In Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, a young Layla Navarro travels with her mother to a faraway village to have her fortune told. This excerpt detailing her meeting with the shaman and his reading on her future was not included in Book 1 in the trilogy.
Sierra Occidental Madre Mountains
Even Layla had a divination as a child; she was ten at most. She remembered her mother dragging her to a pueblo even poorer than Valle del Gatos where she grew up. It was a long journey as they traveled by bus, seemingly for-ever. Was it a Nahuatl divination? She couldn't remember for sure.
The bus dropped them a kilometer from the plaza. As they arrived at the pueblo, her mother stopped a curious-looking old woman, back hunched from years of labor, who carefully watched them as they walked into el centro, little more than a patch of cleared ground without a single tree, surrounded by a handful of scruffy huts.
"La casa de Don Cuauhetemoc?" her mother inquired.
The crone pointed across the square to a stick hut set apart from the others.
As they neared it an old man with long white hair wearing a faded wool poncho emerged. He seemed energized at the sight of them. A smile ap- peared on his well-lined face.
"Por fin," he said as her mother approached him. "You have brought her at last."
"Si," her mother answered, her hand firmly grasping her daughter's.
Don Cuauhtémoc ushered them into the hut and asked that they be seated. He went out the back opening where a smoky fire smoldered over an outdoor pit—his kitchen—and rummaged around for several minutes while he pre-pared an aromatic herbal tea that he brought inside. The shaman handed them each a steaming glass.
They exchanged small talk. The girl tuned in and out as she stared at the humble home with dirt floors, twig walls. The man was unbelievably poor. Who was he?
Layla would never forget what happened next. Both adults looked at her and small talk ended. There was a long silence. Don Cuauhétmoc shifted his gaze to her, smiled, walked over and asked her to stand. As she did so he bowed his head and put both hands on top of hers. He let out a long low hum. Her mother sat in the background, observing.
Don Cuauhtémoc left her standing there and moved to one side of the hut where a rectangular table sat. He spread a clean cloth over it. From a corner he brought out a vessel that contained copal, a musky incense, and lit it. He waited a moment as the fire took hold and smoke appeared. A pungent smell crept through the small hut. Rummaging again in his special corner, he pulled out a bag that contained his diving paraphernalia and placed it in the center of the table. The shaman then sat at the table on a low stool. He planted both feet firmly on the hut's earthen floor and closed his eyes. With palms facing upwards, one on each knee, he opened his body to the cosmos. For several moments Don Cuauhetemoc sat transfixed. When he opened his eyes, he asked Layla to sit directly across from him on an adjacent stool.
 |
| Burning Copal |
"Pardon my sin, God; pardon my sin, Earth," Don Cuauhtémoc said in a low voice, eyes again closed as he held the divining bag and continued. "Allow me to borrow the breath of this day, today, to make this divination."
He opened his eyes and stared at young Layla for a long time. It seemed as if his mind was made up. His question emerged. "How will this girl's life unfold?
Silence.
"I am now borrowing the breath, the cold, the wind, the cloud, the mist at the rising sun of the east, at the setting sun of the west, four corners of the sky to the south, four corners of the Earth to the north.
"On this holy and sacred day I am taking these seeds and these crystals."
He continued his liturgy, calling upon volcanoes, lakes, rivers and all the world's natural resources. His long invocation was spoken at times in a muted tone, sometimes in a robust one. In closing, he beckoned to white sheet lightning, a bizarre natural phenomenon, and begged a response to his directive.
Having summoned the cosmos and borrowed its breath and lightning, the diviner began to untie his divining bag. An exotic smell escaped as he emptied the blend of crystals and seeds onto the table, mixing them together in a counter-clockwise direction with his right hand.
With his left hand he took the seeds and spread them around the crystals. At this time he called upon his ancestors, asking for advice on this simply stated question.
Only twigs crackling in the outdoor fire pit broke the silence.
Don Cuauhtémoc stopped and blew into his right hand and grabbed as many crystals and seeds as he could. He placed the handful aside and pushed the remainder towards the right side of the table, separating seeds and crystals into groups.
"Come, Lord, you are being spoken to," he announced in a reverential tone.
He bowed his head in contemplation for some time, slowly nodding back and forth. After what seemed an eternity to small Layla, the shaman opened his eyes. He moved the main crystals closer to the girl now with his left hand and said, "The answer is this: The woman is coming."
Layla's mother, silent until this moment, let out a sigh, apparently satisfied with the outcome. As for Layla, the endeavor mystified her and she had no idea what it meant.
Since her mother looked confident, she felt it was a good omen and the long journey to the dusty pueblo succeeded in offering some form of solace for their lengthy travels.
If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.
