This story, while miraculous, is also quite personal and it takes a bit of vulnerability on my part to share it. I was having trouble with being triggered by things that were bringing up a lot of very intense old anger, anger from things that happened more than 20 years ago. I had been through years of therapy, and nothing seemed to help. In general, I am a pretty calm and happy person, but it was very troubling when one little trigger could through me off for hours. So, I sat on the little...

copal used for cleansing. The room is small. Not ceremonial in the way people imagine ceremony. No costumes. No props arranged for effect. Just a modest space with blue walls, a low wooden bench, an altar table worn smooth by years of use. Don Francisco places the copal beneath the bench before I sit. Not on a table. Not raised. It burns underneath me — lemony smoke rising slowly through the wood, surrounding the body first, not the mind. A single candle is lit and left to burn for the...

Me on a Mexican beach wearing my amulet. Don Francisco once placed an amulet in my hand — small, ordinary-looking to anyone else, but heavy with something deeper. He told me: “When you need something, hold it and think of the outcome — not the problem. Imagine what you want as if it has already happened.” I listened, the way you listen when an elder speaks — with more than ears. Later that year, I flew to the United States to visit my son. In my rush at the airport, I forgot something...