As time passes, I am developing an ever-increasing appreciation for my friend Arturo. Until recently, I had only briefly, on two separate occasions, expressed to him my interest in locating a Mayan shaman. Since my most recent return to Cozumel, Arturo seems to have made it a personal quest to assist me in my search.
Merely a week ago today, Arturo sent me a web link for the Temazcal ceremony—the same Mayan sweat lodge that I later experienced on Saturday. Then, just four days ago, he informed me that we had an appointment to meet with his acquaintance, a “brujo”—a man Arturo described as a “modern-day shaman”.
Late last night, as I researched and added this new Spanish word “brujo” to my vocabulary, I discovered that it translates to several possible meanings—among which are ‘witch doctor’, ‘wizard’, ‘medicine man’, and simply ‘male witch.” My curiosity was indeed intrigued.
From the first time he mentioned our appointment, Arturo seemed to be slightly concerned as to what my expectations might be. In follow-up emails, Arturo expressed a desire to meet with me personally before the day of our appointment.
Finally, late yesterday afternoon, we managed to coordinate our schedules. After beginning with polite small talk, we were soon engulfed in a fascinating ninety minute discussion. Sweet Arturo took the time to give me a birds-eye view of the history of various native cultures in Mexico. In addition, I was the grateful recipient of a few much-needed geography lessons, during which Arturo educated me about various cities, including his own personal thoughts regarding living in Cozumel.
My favorite part of the conversation was when we discussed Mayan spiritual beliefs. I expressed to Arturo how I loved the fact that Mayan beliefs resonate so closely with my own—and told him how I thoroughly enjoyed my Temazcal ceremony. When I asked if he had been to a Temazcal yet, Arturo replied “Not yet, but I would like to go.”
Most importantly, however, Arturo talked about our upcoming visit with the ‘brujo’, giving me several clues regarding what to expect as I prepared for my encounter. I was most curious about the “echk” ceremony. Arturo and I both let out belly-laughs when I finally figured out he was trying to say the word “egg” rather than “echk.”
At 7:40 a.m. this morning, after only getting about five hours of sleep, I was eagerly standing on my front balcony above the narrow street below while watching for Arturo’s car. I had woken early, and even took the time to wash and style my hair—wanting to look my best for my visit with the medicine man. Minutes later I was locking my front gate and sliding into the passenger seat of Arturo’s little red car.
As we neared our destination, I asked, “So how do you know this brujo?”
“I went to see him myself one time.” Arturo replied, without providing many additional details.
Soon we were parked in a quiet residential area, several miles from my home. On the right side of the car was a small city park, noticeably barren of trees. Across the street was our destination—a small typical one-story home with a low concrete wall. Several teenage girls were hanging out on the sidewalk near the open front door. One of them was holding a cloth against what appeared to be a recent nose piercing. “Ouch,” I thought to myself, “that appears painful.”
Arturo asked one of the girls “Is your father home?”
“He will be here soon.” was her reply.
Minutes later, a man on a three wheeled bicycle slowly approached. Three-wheeled bicycles in Cozumel are quite common for carrying cargo. The two front wheels support a small cargo bin directly in front of and below the handlebars. The rear of the bicycle is just like any other traditional street bicycle.
“That’s him” Arturo quietly whispered.
As he dismounted the bicycle, I noted that the brujo was quite short, with black hair and dark brown skin. He was dressed in dark slacks, with a white button-up shirt. Arturo facilitated a quick introduction as we were being invited inside. I soon learned that the man’s name was Marcos.
“This is where I work,” Marcos said with a large grin, as he proudly pointed to the left-rear corner of this large room. The vista in front of me was more than fascinating. My first impression was that I was approaching some type of catholic shrine. The walls displayed large paintings—one of Jesus and one of Mary—with a large cross hanging between them. In the corner, spanning more than ten feet along the wall, were several old tables. Boards were strategically placed between them to form rickety-looking shelves that bridged the open areas. The entire top surface of these tables and shelves was crowded with vases of flowers, soda bottles filled with colorful liquids, and a variety of other unknown wonders. In the corner of my eye, I noticed that many of the flowers were old and wilting.
Behind me and too my left, adjacent to the front door where we entered, was a large king sized bed. My imagination momentarily questioned, “I wonder how many people in the family need to share this single large bed?”
The entire right side of the remaining space appeared to be a large living room area. I didn’t scan this area in detail, as I was quickly engaged in a conversation. I did note, however, that the television was left loudly turned on throughout our session, even though no one else was in the room. Finding this a bit odd, I simply chose to ignore the noisy distraction as I peacefully pondered, “If it doesn’t bother him, I can certainly ignore it too.”
As I observed the ease in which I remained present in the moment, a sense of amazement filtered through my awareness. “A few months ago, I would have felt very put-out and annoyed by this ambient noise.” I told myself. “Now, it doesn’t bother me in the least.”
“Have a seat,” Marcos instructed me, as he pointed to an old wooden chair. He sat on a similar chair, with a small round wooden table situated between us.
Immediately, I realized that I was going to have considerable difficulty in understanding Marcos. He spoke rapidly, and used many words that were either unfamiliar to me, or perhaps spoken with an accent that confused my ears; regardless, I only understood perhaps twenty percent of what was going on.
“What do you want to do today?” Marcos queried. “Do you have a problem … family member … friend … situation … or something else you want to learn about?”
At this point I was feeling very grateful that Arturo was standing only five feet away. I looked to him for assistance, not totally sure at first what had just been asked of me.
Arturo replied “She wants to know her future.”
“Yes, I want you to tell me my future.” I told Marcos.
With a serious look on his face, he replied, “Very bad luck to tell the future.” He told me. “Muy malo suerte.”
Arturo and I both insisted that I wanted to have my future read in the cards. Marcos reluctantly agreed and shuffled the deck. Grabbing half of the deck and fanning it out face down, Marcos instructed me to start choosing cards. As I grabbed the first two cards, he looked into my eyes and then glanced back at the cards before saying “Very bad … some woman is very angry and jealous at you, causing many problems.”
Immediately, I smiled a silent internal smile as I realized “This man is not playing with a full deck.”
His words were empty and hollow, not resonating with me in even the slightest of ways. Every fiber of my soul was saying “Ignore him … he is not connected to your inner truth.”
One by one, Marcos had me choose cards until every card in the deck was laid out in order on the table in front of me. As I examined the pictures on the cards, I was very curious. “What type of cards are these?” I pondered. I imagined they must be some type of tarot cards, but have no experience at all in this area; I was only guessing.
What I do know is that I have a very intuitive psychic friend who read playing cards for me a few years ago, and she was amazingly accurate. She used a methodical system, laying selected cards out in patterns, with the order and placement of cards being highly significant in how they were interpreted. In addition, she tapped into her spiritual intuition as she spoke to me.
This gentleman in front of me was doing none of this. He simply laid the cards all in a left-to-right order, and did no interpretation based on order or position. After every five or six sentences spoken by Marcos, I looked to Arturo with a blank puzzled look. Arturo would then speak a very brief translation that I ‘sort-of’ understood. Between the confusion, I kept hearing words like “bad employment”, “jealous and angry”, “bad luck”, “not good.” I only remember hearing one positive comment, something about “lots of money”.
Most every statement passing through Marcos’s lips was a “Mensaje de Malo” – or a message of bad and evil things.
What I do know for a fact is that my heart was telling me, “Do not to take any of this seriously!”
In my Temazcal experience on Saturday I sensed a strong loving spirit—a deep connection with the universe. That whole experience was meaningful and powerful.
In today’s “brujo” session I sensed no such spiritual connection. My internal voices were loudly proclaiming “No truth to be found here … this man is not spiritually connected to either your soul or to the universe … and there is no real point in even continuing.”
With this in mind, I smiled and simply decided to sit back, becoming solely an interested observer of the experience.
“I have a lot to learn here.” I told myself. “This is an incredible cultural learning experience—even if it does not resonate in any way with my soul.”
For fifteen minutes I kept pushing back the thought, “Is it time to leave yet?”
Something inside replied “No … hang around for awhile … this could yet get quite interesting.”
A sense of relief settled in as I watched Marcos gather up the cards and put them back into their small box.
Marcos rattled off a few words and Arturo quickly interpreted, “Do you want to have your soul cleansed?”
“Yes, very much so,” I eagerly replied.
Soon, Marcos placed a chair in an open area right in front of his table of flowers and colorful liquids. After briefly turning his back, Marcos returned to face me while holding a brown egg in his hand. Beginning with my head, Marcos gradually moved the egg around while pressing it against various portions of my body, pausing for a while in each general area. As he reached the palms of my hands, he briefly examined my right palm and said “You will have a very long life.” Now that was a statement that resonated with me. My internal voices have already made this very clear to me.
After about five minutes, Marcos put the egg into my right palm and instructed me to rub it around on my tummy. He walked away for a minute, returning with a glass filled about two thirds of the way with what appeared to be clear water.
Taking the egg from my hand, he gently tapped it on the rim of the glass, being very careful to not break the yolk. Next, after placing the glass on the round wooden table where the cards had been just a few minutes earlier, Marcos gently pulled the ends of the egg apart until the yellow yolk plunged into the water below.
“Oh, this is not good.” He exclaimed. “Notice the pattern.”
I watched as the yolk of the egg split apart and formed a bumpy layer at the bottom of the glass, perhaps one half inch above the bottom. Much of the egg white stretched in vertical streaks, running from the yolk towards the top of the water.
Over and over, Marcos talked about how bad this was, commenting about the negative energy, the anger and jealousy, and how I must be struggling.
I just smiled inside. “This is really an interesting educational experience.” I reminded myself. “This is one of those experiences that I will remember this for the rest of my life.”
After ten minutes of listening to this doom and gloom, Marcos told me he would now cleanse my body. Having me sit quietly in the chair, he grasped a tiny bundle of small-leafed herbs, dipped the bundle in a bowl of yellowish-colored liquid, and began to swat me firmly with the saturated leaves. Starting with the top of my head, he then moved to my back, shoulders, neck, and upper chest. Next he loaded up the leaves with more scented yellow moisture and repeated the process, again starting with my hair.
While the swatting was not painful, it was definitely quite forceful and very wet. My hair was now fully drenched, and continued to be more saturated over time. Again and again, Marcos immersed the leaves in more yellow liquid, repeatedly thrashing me. Soon he moved on to my legs and feet, only to return again to my dripping hair.
After a few minutes, Marcos placed the remaining leaves on his table and retrieved a soda bottle filled with yellowish liquid. Instructing me to hold my hands out in a cupped position, he sloppily poured the liquid into the palms of my hands. A great deal of the solution spilled onto the right knee of my jeans.
“Rub this on the back of your neck, shoulders and hair.” He sternly dictated. Refilling my hands several times, he had me again rinse my neck, then my arms, and then my feet.
Next, we repeated this procedure with an opaque, dark green solution. This solution had a strong herbal scent, with a tiny touch of mint.
Finally, my hands were filled repeatedly with a solution of pink rose-scented holy water from yet another soda bottle. By now, I was emitting a strong mixture of floral and herbal scents, and I felt as if I had walked through a waterfall.
As my delightful and educational cleansing came to an end, I smiled inside as I watched Marcos tell me how I needed to buy bottles of all of these solutions and bathe in them. I forgot to mention that earlier, he had also instructed me that I should purchase a deck of cards and place them in certain combinations under my pillow in order to absolve myself of all the negative energy.
Believe it or not, I was feeling quite joyful as I handed my two hundred pesos (about $16) to Marcos. While absolutely none of the experience spoke to me in any way at a spiritual level—I had indeed just completed a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience. There was no doubt that my money was incredibly well spent.
While Arturo drove me to my home, he queried several times with “What did you think?” and “I hope you were not disappointed.”
Reassuring him, I replied, “I don’t believe anything Marcos told me … but yes … I really enjoyed the experience … in fact I thought it was fascinating.”
We laughed as we both realize that we were in full agreement. Arturo added “It is sad that some people can be very drawn in by him, and believe his negative words. He convinces them of all these bad evil things, and gets them to purchase his lotions and to return for more cleansings.”
Still basking in the uniqueness of my early morning experience, I was soon standing again in the privacy and warmth of my own shower, washing my hair for the second time in less than three hours. Even now, as I continue describing this experience more than eight hours after the fact, I am quite aware of a strong rose-blossom scent still emanating strongly from my hair and shoulders.
I shall not soon forget this experience. How many people can say that they have been cleansed by a real witch doctor/wizard/medicine man in such a unique way? Yes, this will be a very pleasant and enjoyable memory for many years to come.
This afternoon I received a three-sentence email from Arturo. The last two sentences read word for word:
“Brenda I’ll be dare and honest with you, can you tell me why am thinking in you all day? Sorry i’m thinking all day in you.”
As I sit here with a loving smile on my face, I am now faced with a new issue on which to meditate. How do I lovingly respond to Arturo in a way that will preserve a cherished friendship—while at the same time gently letting him know that we are “solo amigos?”
Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved