Recently I read an article in a local newspaper, and looked at the accompanying photograph. It was about an event for a large group of adolescents with cancer here in the Republic of Panama. Upon understanding the material presented it was like being hit by an enormous wave of mixed feelings ranging from anger, to despair, to a sense of urgency for people to learn to think with their hearts instead of the falsehoods that have been placed in their minds.

The children of which the article was about were invited to a theatre of live actors, and then were treated with food from McDonalds and candy. In the photograph one could clearly see two mothers who are Native American Embera. So many things raced in my mind making me need to slow down, to write this down.

The irony of women born into a culture of people who are renowned healers killing their kids with junk food, and sugar,  was like a sucker punch that caught me off guard. This cultural genocide has condemned their children while propagating the commercial advancement businesses that thrive on the suffering of our people, of all people.

My wife the healer, a woman of knowledge, my closest friend, and spiritual advisor, tells me it is so difficult to move forwards in a right way in these times as so many of us have lost faith in God. This is my dilemma in that my own faith drives me on in spite of whatever difficulty, but of course it is not me at all. In the prayer of these words our Creator has left His mark. Please read on letting this prayer share with you a bit about the life we lead in our home.

My family is a clan of Native American Embera healers. At the time this is written we have three patients living with us in the way of traditional medicine, and many others who come to be treated, and continue their treatments and recuperation at home. They need to regularly come over to receive medicines, and keep up the communication by cell phone so that my wife can give them any needed instructions that may come about.

It is the patients who live with us that are more immersed in this medicine way that succeeds where modern medicine does not. A young mother with full blown AIDS, and her infant son, in the time that they have spent here has been like passing from night to day. She has gained healthy weight along with a return to her youthful energy levels, while her son is parasite free, eating healthy for the first time. He has also been changing his dysfunctional behavior into the angelic playfulness of a happy boy.

What is so disturbing is now this young woman feels compelled to leave our home. She has been offered a job back where she has been living with her extended family. The father who raped her, the mother who did nothing along with the rest of her family members, are waiting her return in anticipation of her first paycheck. Her new boyfriend and ex husband who she has been stringing along are also.

This woman has been told many times, has hopefully come to understand, that one must honor their parents, but that she needs to separate herself, and her son, from her families parasitic behaviors. She has also been instructed not to have sexual relations during the entire time of her recuperation which could be up to a year. Now that she and her son are leaving our home we pray that she will be able to do this. Most of my empathy is with the boy. Her son is a miracle child, and a joy to be around. Now that he is going back into a nest of sin all that he will have is our prayers, and the time he has spent here with his mom.

In a previous blog is mentioned a medical doctor who brought us a cancer patient in the last stages of her illness. She got to coming over almost on a daily basis to receive poultices, and medicinal baths, in addition to a botanical remedy my wife prepares that through our Creators will cures cancer. Basically cancer is won through faith, and discipline to act with the proper diet to weaken the cancer, and botanical medicine to heal. This is a process of transformation both physically, and spiritually.

Modern meds, and recreational drugs, offer or promise immediate results further leading our intelligence, or training our expectations away from the truth. A plant that is good is taken over time, healing takes time. It is like the saying that if you want to be fast you must practice slow; conversely those things whether plants, or drugs, that give us an immediate boost are bad for us.

Back to our cancer patient; she was doing splendidly. Her night time pain had shifted to the day which is good. She was in good spirits, walking well, and with energy. Yes, she had pain in the day, but this can be managed with prayer, will power, with the right botanical remedies for that purpose, and placing your attention elsewhere while maintaining as much of a normal lifestyle as possible.

What happened is that, as we were not home one weekend, someone in her family decided to apply a chemical patch for pain. The result was that she slept all weekend long losing vital elements of energy in her blood, and also becoming very depressed. This caused her to become bedridden, lose her appetite for food, while falling deeper into depression. Even before this one of her sisters had mentioned to me that she wanted to try something called transfer factor on her sister cancer patient. My words to this sister were more or less along these lines: If you don’t know how to cure cancer, and you trust in someone who does, what makes you want to experiment, and to do this without consulting first?

Things like transfer factor, or whatever is commercialized, has lost its spiritual or medicinal value. It is also not just in the knowing how to cure, but in being sufficiently spiritually developed to have a relationship with the masters of the plants, and our Creator. To be a healer is no easy thing. This is why more important is that we focus on how to be healed not in how to heal.

In this quest that so many of us have to know everything, manipulate, and dominate all that is seen, we do so much harm to ourselves, others, and this world we have been gifted. To further illustrate this point my wife and I attended a meeting of the rural poor in which the past and present government, of this country has organized a monthly payment in cash to those families who meet the requirements. At the end of this meeting I was surprised to see a group of about twenty US Americans many of whom were in performance makeup for live theatre.

It seems that I was drawn to the one in charge upon asking him what was going on. He explained to me that they were there to perform for the young mothers. They were of some type of religious organization, and were also in the practice of giving free medical care. This was a man with our Lord Jesus in his mind intending to share his truth with all comers.

He asked me if I would allow him to pray for my wife, and I. Of course this was very welcome as this man seemed genuine in his good thoughts, and actions, which is why my attention was drawn to him. Which is why my words to him were that in the tradition of Native American people belief in our Creator, and His son, is strong, and that it is we who are not of their culture who should humbly attempt to learn from them. My talk further explained that when we place our thoughts, and values, into the minds of other peoples then we lose who they are.

This is cultural genocide any way you look at it. It is what was seen in the photograph where the Embera mothers were seduced by western medicine and diet to the detriment of themselves, their children, and our wounded Mother who supports us all. Most probably my words were lost on my fellow Christian who prayed for us. This is one of the reasons for my writings so that those who are looking may find them.

We should not be teaching the healers, we should be learning from them. We should not be so concerned about poverty in as much as the fact that the so called poor are closer to God. We should be more concerned of the fact of our lack of spiritual development, and in this herein lays the long hard road we all need to follow.

The woman with cancer who was set back by the chemical patch has made a visit again for medicine. We can only pray that she and her family keep moving in the right direction. That their faith overcomes their conditioned behaviors.

Nick is a young ex marine who is studying to become an airline pilot. For now he is talking his courses on internet, but will soon physically go to university to finish his studies. He has been with us for over two months now, and will be returning to Utah in August. Nick has been suffering with a problem in his lungs in what is really a form of cancer in it’s early stage which would not be detected as such by modern medical means. My wife saw this in his urine sample which is a better test for cancer than what modern science has developed to this day.

As a result of her diagnosis Nick has been very disciplined with his diet, and in taking his daily dosage of botanical medicine. Of course as he is living with us he is better motivated.

My young friend has also been ill of a spiritual nature, and for this mother, who is jaibana, has placed an ally into Nick during ceremony. Also, with his history of occasionally falling into the practice of taking recreational drugs he has been taking medicine to strengthen his resolve not to take alcohol or drugs into his body. He is not Native American by birth, but has become part of our family.  When leaving our home he will be well prepared to share his experiences of living and sharing a medicine way of Native American healers. If at the end of this summer you are in the area of Utah you may want to look him up.

As I have previously mentioned in the written word, about focusing our intent on how to be healed, what is this really? The Christian with our Lord Jesus in his mind may think that only through Christ can we know our Father, and this is an important truth, but it is not the whole truth. Acore Wara, which is written phonetically, means Son of our Father in the Embera language, which means the people. Historically this people have had an intimate relationship with Christ, and He has taught them their medicine way as a way to health in harmony with all of our relations.

The practice of Jesus as healer, teacher of traditional medicine may not be well developed in the written word in the Bible, but His teachings on this matter have been held in the heart, the tradition of Native American people. My wife holds Jesus in her heart not in the past, but in the present. He is not what was. He is what is.

What so many of us, who think about Christ, all that we have is what we think. So many images of  looking for Him, praying to Him, waiting for Him, when rather it is He who is waiting for us to wake up. Christ was, is, always will be here for us, but it is He who waits for our movement in the right direction. Our Father has instructed that if we want healing we need to make the effort ourselves. These are steps of physical and spiritual movement. They are a matter of unity of we as a family of human kind living correctly in harmony with all of creation.

We do not need to rely on prayer alone in this world which is something that most people understand. Many do not understand the intricacies of prayer, and that our actions can be prayers too. A medicine way is a way of prayer which respects all of creation as it should be respected for we are not alone on this world. Most of this is what has been lost in western civilization. This is why it is so important to foster real intercultural exchanges based on mutual respect.

My mother in law cannot read or write. She is old and unassuming. She doesn’t speak much, yet she is a treasure for humanity. Her people knew Christ, accepted His teachings, and lived in accordance with agreements that were made, as a humble people of faith. Their relationship with our Father were not written down they were lived, and continue to be lived, and held, in people like herself.

In the modern approach of scientific advancement, governmental control, business practices, and the spread of religious dogma which further divides us there is a movement of good people doing wrong. They do this by imposing what is thought to be right while destroying the original root of other cultures that by their very differences are so valuable to our unity. In our diversity we are strong.  God has many names, and He has no name, for He is beyond our reason, yet we all speak the language, and have an intelligence of the heart. This is a universal language.

Looking for, or waiting for Christ to return, seems like what we are doing in our modern medical approach to illnesses. We are looking for the cure when it already exists. We need to bring the attention of our mind into the reality of the heart. In this way His presence is felt, His voice is heard, communication can take place. As in traditional medicine the practice of the mind sinking into the heart takes time. The understanding that there is no separation of what was, and is, in relation to Christ, points us in the right direction. We need to develop our spiritual nature.

What is it in a traditional Native American medicine way that heals? What it is not is the chemical composition of things applied to the body affecting change at a cellular level through the medium of cause and effect. It is where prayer and action are met in respect, in harmony with other physical and spiritual realities that heals.

The mother, and son, who have been living with us, are in a loving home. We lead a simple, humble life. Money comes, and goes, often not being as much as we think we need, but we get by with every one sharing, and sharing alike. Attention is shared even with the animals who are given the love, and care, that they require. We have chickens, and pigeons, dogs, and cats,  and just recently we have a new addition to our family, as for my last birthday my wife had brought up from the reservation a beautiful baby girl, a coati mundi we have named Sheila.

Our home is a gathering place of family, and patients, who come for healing. There are never verbal outbursts, there is always respect, there is calm and prayer, while often you can hear the  laughter of children, and adults alike.

As the women who is being treated for AIDS will return to where she has lived with her son, a place about six hours away by bus, my wife asked for me to gather medicines in enough quantity to prepare a large amount of a dried herbal preparation which she can bring back with her to continue with her regimen.  After breakfast, and coffee, I set out with a sack, and machete in hand, to walk about the rolling hills, and streams, that in places is government or private land along the fringes of the watershed of the Panama Canal.

The land here is not new to me, but my walk is as if it were. My wife has given me her blessing to gather medicines, which means the plants know who I am. While walking along a slope, and crisscrossing a stream, into an area I have seen a particular clinging vine my mind stops racing, just appreciating the day, my surroundings, and the air, the feeling of life all around, my spiritual allies, and the hand of our Father.

Often in looking for medicinal plants it is more as if one were being led to them, or as if they were calling for ones attention. It is also wise along the way to respect the other life all about. This could be thorns, and spines, or plants that burn you when touched; it could be the bites, and stings, of snakes, or insects, or it could be something else not seen, yet there all the same. Moving slow so as to place your attention to avoid surprise encounters is good to keep in mind. In contact with the medicines one can approach the experience as you would with prayer by asking permission, and giving thanks, either verbally or in silence. We should be so grateful for the life energy of our food, our medicine, our water, our air, the land.

Returning home under the hot sun found Irma, my wife, preparing a poultice for one of her cancer patients. She asked for me to quickly find a particular species of moss to add to the mix of plants, and roots, she was pounding with a large wooden pestle in its counterpart hardwood mortar called a pilon. At this time it was good that the land about our home is very familiar as I quickly hiked into the government land adjacent to where we live as I knew what could be found there.

Upon returning it was with the news that another patient would be arriving unexpectedly meaning more medicines needed to be gathered. Now the effort of my prayer needed more of my concentration to keep focusing on the tasks at hand. As a former athletic competitor the challenge was met with good humor as to the great workout underway, but of course far from being an athletic event is the love of helping others. On the way back the wind was brewing a hard rain, I made it just in time to avoid the downpour, at least it seemed so at the moment of my arrival. Just a bit later under the night rain my time was spent collecting another needed remedy.

Between the firewood that is needed for the cook fire, the gathering and preparation of medicinal plants, not to mention the necessities of maintaining our home, we live and share a medicine way that remains for the most part unknown.

My prayer is that we can come together on this matter of healing. How often are we affected by the need to want to be able to help others or ourselves? Think about this well my friend with your heart.

Until we meet again,

Raymond Hermenet

www.myspace.com/raymondhermenet