We arrived in Ocotlan and parked near the Templo y Exconvento de Santo Domingo de Guzman. We crossed the church's courtyard. It was deserted except for a swallowtail butterfly floating clockwise around and around the perimeter of the courtyard as if mesmerized. The same custodian as last year was on hand at the bottom of the stairs to the sacristy to greet us.
We climbed to the second floor and crossed the room to the opposite wall with its list of parish churches. I carried a brochure advertising la Hacienda, a health retreat. I had found it in the lobby of an upscale hotel in the City. A map on the brochure’s back placed the retreat in the center of the area we planned to explore. We wrote down the names of the churches that ringed the retreat.Our first stop was in Dionisio at the church of San Dionisio built in the mid-1770's. The gates to the church were locked. We needed directions to la Hacienda, and the men improving the street in front of the church knew how to get there. One of them agreed to ride with us until we reached the first fork in the road. “Turn left and continue on,” he said before the stark countryside swallowed him up.
The dirt road cut through corn fields and acres of tomatoes and black beans. We crossed a dry river bed. The car stirred up a continual veil of dust. Cigarras (cicadas) whined in the background. The heat, the aridity, and the spectral noise of the cigarras worked on our imagination. We felt as if we were on an endless pilgrimage through a strange, uninhabited land.Just when I was about to ask where the people were, I caught fleeting glimpses of men with blue eyes and fair skin. They added yet another unworldly note to our journey. “Am I seeing things?” I asked.
“Yes,” Octavio laughed, “you are seeing things, the descendants of French immigrants, former settlers of this area.
We braked in the middle of the desolate landscape to read a road sign, “Praxedis de Gru 7 km.” It was difficult to believe that a village existed in such emptiness.
We drove on until we arrived at la Hacienda. It was a former 18th century hacienda that opened in 1995 with the aim of providing food and medical services to the poor. Native Mexican health modalities were a cornerstone of its treatments. The founders envisioned receiving international funding to finance the building of a hospital, one large enough to accommodate everyone who would seek medical help.
We left the car in what appeared to be a parking lot. Luxuriant flowering bushes screened it from the rest of the property. We found a gate. Pushing it open, we followed a path that took us to a rambling house with outbuildings. Birds darted among fruit trees. Their song filled the air. Two German shepherds watched us from a knoll at one side of the house.
A tall, young man greeted us in fluent English. He would prove to be a powerful advocate of la Hacienda. He had left his home in Mexico City in order to spearhead the property’s transformation into a treatment center for the poor and for tourists.
Our tour began at a well situated below the main house. Nearby, a man with blue eyes and fair skin was turning soil for a large garden. A row of saplings, their roots protected by burlap, formed a barricade between him and us. Our host indicated the trees without acknowledging the presence of the gardener. “The trees are for the poor. We do a lot for the poor. We will distribute them on April 30th, Children's Day.
“We bought the hacienda in 1995 from that man’s father,” he said pointing to the fair-skinned, blue-eyed gardener. “Since then we have been renovating and rebuilding.
“Not long ago a group of massage therapists arrived from Japan to evaluate our massage techniques. They were impressed. The United Nations wants to send emissaries from Europe. The UN wants to establish similar health centers around the world. Eventually, we will attract tourists from spas on the Pacific coast.”
He continued, his eyes burning with fervor, “I want you to know that we have treated 70,000 people since la Hacienda opened in 1995. Many doctors from the City who refer patients to us also work here as volunteers. We still have skeptics to convert, though. Not everyone believes the miracles we perform."
We arrived at an empty swimming pool. It appeared to have been recently installed. Its blue tile lining was spotless, and the ground surrounding the pool had been freshly dug up and replaced. There was the number 70,000 again. Seventy-thousand patients had been treated with hydrotherapy in the pool.
We entered a long, narrow treatment room at one side of the main house. It contained an individual dry sauna, a temazcal, a toilet, a ceiling spray for a shower and a small whirlpool. The room could only hold a few people, but our host boasted that on a busy day it was thronged with patients.
Our host settled us on the veranda of the main house just as a couple appeared. They climbed the steps to the veranda and knocked on the front door. A woman in a white jacket opened the door, the couple entered and the door closed behind them.
“Poor patients from the area,” our host informed us as he offered us cool drinks. “They rely on us to keep them healthy.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Soon you will be able to visit the massage room,” he added. The wait was short. Five minutes later we put our unfinished drinks on a low table, and our host ushered us into the room.
Against one wall was a towering altar adorned with statues of saints and the Holy Family. “These are all offerings from the poor whom we’ve treated and cured at la Hacienda,” he announced. “The piles of toys on the floor are gifts to be presented on Children's Day.”
Two massage tables were in the middle of the room. One of the “poor patients”, the man was on one. There was no sign of his companion. The white-jacketed woman who had greeted the couple at the door was kneading the man’s back with her elbow and hand. Ripples flowed down his back as she released tension. She finished the massage, and the man left the room.
Our host had mentioned that la Hacienda’s treatment plan included sound therapy. “The massage therapist is the one to ask,” he had said. Now she was waiting to answer our questions.
“What do you offer for sound healing?” I inquired. In reply, she went to an adjacent room and came back with a small bell. “Is it from Tibet?” I asked.
“No, it was made right here a long time ago in Mexico.” she replied. “It looks as if it’s from Tibet."
She related its history. “Several years ago an ailing physician summoned me to his home. He asked me to heal him. I discovered an underground cistern beneath his bedroom. His bed was placed above the cistern. After I moved the bed to a room where there was no subterranean water, his symptoms vanished.
“My payment was this bell, a valuable diagnostic tool. It detects weak areas in the body. A patient's symptoms affect the purity of the bell's sound and the speed at which the clapper rings. The bell tells me which patients are sick and where they hurt.”
She smoothed a clean sheet on the massage table and invited me to lie down. “Let me show you how the bell works,” she said. She held the bell at the top of my head and rotated it so that the clapper circled around its inner rim. The clapper moved sluggishly, and the bell’s tone was dull. Its tone became clear, and the clapper moved briskly when she moved the bell slowly over my face, neck and chest.The bell reached my stomach. Again, it gave off a dull tone, and the clapper slowed. My secret was a severe headache and an upset stomach (1,2).
I sat up. “Please step down,” she commanded. “I want to demonstrate something that will surprise you.”
She moved the bell over the area where my body had been. The bell replicated the identical pattern of sound that it had produced when she had rung it over me. “You hear? Your sound imprint will linger for 4-5 minutes. Then it will fade away. The bell tells me,” she said, “that you have something wrong with your stomach and that you either suffer from mental illness or strong emotions about something or someone.” I let her guess.
She supplemented the tales of medical miracles that our host already had regaled us with. “La Hacienda is fast becoming famous for fabulous cures. Consider the girl born with one leg shorter than the other. After a few months of treatment, both legs are equal! Medical authorities have no explanation.”
She invited us to return for a healing. She quoted weekly rates and guaranteed that our stay would be as comfortable as if we were at a luxurious spa on the Pacific Coast. “We will think about it,” I assured her as we climbed into the car's broiling interior.
We had not gone far, when we looked out the back window and saw a cloud of dust. We rolled up the windows and pulled to the side to watch a car speed by spraying small stones and dirt. Inside were the massage therapist, the two “poor patients”, the blue-eyed, fair-skinned gardener and the man from Mexico City. We waited until their car vanished.
We looked at each other in astonishment. “Where are they rushing?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Octavio responded. “Why do you suppose they are traveling all together?”
We crossed more churches off our list as we circled the area around la Hacienda: the church of San Pedro Martir in Santa Lucia with faces of smiling angels tucked under the lintel of its entrance; the elaborate bamboo towers stored in a darkened shed awaiting the addition of rockets and firecrackers for Santa Lucia’s annual fiesta; San Felipe Apostol with Santa Cecelia and her harp; San Jacinto’s Gothic interior and Gothic altar; and Santa Ana with a tipsy right tower and aerial artists who were perched on scaffolding high in the nave, painting elegant decorations on the church’s white plaster walls and ceilings.(1) Mosier, Helen. Hark! These Herald Angels Ring. The Bell Tower Supplement. Nov-Dec 1997 p. 16.
(2) Michaud, Debbie. The Healing Traditions and Spiritual Practices of Wicca. Keats Publishing, Los Angeles. 2000. pp. 48-49.
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