Santera

A santera is a high priestess of Santeria. Santeria is an island religion started by West African slaves commingled with Cuban natives and some of the Catholicism that the Spaniards brought.

The first time I met her was in the 11th month of the year of her purification. Purification might not be the exact term but she was supposed to cover herself in white for a year.

Not only was she keeping social interactions to a minimum she wasn’t supposed to touch people or take things from them directly. For instance, I handed her a pen in the van to have her write something. She asked me to set it down so that she could pick it up.

Someone else in the religion has to have seen the spiritual quality of the newbie. We talked about healing. I was highly interested in those days.

I don’t know what it is actually maybe I shouldn’t speculate unless we direct people or I read a paragraph from mom Wikipedia. The images of Santera women snow are wise and little raisin women almost always with a big fat short stubby cigar stuck in the very corner of their mouth. It is comical to look at. Almost a caricature.

So here’s a young spiritual woman who is being picked by her applying people to Santa Rose and Art she has received a call. She is moving into healing.

She works for a big-name local company. They were very accommodating to her in her year long peculiar or unusual requests behavior or requests. Nothing too out of the ordinary of apparently.

And I saw her weeks later. It was warmer. Middle summer. She was wearing a sleeveless tank and her left arm was a large piece of body art. She was smoking menthol 100s and sipping a Monster drink. There’s no accounting for spirituality I guess. I find that part fascinating.

Who gets healed of what?