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195 I do not like Wednesdays. I will never forget the terrifying experiences of every Wednesday night at my grandmother’s house where I lived from the ages of three to seven; I would be in the middle of my bed holding my one-yearold brother Joel, waiting for my uncle Fernando. He would come into the house just to scare me to death by crawling on his hands and knees, highheeled shoes on his hands making horrifying noises. Hours later, another uncle, mi tio Natividad, would come in drunk, shouting, “Orphans, your mother will never come back!” Then he would start molesting me. I prayed every night for these things to stop. Then, one night when my uncle Fernando was asleep, a spirit dragged him by his feet all the way to the driveway. He was so terrified that he stopped scaring me for a little while. There was no one, no relative to turn to except for God and he answered my prayer by sending this spirit to help me. This affirmed to me that there is a Creator with spirit helpers and a place where we will go after we leave this earth. Not too many things changed after that, but ever since I was four years old the spirit world has been my companion, my strength, and my guiding light. My name is Beatriz Villegas, but my friends call me Bea, and, more recently , Ilhuicatlahuili-Bea. I was raised by my grandmother in Torreón, Coahuila , México, from the time I was three until I was seven. My grandmother, Guadalupe Garcia Flores Rebolledo, a matriarch in all senses of the word, was a strong woman of great faith and strong will. My grandmother’s origins explain her strength. My abuela Guadalupe was a Mexica curandera (healer) Indian from Malinalco (better known as Chalma, Estado de México), an enchanted place where the Mexica “Ninjas” were trained for war. My abuela Coming Full Circle Beatriz Villegas/Ilhuicatlahuili-Bea 196 · Beatriz Villegas/Ilhuicatlahuili-Bea was abducted from her village by a Victoriano Huerta guerrillero during the Mexican Revolution. After the revolution, my abuelos moved to Torreón, a city that for many years I thought was where my family originated. My grandmother had three sons and three daughters. Once, her youngest daughter Rafaela got very sick. Having no family and being so young, my grandmother had no one to turn to for help. She had heard of Baptist missionaries who prayed for the sick, so she went to them. They prayed for her daughter and she was healed. Out of gratitude, my grandmother adopted the Baptist religion. My abuela, being so eager to learn about this new religion, prayed for a miracle, the ability to read the Bible. As soon as she opened the holy book, she learned how to read and taught herself how to write as well. My grandmother was in her late thirties when my grandfather left her with six children and no financial income, but she supported the family with hard work, always teaching her children to live according to the Bible. Her example and guidance gave me the foundations to be spiritual and to be a tool in God’s hand in helping others. At this age I really did not know about the native spirituality of this land, but I did discern that if you believed in God, the Great Spirit, he could help me as he helped my abuela to magically learn to read. Later I would learn how the Creator and his spirits can guide you to help people with their needs. I was four years old when I had a vision of a spirit. I was on my way to the outside bathroom when I saw a young boy. There was a full moon, so everything was very clear to me. He was a teenager wearing overalls and a white shirt. He was trying to tell me something, but my fear was so great that I ran screaming and crying to my bedroom, jumping into the bed. My grandmother tried to console me when she noticed that I was burning with fever. The fever continued for weeks. She took me to the doctor, but the fever continued until my grandmother decided she was going to cure me the way her own Indigenous grandmother had taught her. Kneeling, she first prayed to God, asking for forgiveness for what she was about to do. Even though Christians had told her...

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