38 | INDIGENOUS GRANDMOTHERS
By Flordemayo
Being Honoring “ I don’t consider myself a traditional person, but a universal person. Instead of abiding by rigid rules, I want to be free in my heart.” FLORDEMAYO, from the highlands of Central America
For me, there has never been a question of what I came to this earth to do. I have always understood my purpose through my personal dialogue with the spirit of the ancestors through visions and dreams. I was raised learning to translate dreams. It was imperative in my family. Whether they were positive or negative, it didn’t matter. Even if
I believe that our global healing is possible. But like
they foretold of a death or an illness, I learned to receive
everything else, it is going to take a whole bunch of
the messages in a way that was honoring and respectful.
believers to do it. I am not a healer, but a mediator for
for me. I had heard about it through the prophecies of the Mayan people, and I had also been given a direct vision that the Council was going to come together.
healing. I am just a conduit of a massive amount of energy, and I allow it to travel through my body and present it to the person looking for healing. When people come to me, healing only takes place if they have already surrendered into a healing space. When
I chose to accept a role at the Council because I felt
people come with incredible faith, I have noticed
that there are so many of us around the world that have
instantaneous healing.
lost the touch of “basicness” between the earth and the sky. Women now carry more toxins in their bodies then they ever have. All the chemicals from daily creams and shampoos are being transmitted through breast-feeding. The first cup of milk children have from their mother is already full of sanitary napkins and deodorant.
The best way to continue to heal ourselves is to honor our free spirits. In honoring that, we become forgiving and when we become forgiving, we become understanding, and when we understand, we become honoring, and then we can move forward with our lives. Moving forward means that we have also mended the circles of the gener-
Hope springs from the re-teaching of people on
ations of the past. We are always brought into the present
gardening and survival. I have been working towards
to mend generational breakage of the sacred circle.
re-introducing people to the teachings of medicinal plants. We are re-learning how to take care of the Mother Earth. In doing so, we allow the spirit of the sacred plants and the sacred waters to heal us. In essence, we are re-empowering ourselves. For those of us who have forgotten, we are re-learning the teachings so that our grandchildren and their grandchildren to come do not forget. I really believe that the earth and the elements have the capacity to mend themselves. It might not be done in our lifetime, but everything takes its course. We live under a sacred law: Life is a circle. By being in the present, we are also in the past and the future. Nothing is unseen and there is always a reason for things that happen.
We can also respect our traditional practices and integrate them into our modern lives. I feel that traditionalism is a little bit restrictive. And that is okay, but for myself, I do not like to love my creator without any freedom. I don’t consider myself a traditional person, but a universal person. Instead of abiding by rigid rules, I want to be free in my heart. It is possible to integrate the traditional and the modern by opening our hearts and allowing the teachings of the cosmos to enter our daily lives. Ultimately we all have to find our own individual way. We can find it by stopping, being silent, and being honoring. It will take us a lifetime to do that. But it is imperative. As told to World Pulse’s Global Editor Ramya Ramanathan © Marisol Villanueva Méndez
The Grandmother’s Council was already written in stone