Curandera Tales: Volume 1 - The Living Tree

What you are about to read is the God's honest truth. This is not a work of fiction. I have changed the names of the people in these stories. The stories in this series were told to me by my wife's lifelong best friend Lisa, who just happens to be a Curandera.
If you clicked on this story, you likely already know what a Curandera is. If you don't, Curanderas (females) or Curanderos (males) are Mexican folk healers, spiritual mediums, guides to the spirit realm and paranormal world.
They can heal the sick, rid people of bad luck, curses, tell your future, even put hexes on others and make them suffer long term or kill them quick with spirit magic. You can even consider them witches.
Creatures, spirits, demons and supernatural beings in general tend to flock to Curanderas, so they have to protect themselves from these entities. They are gateways to the spirit realm. There are universal laws though, such as, when you send out something bad to someone, it comes back to you threefold... this I know to be true.
I was shocked to learn that the final test to become a Curandera/Curandero is to kiss a rattlesnake's tongue. This isn't something you just decide to do. You are born into it. Her mother went through the training but never completed the final test, her grandmother was a Curandera and so-on down the line.
Lisa has even taught me a lot. Such as, I'm a gateway to the spirit realm myself. I have this ability that when somebody talks to me, they tend to tell me their life story and all their secrets.  
Usually, a, "I can't believe I just told you that," follows their story. Also, I can see into people's souls. Sometimes, people cannot even look me in the eye. Later, they admit that they felt like I was looking into their soul.  
I even learned how to read Tarot Cards from Lisa. The right way, the way used by the Curanderos in order to develop my abilities further. But, I'll tell that story another time. We have a tradition every winter where I barbeque my slow smoked ribs (over a period of at least nine hours).
My wife, daughter, various friends, family and Lisa all pig-out and when it gets dark. We all bring our chairs from inside to outside under the carport of our house, sit in a circle wrapped up in winter coats and blankets, with the fire still going strong from the large pit, and we listen to Lisa tell stories from her life, stories that can send a chill up your spine.
Now, Lisa is a master storyteller. She has a special way of captivating an audience when she speaks. There is a spanish word she uses for it, something to do with charm. So as you can imagine, we usually make an event out of this, my BBQ for her stories on a cold winter night is our long-running deal.
Last winter, on an exceptionally cold winter January night, (for south Texas), our bellies full, sitting outside, couples wrapped up together, children all snuggled up and eager to hear her stories, Lisa began with her first tale of the evening from when she was a little girl. Around the age of seven.
Lisa's father (a carpenter) had been out of work. After losing their house, her father asked his brother to allow the family to stay with them. Lisa's uncle was not a kind man. He allowed the family to live in the barn which had a dirt floor, no separating walls or bathroom. Unfortunately, this had to do until Lisa's father could get work and save enough money to get a place of their own.
In the family there was Joe (her father), Mary (her mother), Ally (her older sister) and Lisa. After Joe had finally landed some work out of town for a few weeks, he sent his family the money he'd earned, saving just enough for gas, bread and sandwich meat while he was working.
In time, he decided to build walls so the girls could have privacy and a bit of normalcy, even put a floor in the barn. Lisa's favorite pastime was sitting under a very old, very large oak tree out in the field on the side of the barn. She would take her dolls with her, play, have conversations with them, even read books she brought with her.
This wise, old oak soon became a place of solitude and comfort to her. Everyday, after school she would run to the tree to do her homework and just stay there until her mother would call her for dinner. I didn't get the details on how she managed to cook dinner in the barn, but she did.
Four months had passed by and Joe had earned enough money to put a deposit and first month's rent on a house in town. They were very excited to move into a place that had a bathroom, A/C, working plumbing, doors, a kitchen and their own beds.
The night before they were set to move out of the barn, Lisa was laying in her little bed by a window her dad had built for her (natural light is important to our physical, mental and psychic well being according to Lisa). She peered outside the window at her special tree.
She noticed it began to move its huge limbs. Confused, knowing that trees aren't supposed to move like that, she shook her sister Ally awake saying, "Ally, the tree is moving! Wake up! Look, the tree is moving!"
Ally awoke, grumpily asking, "What?! What do you want??"
"The tree outside is moving!!" whispered Lisa, trying not to wake her parents.
"Lisa! Go to sleep," moaned Ally.
As Lisa looked back out the window at her tree, she noticed it was further away. She was shocked. Turning to Ally, she said, "It's moving away! Ally it's moving away!" 
Right away, Ally opened her eyes wide and sat up, "What?!"
"Come look!" said a now very excited Lisa.
As Ally got out of her palet on the floor, she peered out of the window to see the huge tree was actually further away from where it always stood. Shocked, she said, "What the hell?!"
"Should we tell mom and dad?" asked Lisa.
"No, they'll see it in the morning, we'll show 'em then."
The sisters watched the tree slowly move away past the field, past the horizon until they could no longer see it. They tried to go back to sleep but couldn't fall asleep until about two hours before they had to wake up at 6 AM, to begin the move.
A few hours later, Joe woke his family up. As tired and groggy as his daughters were, they remembered what had taken place and told their parents everything they had seen. Joe and Mary had looked at each other in disbelief.
"Mija, there's never been a tree out there," her dad said, turning to Mary.
"Have you ever seen a tree?" he asked her.
"No, I've never seen a tree there, it's always just been an empty field."
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Category:Items/Objects
Category:Mental Illness