These days, the hillsides that circle
the San Nicolas basin grow lusher every day, drinking in the rains
that are finally feeding us. The papaya tree in our back yard has
grown at least three feet in the last month, and when we look up to
the bowl of mountains that surround us, everything is emerald.
In a place like this, so bursting with
life just waiting for expression, the earth itself sometimes seems
alive. Everything – people, animals, plants – seem to be
connected by tiny veins of life. And as we are learning, this sort of
belief in a cosmic world is something of a tradition here. Many
people in this area strongly believe that humans can attune
themselves to the natural world and, in doing so, can work with
nature for their mutual benefit. Here are a few of the ways that
people do this.
Planting
According to several local farmers,
crops planted under a new moon or luna tierna (tender moon)
will be less successful. The danger period is from the day before the
new moon begins until three days after it begins. Crops planted
during this time, many farmers claim, won't flourish like crops
planted at any other time. One friend of ours, Toño, believes that
this is only true for leafy crops like lettuce. Another friend,
Marlon (who is a highly educated farmer and veterinarian), always
postpones planting until at least three days after the new moon.
Water
During the drought earlier this year,
one of the most common topics of conversation was water. Everyone
wanted to know whether you had it, and if so, how you got it. One way
that people find water around here is with a divining wire. Not
everyone has the touch, but people who have a strong connection to
the earth can use this wire to find wells under the ground. Padre
Patricio, the Italian Catholic priest for this municipality, is one
such person. Padre Patricio holds the u-shaped wire at his waist,
with a hand on each end of the wire, his hands poised at his hips. He
slowly turns in a circle, asking at each turn, “Is the water in
this direction?” When the wire floats up of its own accord, you
know that the water source is in that direction. With subsequent
questions you can find out depth, gallons per second, and size.
Medicine
Doña Victoria, the woman who used to
work in the natural medicine clinic in front of our house, has the
closest ties to nature of almost anyone else we've met here. Walking
along a dirt road, she can point out the names and medicinal uses of
almost every plant that lines the road. She also has a special
technique for diagnosing ailments, using bio-energy analysis. We
visited her last week with some friends who were visiting us. We sat
in her living room while she showed us the shelves of natural
remedies covering one wall, with herbs for coughs and kidney
infections and almost any other kind of ailment you can think of.
To diagnose what medicine our friend
Elise needed, Doña Victoria put a bag of some kind of herbs in her
lap. She told Elise to put her thumb and forefinger together and try
not to let Doña Victoria pry them apart. When she wasn't able to pry
them apart, this meant that those herbs were not the medicine Elise
needed. Next she put a natural lotion in Elise's lap, and this time,
when she tried to separate Elise's fingers, she could do it. Elise
needed the lotion, she said, for her mosquito bites. Somehow, Doña
Victoria claims, the body instinctively knows what remedies it needs
and unconsciously receives the natural energies from those remedies
when presented with them.
While we're not totally convinced that
these cosmic techniques are always completely accurate, there is an
undeniable beauty in these ideas. The fact that these kinds of
beliefs have existed in traditional societies all over the world for
hundreds of years also lends them a certain amount of credibility and
respect. We're interested to know more about these ideas though; if
you know anything about any of them, leave us a comment!
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