#214 / 2011 June Oaxaca: Healers

OAXACAN HEALERS

#214

I had three spiritual healings while I was in Oaxaca if I include my yoga sessions. Some were more traditional than others. This is the first report about my session with the native curandera and midwife "Doña Queta":

There is a healer in Oaxaca known as “Doña Queta” Zapoteca Woman of the Clouds. Midwife-Healer Enriqueta Conteras Contreras comes from the Sierra Júarez, a high-altitude area of pine forests. I quote from María Margarita Navár, her interpreter and biographer:

Traditional medicine, with its great knowledge of herbalism, has been supported by the exuberant variety of flora and fauna that stands out in this Mesoamerican region. For centuries it has been the basis of the health care of these populations.

At the age of seven Doña Queta was given away to neighbors by her mother, a remarried widow. Abandoned in the nearby mountains to tend goats, she almost starved. She said, “I could hardly bear my hunger pangs, so I began to eat tender plants little fruits and leaves that grew in the countryside. This is how I learned about medicinal and edible plants.”

The curandera comes from a lineage of traditional healers and explains, “I was born with the gift of healing,” she claims.

After a full career in public health Doña Queta now resides a 15-minute cab ride outside of Oaxaca City. She has a healing center in her home and that is now where she receives people such as myself for spiritual healings of many varieties.

I came to see Doña Queta in order to continue the spiritual pilgrimages I have commenced since moving to the Southwest almost 10 years ago. This one, my fifth, was of particular significance as I had just lost my boyfriend less than three months before our meeting.

Ringing the doorbell at Calle de Libertad, a dusty unpaved street on the most remote corner of the San Francisco, Tutla, an assistant showed me through the beautiful adobe home to a foyer with an enormous sweat lodge dominating the space. Doña Queta rounded the corner.

Through an interpreter, by phone, I had made this arrangement. I had mentioned Margarita Navár as my contact person. I mentioned that I needed spiritual healing and had recently lost my life’s partner. As soon as I sat down on a bench and had time to take off my straw hat and lay it aside the “curandera” walked into the foyer and in one swoop opened her arms up wide and completely embraced me.

I was at once flattered and amazed. I had been told I might only get to see an assistant, Doña Queta was getting up in age and might be frail. But all it took was one look at her to see she was glowing and robust, and in the manner of her many woman of her culture, she was short and stout.

In my broken Spanish I told her of my great sorrow and my inability to stop crying. Later, not wanting to spend all the time talking about myself, I spoke to her of her friends and admirers in New Mexico who had sent me. I asked about her health and after informing me she was quite well, we began. First I was asked to take off my blouse and wristwatch, I kept my bra and slacks on.

Then I was escorted into a small room painted light blue I think with a small altar and candles and incense. It was cool and slightly dim. I became a little chilled.

She took some of the flowers which I had brought her and placed one under each of my feet, then she placed one flower in each hand. She sat beside me in her own chair and began to pray in Spanish. I could tell she was praying to El Senor on my behalf, praying for me to have peace of mind and a comforted heart. At one point she began to swing the sweetest song, it was melodic, a simple tune, but so sweet and pleasant to the ear and quite unlike any tune I had ever heard before.

Doña Queta came around and told me to stay focused on the candles on the altar. Then she picked up a bunch of basil and began to rub my chest with it, rather hard. She robustly rubbed it till my sternum hurt, it was almost becoming uncomfortable when she stopped and instructed me to hold the basil against my chest myself.

Then she stepped behind me. I heard her sing-song chant again as I stared straight ahead into the candlelight, earnestly clutching my basil with tears flowing down my face.

All of a sudden I heard a sort of grunt/shout and a splash of water soaked the back of my head. I levitated out of my chair almost, I was so taken aback, so suddenly.

Then my curandera stepped to the front, took a big swallow of water into her mouth from a plastic bottle and blew it out forcefully all over my body. She did this seven times, behind me, in front of me, to the side of me. She even pulled out the waistband of my slacks  and blew down my pants. My hair and body was drenched by the time she finished.

Once again she came and stood beside me and began to sing and pray on my behalf. Doña Queta is not too tall so as she stood beside me her rather ample bosom was right beside my right ear. I was crying, trying so hard to be in the best, most receptive state I could muster. As her sweet song continued I gave into the overwhelming urge I had to simply bend to the right and lay my head right on her chest. A sob escaped and she merely stroked my head so gently, slowly, just like a mother would comfort a small child. I was quite overcome.

A few moments passed and I raised my head, looked at her in gratitude, then settled my gaze back on the candles. I was warm by now despite how wet my skin and hair were. The prayer song ended and it was indicated to me that our session was over. About 15 or 20 minutes had passed.

I heard Doña Queta go into the next chamber and I could her spitting. She was expunging all the negativity she had absorbed from my spirit.

After sufficient time had passed for me to put my blouse back on and gather up my hat and bag Doña Queta stepped back into the foyer and indicated that I should come into another room. It had two beds in there and I wondered if I was supposed to take a nap after the session or something. But it was what was on the shelves that was so important, the herbal remedies.

I was given floral and herbal tonics for sorrow and emotional distress. About 15 drops from each bottle daily, plus some herbs in a capsule for my general good health. Upon sampling them I decided they must have had a base of mescal as they were definitely of an alcoholic content. I also bought a second book about the curandera. The total came to about $100 US.

So I paid up and asked about the transportation back to town. Doña Queta told me not to worry. What I found so funny and telling and almost fun about my curandera was that as soon as I paid her she was ready to go to town to the market and buy more herbs for her practice. So we both hopped into a cab she called and headed back to downtown Oaxaca.

Doña Queta wished me the best as I stepped out of the cab. I did feel better. I had so appreciated how she had stroked my head and comforted me. I had flashed back to one of the few times in my life that I remembered my mother brushing her cool hand across my heated face one time when I was young and upset.

I went home in a peaceful state of mind. I saw a movie that night that reminded me so much of my friends back in New Mexico. It became very clear to me that night that I wanted to live in Albuquerque, wanted to see my friends there again, be near them again. When I checked my email the next morning, I was told the apartment I had been hoping to get was now available.

All this happened within twelve hours of my meeting Doña Queta. I arrived in Oaxaca completely lost and confused. Within one day of my visit with the curandera my path was laid out before me so clearly and my future became secured.

Beatlick Pamela