FIELD NOTES – HEALING AT THE PYRAMID

She arrived leaning heavily on a cane — every step measured, every movement stiff with pain.

A knee injury from her youth, decades old now, worn into her bones. Doctors had recommended a replacement. She was in her sixties. She walked slowly, carefully, bracing herself against the world.

We drove three hours into the Yucatán for a limpia with Don Francisco — healer, yerbatero, a man who works with more than herbs. While we traveled, she told me how long she had suffered. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. The kind that settles into someone after years of hurting.

When we arrived, Don Francisco lit the copal, and the smoke curled like spirits waking from sleep. He prayed in Mayan, words older than memory, calling the wind as he brushed her with fresh ruda. He worked over her knee — massage that looked ordinary, but wasn’t. He rubbed in an herbal salve that smelled like leaf and earth after rain. There was a moment when she inhaled sharply, eyes wide — as if something moved.

That night we slept.

The next morning we climbed the pyramid at Ek’Balam.

She didn’t walk.

She ran.

She reached the top in three minutes — faster than anyone I’ve ever seen take those steps. She stood at the summit without pain, laughing like someone delivered from a long dream. She looked ten years younger in that moment.

It’s been three years. She has never needed the surgery.

She has never used a cane again.

I know, because her cane rides in the back of my car still — a testimony to what happened that day.

Sometimes the spirits heal quietly.

Sometimes they leave proof.

There are more stories like this. Some stranger, some softer. I’m writing them down as they happen.

Hugs and Butterflies,

laura