, I also conduct periodic and annual renewal ceremonies for this room and the sacred tools that are inside of it.

HOW TO DO HOUSE AND SPACE LIMPIAS Whenever I am doing any kind of space-limpia rite, I always open the doors of the house. Opening up the windows is helpful, but really it is the doors that must be kept open, because they are the main gateway through which energies enter and leave. As I am doing the limpias, I also feed and clear the space with a prayer or medicine song, as well as invoking the wisdom and help of the five directional chel (rainbow) spaces. This is the one of the songs I usually sing.

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Tene tin na’atik (I understand) Ak t’aan ich (I speak) Ku bo’otik (sacred gratitude) [First three lines to be repeated at each cardinal point] Chac chel (red rainbow) To the East Great Grandmother, Great Grandfather, Moon, Sun I understand. I speak with sacred gratitude. Ku bo’otik (sacred gratitude)

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Kan chel (yellow rainbow) To the South Great-grandmother, Great-grandfather, Moon, Sun I understand. I speak with sacred gratitude. Ku bo’otik (Sacred gratitude) Ek chel (black rainbow) To the West Great-Grandmother, Great-Grandfather, Moon, Sun I understand. I speak with sacred gratitude. Ku Bo’otik (Sacred gratitude) Zac chel (white rainbow) To the North Great-grandmother, Great-grandfather, Moon, Sun I understand. I speak with sacred gratitude. Ku bo’otik (Sacred gratitude)

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Yax Chel (green rainbow) To the center, I am that I am Great-grandmother, Great-grandfather, Moon, Sun I understand. I speak with sacred gratitude. Ku bo’otik (Sacred gratitude)*

I learned the Yucatec Maya words from my mentors. As I learned, the elements that are most important in recognizing sacred space are to honor the cardinal spaces, the sun, and the moon and to recognize that the spoken word is sacred. While I learned the core of this medi*One of my mentors taught me to to honor the cardinal spaces counterclockwise, reflecting the movement of the sun—East, North, West, and South. The mentors that honored Nahua or Mexica traditions, however, honored the cardinal spaces clockwise. Honoring sacred spaces moving clockwise resonates with me and this is the way I do so.

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cine chant from my mentors, I included English in the chant and had it reflect a clockwise movement.

Sahumerios Sahumerios involve smoking out all spaces of a room or house. The following items will be needed: Charcoal tablets (get larger tablets to place the blends) A steel brazier (in which to place the charcoal tablet) Wooden matches Rose, basil, rosemary, or sage essential oil (optional) The items that are identified in the listed blends below If it is not possible to obtain all the items in the identified blends, listen to the space, your intuition, and the plants or resins you will be working with to see if you can substitute something else. All of these blends are excellent to clear dense energies, feed the essence of spaces, and invigorate them with refreshing peaceful energies. Keep in mind that that all the plants identified in the blends shoud be dried before using them for the sahumerio.

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Blend 1. Copal, storax, bay leaves, rosemary, rose hips, ground cinnamon sticks, ground coffee, brown sugar, and tobacco Blend 2. Flowers: rose petals, lavender, lantana, chamomile, calendulas, rose geranium, and lemon thyme Blend 3. Herbs: sage, rosemary, basil, rue, mint, lavender, chamomile, comfrey, lemongrass, mugwort, parsley, and yarrow Blend 4. Benzoin, frankincense, myrrh, cayenne pepper powder, wormwood, gum arabic, fennel seeds, dill, tobacco, and ground coffee Light the charcoal on the brazier and place the blend of items on it. I occasionally place a dab of one of my oil blends (rose, basil, rosemary,

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or sage essential oil work nicely too) to create more smoke and thoroughly smoke out spaces. For every room, begin by smoking out the four corners, and then continue to clear it out by moving in a clockwise spiral direction, as much as possible. This motion is said to encircle and clear out any types of dense energies.

White Fire Limpia For a white fire limpia, the following items will be needed: A pot with a handle, preferably a stainless-steel or cast-iron pot. (Again, always remember that the tools you use for limpias should never be used for actual cooking, eating, or drinking. They are your sacred magical items and should be placed in a separate space, out of reach, so they are not mistakenly used.) A couple of handfuls of plain Epsom salts. Approximately 8–10 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol (a small splash). Dry plants. Any one or a combination of them are excellent to clear, feed, and revitalize spaces: rosemary, lemongrass, sage, parsley, lavender, chamomile, tobacco, lantana flowers. You can also use any of the above blends.

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Place all of the items in the pot. Then carefully throw a lit wooden match into the pot. White-fire limpias clear very large spaces instantaneously. Unlike with sahumerios, it is not necessary to go to every corner of the room, as the intensity of this fire clears out all corners and spaces of a room. If possible, clear out all rooms and common areas within a home.

Water-Crystal Cleansing For a water-crystal cleansing, the following items are needed: A few medium-sized nuggets of ulexite crystals Dry rosemary

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Dry rue 32 ounces of distilled water A 32-ounce spray bottle Boil the crystals, rosemary, and rue together until the crystals melt into the water. Strain the solution and let it cool down. Then strain out the rosemary and rue, and pour the solution into the spray bottle. Spray every corner of a room and space, and remember to always offer a prayer, song, or spoken word to the space.

Plants That Cleanse Spaces To keep the energy of a house high and revitalized, keep the following plants anywhere in the house, in front of the house, or outside in the yard. Aloe vera Feverfew Rosemary Bergamot Sage Spider plants Lemongrass Peppermint Rose geranium Snapdragon Lavender Passionflower Rose

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CLOSING SPACE LIMPIAS If I am performing a sahumerio and/or a white fire limpia for a client’s house, after I am done with this part of the rite, I hang rosemary with a white-colored yarn at every doorway and place dry

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rosemary powder underneath the beds and at the four corners of the rooms. Honoring the four corners seals the intention, and prolongs the revitalized clean and clear energy that the house has been infused with. After the rosemary bundles have dried out, I instruct my clients to burn them outside or toss them into a trash bin a few miles away from their house. The dry rosemary can be vacuumed up in a month or can simply remain where it is, with the understanding that the house should still be periodically cleansed and fed. People have told me that they feel the dramatic shift in the energy of the house, there are less family squabbles, and they are able to sleep much better. If I am doing the limpia rite for my space, I close it either by lighting a smaller charcoal tablet and leaving copal on it or by lighting some palo santo. I also usually end the space limpia by leaving a bowl of charged water (chapter 6, page x-ref], discusses how to charge water with a specific intention) at the entrance of my house with an obsidian arrowhead or a piece of pyrite inside the bowl. I may also light a seven-day white candle in a common area and once again welcome in my guardian angels and divine spirit guides. The bowl of water should be left at the entrance for a week, and then thrown outside of the house where something is growing.

For Review Only Rosa’s Insomnia and Anxiety Becomes a Thing of the Past

Rosa was suffering from severe anxiety attacks and insomnia when she first came to see me. Her very demanding corporate marketing job had her working fifty to sixty hours a week and included a high-strung boss. After our platica and sweep limpia, I taught her to do white fire limpias for her house and told her that she needed to do them for at least seven days straight. I also encouraged her to get to know the soul essence of her house, take care of it, and allow it to take care of her. Rosa came to see me again two weeks later. She informed that she

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loved doing the white fire limpias. She felt the significant difference in her house, and most importantly, she was actually sleeping six to seven hours straight. The anxiety attacks had also lessened. She felt that her house was supporting her when she got home and providing her with a space in which to truly unwind. A couple of months later, she had the clarity and focus to begin looking for another job, and landed a much better one, with a much healthier work environment.

CREATING, ACTIVATING, AND VIVIFYING SACRED SPACE When I teach classes on creating sacred spaces, I always start the first class by having students work with the quincunx; then, in subsequent classes, I have them work with other sacred geometrical shapes that were also common in ancient Mesoamerica. In this context, a quincunx creates a concentrated vortex and container of energy that has an identified intention or energy signature. The four corners seal the intention, and the center of the quincunx acts as a portal. The step-by-step instructions for activating and vivifying spaces in this manner are:

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1. Determine the purpose of the space, and write it down to recite it later. 2. Select and prepare the tools and offerings. 3. Align the tools that will be used as a gateway. 4. State the intention of the space and activate it. 5. Vivify the space by feeding it with sacred items. 6. Reaffirm the intention of the space. 7. Leave the tools and offerings in this manner for at least seven days. In these seven days, every time you enter the center, leave a sacred offering, and reaffirm the intention.

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Tools That Serve as Gateways or Portals (steps 2 and 3) Place five of the sacred tools that were traditionally understood as gateways or realms to other realms in the shape of the quincunx. Use the spoken word (step 1) to activate and frame the energy signature with which you are encoding the space. More than one type of sacred item can be used, moving the items inward to the center, but five of the same ones should be used to create the frame of the quincunx. (See figures 8.2 through 8.5, pages 169–71). Mirrors: Use preferably small circle mirrors. As you may recall, mirrors were often used by the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya to divine into circumstances, conjure deities and ancestors, and to act as gateways to other spaces. Using mirrors to create a quincunx in a space inspires self-awareness and clarity and promotes divinatory gifts. Earth: Place some earth or tlazolli (dirt) onto a small ritual platter. Earth is grounding, and from earth there is creation and fertility; it is a life-giving force. Using earth to create a quincunx in a space grounds, centers, and energizes creativity. Fire: Create a fire with wood, candle, or with a white fire limpia. The ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya used fire limpias to cleanse, activate, and vivify. Fire activated and renewed the soul essence energy within buildings: homes, temples, political spaces, sweat baths, and ritual spaces. Using fire to create a quincunx in a space clears, transforms, and breathes lighter life-force energy into a space that may have had stagnant energy. Water: Place charged water into a bowl (refer to chapter 6, page [x-ref], to learn different ways to charge water). For the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya, water, like fire and mirrors, could serve as a gateway to other worlds to reenact and concretize creation, renewal, transformation, and/or rebirth. Using water to create a quincunx can renew the essence of the space with a new and different energy signature, and also promotes divinatory gifts and emotional resilience.

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Sacred Offerings That Vivify Spaces (step 5) After the quincunx has been activated with the spoken word and tools that act as a vortex, place offerings inside the quincunx to vivify and feed the space. Again, more than one type of sacred item to feed the space can be used, depending on the type of attributes that are desired for the spaces. (See figures 8.2 through 8.5, pages 169–71.) Corn: reaffirms creativity, growth, and fertility. Flowers: welcomes in abundance, joy, and great fortune. Tobacco: grounds wisdom, healing, and purification. Maguey: brings in merriment and playfulness, tempered with self-restraint. Cacao: welcomes in grandness, vision, abundance, and great fortune. Feathers: promotes divinatory and intuitive work. Spoken Word: garners divine aid and seals the intention for the space.

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Figure 8.2. Example of a quincunx design with three gateway tools: water, mirrors, and earth, and four different kinds of offerings: feathers, tobacco, corn, and cacao. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure 8.3. Example of a quincunx design with two gateway tools: fire and mirrors, and two different kinds of offerings: corn and cacao. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure 8.4. Example of a quincunx design with one gateway tool, earth, and one kind of offering, corn. Illustration by Carolina Gutierrez.

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Figure 8.5. Example of a quincunx design with one gateway tool, a mirror, and various kinds of offerings: flowers, tobacco, corn, cacao, and feathers.


Once activated and vivified, the same tools that were used to create and serve as bridges can be used as offerings. After seven days, the space will have been vivified with the set intention. Please remember to periodically cleanse the space with white fire limpias, sahumerios, incense sticks, and/or palo santo. The more you feed, cleanse, and take care of the space, the more it will take care of you, providing an ideal situation for living and/or working. I have had many clients of many different professions, circumstances, and backgrounds benefit from this space limpia. They have told me that it has helped them to clear blocks—creative, emotional, or mental—to bring in intense clarity and focus, mixed with immense creativity, and to uplifts the space’s overall energy.

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D

elving into the records that explained my ancestors’ shamanic traditions enabled me to become more secure and grounded in my practice as a curandera, and to nuance it with ancient sacred Mesoamerican philosophy and beliefs. I am not claiming that my mentors were necessarily unaware of these ancient traditions and were unable to teach all of them to me. Perhaps, they had not read all of the ethnohistorical records that I gained access to in graduate school; but these traditions, philosophies and understandings were typically passed down orally. Nonetheless, I was often unaware of the questions or thinking that would elicit the responses and teachings I obtained from these records. Although I had been culturally exposed to shared underlying traditions, I still was not fully aware of what I was doing intuitively in my practices that resembled curanderismo rites or why. I needed to completely immerse myself in the ancient Mesoamerican histories of curanderismo to fully appreciate the critical subtleties of this practice and feel more comfortable with it, so my clients could realize even greater benefits from my training and practice. My mentors were invaluable in teaching me the fundamental steps and methodologies for conducting effective platicas to help clients eject the energy of their stories—so they can feel lighter and more at peace after a session—as well as the importance of cleansing my ritual spaces during and after platicas. But, when I began, I did not fully understand

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the solemnity of the spoken word and the transformative rebirthing processes platicas could instigate. It was not until I read about the numerous and elaborate state and community platica rites the ancient Mesoamerican peoples engaged in to spiritually cleanse themselves and their communities, invoke and manifest divine aid, and ensure graceful life transitions, such as being born, coming of age, cosmic rebirthing, and death. I began to understand on a deep soul level the necessity of releasing through platicas regularly and that the word is sacred; through it, we can purge, heal, create, invoke, and manifest. Most importantly, I began to understand that platicas should be facilitated in a ceremonial setting, where the energy undergirding them is effectively cleansed and not picked up by any listeners. While I saw and aided my mentors in holding sacred space for their clients during some of the platicas for which I acted as a translator and mentee, learning of their significance and reverence in ancient Mesoamerica inspired me to treat them as a sacred ceremony in and of themselves. Some of my mentors observed formal platica rituals, while some did not. Mirroring the ancient Mesoamerican shamans, I began to approach platicas in a more ritualistic and sacred manner. I always make sure I am in a space to hold sacred space for others—the clothes I wear are light-colored, the food I ingest supports my clarity, my physical space is clean and has been cleansed. I set the stage by always lighting a New Fire at the beginning of the platica, and I treat the word as being sacred. My clients constantly comment that they immediately feel and know that they have a safe and loving space to release in. While I may not have my clients eat earth promising to tell the truth like my ancient predecessors, I know the word is sacred and always hold them accountable for what they say. After the platica, I also give them homework, so they can remedy a situation, step into their power, balance their karma, or deepen the healing process. As for the fire limpias, my mentors taught me to make offerings to the fire during cleansing rites and their versatile uses for cleansing.

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Epilogue

While the teachings that fire has its own sacred essence energy completely resonated with me and helped me to understand why I had always been drawn to treat it as such, the magnitude of what this meant and how sacred essence energies interact with one another to facilitate transformation, purification, rebirth and much more did not hit home until I engrossed myself in these ancient records and teachings. My mentors, for example, taught me that the sacred essence energy of homes and tools could be cleansed and revitalized with fire limpias. But I did not yet think to ask them whether fire could facilitate a renewal of their soul or sacred essence energy or whether fire could house the spirit of a deceased or some other divine force. Absorbing myself in these ancient traditions enabled me to ask more poignant questions of my mentors and also deepened my work with fire as a sacred limpia tool. My interactions with water and water limpias also changed, after learning about these ancient traditions. I knew that water limpias could cleanse, revitalize, and facilitate a rebirthing of the spirit and soul. But I gained a more profound connection with water when I learned of its importance in so many ancient Mesoamerican rites. It became my polysemic limpia ally, wherein I always thank the water, thereby setting the intention that the water cleanses, heals, revitalizes, facilitates a positive rebirth, acts as and is treated as a sacred offering, and functions as a portal to divine realms. Water always takes a prominent role in all of my in-person private sessions, and if they are remote sessions, it typically plays a role in the homework I assign. These ancient teachings also motivated me to perform limpia sweeping at a transitory point in the session. This is typically when my client has stated that they are ready for a shift; essentially when they agree to begin or continue to open up to all the love, bliss, joy, and happiness this life has to offer them. The limpia sweep removes the old energy, and opens pathways to more positive outcomes and situations. The importance of cleansing my space did not hit home, until I experienced an episode of severe insomnia and used regular white fire limpias to clear the energy that I was bringing home. After this unpleas-

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ant remembrance/awakening, inspired by my ancient predecessors, I took up renewing the essence of my sacred spaces on my birthday. My mentors did not teach me to renew the essence of my ritual spaces on my birthday. But learning the ancient concepts of how we can share tonalli (sacred essence energy) with our sacred tools and living spaces and the ancient Maya fire drilling ceremonies of buildings that marked and shared critical transitory points, such as for a ruler’s accession, inspired me to revitalize the essence of my spaces, during my transitiory periods, such as my birthday. While my mentors curanderismo teachings have been absolutely invaluable, learning the ancient roots of this practice deepened my connection to it and added breadth and multilayered dimensions to my practice. It also allowed me to heal, embrace, and integrate a dissociated disdained identity and history. This integration and awakening allowed me to love myself even more, an immeasurable gift that I have the honor of sharing with you.

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Notes

AN INTRODUCTION TO LIMPIAS AND CURANDERISMO 1. Gonzalez, Red Medicine, 4. 2. Gonzalez, Red Medicine, xxv, 14–16, 22; Kehoe, Shamans and Religion, 25–33. 3. Torres, Healing with Herbs and Rituals, 5; Avila and Parker, Woman Who Glows in the Dark, 22–29; Trotter and Chavira, Curanderismo, 25–40. 4. Torres, Healing with Herbs and Rituals, 5; Avila and Parker, Woman Who Glows in the Dark, 16, 25; Trotter and Chavira, Curanderismo, 28, 29. 5. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec, Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, 30; Foster, Hippocrates’ Latin American Legacy, 4–8. 6. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec, Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, 26, 31–32, citing Hernández, Obras Completas, 1:323. 7. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:154. 8. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:158. 9. Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, 281. 10. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec, Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, 32–33. 11. Echeverría García, “Tonalli, Naturaleza Fría y Personalidad Temerosa,” 178–80; Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 195–96, 212–14, 270–72; López-Austin, Cuerpo Humano e Ideología, 197, 262. 12. Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 270–72; Furst, The Natural History of the Soul in Ancient Mexico, 64–66. 13. Echeverría García, “Tonalli, Naturaleza Fría y Personalidad Temerosa,” 185–90, 194; Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 195–96, 212–14, 270–72.

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2. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND 1. Burkhart, “Mexica Women on the Home Front,” 37, citing Durán, Historia de las Indias, 2:164–65. 2. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 395; Guiteras-Holmes, Perils of the Soul, 111. 3. Stuart, Order of Days, 114. 4. Stuart, Order of Days, 159. 5. Quauhtlehuanitzin, Codex Chimalpahin, 2:19, 31. 6. Burkhart, “Mexica Women on the Home Front,” 340, n.1; Clendinnen, Aztecs, 1; León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, xix. 7. A guilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, xiii; Smith, The Aztecs, 61. 8. Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 211–13. 9. Taube, Legendary Past, 49. 10. Durán, Book of Gods, 72. 11. Byland, The Codex Borgia, xv. 12. Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 94–98. 13. León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 84. 14. León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 89, 93. 15. Taube, Legendary Past, 31. 16. McCafferty and McCafferty, “The Metamorphosis of Xochiquetzal,” 103. 17. McCafferty and McCafferty, “Spinning and Weaving,” 28. 18. McCafferty and McCafferty, “Spinning and Weaving,” 28; Sullivan, “Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina,” 19, 22, 26. 19. Klein, “None of the Above,” 207; McCafferty and McCafferty, “The Metamorphosis of Xochiquetzal,” 103. 20. León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 89, 93–99. 21. Durán, Book of Gods, 395. 22. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:137. 23. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:141. 24. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:138, Illustration 102. 25. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 142. 26. Hernández, “Yearbearer Pages,” 391. 27. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 48. 28. Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, 87–89.

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29. Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, 89–91, 354–55, 360; Gonzalez, Red Medicine, 203; Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 51, 52; Smith, The Aztecs, 260; Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec, Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, 152. 30. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:101. 31. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:43. 32. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:30, 53. 33. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:135. 34. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:168. 35. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 3:163. 36. Taube, Legendary Past, 27. 37. Smith, The Aztecs, 59; Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, xiv, xix. 38. Stuart, Order of Days, 51. 39. Stuart, Order of Days, 51. 40. Taube, “The Ideal and the Symbolic,” 348. 41. Martin and Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, 8–9. 42. Foster, Life in the Ancient Maya World, 329. 43. Martin and Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, 8–9. 44. Foster, Life in the Ancient Maya World, 3. 45. Taube, Legendary Past, 52. 46. Taube, Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan, 8. 47. Taube, Legendary Past, 52. 48. A rden, “Mending the Past,” 31–33. 49. De Landa, Yucatan, 5, 56, 72. 50. Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan, 64. 51. Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan, 68; Ciaramella, “The Lady with the Snake Headdress,” 203; Arden, “Mending the Past,” 31. 52. Stuart, The Order of Days, 168; Taube, “Ancient Maya Calendrics,” 17. 53. Martin and Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, 12. 54. Taube, “Ancient Maya Calendrics,” 17. 55. Taube, “Ancient Maya Calendrics,” 20. 56. Stuart, Order of Days, 156. 57. Stuart, Order of Days, 156. 58. Stuart, Order of Days, 155. 59. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 48.

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60. Stuart, Order of Days, 154. 61. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 49. 62. Stuart, Order of Days, 152. 63. De Landa, Yucatan, 12. 64. Roys, Ritual of the Bacabs, 168–71; Foster, Life in the Ancient Maya World, 155. 65. De Landa, Yucatan, 13.

3. PRE- AND POSTCONTACT TEXTS 1. Byland, Codex Borgia, xiv. 2. Vail and Aveni, “Research Methodologies,” 2. 3. Taube, Major Gods, 1. 4. Taube, Major Gods, 2. 5. Taube, Major Godsn, 3. 6. Vail and Aveni, “Research Methodologies,” 17. 7. Vail and Aveni, “Maya Calendars and Dates,” 140; Vail and Bricker, “Haab Dates,” 211; Vail, “Reinterpretation of Tzolk’ in Almanacs,” 218–20. 8. Vail, “Reinterpretation of Tzolk’ in Almanacs,” 226. 9. Vail, “Reinterpretation of Tzolk’ in Almanacs,” 224. 10. Byland, Codex Borgia, xiv–xv. 11. Byland, Codex Borgia, xv. 12. Hernández, “Yearbearer Pages,” 356. 13. Pohl, “Screenfold Manuscripts,” 391. 14. Hernández, “Yearbearer Pages,” 328. 15. Byland, Codex Borgia, xiv–xv. 16. Schroeder, “Writing Two Cultures,” 15. 17. Schroeder, “Writing Two Cultures,” 18. 18. Vickery, Bartolomé de Las Casas, 19. 19. Schroeder, “Introduction,” 6. 20. Schroeder, “Introduction,” 75. 21. Schroeder, “Introduction,” 76. 22. Clendinnen, Aztecs, 8. 23. Nicholson, “Fray Bernardino de Sahagún,” 28–31. 24. López-Austin, “Research Method of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún,” 115–8. 25. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductions and indices:16.

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26. Durán, Book of Gods, 37. 27. Durán, Book of Gods, 37–38. 28. Durán, Book of Gods, 31, 40. 29. Durán, Book of Gods, 54, 386. 30. De Landa, Yucatan, iii. 31. De Landa, Yucatan, xi. 32. De Landa, Yucatan, v. 33. De Landa, Yucatan , 25.

4. PLATICAS 1. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:5, 7, 29, 38, 41, 43, 51, 53, 63, 66, 69. 2. Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 61–62, 92, 171–77. 3. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 1:8–11. 4. Taube, Legendary Past, 32. 5. Taube, “Through a Glass, Brightly,” 286–89; Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses, 14–15. 6. Durán, Book of Gods, 98–99. 7. Durán, Book of Godss, 98–99, 330, plate 8. 8. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:37. 9. Durán, Book of Gods, 100–1. 10. Durán, Book of Gods, 261. 11. Durán, Book of Gods , 100–1. 12. León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 77; Ixtlilxochitl, Obras completas, 2:243. 13. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:43. 14. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:208. 15. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:95. 16. Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 61–62, 92, 171–77. 17. Sahagún, Florentine Codex,1:8–11. 18. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:34. 19. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:34 20. De Landa, Yucatan, 45–46. 21. De Landa, Yucatan, 42–43. 22. De Landa, Yucatan, 43–44. 23. Roys, Ritual of the Bacabs, xvii–xxv.

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24. León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 398; Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 527–50.

5. FIRE LIMPIAS 1. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 375, 417–18; Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 72–73. 2. Benevente o Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 29, 57. 3. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:138. 4. Hamann, “Chronological Pollution,” 803–6. 5. Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, 153. 6. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4 and 5:143–4. 7. Stuart, Order of Days, 45; Taube, “Temple of Quetzalcoatl,” 81. 8. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4 and 5:143–44. 9. Hernández, “Yearbearer Pages,” 357; referencing Taube, “Bilimek Pulque Vessel,” 1–15. 10. Byland, Codex Borgia, xxiii–xxiv. 11. Byland, Codex Borgia, xxv. 12. Taube, “Temple of Quetzalcoatl,” 81. 13. Byland, Codex Borgia, xxvi. 14. Scherer, Mortuary Landscapes, 133. 15. Taube, “Through a Glass, Brightly,” 293–4, 306. 16. Garibay, “Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas,” 33. 17. Durán, Book of Gods, 262; Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:88. 18. Durán, Book of Gods, 262. 19. Durán, Book of Gods, 442. 20. Vail and Bricker, “Haab Dates,” 223–4. 21. De Landa, Yucatan, 70. 22. De Landa, Yucatan, 70–1. 23. De Landa, Yucatan, 72. 24. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 375, 417–8. 25. Taube, “The Jade Hearth,” 427, 448. 26. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 418. 27. Velásquez García, “The Maya Flood Myth,” 4; Stuart, “Blood Symbolism in Maya Iconography,” 195; Taube, “Study of Classic Maya Scaffold Sacrifice,” 340–50; Proskouriakoff, “Historical Implications,” 455.

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28. Stuart and Stuart, Palenque, 226–8. 29. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 393; see Vogt, Zinacantan, 461–5. 30. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 393; see Guiteras-Holmes, Perils of the Soul, 26. 31. Hawkins and McDonald, “Prologue,” 3–6. 32. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:195, 211; 4–5:29; 10:94; Durán, Book of Gods, 264–5; De Landa, Yucatan, 45.

6. WATER LIMPIAS 1. Kristan-Graham, “Building Memories at Tula,” 94; Fash, “Watery Places and Urban Foundations,” 232. 2. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 79–80. 3. Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 129. 4. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:139. 5. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4 and 5:69; Durán, Book of Gods, 264. 6. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 183–84; Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:175. 7. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:176. 8. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:197–99. 9. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:197–99. 10. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:197–9. 11. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:53. 12. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:2, 5. 13. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:114. 14. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:117. 15. Durán, Book of Gods, 264. 16. Durán, Book of Gods, 264–5. 17. Durán, Book of Gods, 124–5. 18. Gonzalez, Red Medicine, 202. 19. Durán, Book of Gods, 245. 20. Durán, Book of Gods, 245, 266. 21. Durán, Book of Gods, 266. 22. Durán, Book of Gods, 245. 23. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:132. 24. Durán, Book of Gods, 269; Benevente o Motolinía, Historia, 114.

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25. Benevente o Motolinía, Historia, 114. 26. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:141–42. 27. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:185. 28. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:232. 29. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:257. 30. Durán, Book of Gods, 269–72; Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, 53. 31. Durán, Book of Gods, 269–72. 32. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:81. 33. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:149–50, 155. 34. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:149–50, 155. 35. Sahagún, Florentine Codex 4–5:69; Durán, Book of Gods, 267. 36. De Landa, Yucatan, 56. 37. De Landa, Yucatan, 45. 38. De Landa, Yucatan, 43. 39. De Landa, Yucatan, 43. 40. De Landa, Yucatan, 44. 41. De Landa, Yucatan, 45. 42. De Landa, Yucatan, 45; Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 184. 43. Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 92. 44. De Landa, Yucatan, 33, 53. 45. De Landa, Yucatan, 53. 46. Aldana, Apotheosis, 137–40; Houston, “What Will Not Happen.” 47. Aldana, Apotheosis, 137, 141. 48. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 58. 49. Fitzsimmons, Death and the Classic Maya Kings, 49–50. 50. Fitzsimmons, Death and the Classic Maya Kings, 35, 68. 51. Fitzsimmons, Death and the Classic Maya Kings, 49–50. 52. León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 433.

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7. SWEEPING 1. Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 32–33; Benevente o Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 162. 2. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:43. 3. Burkhart, “Mexica Women,” 33–34.

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4. Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 281–3; Burkhart, “Mexica Women,” 33–4. 5. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 76, 120. 6. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 120; Taube, Legendary Past, 47. 7. León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 62. 8. Keber, Codex Telleriano-Remensics,143–44. 9. Gonzalez, Red Medicine, 94, 98. 10. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 117–24; Burkhart, “Mexica Women on the Home Front,” 34. 11. Durán, Book of Gods, 346. 12. McCafferty and McCafferty, “Spinning and Weaving,” 28. 13. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 26. 14. Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, 2:57. 15. Dibble and Anderson, “The Ancient Word,” 75. 16. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:88, 121. 17. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:142. 18. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 6:167. 19. Burkhart, “Mexica Women,” 35; Garibay, “Historia de los Mexicanos,” 36–37. 20. Burkhart, “Mexica Women,” 37, citing Durán, Historia de las Indias, 164–65. 21. Burkhart, “Mexica Women,” 33. 22. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:218. 23. Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 118. 24. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:211; Kellogg, “From Parallel and Equivalent,” 132. 25. Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, 40. 26. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 10:190. 27. Durán, Book of Gods, 447. 28. Durán, Book of Gods, 449. 29. Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 120–21. 30. Durán, Book of Gods, 232. 31. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:119; Durán, Book of Gods, 232–33. 32. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 2:119. 33. Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 117–18. 34. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 4–5:138. 35. Hamann, “Chronological Pollution,” 803–6.

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36. Foster, Handbook to Life in the Ancient Mayan World, 189, 253. 37. De Landa, Yucatan, 70. 38. De Landa, Yucatan, 43–44. 39. De Landa, Yucatan, 44. 40. Grube and Werner, “A Sign for the Syllable mi,” 22; Barrera Vásquez, Diccionario Cordemex, 523. 41. Grube and Werner, “A Sign for the Syllable mi,” 22; Love, Maya Shamanism Today, 21, 28. 42. León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 398; Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 253, n.92. 43. Edmonson, Ancient Future of the Itza, 35–36, 100; Gossen, “On the Human Condition,” 420. 44. Christenson, The Burden of the Ancients, 27. 45. León-Portilla et al., In the Language of Kings, 570–1. 46. Aulie et al., Diccionarie Ch’ol-Español de Tumbalá, 73. 47. Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 286–7. 48. Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 69–70, 87–8, 92.

For Review Only 8. SACRED SPACES

1. Burkhart, “Flowery Heaven,” 99; Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 88. 2. Benevente o Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 30–33. 3. Benevente o Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 31. 4. Burkhart, “Mexica Women on the Home Front,” 164–65. 5. Durán, Book of Gods, 149. 6. Durán, Book of Gods, 427. 7. A shmore, “Site-Planning Principles,” 200. 8. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 56–57, 119–21. 9. Brady and Ashmore, “Mountains, Caves, Water,” 132. 10. Brady and Ashmore, “Mountains, Caves, Water,” 129–30. 11. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 417. 12. Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 70–72. 13. Taube, “Flower Mountain,” 83–86. 14. K ristan-Graham and Amrhein, “Preface,” xx. 15. Stuart, Order of Days, 81. 16. Stuart, Order of Days, 77.

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17. Stuart, Order of Days, 79–80. 18. Stuart, Order of Days, xix. 19. Stuart, Order of Days,78. 20. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 395. 21. Stuart, “The Fire Enters His House,” 395; Carlsen and Prechtel, “The Flowering of the Dead,” 39. 22. De Landa, Yucatan, 43–44. 23. Solari, “Plaza, Atrium, and Maya Social Memory,” 198–99.

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Bibliography Aldana, Gerardo. The Apotheosis of Janaab’ Pakal: Science, History, and Religion at Classic Maya Palenque. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2007. Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. Handbook to Life in the Aztec World. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Arden, Traci. “Mending the Past: Ix Chel and the Invention of a Modern Pop Goddess,” Antiquity 80 (2006): 25–36. Ashmore, Wendy. “Site-Planning Principles and Concepts of Directionality among the Ancient Maya,” Latin American Antiquity 2, no. 3 (1991): 199–226. Aulie, H. Wilber, Evelyn W. Aulie, and Emily F. Scharfe de Stairs. Diccionarie Ch’ol-Español de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla. 2d ed. Coyoacán, Mexico: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, 1998. Avila, Elena, and Joy Parker. Woman Who Glows in the Dark: A Curandera Reveals Traditional Aztec Secrets of Physical and Spiritual Health. New York: Tarcher Putnam, 1999. Barrera Vásquez, Alfredo. Diccionario Cordemex: Maya-Español, Español-Maya. Mérida, Mexico: Ediciones Cordemex, 1980. Benevente o Motolinía, Fray Toribio de. Historia de los indios de la Nueva España. Mexico City: Librería de J.M. Andrade, 1858. Brady, James E., and Wendy Ashmore. “Mountains, Caves, Water: Ideational Landscapes of the Ancient Maya.” In Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by James E. Brady and Wendy Ashmore, 124–145. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Burkhart, Louise M. “Flowery Heaven: The Aesthetic of Paradise in Nahuatl Devotional Literature,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 21 (spring 1992): 88–109.

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———. “Mexica Women on the Home Front: Housework and Religion in Aztec Mexico.” In Haskett, Schroeder, and Wood, 25–54. ———. The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in SixteenthCentury Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. Byland, Bruce E. The Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript. Edited by Gisele Díaz and Alan Rodgers. New York: Dover, 1993. Carlsen, Robert S., and Martin Prechtel. “The Flowering of the Dead: An Interpretation of Highland Maya Culture,” Man 26, no. 1 (1991): 23–42. Christenson, Allen J. The Burden of the Ancients: Maya Ceremonies of World Renewal from the Pre-Columbian Period to the Present. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Clendinnen, Inga. Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Ciaramella, Mary. “The Lady with the Snake Headdress,” Seventh Palenque Round Table, edited by Merle Green Robertson and Virginia M. Fields, 201–9. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 1994. De Landa, Diego. Yucatán before and after the Conquest. Translated by William Gates. New York: Dover, 1978. Dibble, Charles E., and Arthur J.O. Anderson. “The Ancient Word.” In Native Mesoamerican Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Myths, Poems from the Aztec, Yucatec, Quiche-Maya and Other Sacred Traditions, edited by Miguel León-Portilla, 61–98. New York: Paulist, 1980. Durán, Diego. The Book of Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Translated by F. Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. ———. Historia de las indias de Nueva España e islas de Tierre Firme. 2 vols. Edited by Angel María K. Garibay. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1979. Echeverría García, Jaime. “Tonalli, naturaleza fría y personalidad temerosa: el susto entre los nahuas del siglo xvi,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 48 (JulyDec. 2014): 177–212. Edmonson, Munro S. The Ancient Future of the Itza: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Fitzsimmons, James L. Death and the Classic Maya Kings. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009. Fash, Barbara W. “Watery Places and Urban Foundations Depicted in Maya Art

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Cleansing Rites of Curanderismo Limpias Espirituales of Ancient Mesoamerican Shamans ERIKA BUENAFLOR, M.A., J.D. A tutorial on the ancient practice of limpias to heal the mind, body, and soul • Offers step-by-step instructions for the practice of limpias, shamanic cleansing rituals to heal, purify, and revitalize people as well as physical spaces • Examines different types of limpia ceremonies, such as fire rites for transformation, water rites for cleansing and influencing, and sweeping rites for divination • Explores the sacred stories behind limpia rituals and traces these curanderismo practices to their indigenous roots

Exploring the essential tools and practices of Mesoamerican shamans and curanderos, specifically the ancient Yukatek Maya and Mexica (Aztec), Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D., provides a step-by-step guide for conducting the most common practice within curanderismo: limpias. These practical and incredibly effective shamanic cleanses heal, purify, and revitalize people and spaces with herbs, flowers, eggs, feathers, fire, and water. They are also powerful tools for self-empowerment, spiritual growth, soul retrieval, rebirth, and gracefully opening up pathways for new beginnings. Drawing on her 20 years’ experience as a curandera and her graduate studies focused on Mesoamerican shamanism, the author traces modern curanderismo practices to their indigenous roots. She explores the sacred stories behind limpia rituals and examines different types of limpia ceremonies in depth, such as fire rites for transformation, water rites for cleansing and influencing, and sweeping rites for divination. She outlines how limpias work holistically to enable one to let go and cleanse the body, mind, and spirit of limiting beliefs, traumas, and broken stories; heal acute and chronic illnesses such as depression, insomnia, and anxiety; and revitalize and activate sacred spaces by renewing their essence and clearing negative energies. She explains the healing properties of the plants used in limpia rites and how to perform the medicinal chants used by the curanderos. In addition, the author details how the practice of platicas, heart-straightening talks, supports limpia rites by encouraging one to vocalize their needs as they eject traumas and unwanted energies from the body, setting the stage for self-awareness and healing. Sharing the story of her own complete healing from a catastrophic injury with limpias as well as inspirational testimonies from others who have experienced limpias, the author provides a personal and thoroughly practical guide to the ancient shamanic method of limpias to promote healing and personal transformation in our times. Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D., has a master’s degree in religious studies with a focus on Mesoamerican shamanism from the University of California at Riverside. A practicing curandera for over 20 years, descended from a long line of grandmother curanderas, she has studied with curanderas/os in Mexico, Peru, and Los Angeles and gives presentations on curanderismo in many settings, including at UCLA. She lives in Altadena, California.

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Bear & Company • ISBN 978-1-59143-311-8 • $18.00 (CAN $22.50) Paper Also available as an ebook • 216 pages, 6 x 9 • Includes 8-page color insert and 15 black-and-white illustrations Rights: World • Shamanism

July 2018

Cleansing Rites of Curanderismo

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