Elena Avila, RN, MSN Curandera,

is a first generation Chicana born in the barrios of El Paso, Texas. Her parents were born in Mexico and brought their medicine with them out of Mexico, medicine passed down through time. Elena's first language was Spanish, and her family's health care included Curanderismo as well as western medicine.  Click here for more

A Curandera's Concept of Medicine

When the natural and the spiritual are not torn apart into disjointed entities, there is a balance between human and nature. Human beings have a spiritual nature as well as an individual soul, and the body can not be cut away from the soul and spirit. Humans are members of the natural world -animals, plants, minerals, earth, and all living things found on earth. Illness occurs when one does not live in harmony with all these aspects of "self." Click here for more

Woman Who Glows In The Dark

An autobiographical account of how a psychiatrist nurse specialist became a folk medicine healer, this also explains the origins and practice of one of the oldest forms of medicine in the New World. It was during Avila's years of practice in psychiatric clinics and hospitals that her dissatisfaction with the way patients were treated and the poor outcome of treatment sparked her interest in and study of Curanderismo. Click here for more information