Free Life is a Trip by Judith Fein Page B

aromatic tree resin) over smoldering coals in a ceramic incensario and smoke filled the capilla. Instinctively I closed my eyes as Ana circled me and pe r formed the limpia, waving herbs in the air and intoning a deep, heartfelt prayer.
    Afterwards, I told her that I’d had a dream where the word “serpiente” a p peared. She burst into tears. I had no idea what I had done, but I was sorry I had done it.
    Ana summoned her two daughters. She said something about “serpiente” to them, and they also began to cry. I stood there watching them cry. “ Lo siento ,” I said, “I am really sorry.”
    Ana reached out, patted me on my shoulder, and somehow I was able to u n derstand that her husband, Pedro, had been a famous hea l er, and he had died a year and a half before. They were waiting for a sign from him, and that sign was the serpiente—the snake. Still crying, Ana went back into the capilla and emerged with a large, carved, wooden rain stick in the form of a snake. She pr e sented it to me and insisted I take it. She said it was used to bring down the po w er of the moon during healings.
    “We are connected forever,” Ana told me. “One day you will work with me as my assistant.”
     
    And so there I was, six years later, at the Leon airport, looking around for a cab to take me back to Juventino Rosas. Someone called my name; I spun around, and was surprised to see Ana. Although she was in her late sixties and had serious health issues, she’d been standing there for three hours waiting to fetch her assi s tant. Ushering me into a cab, she insisted on paying, and we drove to her large, sprawling house.
    Ana shared her home with eleven family members, and trying to understand Spanish with everyone talking at the same time was e x hausting. I assumed that I would be sleeping on a couch in the telev i sion room, with no privacy or quiet time, but one of Ana’s daughters generously gave up her bedroom for me.
     
    At ten A.M., every day, Ana received clients, many of whom had traveled hours to get there. Ana informed each client that I was her assistant, and every time she said it, I felt a wave of unreality tinged with fear. What in the world was I d o ing in a capilla in Central Mex i co?
    Each person or family group sat on a wooden bench in the capilla opposite Ana, who was on a chair. They spoke openly about their problems, which were a varied and complex combination of physical, psychological, emotional, and spi r itual symptoms. They ranged from drug addiction to a swollen arm that didn’t r e spond to medical trea t ment; from deep depression to headaches to stomach pain to rage at a cheating spouse.
    Ana’s face was expressionless, professional and unjudgmental as she asked questions. Some of the clients were quite ill, and they had consulted with witches who had told them not to go to doctors.
    Ana leaned over and whispered to me, “I need to give them pe r mission to go to medical experts. It’s essential for their health.”
    Often, Ana prescribed herbal drinks, herbal baths, and footbaths with ingred i ents like sarsaparilla, dandelion, and horsetail.
    For many clients, Ana performed a limpia, as she had done for me, but this time she told me the names of the main herbs she used: sweet basil and pepper tree. She ran raw eggs over the bodies of a few, and showed me how to “read” the egg as she cracked it and plopped its contents into a glass of water. The way the yoke fell and the degree of cloudiness of the egg white were clues about a person’s state of health. Sometimes Ana burned little handmade candles, called “ velas ,” and each one represented different aspects of Jesus, saints, portals to the spiritual world, the clients, and others who were causing them problems. Often the diagnosis was “ envidia ”—someone was envious of the client, or sending bad energy. A limpia would help to remove that bad juju. Ana told her clients that she sometimes effected miraculous cures and healed