Medicina

Medicina, originally uploaded by sulustumoses.

During our preparations for the sweat lodge ceremony, I was moved by how much my aunts included the youth. It would have been so easy to do everything themselves, but instead, they enlisted their support as a means of instruction.

This particular scene touched me.

My auntie Barb asked David to prepare some of the herbs used during the ceremony. I won't give any specific details of the methods they used, but I will simply share that the scene transported me to other levels of being. On one level, the simple wood structure surrounding the lodge reminded me of the homes we visited in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I could almost picture Casimiro making medicine in his jungle house.

On another level, I was moved to see David making medicine for the people. Again, I seemed to see the faint glimmers of ancestral knowledge channeling through his body and into the stone.

By the way, this photograph is actually a re-enactment. We didn't take any pictures during our preparations for the ceremony; it just seemed out of place in that sacred setting.