Curanderismo classes with Dona Estela Ramon
Doña Estela Roman, Curandera from Cuernavaca
Director of International Center for Cultural and Language Studies Cuernavaca, Morelos Mexico
Estela Roman has actively been involved in the promotion and preservation of traditional medicine/ancestral practices in her community Temixco, Morelos Mexico. When she was nineteen she helped organize women’s groups for community training on basic health care. She came from a traditional family of 12 children and her grandmother and other relatives were well known for practicing traditional methods of healing using techniques of massage, herbal medicine, spiritual purification or limpias. She carries on a passion to serve the community and has pursued investigation of best practices and modalities to work in her community and other places where
she has been invited. She majored in Sociology at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and earned her degree at the age of 30. Estela believes in formal education and hands on experience. She has dedicated to work full time as a social worker and activist in the region where she lives. She has a Master’s degree in International Peace Studies from the International Institute for Peace Studies at the University of Norte Dame. She was granted a full time scholarship as a peace scholar due to her work in the community and outstanding academic achievement.
Estela will facilitate three “platicas” conversations at The Birthing Project, 1900 T Street, Sacramento. You are invited to join us.
April 20, Sunday 2-6 pm Aires de los cosmos
(cosmic energies/entities; non-organic to the human body)
$50/person
April 21, Monday 7-9pm The Sacred Four Directions and Prayer
$30/person
April 22 – Tuesday 6-8pm Aires de la Tierra (earth energies/entities)
$30/person
Space limited to 20 people per platica. To register contact Carmen Hernandez at Carmen.hernandez@comcast.net or (916) 730-1623.
And, Sponsored by the UC Davis Chicana/Latina Research Center
Thursday April 24 5-7pm, Free
Indigenous Sexuality, Our Medicine and The Care of
Restoration of our Bodies using Ancient Techniques
(Food will be provided) HIA Conference Room – SSH 5214
Social Science and Humanities Building, on the 5th floor, UC Davis Campus
Ohlone Healing Center, Berkeley
Curanderismo Lecture: Friday April 18th from 7:30-9:30 PM $20
Workshop on Los Aires; Saturday April 19th from 1:00-5:00 PM; $60
SPACE LIMITED: RSVP & deposit to save a space. 510-540-8010
If you would like a personal appt with Estela contact Liz Swan at 916/479-5386.
Contact Trudy 323-3089 if you have any questions or would like to schedule a platica.
More on the Sacred Fire
Apela has uploaded another video to youtube of her talking about the Sacred Fire Ceremony on March 21st. The lighting is a little eerie, it’s like she is talking from the Spirit World. She says some very important things about the meaning of the ceremony:
“40,000 years ago, the ancestors built the sacred fire. They built this fire with great power & great purpose. They built it in such a way that we, their descendants would awaken in the right time and reignite the sacred fire to remember our relationships with each other and to remember our sacred relationship with the Earth.”
Herbalism as a Radical Act
I had a conversation with someone tonight about why I am an herbalist. Many reasons- like it’s cool to be able to recognize the plants that grow around me and to be able to make my own medicine from roots, leaves, seeds and barks. And I love to touch, smell and taste the herbs. There is also a very radical reason I love being an herbalist. I am learning how to rely on nature as my medicine chest and breaking the American dependence on the pharmaceutical industrial complex. Drugs are a big business. On the other hand, Mother Earth gives freely & generously of her medicines (as long as we take care of the plants & the earth, but that’s another story). Herbs can never be patented and made into a big profit. Herbal remedies are non-toxic to the environment and to our bodies. On the other hand, the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals is very toxic to our environment. After you take a medication, your body metabolizes it; then you pee out the waste into the toilet. Water from your toilet flows into the groundwater and pollutes it.
Also, 90% of pharmaceutical drugs are composed of petrochemicals. That means our dependence on/ addiction to oil extends into our systems of health care. What happens to the prices of drugs when we don’t have enough oil? They go up and up and up; and these medications become too expensive and completely inaccessible to most people. Already, the cost of drugs is too expensive for many.
Plants have been here on planet earth for 370 million years. Our human ancestors only arrived on the scene 367 millions of years later. As long as humans have walked on earth, they have relied upon plants, our ancestors for food, shelter, and medicine. All of our ancestors have rich traditions of healing with herbs. The way our culture is today, so heavily reliant on chemical based drug therapies, is a result of a calculated effort by the AMA and the pharmaceutical industries. We are taught to fear plants, not to trust their efficacy. People in the US don’t want to try to use an herb unless it has been proven in a scientific study. For some reason, hundreds of years of traditional use by our grandmothers doesn’t count. If you visit another country where herbal medicine is still part of the fabric of the culture, you may realize, as I did, that we are brainwashed here in the US.
When we learn about herbal medicine, we learn to take health care into our own hands. When we learn to grow our own medicine, we feel empowered. We learn that we can be responsible for our own health. We reconnect to the traditions of our ancestors who used plants for food, medicine, ceremonies and celebrations.
Also, this close relationship with plants brings us back into a connection with the earth. As we grow our herbs we learn to take care of the Earth, who so graciously provides these medicines.
One dictionary definition of radical is: “or from the root or roots; going to the foundation or source of something”. Herbal medicine not only brings us back to the literal roots of the plants; it brings us back to the root of our real nature as human beings. Our true human nature which is aware of its interconnectedness to the web of life and lives with reverence and respect for all living things.
Link to Sacred Fire Website
Apela Colorado now has a website dedicated to the Sacred Fire on March 21st. Check it out:
OneSacredFire.org
Healers from all over the world will be joining together in this ceremony, including Zulu High Sanusi, Baba Credo Mutwa in South Africa, and Tata Yawanawa from Brazil.
Here’s an excerpt from the site:
An Invitation to Light Your Sacred Fire and
Renew the Earth March 22, 2008
“In reigniting this fire in Kyrgyzstan, its leaders will stand in the last location that the people of the earth stood together as a single community of humanity, 40,000 years ago. By supporting this ceremony with your simultaneous global fires, this event will powerfully re-create the single community of humanity.
The ceremony’s ability to spark remembrance is exponentially enhanced through global participation; the more of us participate, the more fuel is created to feed this sacred fire.”
Buffalo Messenger- Restoring Peoples and Earth to Health
I was excited to find a video by an Aleut elder and spiritual teacher of mine, Ilarion Mercuelieff on YouTube. He talks about the epidemic of diabetes in the Native American communities and how it can be addressed through natural methods. I think the most important thing he says is at the end of the video, where he talks about the prophecies of these times and what is happening to Mother Earth, and to our own bodies:
Iliaron says, during these times, “Mother Earth is waking up from a great, deep sleep. And as She does, her vibration goes up. And for those who cannot maintain in their bodies a mirror of what Mother Earth is doing and waking up themselves, they are not going to be here very much longer…..
……and the Elders say we can’t give the world anything we don’t have ourselves, and so if we’re here to restore our cultures, restore our way of life, restore our communities back to health and restore Mother Earth back to health, we’ve got to start first with ourselves.”
Sacred Fire on March 21st for Ancestral Remembrance
Apela Colorado, my elder & mentor, recently came back from her travels with a message from spiritual elders in Central Asia. Circle of Ancestors sponsored an evening lecture with Dr. Colorado last November. We taped her talk and have posted part of it on youtube so the word can get out about the Sacred Fire ceremonies to take place this year on March 21st.
Circle of Ancestors
onesacredfire.org
Herbs as Spiritual Allies Class Starts February 2008
I’m excited to be teaching a class that brings together my two passions, indigenous mind & herbal medicine. My intention is to create a space for personal exploration & connection with plants based on the tenets of indigenous science. We all come from indigenous people who practiced plant-based spiritual healing traditions. For some people, these traditions are alive or in recent memory; for others these traditions have been lost & buried for thousands of years. But the memory of these healing ways and working with plants on a spiritual level lives deep in our cellular memory. My prayer is that this class can be a place to reawaken these memories and these healing gifts so that they may flourish once again on Mother Earth.
The class will be a place for personal healing (“Healer, heal thyself”) and for the development & training of healers who wish to incorporate the spiritual medicine of plants into their work.
Sacred Datura, One of My Favorite Plants
