Healer knows Wintu medicine

NATIVE HEALER: Leah Harper greets those who seek healing near her cedar lodge after sunset when her powers are strongest

When you first meet Leah Harper, you know she is special.

Her cerulean eyes are warm and knowing. She is humble - and tangibly powerful.

She does not like the term "medicine woman" as it implies too much ego, and wants it to be perfectly clear that it is not she who heals, but rather "Spirit that heals through her."

This process she refers to as learning about one's own medicine.

She sees herself as a facilitator assisting each person in that process.

"Each of us has our own medicine. The question is how we use it. Do we use it for our own personal gain or do we use it selflessly for others? Do we use it for good or for evil?" says Harper.

Leah Harper was born February 28, 1955 to a non-denominational preacher and a prophetic mother. She comes from a long line of powerful Wintu women, all healers like herself. Their portraits hang on her wall in a five-generation sequence, beginning with the full-blooded Wintu, Mary Crockett Philpot, born in Hyampom, California in 1846. "When I die, I will hang beneath my mother, and my daughter beneath me," says Harper pointing to the vertically hanging portraits.

Her father, a healer in the Christian community, would gather his large family together each day and pray over them. "My mother's life-long illness was a main obstacle the family struggled to overcome," recalls Harper. To this day, Harper finds many of her healers in the Christian community.

As spiritual healers, both of Harper's parents were skeptical of traditional western medicine. Harper's father delivered her three oldest siblings alone with his wife in the orchard they loved so much. On another occasion, a chicken bit off the tip of her brother's finger and swallowed it. Her mother grabbed the chicken, killed it quickly, found the fingertip, washed it and sewed it back on. It wasn't until Harper, the youngest of nine children, came down with Rheumatic Fever at nine years old that the Harpers relied on western medicine as a primary resource.

Harper lives in a rural area of Shasta County and is a member of the Nor Rel Muk Nation (Trinity County branch) of the Wintu tribe. Her greatest sadness is the fractionalization of the Wintu tribe wherein "thousands of Wintus in Shasta County continue to go unrecognized despite a 30 year battle." Harper notices the number of people coming to her for healing has increased greatly.

"This is a time when we have turned a corner and need to come together in love," says Harper.

As for Harper, she strives to use her medicine selflessly to help others. People approach her from all over the world seeking healing, often telling her they were sent to her.

In response to an increasing need, Harper constructed a teepee-shaped cedar lodge in back of her rural Shasta County home where she meets with people. Harper works mostly at night when "Spirit is most powerful."

Near the lodge is a small lake, filling the night with the sounds of croaking frogs mixed with an occasional coyote howl off in the distance. Away from the glow of city lights, the stars and the moon show off their splendor.

"I'm very connected to the moon," says Harper. "Depending on how it is in the sky, I can see what will happen that night."

Harper also sees how the night will go when she prepares for those coming to visit. She rakes off a layer of dirt on the floor of the lodge and disposes of it away from the lodge. During the day, she may hear the person calling her while walking on the River Trail or she may get a sense for what needs to be done while meditating in the lodge.

The lodge entrance is deceptively small, but once inside it's very spacious. Blanketed stumps provide seating, as does a floor cushion with a brightly-colored afghan for warmth. A round pit in the center and candles around the circle provide light. There is a "spirit hole" on the side of the lodge so that the "bad spirits" can be released as necessary.

Before entering the lodge, Harper lights a local native Wild Sunflower Root and wafts smoke around visitors, following the Native American ritual of smudging.

On one particular evening, a visitor enters the lodge and sits down. Harper has him blow on a lit piece of root and tell her what he sees, much like finding shapes in the clouds. She does not, however, ask why he is there as this information can cloud the experience.

After blowing on the root, the visitor moves to a stump and sits facing Harper. She says a prayer, holds his hands and asks for permission to visit his heart.

"At this point, I set myself aside and ride with Spirit into the heart. I look around the heart. I see how the person has set up their heart. Is their furniture?" describes Harper.

After that, she travels through the body looking for what needs healing and will ask questions as she sees things, knowing questions that can weaken the strongest skeptic.

Harper does not don Native American paraphernalia in an effort to appear regal. She prefers her jeans and a sweater and feels her power does not come from a headdress.

"It's not about your feathers and who you know," says Harper. "Healing can only come from a place of love where no personal gain is to be had. So many people are searching for pure love."

Harper admits to a time when she neglected to follow this mantra. When she was begged by a friend to say a blessing for a large monetary gain because of some medical needs, she agreed.

The blessing came true to pass three days later. What followed was not pleasant for Harper who describes how she was "spanked by Spirit" as a result of the whole incident.

This taught her to never travel that path again.

Historically, in the spirit of reciprocity, when a person would see a medicine woman and he would feel helped in some way, he would give hides or something valuable to the woman for the value he received.