Total Wellmness

Driving out of town on Sunday morning.
The sky. 

Last week we had an errand at a building that houses a new health club. It turns out that by offering body combat classes and the use of exercise equipment, this gym can provide "Total Health and Wellmness" [sic].

Later, I was thinking about what that might mean: neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed, in wellmness you must be in a state of being...just right, all over and through and through?

Still later, we went to Don Sergio's with some friends. I've heard his presentation on the indigenous cultures of Chiapas three times before, but that night he surprised us by showing us some photos and an altar in a back room I'd never seen before. He spoke about the troubles people can have in life, and why  they need to be healed. Principalmente, he said, there are three things a curandero can heal you of:

Fear
Loss of your soul
A spell put on you by someone else's brujeria (witchcraft)

Fear. This does belong at the top of the list of suffering, doesn't it?

Loss of soul. Don Sergio explained that you can lose your soul by having your photo taken (this is why so many indigenous won't allow you to to take their picture) -- and also by tripping. The soul can just get shaken out of your body when you lurch forward suddenly. This is why, he said as he demonstrated this, after a person trips they will sometimes kneel on the ground and wipe the ground with their hand, then wipe themselves: they're trying to put the bits of their soul back where they belong. If that doesn't work, Don Sergio said as he stood up again, then they have to go to the curandero to help restore their soul.

Brujeria is evidenced by lots of things--assorted bad luck and catastrophe--but mostly by burns. If you get burned, witchcraft may be to blame. "If you get burned, first to the curandero for the soul, next maybe to me for the body."

Don Sergio cares for many, many people with burns; I hadn't realized until he said this that a burn could be a spiritual crisis as much as a physical one. In any case, I understand completely why you would come to this gentle, generous, wise, insightful man to be restored.

Don Sergio Castro with Sean,
who has been crying.

We didn't come to Mexico for our souls, but somehow by magic and especially in our last days here, we have experienced Total Wellmness.

We're on our way home now, and we have cried so much recently, from gratitude and wonder for the experiences of this year---and for the dear friends. We have never been hugged and kissed so much as we have been in the last week, and I'm liking to think that people are putting bits of their souls into our bodies and maybe some of us can stay smeared on them....

So it's morning on Tuesday in Veracruz; I'm the only one awake in the hotel room. Time to get up, time to get going.

See you soon!