I have been thinking a lot about my family and mysticism. As a child, whenever anyone of us--my brother, sister, and myself--would get sick, my mother would come up with some strange mestizo concoction from her herbal medical corner in the kitchen. Internally, I would always wonder about the validity and potency of my mother's remedies. I wouldn't know if it was my youthful immunity, rest, a miracle, or the actual herbal remedy itself that eventually made me feel better. In the end, I really never gave my mother's curandera medicine any real credit for my wellness.
My relatives, on the other hand, would travel from all over California to have my mother 'heal' them. Uncles, Aunts, and cousins would ask my mother to cure anything from pink eye to herbal messages--I think that my mother even gave one of my cousin's stitches before because he decided to use his face as a baseball mitt. Afterwards, when my relatives would leave for the evening, I would always give my mother a hard time about giving people medical help and advice. Instead of getting upset, I remember my mother, with English heavily laced with a Spanish accent, telling me, 'mira mijo, people come to me because they know me and have faith that what I do may work for them.'
She could've sat down everyday, after every visit, while having people visibly improve, and I would still be unconvinced. I was unconvinced. Ever since that time, I would unconsciously detached myself from my Mexican culture, as it pertained to Curanderismo. I would detach myself from my relatives when this mystical subject would come up during a family discussion. It came to the point that my family wouldn't even bring it up in front of me. They were unable to talk about the 'C' word when I was around. It wasn't until I opened up to alternative medince--I guess, more specifically, started to due some research--I started to see the validity to herbal remedies. However, I still have told my mother that yet--I don't want her to gloat just yet.
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