New Drapes, Paint and a Spiritual Cleansing
With an eagle feather in hand, Olivia Chumacero fans her homemade incense of dried cedar leaves, bark and resin, sending the spiraling smoke above a circle of close friends. She inhales deeply, ready to perform a much-revered ritual of her Mexican Tarahumara Indian heritage called a limpia, or a spiritual cleansing.
“The purpose of my being in this home tonight is to invoke and bring good spirits,” says Chumacero, 50, as guests of new homeowners Dan Guerrero and Richard Read move in to hear the barefooted, soft-spoken woman with dark hair and dangling turquoise earrings.
Surrounded by Al Hirschfeld original drawings and an extensive collection of contemporary Chicano art on walls, she stands in the swank two-bedroom West Hollywood condominium with its white plantation shutters, state-of-the-art entertainment center and balcony with a view. Fragrant creamy-white tuberoses and yellow and red marigolds--commonly used for Day of the Dead remembrances--are everywhere, in vases, baskets, scattered on the floor and arranged in seven floral crosses on a glass coffee table.
The female guests place the crosses in each of the seven rooms to beckon positive energy and repel any negative forces. Guests move from room to room--as Chumacero first sprinkles petals on their heads and randomly splashes orange water on them. Later, she welcomes each to an aromatic tea of canela, or cinnamon.
Her eyes closed, Chumacero breaks into song, the lyrics in her tribe’s Raramuri dialect. She invites those participating to repeat them. They do. She tells everyone there to “always honor the four directions: north, south, east, west” and softly commands them to move in unison, always to their right. Throughout the hourlong ceremony, the group of 10 follows every step she takes and listens intently as she speaks endearingly about Earth, wind, fire and water, and the relationship each has to the seasons and man. She talks about respect and love for each other, for animals, for trees, the sky, nature and then stresses how this limpia is really about the affirmation of life, even if it’s in the fast lane. Her storytelling connects the group to its feelings about home, family, friends and, most of all, about how important it is for members to participate in an ancient ritual that is performed in rural settings in Mexico and on U.S. Native American reservations.
The ceremony is not uncommon in many Latino communities throughout Los Angeles that maintain such traditions. Along with limpias , many believe that certain amulets ward off evil and that wearing milagros, or charms, can help cure an ailment. But on this night in WeHo, where street parking is impossible without a permit, these artists, writers and show business pals gather when they could be home watching “The West Wing.”
“It’s important to slow down,” Chumacero tells the guests, most of them accustomed to L.A.’s fast lifestyle. She cleverly and gently reminds them not to lose the capacity to care, to value life and to find value even in inanimate objects such as a door frame that was crafted out of wood made from a tree that once was alive. “I think modern human beings, because we don’t intentionally connect with nature the way we should, are disrespectful to the environment. We pollute the Earth, and we pollute each other,” she says later.
“If you respect Mother Earth, you will respect life and realize that your existence here isn’t about ‘take, take, take’ or ‘me, me, me.’ It’s about giving, protecting, sharing and reaffirming.”
Her message isn’t lost on the friends as they place flower arrangements at the foot of a bed, in front of the stove, on the floor under a computer, even in both bathrooms--one in the shower, the other in front of the sink--welcoming purity into the place and purging it of any icky karma.
Chumacero is no ghost buster. And this isn’t her day job--she’s full-time operations manager for Proyecto Pastoral, a nonprofit agency that helps troubled youths in Boyle Heights. She has participated in many public limpias at Native American tribal meetings and gatherings. A friend of Guerrero summoned her for this limpia , her fourth this year.
Outside of the $30 for the flowers she bought at L.A.’s downtown flower market, she never charges, because doing so would defeat the purpose. Besides, she performs the ritual only for “sincere people who don’t have a preconceived notion that this is something weird and [who know] that I’m not doing it for entertainment value. It’s not a business.”
For Chumacero, following the customs and traditions of her indigenous Mexican culture is a way of life, a calling and important to share and pass onto others, especially her kids, to whom she gave Raramuri names. Her daughter’s name, Itzpapalotl, 27, means butterfly; her two sons are Ehecatl, 20, lord of the wind, and Yaxkin, 15, lord of the dawn.
Her grandmother, Rita, taught her the customs as a child growing up in the tribe in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains of Chihuahua. Chumacero’s mother, Manuela, had immigrated to Texas after Olivia, her only child, was born. She labored as a migrant farm worker to send money home to Mexico, remarried and eventually returned for Olivia, taking the 8-year-old to the Panhandle. Chumacero worked in the sun-drenched fields picking cotton, moving from labor camp to labor camp. In her imagination, she offered a limpia at each place.
At 15, the family followed the crops to California--and Chumacero later enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, where she earned a degree in film and theater, spent 15 years with the Teatro Campesino and raised a family. “It’s important to pass down customs and traditions,” Chumacero says. “So many people have lost that.”
That’s why Guerrero wanted the limpia to reconnect culturally and spiritually with himself, his partner, his friends. Together for 22 years, Guerrero, a television producer, and Read, who manages the Marc Shaiman music studio, moved to their new digs two months ago, remodeled and threw a housewarming party--cocktails, some chitchat and, well, a clean house. “We wanted to make this home ours in every way,” says Read, and having the limpia “was another step toward that.”
Adds Guerrero: “I suspect my neighbors are thinking we’re doing ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’ It’s not that we think this place is spooked; I wanted to start life in our new home with a positive slate.”
The couple wanted their friends, who are like family, to share in the experience.
In various rooms, some offered prayers for a sick relative, others revealed their love for a sibling, a spouse, a partner.
Gathered in the kitchen, everyone’s favorite hangout, flowers are laid by the stove. Guests are asked about their friendships with the hosts.
Filmmaker Nancy de los Santos begins: “You are my family. I have this great kinship in my heart. You guys showed me how to buy a house and how important it is to have your place in the world.”
Visiting native Angeleno Roxanne Frias, a television documentarian and broadcaster now living in Paris, says, “Your home has always been a nurturing place.”
“Thank you so much for your friendship,” says Diane Rodriguez, co-director of the Mark Taper Latino Theatre Initiative, who was humbled in taking the evening to be with friends “and invest in our spirit together.”
Sentiments aside, there is laughter, too, as when Chumacero encourages all to offer a prayer at the ceremony’s end. As everyone stands silently in a circle looking as if they have been zapped with that groovy kind of love, the phone rings.
“Dad!” says Guerrero into the receiver, everyone cracking up, “I’m in the middle of a limpia .”
“It’s good to laugh,” Chumacero says. “That’s what makes a home, sweet home.”
