Richard Taite

And I was studying curanderos, you know, folk healers, and I was given the assignment to go up from Veracruz, the state of Veracruz where I was living, ride a horse up the mountains to the state of Oaxaca and meet with the

The Queen of the Mushrooms.

Now, I had a relative who was an active addict at the time, so I just had an aversion to ever using...

any substances that altered your mind.

So it wasn't something I was personally familiar with, but I was culturally fascinated with it.

Anyway, so we were living in this little town, Calapa de Dios, and we were headed up on these horses up to go over the mountain range from Veracruz to Oaxaca.

And then at a full gallop, and I love riding, I'm a good rider, but I had forgotten something to do, which I'll tell you in a moment.

So we're

picking up some speed and we start galloping on these young Mexican horses.

We were right in the middle of Mexico and on a full gallop, my young,

horse uh you know had inflated his belly and so at a full gallop as he's really breathing more the the um cinch gets um loose and so the whole saddle turns to the horse's belly and he's now going faster and faster because my feet are hooked into the stirrups and i'm being dragged so my whole face got destroyed and they thought i was dead

And, you know, I'm moaning.

So then they thought I broke my neck.

Well, I didn't break my neck and obviously I'm not dead, but I, I destroyed my face, broke my nose, lost all my teeth.

And, um, but the biggest thing I lost was my identity.

So I had no idea who I was.

I had no words.

And they carried me back to the clinic, which I had been studying.

I was comparing Western doctors to folk healers, to the Cunarderos.

And, um,