The Breath of Memory

By Walter Hodges

The sun was just cracking open through the low clouds along the high-desert horizon line outside San Miguel when Sylvia Luna, an indigenous Otomí woman, gathered some small wild rosemary stems in her hands. She gently crushed them, held the soft “needles” close to her nose, and breathed deeply from a memory 1500 years in the making. She smiled. She remembers. Silvia traces her cultural heritage back to the beginning in Mexico. Centuries before the Aztec came to power. Sylvia is a proud Otomí. The Otomí were the mother culture in this part of the world. They invented healthcare and beauty products out of the necessity to survive, while living in one of the hottest and most inhospitable places on earth - Sylvia’s home, the high desert of Central Mexico.

She’s not a shaman, but she helps heal her neighbors. Her son laughs and says, “Moma, you’re a witch!”

Sylvia Luna uses her entrepreneurial spirit and ancient knowledge to gather herbs, plants, and flowers from the desert to heal and pamper the body. She learned how to do this by talking to the teachers, the women, the healers, the old ones, and, to be fair, in 2026, a person has got to use YouTube, right? Sylvia uses the rhythms of nature to know when to gather herbs and plants. In her house in the campo on the outskirts of San Miguel, she makes shampoo, hand soap, creams, lotions, teas, and medical remedies. Almost 30 different products.

It’s a family affair. Her business is called Luna, Medicina Con Amor. For Sylvia, it started about 4 years ago. Her family needed extra money to survive. But instead of doing domestic work for rich gringos, she decided to go back in time to study the old ways of the Otomí, and gradually she learned how to work with what the desert provides her. What makes Sylvia’s story compelling is not just that she does all this with almost no money or that she is indigenous or entrepreneurial. It is that she sits exactly atthe intersection of four long histories:

• The survival of Otomí  knowledge from 6,000 BCE

• The economic reality of li-ving in modern rural Mexico in 2026.

• The transformation of ancestral healing into a small-scale enterprise for health and beauty products.

• The spiritual and entrepreneurial journey of simply trying to find a place for her family to stand in the world

Doctors are nowhere in the campo, so a woman who knows the old ways can help treat an upset stomach, stop coughs, heal burns, treat inflammation, calm anxiety, clean the body, and make a person feel good about themselves again.

Back at home, Sylvia mixes water with eight different plants, including rosemary and guava leaves. She builds a fire from small mesquite limbs and cooks the mixture for almost three hours. It will become an incredible shampoo. In the simple kitchen of her home, Sylvia cooks/mixes glycerine soap cubes, dried rosemary, collagen, vitamin E, and essential oil. She pours it into molds to make scented hand soap. She makes personal variations on many recipes to create all of her beauty products, healing mixtures, and teas.

Sylvia sells her soap, potions, creams, teas, and all sorts of products, but what she is really selling is memory. Memories from the Otomí  in the desert surrounding San Miguel de Allende.

Sylvia is just starting out. She is doing her best to show up at manyof San Miguel's open-air markets - tianguis.

You can also contact her on Facebook at Luna Medicina Con Amor

415 112 7436 and lunamedicinaconamor@gmail.com