6
FLORAL BATHS: BATHING IN NATURE’S RICHES
Nature, whose sweet rains fall on just and unjust alike… she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
OSCAR WILDE
In Celtic myth, the gateway to the otherworld was provided by natural forces, and often by plant magic. One day, while walking the hills, Cormac, grandson of Conn, met a mysterious grey-haired warrior who gave him a silver branch from a sacred apple tree. The warrior vanished as soon as he’d given the gift. When Cormac shook the branch—as so often happens in these tales—a strange mist enveloped him and he was lulled to sleep by the music of the leaves.
He awoke to find himself in the Land of Promise, where only truth is known. Great bronze palaces and feather-thatched houses of silver stood all around him, and at the center of this, a glistening fountain from which flowed five shining streams. Nine hazel trees grew above the fountain, dropping their seeds into the water, from which fairy folk would drink.
Cormac was taken to the fountain by maidens, who bathed him in the waters and gave him a magical gift: a cup of truth, which would shatter if three lies were spoken in its presence, so that Cormac could discern honesty from falsehood. He returned home with this gift from the Land of Promise and became a great leader of men.
The “wisdom bath” that is used to anoint Cormac is an initiation into truth. The waters cascade from the Fountain of Knowledge, and the streams that flow from it are the five senses through which the world is experienced and wisdom obtained. The hazelnuts that dance in the waters are, as we saw earlier, also symbolic of wisdom.
This, then, is a cleansing bath, one with which many shamans would be familiar. It opens the doors to true perception, washing away illusion and self-doubt, and replacing them with the clarity and self-knowledge needed by a leader. Once again, the plants provide the gift.
In Welsh Herbal Medicine, David Hoffmann writes that Celtic “Druidic medical therapeutics is an interesting combination of mystical and herbally rational techniques. For internal and lingering complaints they mainly used the cold bath … with the administration of herbs.” He continues:
Great use was made of water from certain wells, due to their specific mineral and spiritual properties…. The Druids devoted considerable effort to study the medicinal properties of plants, believing some herbs to be endowed with magical virtues. [Such herbs and baths were used for a variety of purposes, including] to anoint people, to prevent fevers, to procure friendship and to obtain all that the heart desires.1
ALL THAT THE HEART DESIRES
Herb baths such as these are not just confined to the Celtic healing arts. They are used in many cultures to purify, to give deeper knowledge of self, to free the soul of impurities and limitations, and to bestow spiritual gifts and physical healing. Every bath has the same ultimate purpose: to bring the bather into balance by washing away fear, anger, trauma, grief, and uncertainty, and giving inner peace and a deeper connection to nature. These baths cleanse the soul and are known in many traditions for their power to do so.
In Malaysia, for example, the mandi bunga bathing ritual is carried out to invoke the powers of nature so that a person may achieve whatever he or she most desires. The ritual is undertaken for a variety of reasons—to find love, to remove buang suey (bad luck or evil magic), to heal body and soul, and even for seemingly mundane and “non-spiritual” matters, such as good fortune in gambling and games of chance.
The ritual is facilitated by a bomoh (shaman) who prepares a bathing mixture of plants, flowers, nuts, leaves, fruits, and spices such as limau purut (kaffir lime) and akar sintok (blume) that will be uniquely formulated to the patient’s needs. Other materials may be added, such as bedak sejuk (powdered rice grains) before the blend is mixed with water and the patient is bathed.
In a ceremony to capture a husband, for example, a woman will be bathed in waters containing fruits, leaves, and seven types of flowers, while the bomoh burns a candle wrapped in coconut leaves, all the time chanting and sprinkling grains of rice around his patient. They say that this brings marriage within the year.
In nearby Indonesia, there are almost 7,000 recorded varieties of plants (by contrast, there are just 1,600 in the United Kingdom), and in this rich environment many of the herbal secrets once guarded by priests and princes have now become so commonplace that they are standard treatments in salons and spas. Mandi luhur (coating the skin) is one traditional therapy that has been practiced since the seventeenth century. A paste is made of spring water and herbs, including sandalwood, turmeric, and jasmine; this is massaged into the body and left to dry. The result is beautiful, healthy skin, as well as inner peace.
Another ancient recipe, used to rebalance the body and as a cure for rheumatics and colds, is a paste of sandalwood, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg mixed with water and scented oil. It is no accident that many of these ingredients are also used in cooking, since the intention of this medicine is to “cook” the body by producing a deep heat. The patient is revitalized by this, and when the paste is removed, it draws the body toxins out.
Hot wraps made from mud and herbs are also applied to the skin so the body can sweat out its physical and spiritual impurities. One of these has been used by women for centuries to regain their figures after childbirth. Every day for forty days following the birth, a mixture of lime juice, betel leaf, eucalyptus, and powdered coral is blended to a paste and applied to the abdomen. A sheet is then wrapped tightly around the stomach and the plants are left to work their magic.
Flower and water baths are also used extensively in plant spirit therapies. In many shamanic cultures, the healer uses cold water to stimulate the body and soul; but in Indonesia, warm water is more common, the aim being to relax the patient so his energies can flow unrestricted by inner tensions. The flowers most frequently used in these baths are magnolia, bougainvillea, hibiscus, rose, gardenia, and jasmine, which envelop the patient in a powerful healing scent, while their vibrant colors lift the spirit and reflect the beauty of nature to remind the patient of his own inner beauty and strength.
BATHS THAT CURE NIGHTMARES
Maya shamans also use baths like these to restore the harmony of the soul. One such bath is to cure children of nightmares, which the shamans see as a spirit that is dark and shaped like a human embryo. This spirit enters the body when soul loss (see chapter 4) has occurred as a result of shock or grief. Because of their tender years and greater vulnerability, children are especially open to spiritual illnesses, which, along with fear, envy, and depression, can cause the loss of chuílel—spirit, or life force.
An American mother, Nadine Epstein, recounts her use of such a bath to help her six-year-old son, Noah, overcome his recurrent nightmares. In an article that appeared in Mothering magazine, Epstein recalls the desperation that led her to try this method after all else had failed and Noah’s frightening and violent dreams continued.
One day, when Noah seemed particularly burdened, we had an idea. Why not give Noah a spiritual bath? The Maya regularly give them to children, even infants.
So late that afternoon, when the light was beginning to turn to lovely slanting gold, [my friend] Rosita and I took Noah out on a ritual plant-gathering foray into our urban neighborhood. Baskets in hand, we wandered along sidewalks and alleys searching for healing plants that could be used for spiritual bathing…. When we came upon a plant, we carefully plucked it, saying the Maya prayer to thank the plant and asking the plant spirit to help heal the heart and soul of Noah….
We then filled a bathtub with water, and let the infusion of aromatic plants loose.a They floated over the surface of the water, creating an intricate, colorful pattern…. Once in, [Noah] immediately became absorbed in propelling the leaves and petals in spiral patterns around the tub. The hollyhocks felt cool and soft, and he rubbed them against the skin of his knees. As he played, we said more prayers and burned copal incense….
When Noah finally did emerge from the tub, the difference was amazing. He had lost that feeling of heaviness that he often carried around with him. I had not seen such a deep transformation … Noah didn’t have a nightmare that night or any night in the next few weeks.2
Epstein gives the recipes for a few of the children’s baths she has studied. A calming bath for infants includes marigolds, basil, St. John’s wort, rosemary, and rose petals, which are squeezed to release their essence and added to warm water. A bath for skin infections uses the bitter leaves of motherwort, wormwood, and/or dandelion. These are boiled in water before the child is bathed and the infected area cleansed with the mixture.
BATHS THAT MAKE RAIN
Healing baths are not always restricted to personal healing. Because of the energetic connection we share with the whole of nature, they can also be used in communal healings to create transpersonal effects, such as the examples Frazer gives in The Golden Bough, where bathing is used to make rain.3
In India, when rain is needed and crops will not grow, the villagers dress a young boy in leaves, and he becomes the Rain King who controls the waters of heaven. Every villager takes part in this ritual, each of them splashing the Rain King with water as he goes from door to door, and each offering a gift to “buy rain.”
A similar ritual takes place in Russia, where women bathe publicly on the day of St. John the Baptist, using water that has been dipped with a fetish of grass, leaves, and herbs to represent the saint. The fetish becomes the saint, and once the women have bathed in his waters and taken on his essence in this way, they, too, have the power to call rain.
In New Caledonia, a somewhat different ritual is followed, when rainmakers bathe a corpse that is suspended over taro leaves in a cave. The soul of the ancestor transmutes the water of the bath and releases it to the villagers as rainfall.
HOW DO PLANT BATHS WORK?
There are three principles behind the effectiveness of baths such as these—baths that revitalize body and soul, as well as those that produce more transcendental outcomes like rainmaking. Readers will recognize all three principles from earlier chapters and from the work they have already done to understand the nature of plant spirits. The first principle, of course, is that plants are composed of sentient energies and have a spirit that is inclined toward human beings.
The second principle is that human beings are composed of this same energy. Nobel-nominated physicist Michio Kaku has remarked, for example, that the solid parts of the human body, if compressed, would only occupy a space of a few inches. The rest is energy, and this is what holds our atoms together.
If you find that hard to believe—that our “solid” bodies are really just inches in size—you are not alone. Kaku himself remarks that, for scientists, too, “the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.” 4 That we are beings of energy, however, is not in dispute. b.
The third principle is that this is also true of everything in the universe: it is all made of energy at its most fundamental level, and, as we know from the science we learned in school, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change its form. It is cooperative and can be shared, in other words.
Shamans, of course, would not put it this way. They would simply say that everything is spirit and, if we are sensitive to this, it is quite possible for the spirit of a plant to enter and influence us, changing our energy and creating new possibilities for healing. And they would say that it is equally possible for us to communicate with other energy beings, such as rain spirits.
Let’s consider these three principles in more detail.
PLANTS AS INTELLIGENT ENERGY
In shamanic cultures, plants are regarded as “the transformers.” They take energy from one place and one form (the sun, soil, and rain) and transform it into another form: food. The most important of these original energy forms is sunlight.
This, in itself, is remarkable: plants eat light. Just as remarkable is what happens after their meal is over. They excrete oxygen. Plants, just by eating, achieve the alchemically spectacular. They take earth, fire, and water and produce air. And, through this, they give us life.
When plants die, their energy remains, and it is still useful to us. The plant, and the light in its leaves, will eventually mulch down to form “fossil fuel” and bequeath its sun-energy to us. Whenever we burn oil or coal, we liberate an energy that was stored in the plants a million years ago. The same is true, of course, whenever we eat a plant: we complete the circle, fire to fire, and we too become consumers of sunlight.
Plants are energy, but they are also intelligence. Jeremy Narby makes a study of plant sentience in his book, Intelligence in Nature, and concludes that they are, in fact, not so different from us:
Science now indicates that plants, like animals and humans, can learn about the world around them and use cellular mechanisms similar to those we rely on. Plants learn, remember, and decide….
Plant cells relay information to one another using signals such as charged calcium atoms. Our neurons do the same. Plant cells also have their own particular signals, which tend to be relatively large and complicated proteins and RNA transcripts. These molecules swim around the plant providing information from cell to cell. Individual plant cells also appear to have a capacity to know…. Scientists now confirm what shamans have long said about the nature of nature.5
The fact that plant signals (proteins and RNA transcripts) tend to be large and complex, in contrast to the small molecules of human brain signals, is also significant, since “large molecules can handle large amounts of information, which means there is room for enormous complexity in plant communication.”
Part of the scientific prejudice against the notion of plant intelligence is based simply on the fact that they do not move. Old-school scientists have concluded that there is therefore no evidence for intelligence, because only deliberate movement suggests the application of thought and decision making. But this is just silly. Plenty of people sit still and think.
And, in fact, if we look beyond our prejudice, we find that plants do move; they just work on a much slower timescale, so we tend to miss their movements. Narby gives the example of the tropical stilt palm, which “walks” toward light by growing new roots on its sunny side and allowing those in the shade to die. “By doing this over several months, the stilt palm actually changes place.”6
Another example is ground ivy, a vine that creeps across the land and only puts down roots when it finds the correct balance of soil nutrients and light. By doing this, it pulls itself to new locations by skipping the places it knows are unsuitable. (If we look at the migration of human beings, they, too, with varying degrees of rational thought, move to new locations that will sustain life, in a similar way to ground ivy and stilt palms. Perhaps this is the basis for the shaman’s observation that the Creator—that is, the creative force, nature—ensures that the plants we need for food and healing always grow where we live. Plants and people move toward one another, drawn by the same attractive force: an understanding that this new environment is most suitable to their mutual needs.)
And, in fact, anyone who has seen the remarkable award-winning BBC television series, The Private Life of Plants, by David Attenborough, can observe for themselves that plants move. In one episode, time-lapse photography was used to record the movement and growth of rainforest plants. With filming time speeded up, all the plants in the rainforest are shown to be in a constant flux of movement, striving to reach the sunlight at the tree canopy and the water under the soil. Vines swing to and fro, plant tendrils reach out to other plants to gain purchase in their quest for sunlight. The forest is a mass of movement; it is just that we do not perceive it because our senses don’t operate on “plant time.”
All indigenous peoples appreciate these plant qualities. In her book, Magic From Brazil, Morwyn reflects that “During germination and growth, plants absorb and store immense energies from the earth and sky. When a person ingests [a plant] the energy is freed and circulated throughout the body and into the aura. The herbal energy both adds something of its own nature and helps release the patient’s own pent-up energy to stimulate self-healing.”7
Scientists have recorded this “herbal energy” many times in plants, most famously through the use of Kirlian photography, a method invented in Russia by Semyon and Valentina Kirlian and now used in research laboratories worldwide. The principle behind Kirlian photography is that all living beings emit radiation in the form of light, electromagnetic frequencies, and heat in direct relationship to their internal states. Kirlian photography captures and records these emissions by introducing a high-frequency, high-voltage, ultra-low current to the subject being photographed, which amplifies and makes visible the energy it contains. Among the successes of this method are its abilities, in controlled experiments, to predict the survival, growth rates, and general health of various seeds and plants purely by reference to the energetic “aura” of the plant that is captured on film.
Some of the more interesting of these experiments are inquiries into the “phantom leaf” phenomenon. This is where a small portion of a leaf is removed and the plant is then photographed. A ghostly image appears of the missing leaf section, exactly where it would be if it was still attached. Kirlian researchers see this as proof of a nonmaterial, “bioplasmic body” within the leaf, an energy that, though nonmaterial, is essential to life.c
Because of their energetic powers, in Candomble (the Brazilian form of Vodou about which Morwyn writes), “Plant materials enter into every aspect of ritual…. Each herb is believed to possess an etheric force easily capable of absorption by the skin. Every botanical crystallizes a particular virtue such as fertility, peace, vigor, protection, longevity, courage, happiness, good fortune, and glory, and may also drive away illness, negativity, misery, and noxious fluids.”8
Specific baths, called abo, are used to purify initiates for priesthood. Others, called banhos de descarga (discharge baths), neutralize negative energies that have attached themselves to a person. The amaci is a head bath that strengthens the connection between a person and their Orixa, or guiding spirit, as well as shielding them from negative influences. And there are many more.
PEOPLE AS INTELLIGENT ENERGY
Instead of using the word soul, some shamans talk of people having an “energy body.” This equates with the bioplasmic body discovered by Kirlian scientists in plants and human beings. The energy body can be imagined as a luminous egg that encircles the physical body at a distance of about an arm’s length in each direction, though it is slightly closer at the head and feet.
The term luminous egg as a description of this energy has passed into contemporary usage from the work of Carlos Castaneda. As a consequence, it has been somewhat dismissed by those who suspect Castaneda of fabricating his encounters with the Yaqui shaman, don Juan, who supposedly invented the term. But in fact, this vision of the energy body predates Castaneda by centuries. In the European Romani traditions, the soul was also described as egglike. In Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santeria, eggs represent the soul, and even the Catholic Church likens the soul to an egg.
The Andean shaman Doris Rivera Lenz (interviewed in chapter 1) says of eggs that “[They] are the union of the masculine and the feminine. We should recognize that this union is supremely sacred. We are the product of an egg too. So the egg is the total energy of the mother’s and the father’s cells.”
Quite consistently, then, across many cultures, the energy body is regarded as egg shaped. And it is this that shamans see when they enter their healing trances.
The energy body is sometimes further divided into four bands of light, representing different aspects of the self. Typically, from the outer band inward, these are the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical “bodies” that make up the soul.
The spiritual is the furthest from the physical body, beginning at a distance of about an arm’s length and stretching into infinity. This is what gives us our connection to the energy universe as a whole. It is through this that ESP and other unexplained phenomena operate and it is this that facilitates our communication with other intelligences, such as plants. The emotional self is slightly closer, in a band that begins about twelve inches from the body. And the mental self is the space between the emotional and the physical.
All illnesses stem from the unseen world and affect our spirits first. If we are sensitive, we may detect an intrusive energy or “outside force” as soon as it connects with this band of light and sense that something is wrong, even if we can’t say what. This is the feeling of walking into a room and being uncomfortable for no apparent reason, or meeting a new person and knowing they are not for us. Many people have these experiences but are less aware when it comes to matters of health, so the presence of intrusive energies may go undetected until they are established in our fields.
As it begins its migration toward the physical body, the spirit-illness will, however, become more noticeable. It is likely to register first with the emotions, since these are our most sensitive organs of awareness. But it is only when the illness enters the mental sphere that we might be able to sense and name the problem. Finally, what began as a subtle spirit awareness becomes a physical reality.
In conducting her healings, the plant shaman therefore concerns herself with the spiritual point of origin. If she can disperse the intrusive energy before it becomes solid and ingrained in the patient, every part of the energy body, from the spiritual through to the physical, will be healed. This is often the purpose of the sacred bath: to remove unhelpful energy and replace it with a force that is helpful and good.
Such healing addresses not the symptoms of illness within the physical body, as Western medicine is apt to do, but the cause of the illness 1 all diseases are energetic, they can be cured in the same way: by changing the energy of the patient. Shamanically speaking, there are a limited number of reasons why illness occurs, and these usually have to do with a lack of balance or a spiritual disconnection within the patient.
In Vodou, for example, maintaining a good relationship with God, the Lwa (guardian spirits), and the Ghedes (the sacred dead and the ancestors) ensures the health and power of the individual. It is only when this connection is broken that illness is possible.
How we might express this in Western psychological terms is that when we have faith, a reason to believe, and a purpose in life, when we have family support and embrace our lineage, we also have a strong self-identity and sense of worth, so we automatically feel healthy, fit, and “in our power.” A number of scientific studies have shown, for example, that people recover more quickly from hospital operations when they have faith as well as family and friends who care for them.d
When people are alone in the world, however, their self-esteem drops and depression sets in, so that health suffers and they can lose their will to live. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote of this in his book Man’s Search For Meaning. For Frankl, the isolation and the lack of purpose and connection in modern life were the chief causes of mental, emotional, and in many cases, physical problems in the clients he saw. Hope—something to believe in—and connection with others were the means of a cure, more important even than the psychotherapy itself.9
Houngank Max Beauvoir writes the following:
Many illnesses are considered to result from the individual’s own inappropriate social behavior. For instance, often cases [in Haiti] pertain to inheritance disputes in which the individual is perceived to have wrongly appropriated family common land. Or, a lack of respect, of courage, and/or of generosity, which may in themselves constitute the so-called weakness of character, is known to reflect on the individual’s own health. In these situations, it is said that the person is persecuted by the spirit of a dead person (mò), sent upon him by his neighbors or family.
Here, it is necessary to have the patient redeem him or herself. Pilgrimages, charity visits to hospitals and food contributions to prisoners and to the paupers, coffee for the ancestors, masses for the deceased, and other such actions, constitute elements susceptible to bring about a remedy.
Furthermore, the invading “mò” is often chased by resolute means, such as a good flogging with pigeon pea stems (Cystisus cajan, L.), which is considered to be one of the most radical and efficient means of expulsion.10
Individual “weakness of character” might in some ways be regarded as a social rather than a wholly personal disease, especially in societies that invite competition, with social approval for those who “make it” and punishments (social disapproval and outcasting) for those who don’t. In such cultures people often feel scared, hopeless, lost, and alone. Surveys tell us, for example, that many people in the West no longer trust politicians, big business, or even food suppliers, whom they believe to be interested only in profits and their own well-being. They see themselves as leaderless and trapped, isolated and betrayed, and this leads to frustration, self-doubt, and anxiety. Tensions like these can in turn lead to physical illnesses, as well as a weakening of the soul, which inclines some people toward immorality.
One way that the Vodou tradition deals with this disconnection is by using bathing rituals known as lave tet (head washing), and in Santeria as rogacion. The purpose of head washing is to “open the head” of the patient and reconnect him to God, the Lwa, and the ancestors. In psychological terms, we might say these baths relieve tension by loosening the patient’s attachments to competitiveness and helping him relax into a deeper meaning and a healthier connection to the universe. The patient no longer obsesses about the material world because he sees something beyond it and understands that he is as loved by God as anyone else.
The head washing concludes with ritual songs, all of which, in one way or another, reinforce this sense of equality before God. “Nous tout se yon-O! divan Bondye” is one such song. Translated, it declares that “We are all one before one God,” Bondye (from the French bon dieu) being the Haitian name for the supreme energy of the universe.
Beauvoir writes of bathing rituals like these, that “Immediate results emerge from the energy charge which flows from these herbs and the energy used to macerate them. Singing and dancing, the common forms of Vodoun expression, are themselves considered prophylaxis, promoting a healthy distribution of the Dan [spiritual energy or life force] throughout the body.”11
THE UNIVERSE AS INTELLIGENT ENERGY
String theory is one of the more interesting developments in recent physics. It was developed as an attempt to overcome the historical failing of mechanical science to explain the universe and to make sense of the contradictions and anomalies we see in the world. As Cambridge University’s online publication Cambridge Relativity puts it: “To take into account the different interactions observed in Nature one has to provide particles with more degrees of freedom than only their position and velocity.”12 To effectively describe the world, in other words, one has to allow that it has more dimensions than the four we can observe: length, breadth, and depth (in space) and the fourth, time.e Cambridge Relativity continues:
Theories were built which describe with great success three of the four known interactions in Nature: Electromagnetism, and the Strong and Weak nuclear forces … unfortunately the fourth interaction, gravity, beautifully described by Einstein’s General Relativity (GR), does not seem to fit into this scheme. Whenever one tries to apply the rules … one gets results which make no sense. For instance, the force between two gravitons (the particles that mediate gravitational interactions), becomes infinite and we do not know how to get rid of these infinities to get physically sensible results.13
There are two points to note here. The first is that modern science also regards the universe as fundamentally composed of energy. This is what these “four known interactions in Nature” (electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity) describe. The existence of physical matter and physical effects (and of the universe itself) therefore depends on energy.
The other point of note is that scientists still, and by their own admission, do not understand how the universe works, since one of the basic energies they are attempting to deal with (gravity) does not fit their own rules. And yet the world still works. This is one justification for Michio Kaku’s statement that the universe is stranger than we can imagine.
For some scientists, the conclusion (most often spoken in hushed tones and whispers in the halls of academia) is that there is an intelligence to this energy of the universe, an intelligence that we don’t understand and cannot measure, but which is greater than our own. The physicist Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, for example, in The Dreaming Universe talks of his realizations about the world, that no “forces had created this blindly, nor had mechanics created it nor had blind nature created it. A clearly organized, intelligent, feeling, sensing, like-myself, anthropomorphic being had created it. In that sense I felt the presence of God.”14
Even scientists who overtly deny this intelligence must tacitly accept it, if they are working on string theory at all, for the very name of this branch of science comes from the fact that the operations of the universe, within this scientific model, are conceived as vibrations on the string of a vast musical instrument. And every instrument must be played by someone—or something. Music describes the universe not only more poetically, but, these days, more accurately than mathematics.
For our scientists as much as our shamans, the universe is energy and it is intelligent and self-aware. Human beings, plants, and the entire world order are composed of this energy. That is why something as simple as a floral bath can work: it works through the energy that we share. The spirit of the plants puts us in touch with the greater energy of the universe and the intelligence pervading it. Or, as the shamans would say: we are healed through our reconnection to the divine spirit of nature.
BATHS IN THE AMAZON: AN INTERVIEW WITH A SHAMAN
In Peru, floral baths are known as banjos florales (flower baths) and are a staple of shamanic healing from the high Andes to the Amazon basin. People use them to wash away unhelpful spirits in order to remove blockages, so that the energy of the universe can flood in and correct the imbalance. Artidoro Aro Cardenas, describes the process in Peru.
How are these baths taken?
AAC: The bath is most often taken on the morning after ayahuasca ceremonies so that the body is modified to accept the new information of the visions. But this is not always true. Sometimes baths are taken before the ceremony to open the person up, and sometimes they are taken by themselves, as a healing.
A tub is filled with water and to this is added the plants that the patient most needs, like mocura and ajo sacha, some of the most powerful doctors. Agua florida or agua de colpas may also be added.
The person must approach in a sacred manner, in prayer that his needs will be met, and with the intention that they will. The shaman then pours the water over his head and lets it run down his body, also blowing with smoke to purify him, or with perfume so he will flourish.
Sometimes the person turns as this is happening—first to the left [in a circle, counterclockwise], then to the right [clockwise]. The first turn is to get rid of negativity; the second to draw in positivity.
The bath takes place on the bank of a river so the energy that is removed will find its way to the sea.f
What plants are used in baths?
AAC: Floral baths do not contain large numbers of plants. Specific plants or flowers are chosen instead according to the patient’s ailment.
I begin by cooking up good-smelling plants from the forest, and to that essence I add a little alcohol and a little agua florida. Then I get flowers and mash them and add that juice to the mixture and put it into bottles. When I do this, I diet and refrain from eating salt, etcetera. You can either have a one-off floral bath or you can have a series of them for a deeper and more thorough effect.
A common reason for people to want to take floral baths is that something is not going well for them—like, for example, they can’t get work or they are having bad luck. First I give them a cleansing bath to take away the saladera [bad luck] which shows up as salt on their skins. In that bath I put ajo sacha, mishquipanga, ruda, and romero [rosemary]. Then the floral bath follows to give the things the client wants: luck, work, etcetera.
Can you give examples of other baths and what they are used for?
AAC: For changing luck, mocura is used, and the patient will find that after a couple of weeks, things have changed. For example you may find the job you were looking for, or where your life felt stuck or turbulent there is some momentum; things start to shift. Mocura is also used for clearing negative thoughts and feelings sent to you by others.
For cleansing the spirit, the dark red leaves of pinon colorado are used to undo sorcery and harm. This plant is also used in steam baths and when this is done you can actually see the phlegm, which is the bad magic, appear on the patient’s skin as it comes out of the body.
For flourishing or blossoming, bano de florecimiento plants are used. These help us to connect with and draw upon the strength and courage within ourselves, to overcome obstacles, and to lead a purposeful and productive life in accordance with our soul’s intention. The mixture for this bath is agua de colpa water from a place in the forest where pure rainwater collects. Often hunters drink this water as well to attract the animals. To this is added albacca, which is a plant used widely in Peru for its strong, sweet perfume. It is used instead of an aerosol spray to freshen a house and is also placed on corpses during funerals. From a floral bath perspective, it attracts lots of friends and positive outcomes. It is also used medicinally for gastritis, appendix, or gall bladder problems, in which case you can take it as a tea. Menta [mint] is also added to freshen and revitalize the bather. Menta is also good for calming the nerves and releasing worries and preoccupations. When the person bathes, all of these plant qualities are absorbed by the skin and the spirit.
Although the exact ingredients may not be available in the West (with the probable exception of mint), it is possible to work with plants that have similar qualities to the ones Arevalo describes.
If you would like to try the luck bath for yourself, for example, in place of agua de colpa, you can collect fresh rainwater that has gathered in a forest, or the morning dew on grass and leaves, and use it as the base for this bath. In place of albacca, use other fragrant flowers or herbs—rose petals, for example, or saffron that has been crushed to release its fragrance. (Also see appendix 2 for other alternatives.)
Again, it is a positive attitude and a clear intent that is most important. The plants will then help you to draw in benign and benevolent energies.
BATHS IN HAITI: AN INTERVIEW WITH A LEAF DOCTOR
The ritual bathing process is similar in Haiti. Here, the bather approaches the water barrel carrying a white candle, which he must keep alight at all times. No doubt this is to focus his mind on a prayerful intent for his healing, although candles are also a way to attract the attention of spirits.
The candle is handed to an assistant and the patient kneels before the barrel to receive his first wash from the shaman or medsen fey. He then stands and, in the same way as in Peru, turns to the left and the right for subsequent washes. In Haitian magic, counterclockwise is the direction of decrease and removal, and clockwise is the direction of increase and drawing in.
The number of washes he receives and the plants contained in the waters depend on which Lwa has, through the prayers of the shaman, given power to the bath. “This depends on the patient’s needs,” says Loulou Prince.
What plants are used?
LP: The plants that we use are secret, but I will tell you, for example, that Papa Ogoun [the Lwa] brings power and he likes spices and hot peppers, so we add these things to call him into the bath. It is never just plants you receive; the plants are the Lwa.
They [plants] also contain Gran Bwa, the spirit of all the leaves in the forest. When I bathe a person and rub him with these leaves, I am all the time praying to the Lwa to bless and protect him, and he takes in the Lwa themselves; he is not just rubbed with plants!
What rituals are involved in the bathing?
LP: The ritual begins long before the bath itself. I must go out to the woods and collect the leaves in a proper manner, and pay the trees. (See a photograph of a houngan leading a leaf walk on page 4 of the color insert.) Then there may be a pile fey,g a ritual where the leaves are ground to a powder for magical use.
The mortar used in a pile fey is a large hollow tree stump and the pestles, also made from the trunk of a small tree or a thick branch, are so large that two men are needed to pound the leaves. Often, the Lwa themselves possess the men to help them with the work and, to encourage this, there is dancing, drumming, and singing during the ceremony.h
The leaves are then put to a variety of uses and become the material for pakets, wangas [magical charms, e.g., for luck and love] and, of course, the baths. (See the photograph of wanga bottles decorated with serpents in the color insert.) Only when all these appeals to the Lwa are made and our respects have been paid should the patient be bathed, or it will not work.
There is a fine balance [to this healing]; if the patient takes on too much power, it is said he may become loupgarou,i so he is wild and out of control. Balance is the key to healing.
We explained to Loulou that in Jamaica, a nearby Caribbean island, ritual baths take place in “Balm Yards,” dedicated spaces where the doctor and priest bathe a patient. According to Zora Neale Hurston, in Tell My Horse: “Sometimes [the healer] diagnoses a case as a natural ailment and a bath or series of baths in infusions of secret plants is prescribed. More often the diagnosis is that the patient has been ‘hurt’ by a duppy [a spirit], and the bath is given to drive the spirit off. The Balm Yard with a reputation is never lacking for business.”15
Where do your bathing rituals take place? Do you also use a dedicated sacred space like the balm yard?
LP: In Haiti, the bath is often taken in the hounfor [the Vodou temple], and there is a special area I use for this. I suppose this is like a “balm yard,” although it is less formal than that.
Baths may also take place outside the hounfor though, at springs and rivers where the Lwa live. Those for La Siren, the mermaid spirit, may be received in ceremonies conducted at the ocean.
There are also pilgrimage sites for luck baths, such as those at Bassin Saint Jacques in the Plaine du Nord, where the bathers wallow in mud which is charged with special energy.j It is common for possessions to occur at this time as the Lwa enter the body of the bather to purify him from the inside.
Another pilgrimage site is Saut d’Eau, which has waterfalls surrounded by huge trees that are the homes of the spirits. Through the leaves and roots of these trees, the spirits charge the waters with their power.
RECIPES FOR SUCCESS
Sacred baths are the meeting place of three energies: human, plant, and universal. To our eyes, their effects can be subtle at first, because we have not been taught to view the world or ourselves from a perspective of energy, but to see everything as physical matter. The bath is therefore like a new language of health, or a new way of seeing. Its power enters us slowly at first, as if the intelligence it contains is gently and gradually opening us and building our strength. Then, after a while, we can receive deeper healing without being overloaded or shocked. If we keep faith with the process, we will master the language of the plants and more powerfully experience the effects of the bath as time goes on.
The following recipes are offered so you can explore this yourself. The first two are Haitian in origin, the next is from Peru, and the final bath is based on the symbolic and energetic powers of homegrown American plants.
In Haiti and Peru, baths are taken outside in nature, but, for practical purposes, we suggest you use your indoor bathtub, although you should still approach bathing in a sacred manner. You can carry a ritual candle as you enter the bath if this helps you to connect with your spiritual intent; if not, simply bathe by candlelight, and state your prayers before you enter the tub.
Stand in the bath and, turning counterclockwise and then clockwise, visualize negative energies leaving you and your body filling with positive energy as you pour the water over yourself. The water, in all cases, should be as cold as you can bear.
Love Bath (Haitian)
For purifying energies and opening to love
To make this bath, you will need the following:
Steep all of the ingredients for an hour or so in hot water and, when cool, add this to a cold-water bath, along with three drops of vanilla essence and a cupful of single cream or milk. Pour the water over yourself and ask the spirits of the plants to invest you with their energy and empower you to draw in the love you need.
When you are finished with your bath, take the plant remains into nature and bury them at the base of a tree, or throw them into a stream, leaving an offering of thanks to the spirits of that place.
Power Bath (Haitian)
For the energy to deal with specific problems
This bath works directly with the power of the Lwa, who are particular spiritual energies with a specific purpose or attunement to human beings.
In Haiti, the basic bath consists of the following:
Depending on the nature of the problem or the spiritual intervention required, you may then add any of the following:
In the African Yoruba system, which informs aspects of modern Vodou, the Lwa—here known as Orisha—are largely the same, although their herbal correspondences differ. For the Yoruba, the following herbs (known as ewe—pronounced “you-WAY”) are sacred to each spirit, and these can also be used in your baths:
Soothing Bath (Peruvian)
For peace, good fortune, and harmony of the soul
This bath combines plants that have soothing and purifying qualities:
Add handfuls of each to your bath and rub them over your body as you soak.
The Language of Flowers (Traditional American)
A recipe personal to you
This is an opportunity to create your own bath according to your personal needs. It is based on the American Floral Vocabulary, or “language of flowers,” which was popular in the late 1800s and recorded the symbolic meanings and attractive powers of many common American flowers. This vocabulary was once known to all young women and became a form of communication between friends, who would send flowers to each other as a “code of sentiment” and a form of blessing. The flowers would then draw into the recipient’s life the qualities they represented.
Some of these qualities are listed below, and from these you can devise your own baths. The language of flowers is now largely unknown in America. By using these baths, you might also rekindle interest in this homegrown form of folk healing and well-wishing.
Add to your bath the flowers representing the attribute (or attributes) you want to draw into your life and bathe in the normal way.