Free Life is a Trip by Judith Fein

could have done better. I had asked The Big One in the sky to excuse me, I had felt bad, guilty, remorseful over the course of my life. But I never had a chance to request absol u tion from a god with alcohol dribbling down his chin and rolled tobacco protruding from his mouth. I placed money in the offering box, lit a candle, and looked at Maximon. “I am sorry for anything I have ever done wrong,” I told him. “Can I sort of ask for global absolution instead of enume r ating every petty error of the past?”
    I looked up. Was it possible? I saw a twinkle in Maximon’s right eye, and I somehow knew I was forgiven, and I could go forward with a clean slate in life.
    “Enjoy your booze and cigarettes,” I told him, as I exited the room. And I walked into the sunny outdoors, feeling like a better, lighter, happier person.
     
    It didn’t take long to have a Maximon-induced experience in my own life. I have a friend who drinks, pops pills and has done a dance of death with heroin for years. He has been on and off the horse more times than a Pony Express rider. He recently told me about a serious relapse, and as he lacerated himself for his wea k ness, his worthles s ness, and how he disappointed everyone around him, his eyes filled with tears.
    I told him about the wooden god in Guatemala who drank and smoked, and how I learned in his shrine that perfection is a crazy dream, an ill-conceived ill u sion. To inhabit a human body is to be i m perfect.
    My friend looked at me and said, “There is a little voice that worms its way i n to my mind every time I give it space. It says ‘you are not good enough’ so often that I have come to believe it. I’m always comparing myself to others, and they always seem to be more produ c tive and successful than I am.”
    “Maximon thinks all of that is cabbage!” I said. It came out of me so suddenly that I was surprised. “You have vices and so does he. He accepts people the way they are: imperfect, trying their best but not always succeeding. I can understand why he’s a god in the Guatemalan pantheon. He’s willing to help anyone who asks him, without jud g ment. He’s not holier than thou and he doesn’t hold up a standard h u mans can’t achieve.”
    My friend exploded in laughter. “Maybe I should keep my eye out for Max i mon the next time I’m in a bar,” he said. “He’ll probably o r der a whiskey and light up a Cuban cigar.”
    I recently heard that my friend has sworn off drinking and using again. Far away in Guatemala, Maximon, who is certainly swilling, is also smiling. And if  this little-known god can forgive human error, I’m willing to wager that whatever God you pray to can too.
     
     

    I t’s called “La Tierra de Brujos” —the land of the witches. Juventino Rosas, a traditional agricultural town in Guanajuato state in Central Mexico, has a reput a tion for being home to good witches, bad witches, and folk healers. What all three have in common is that they work with energy—the unseen force that keeps every living thing functioning and connects all entities to each other. This energy goes by other names in different cultures, like chi, prana, or life force. Without energy, you and I would be big blobs of dead matter.
    The special power of brujos enables them to read, interpret, manipulate, and move energy. When something is amiss in an individ u al—physically, emotionally, or spiritually—the energy is thought to be blocked, and a powerful brujo knows how to move it.
    The brujo tradition is handed down from parent to child or from teacher to st u dent. Sometimes a brujo is self-taught; he or she gets a dream, a message, or a myst e rious transmission of information about how to heal. And of course, as with any other profession, there are really gifted brujos and run-of-the-mill or even bogus brujos. Some are world-famous and others are only known to family, friends, and folks in the neighborhood.
    Some witches are born with special