Spiritual act of healing

IGNACIO, Colo.

The shaman knew the software language of Java, felt at home in Windows Vista and spread his wisdom with the help of Outlook Express.

But his piercing eyes, traditional jewelry and a flowing silvery mane betrayed more than an Internet link to the past.

“How can I help you?” he asked as a curious smile brushed across his brown face.

The visitor, a middle-aged white man from the East Coast who asked that his name not be revealed, was hesitant, even shy.

What brought him to this tiny town close to the Colorado-New Mexico state line, on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, could be summed up in one word: desperation.

For years, he has been tormented by a nonfatal but socially devastating disease, to which conventional doctors have long since thrown in the towel.

He had chronic stomach cramps, a condition that has made him dash out of important business meetings, curtailed his travel and turned a simple night out into a risky venture.

After so many lost battles, he felt almost resigned, with just a faint ember of hope for a miracle, for an act of God, to whom he has not spoken in years.

Eddie Box Jr., a local IT wiz by profession and a Ute medicine man by calling, was recommended as a helper of last resort.

“Do you believe in God, sir?” Mr. Box inquired.

The answer came after an awkward pause: Yeah, sure. Don’t we all?

There was his grandfather reading a prayer before dinner, a Sunday Bible school. Then events gathered speed like an express train trying to keep up with the schedule. Graduation, college, graduate school. Job interviews, paychecks, promotions. Money made, money spent. Houses bought, houses sold. Marriage, children, divorce, another marriage.

And through it all, diet and exercise — the modern-day mantra hammered home by everybody from public officials to media outlets.

All that has darted past like roaring race cars on the Daytona International Speedway, leaving behind just an acrid smell of exhaust.

The Indian healer’s question had just made him realize, in awe, that somewhere among the hubbub of everyday life, there remained no place left for Him, his Lord and Creator.

Mr. Box listened, patiently and respectfully, and then spoke with softness but conviction.

“I don’t know what God you believe in, and that is not important. But healing is a spiritual process first. If you believe you can get the Bad Spirit out of you, you will get it out of you.”

He spoke of the never-ending struggle between good and bad, of the importance of soul-searching, of being at peace with oneself.

It was hard to believe that what some would dismiss as shamanism existed and flourished in an era of a deciphered human genome, quadruple bypasses and MRI scans.

But Mr. Box appeared to operate in a different dimension, where the scientific almost came into contact with the spiritual, and yet remained on a parallel course.

Never once has he tried to challenge the authority of licensed physicians administering professional help. Instead, he fans the spark of hope — often where none is left.

That seems to be the focus of other Indian medicine men, who live hundreds of miles away from southern Colorado.

In the tiny Hopi village of Moenkopi, in northeastern Arizona, this ancient craft is practiced by Lewis Numkena, whose fame as a healer goes far beyond his native reservation.

His patients come from all over: fellow Hopi, Navajo, Puebloans from New Mexico, and even white people, some as far away as New York.

“A couple of years ago, a man came from England,” he said with a proud grin. “He was 80 years old, and something was really wrong with his head. He was suicidal.”

Did he give him any herbs or potions?

Mr. Numkena shook his head: “I just prayed for him. Sometime later, he came back to thank me — a totally different man.”

The system of American Indian religious beliefs is fragmented, flexible and open to interpretation, tribal members say.

There is no holy book or a popelike figure to enforce any structured liturgy. Religious practices vary from village to village, from clan to clan, from kiva to kiva, as the prayer houses are called, without ever becoming common knowledge.

Medicine men — Hopi, Navajo and Ute — fit perfectly into the system.

They can be found in practically every town or village in the Four Corners area where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet, said Kenneth Sullivan, a Navajo rancher who lives close to Monument Valley.

“Go to any town here and stop by the store and ask, and you will find your way to one,” he said.

The way to Mr. Box was found following this advice.

The healer pondered a moment, as if collecting his thoughts or communicating with a higher power, and then offered his prescription: sage.

Go to the Indian store downtown, he said, and buy a bunch of this resilient plant that grows everywhere on the arid expanses of the West and is believed to have medicinal powers. At home, boil some water and add dried sage stems. When the brew is complete, filter out the grass and drink.

“But you have to pray, to really connect with God while drinking,” he warned. “Otherwise, there won’t be any effect.”

The store was exactly where Mr. Box said it would be, and so was the sage — $3.99 a bunch.

Back home, the patient put it on the kitchen counter ready to brew. If there was to be a conversation with God, he wanted to have it alone, unmolested.

That night, his wife had a friend over; the next he had to work late. Then came a business trip, the baseball playoffs, a couple of late-night projects at work and a party at the boss’s house.

Then something else, and something else. … The daily grind was on and, again, he was smack-dab in the middle of it, finding it hard to make a rendezvous with the Good Spirit.

And the sage? It remains exactly where it was left months ago: on the kitchen counter.