Be The Shaman — My First Limpia in Ecuador
I enter the small concrete block shed with several other curiously expectant people in my group. Dark, damp, fragrant flowers, swirling dizziness nearly sweeps me to the dirt floor beneath me. I sit on one of the benches that surround two walls of the small sacred cave-like room. As my eyes adjust to the low light, I make out the altar filled with interesting objects — flowers, plants, bottles of potions, candles, smoking incense and pictures of religious figures. I strip to my underwear, as is the custom when receiving La Limpia. I'm directed to stand on a reed mat in the center of the room. Cold air moves across my body. A loud part of me comes in wanting to protect me from embarrassment or shame as I stand nearly naked in front of the others sitting on the benches while awaiting their turn to receive the cleanse.
Out of seeming nowhere the Adam & Eve story comes to mind...the part where they're in the garden naked and first feel shame. The thought vaporizes in an instant as I arrive back in present time. I take the white candle offered to me and roll it all over my body. When finished, I’m told to light it, drip wax on the altar and place it there.
Reading the candle, Don José tells me that I have a strong heart, good spirit and I'm peaceful but, I have a "bad" spirit that gets in the way and blocks me.
"You will live a long life, yes... you have a long life ahead of you,” he continues.."You've had much trouble in your life." Then he asks me, loudly "Do you want love?”
I sense the others in the room looking up at me simultaneously. "Yes!" I reply, startled.
He shakes his head and looks piercingly into my eyes and says more forcefully, "Do. You. Want. Love?"
And I reply, with considerably more conviction and volume, "YES!!!”
He instructs me to think of love and the love I want the entire time during my healing as he begins the Limpia swating me with his green branches, blowing Trago (spirit water) and fire. The searing heat of the flash of fire over my skin transports me out again to an experience from another time and place of being burned at the stake. Joan of Arc in the square. More trago sprayed from his mouth all over my body bring me back once again to present time...More fire...aqua floridas quence the heat...aromas soothe, plantas verdes slap, slap, slap. Strong very strong.
Tears fall from my cheeks to the ground.
"Love, I do want love...I love...I AM love…"
Eggs, wind, blowing, smoke, whistles, flowers, Bucket of water with flower pedals poured on top of my head. Shockingly cold. Shivering. I feel my breath suddenly burst from my lungs out into the air. Gasping and Shivering now..."I WANT LOVE...I AM LOVE”.
It ends with a whistle from his ocarina bringing my spirit fully back into my body. I open my eyes to meet Don José who looks straight into them with what I can only describe as love. He nods his head gently, "Buena muy buena." We embrace as I complete my first La Limpia with Taita Yachak Don José Joaquin Pineda, a fifth-generation Ecuadorian Kichwa shaman, of the Sacred 24 Yachaks Circle of Imbabura.
Thus begins my first journey to Ecuador with many yet to come.
Taita Yachak Don José Joaquin Pineda
