Happy New Year from a man  who accepts that "new" isn't necessarily any different than the old.  I hope all my loved ones roll into new perspectives.  So I am wishing those who surround me a Happy New Perspective.  This seems to be when life becomes really interesting.   I am thankful for so much this year, but there a day in November for that.  I feel full of love, but there is a day in February for that.  I am grateful for all the gifts in my life, and there was a day for that, it just passed.  So I feel upside down.  I have nothing to write about.  No worries that motivate the creative words.  My Family is well, my friends are well, my lifestyle is well, and my habits are well.  There is no good byes left unsaid.  This New Year isn't leading to much newness just a continuation of fullness.  Love is a powerful perspective.  It makes good byes understandable.  When applied to self it makes the future as valuable as the past.  So there is not necessarily an old year, but I can wish you a blessed New Year.  Bessos and Be Good!

Reflexion Dos: I am a human, disguised as Latino

Dear Elena and Veronica,

I left you for three weeks this summer to be curious.  I came to Mexico because when I was your age I called myself Mexican.  I called myself Mexican because it helped me be accepted into groups that seemed more accepting, similar, and understanding of me.  As an adult I am challenging myself to uncover the realities undiscovered from carelessly calling myself Mexican.  Being a counselor has helped me grow and trust my curiosity.  Today as a mental health professional I felt compelled to see what healing means in the Mexican identity.  I found Curanderismo.  I have spent a lot of time discerning what it means for me to have called myself Mexican and with it I have encountered a humanistic style of healing that Latinos call Curanderismo.

The curiosity for Mexico is tied to my desire to replenish the decreased connection we have to our traditions, especially the healing qualities.  I hope to be a productive member of our community, ethnicity, and humanity.  The pull to Mexico is around the imbalance teetering ethnic peoples towards poverty, particularly discrimination for Mexicans.  The motivation for this trip is the shrinking visibility for our ties to Mexican traditions that our grandparents relied on.  This investigation is a way for me to learn how to address the distinction between being New Mexican and Mexican while also enhancing my perspectives on wellness.  There is also a hope to decrease the disparity between those that have access to healing and others left to endure without medicines or wellness.  This trip is serving my need to become a better counselor and enhance my identity.

Over the years my declared Mexican heritage meshed into my identity and served me, but now I am beginning to see how it limits me.  It is a piece of an identity I have worn.  My identity has been a way to distinguish myself from some, align with others, and declare to many who I think I am.  I am excited to share with you that the curiosity for and exposure to other cultures is giving me understanding of how identities can be binding, adaptable and living.

I came to Mexico to learn more about an ancient and traditional form of healing called Curanderismo.  There are numerous types of curanderos.  Along with the many types, are the unique styles that each curandero can have, like a fingerprint.  Curanderismo is a way of healing that requires the use of four elements, fire, water, plants, and air.  It is a form of medicine that incorporates knowledge, trust, and instinct.  It is a form of medicine that connects divine uncertainty with intricate insight into observable cures.  It is a magical demonstration of how nature provides the elements and energies to ensure our bodies function appropriately.  Curanderismo is more about being connected to wellness and symbiosis than it is to being Mexican.

I came to Mexico to witness aspects of how Curanderismo is used.  I came with hopes of learning more about a community of health care professionals that functioned off the grid.  The grid being for profit, providing an alternative motivation I like to think of as, for passion.  This trip has allowed me to indulge in the spectrum of my own illnesses.  I feel like I am walking away with acceptance that Curanderismo is not a panacea.  What I witnessed cannot be encapsulated by words, because what happened during my trip was cosmic.  How do you put cosmic into words?

I feel like I can only hint at what Curanderismo is.  Curanderismo is the attention to harmony.  Curanderismo is the practices and aspires for an ultimate respect for others.  If Jesus Christ were to come back I believe he would smile at the lifestyle of the Curandero.  If Buddha were to stumble across a Curandera he would likely smile.  There seems to be a grace from what I see as divinity that shines on the practices of Curanderismo.  The experiences I had from the cleansings called Limpias, messages called Sobrados, and sweat session in a Temezcal, helps me see the nature of healing. It helps me connect with what seems to be the universal and primal desire to live.  There also are aspects that can be pragmatic and even scientific.

The practical components to Curanderismo that make up this attention to harmony are the pedagogy, techniques, and its social ability.  Curanderismo has not found its way into the colonial form of teaching.  There is not a formal curriculum like in contemporary healing practices.  It is taught generationally from an elder to a youth.  Usually, a curandero will see the gift of healing in a person and an invitation will be presented to them.  The process is not a vocation.  Curanderismo is a gift and choice to pursue the learning necessary to share the individual’s gift with the world.

The learning is by immersion.  The student is a mentee. The lessons are a legacy of plant knowledge combined with techniques to bring together the Devine, the patient, an altar, and elements.  The gathering of plants is an art in itself.  Special attention to the dignity of the plant is taught to ensure a dignified respect for the plants life and contribution to its destined healing.  The healing process is encapsulated by a special technique geared uniquely to address an ailment.  The Curandero and their mentees recite a pattern, a choreographed ritual, stirring energy, in trust that healing will happen.

The ritual is the technique and so are the Curanderos prescriptions.  The unification of the sickened with the prescribed elements is orchestrated by the curandero in an ancient set of intentional steps.  There is intense intimacy with a call for gratitude.  This is a prayer, an intention, or request for concentration.  The ingredients for healing are unified.  The air is made visible with incents.  The plants are made permeable.  The fluids are intoxicating and diffused by the curandero to be applied completely, covering all areas.  The body becomes grounded into the floor and body alignment is necessary so that energy flows without obstacles or impediment.  The process is the doctor, the healer, the medicine, and the science.

The social science is in the generational observations that help communities learn and teach the effects that surrounding plants have on wellness.  The tradition transcends culture and becomes the formula.  The idea of Curanderismo seen as a gift is the harmony and respect that creates ecosystems.  The intimacy and connection between participants shows that there is social science in the application.  The patient and the Curandero are crossing the belief in individualism to share energy.  The experience seems to conduct a transfer of medicine in the form of minerals, chemicals, fluids, inhalants, poetry of words leading to thoughts being converted to neuro transmissions, and lastly the discharge of barriers to relief.

That is a summary of what I can describe.  There is so much to share.  The plant knowledge can be lifetime of learning.  The rituals require commitment for learning.  The Practice is a powerful responsibility that should be performed under careful observation and supervision.  The final piece of the process, I can describe.

I am altered.  I gained insight into areas of my identity that can heal, need healing, be shared, and clarity for what I can pursue to nurture a better me.  I am validating ideas around healing and illness that feel foreign.  Professionally they seem marginalized.  Despite the lack of knowledge and familiarity, I recognize I have a talent for sensing these ideas.

The ideas I have seem like artifacts and waypoints left by ancestors, tucked away in passages, that they expected me to cross.  I once felt a strong anger that these ideas were perceived to lack value in the modern world.  I had bitterness that the world and technologies were depreciating them.  I encountered a heavy discouragement, but most importantly, I found hope for these lessons during my time in Oaxaca.

Before finding my path into the mental health world I was constantly being told who I should be. I felt like I was being corralled into how I should participate in the world.  Most things I was taught I believed to be concrete.  I had emptiness because people that looked like me rarely had answers to my question.  How come the world is unfair in too many places?  How come health is a luxury?  What is my worth?  With the encounters I am having with Curanderismo, my questions are coming to life, becoming visible, and at a pace that is letting me absorb.

The ideas I am describing are still formulating in my thoughts.  This paper gives me a great opportunity to organize them.  The curanderos have taught me that healing comes through my senses.  I take my medicine through the senses.  Some raw ideas can be that what I hear feeds my thoughts.  What I see heightens my understanding of reality.  What I touch connects me.  What I taste I consume and becomes me.  The aromas around me inform me of where I am and what surrounds me.  My thoughts and ideas are valuable and need to be shared.  

Because of this visit, its experiences, and training I am expanding my definition of illness and even considering defining my own.  My medicine is in my curiosity.  What I need to heal is revealed in my fears.  I don't have to take classes for pedagogy of lessons that are as rampant as the rain or as accessible as the seasons.  I don't have to earn my spot, apply, and hope I can participate.  I am capable of healing.  I can be responsible with power.  I will be respectful of fears.  I will guide you and teach what you want to learn.  This is an invitation.  There is no obligation to be healed or to learn to heal.  It will always be here, waiting like a flower to be smelled, touched, admired, possibly tasted, and listened to.  I wish for you to investigate your contribution and consumptions.  I ask that you learn balance and trust.

You are loved!  

Be good