Curanderismo is a 500-year-old traditional healing practice that is still in existence today. It is influenced by Spanish, indigenous Mexican, the Moors, West African, and Native American traditional healing practices, and is a result of the blending of these cultures during colonization. In my community, many of our grandmothers, and grandfathers, and aunties, and mothers are all curanderas. They might not introduce themselves as such, but our community recognizes them, depending on what their area of expertise is. In my culture we have always been taught that you are not a curandera until your community acknowledges you as one. It took me 23 years before my community of elders felt that I was ready. In 2018, after decades of continuous learning, my teachers and elders said, “You know what? We recognize you as a curandera, it’s time for you to address yourself that way.” I was already teaching workshops and working with people as an herbalist, but finally I could say, “I am a curandera.”
My Grandma Chiquita (what we called my maternal great-grandmother) sparked my passion for medicine making. She lived to be 94, and I got to know her until I was 13, when she passed on. She was this little tiny grandmother, so we called her Grandma Chiquita, and she was the anchor to our family. She was so knowledgeable. I love her story—on her birth record it says she was born in the Territory of New Mexico of Mexico and when she passed away the death record says she passed on in the United States, but she always lived in the same place; she never moved anywhere. Her story just shows that the landscape and the borders may change, but our elders have been there for generations and generations. They were practicing their ancestral medicine-making the whole time and their medicines were vital and strong.
My grandmother was born in Tijeras Canyon in New Mexico, near the Sandia Mountains. She was very curious and knowledgeable about the plants of the area; I believe she was naturally gifted with healing hands. In my family, we all have vivid memories of her massaging us with different salves. She was in her 90s and she had the hands of a wrestler because she was so strong. She was just this little tiny grandmother with so much healing energy. She was constantly praying for people and providing herbal remedies.
She only spoke Spanish and as children we weren’t allowed to speak Spanish, so oftentimes I didn’t understand exactly what she was saying, but I understood her all the same. I think that’s how all of the grandchildren and great grandchildren were; we understood her even without completely understanding what she was saying. And I am so grateful because I followed her, literally followed her on the hills near Pecos, New Mexico, with a paper bag. She would collect herbs and I would carry them in that paper bag for her.
There was a box, a wooden box of Grandma Chiquita’s herbs that she had given to her daughter, my grandmother. And then my grandmother gave it to my mother, and my mother let me take some of the herbs from the box. I remember opening this box and there was immortelle root (Helichrysum italicum), osha root (Lingusticum porteri), all of these roots in there. And I felt like they were just as strong as when she put the herbs in there. It was like the moment I opened it, her essence flew from the box. It was so amazing. I actually keep a little piece of root from that box of her herbs in a hat I wear, just to always remind me that this is the path I’m on.
In my book, Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes, and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera, I tell a story of one of my teachers who years ago told me that intention is everything. I really held onto those words of wisdom. When I wrote my book—and I am feeling this again now—it felt natural to make sure I began with intention for my readers: So as with everything, I started with an intention:
“My intention… is to remind those who read [this] that we are all healers connecting with a higher source, our ancestors, and our inner lights. I pray all are divinely guided as they work with the medicines of water, air, earth, and fire. I pray that heart spaces open wide and feel the energy these medicines hold, and I hope gratitude is given daily to them for their gifts and helping us keep harmony within our beings.”
People sometimes ask me about the formula that I use to create and release my intentions. I feel like some of my best ideas come from my morning walks. I go for a walk every day. Movement has always been a major part of my wellness, and so whether I am doing my walk or practicing Tai Chi, I like gentle movement in the morning. And sometimes on my morning walk, as I'm setting my intentions, I'll get an idea, or I may arrive at an answer and I kind of let it go on my walk and flow with my movement. Sometimes I love just writing my intention down, whether it's a goal, or a dream, or a prayer for someone else. I pay attention to whatever feels like it ignites my intention, whatever feels natural to me, organic in that moment. And then I settle into my day.
In Earth Medicines, I drew on the powers of water, air, earth, and fire for the recipes and rituals. I think that all people, no matter what culture they come from, have a connection to the elements. Every culture has water, air, earth, and fire in them. It’s not necessarily in their religion, and the day-to-day can overshadow the actual rituals that underlie all of the little things that we do. Something as simple as the act of blowing out a birthday candle, making a wish on a little flame. To me that has roots somewhere. How did that begin? People don't even think about the fact that we're working with the elements every day. The elements are the origins of everything. They are in every nook and cranny.
When I began writing my book, I knew only that I was going to start with water because water is where we start in the womb and I felt like I was birthing something new with this book. The element of water was a natural place to begin. My father passed away shortly after I wrote the water chapter. Air, for me, very much represents our ancestors—their essence and energy goes out into the air—so I decided to write the air chapter next. And then I found myself wanting to really get grounded and rooted, and so I wrote for the earth. And then I was like, okay I'm releasing this book out into the universe. I had written entries about working with fire to ignite your passions, your desires, your goals, all of those things. So fire became the last chapter.
Normally, I am very cautious to make sure I honor my lineage of curanderismo. The path I follow is the Mexica way. Our directions always begin in the east and for us the direction of the east is fire, but I didn't feel comfortable starting the book with fire, and I'm so glad I didn’t. I followed my intuition, which is what I tell people; follow your own gut.
Each of the chapters is organized according to the elements and begins with a prayer for each one. This is a prayer to the earth:
“Nourishing, grounding, and precious earth. You are the wise mother to all that lives upon your back. Your unconditional love supports me and keeps me rooted. When I feel disharmony your constant guidance can be sensed by simply standing on your being. I honor and thank you for allowing me to embody your spirit through your earth medicines and ask you to forgive us humans for not caring for you as we should. May we see ourselves in every living being and may we heal you as you continue to heal us.”
When I was a little girl, I loved writing stories. Moving into adulthood, I realized I was always a storyteller and I brought that into my work helping people relate to whatever it was they were learning at the time. I feel sometimes like an indigenous Forrest Gump, like I’ve had so many random experiences over the course of my now 50 years that they seem unbelievable. I now embrace the fact that I am an Indigenous Mexican, Spanish, and Tewa curandera, healer, and writer, but it took me a lot of time to understand this.
You know, this path of healing that I’m on incorporates western ways brought via colonization as well as indigenous ones. Sometimes when people hear I am a curandera, they think I only work with the indigenous plants of my area. Even though that might be an area of expertise for me, I still embrace some of the other plants that were also passed down through my lineage and my culture because of colonization. When the conquistadores arrived, they also brought with them beautiful medicines. What I have been taught is that the plants are everyone’s medicine. It matters how you’re using them. They need to be respected as they are foraged, wildcrafted, and gathered. They need to be prayed upon. These are the amazing things that help with our relationship with the plants. Using the plants of the colonizers was very healing for me. I thought to myself, wow, maybe 500 years ago, there was someone else’s Grandma Chiquita, somewhere in the Iberian Peninsula using these medicines. And even though I, as an indigenous person, am healing from all the acts of genocide, I feel a beautiful connection to those grandmother healers and I am grateful that their medicines survived. Our indigenous grandmothers also saw their value.
I think Black and Brown people in this country have endured a lot and there is a lot to come to terms with in regard to colonization and decolonization. There is so much work that we’re putting in to make ourselves feel whole and this has really been difficult for many people. We’re breaking generational trauma with our healing ways and I hope the next generation can embrace this with more ease. I wish for the next generation of herbalists coming up that they can embrace all parts of themselves, including the colonization and those shadow parts of society and humanity that are really difficult to embrace. A big part of my book is making sure that we all recognize that we were all healers.
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