Our Story

An ancient indigenous tradition influencing the power of weather continues, and is preparing for the new world of changing climate. In the highlands of central Mexico, the villages of the Nahua people are nestled in the rugged high-altitude landscape dotted with volcanoes, steep ridges and valleys. The Nahuas have always thrived on their fields of maize, beans, squash and chilis, despite living in a region that receives rain for only six months out of the year. Yet this precious moisture isn’t guaranteed to arrive. A storm might also bring harvest-busting hail that can quickly beat down a crop, which is possible given the mountainous terrain. In order to prosper, they have depended on a special relationship with the “Great Beings of the Sky” to bring the beneficial rains.

These central highland indigenous people have cultivated an important understanding, approach and arrangement through thousands of years of successful interactions in village ceremonies to bring the rains and the processes that limit the effect of strong storms. What the villagers have understood since time immemorial is that these divine expressions of wind, clouds, moisture/rain, and the sky Herself play an active role in selecting those people who will act as emissaries and relationship-holders between themselves and the people, who will organize and lead principle ceremonies, provide wisdom and help maintain an awareness of the importance of these sacred connections between the heavens, people and earth. These specially chosen men and women have many names: In the Nahuatl language they can be called quiatlzques, or someone who makes “watery” arrive, or a quiapaquiz, someone that makes moisture rise up and inundate the land. In Spanish, they can be called graniceros, people that stop the hail or trabajadores del tiempo, or tiemperos, workers of the rain season. In English, they can be called weather workers. This calling is most often delivered by surviving a lightning strike or special, strong, persistent dreams.

In 1906, a man named Don Lucio Campos Elizalde was born in the Nahua village of Nepopualco in the state of Morelos. In his early twenties, he was struck by lightning while tending his cattle in the hills above his village. Arriving back to his family dwelling, stunned and confused, he slipped into a coma lasting three years, and during that time his spirit travelled to the sky where he learned many things about people, the earth, medicinal plants, and the “beings who brought the rain, wind and clouds.” During this time of learning in this other realm, his family took care of his comatose body. Finally he was told by a mysterious long-robed woman recognized as the mother sky, or sometimes Catholicized in the Nahua expression of syncretism as Santa Barbara, that he must return and help others. Then he awoke, and although heartbroken to no longer be in that celestial place, he was infused with a deep commitment to the living forces of Nature to serve his community. Soon afterwards, he found Don Felipe Garcia, a well-known and deeply experienced quiapaquiz in Amecameca, Estados de Mexico, who initiated him into this lasting and revered lineage of tiemperos, connecting him to the many generations who had preceded him. Complementing what Don Lucio had learned from his time in the heavens, Don Felipe supported him in the time-honored Nahua ways and art of healing. 

During his time in the upper world, Don Lucio was shown a prophetic vision by Santa Barbara that the Weather Beings would turn particularly destructive with droughts, floods and powerful storms because the peoples were losing their recognition of the relationship and generosity of the forces that bring life giving waters and nourishment to the lands. This would be a great problem along with a disrespect shown to the Earth. He was shown that some parts of the souls of the old Nahua tiemperos would be called back and born into people who lived in “the four corners of the world” to bring this tradition and work to the places where they lived and rekindle a connection recognized and cherished by humans for countless generations. These “new workers” would spread the tradition that otherwise had been humbly held by the Nahuas, thereby bringing hope to humanity that these problems could be eliminated. 

In 1996, through a series of unusual experiences, an American named David Wiley, having recently moved to Mexico, found himself in Don Lucio‘s simple altar room following the instructions of an astonishing apparition that had appeared to him and requested that he seek out Don Lucio. By this time, Don Lucio was a highly respected maestro and caporal mayor (ceremonial leader and temple holder) and sought by many both regionally, nationally and internationally for his wisdom and healing work. Don Lucio was sometimes consulted or requested to travel from his village to conduct ceremonies in areas afflicted by cycles of strong storms or drought through his uncanny influence with these commanding and potent manifestations of clouds and wind. In David’s first encounter with Don Lucio, the old Nahua elder acknowledged the provenance of the spirit that had sent him and detected that David had been struck by lightning when he was a teenager. The maestro recognized that David was one of those people being called by the Weather Spirits to the vision Don Lucio had seen in the heavens. The Nahua path of service beyond the traditional villages would now begin in earnest. He soon initiated David as a quiapaquiz and made him his olochtli huei amatlacuilo, or group chief, to help support those who would come. Over the next ten years, people with a calling to this path arrived at Don Lucio’s simple granjero family home from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom along with Mexico. Don Lucio’s vision was finally coming to fruition, as he named the assembly “el grupo precioso” (the precious group). 

David became his principal student, and after some years of teaching him in conducting ceremonies, traditional healing, counseling and learning how to confirm others to the work, Don Lucio passed the responsibility of this diverse group to David shortly before his death in 2005. David continued this sacred dream as the new maestro and caporal mayor. Eventually, Don David relocated the mayoria (ceremonial temple) from the family home to the Nahua village of Tepoztlán, Morelos.  

Now, there are devoted tiemperos in this lineage from different parts of the world. They gather every Spring at the ceremonial center in Tepoztlán to perform the necessary rituals to call the rains for the local villages and to renew their sacred pledge to this vocation in a time-honored ceremony of revitalization. It is of great importance that they deepen their understanding of the tradition through teachings and experience. This strengthens the link to their calling so that they can carry this manda, or spiritual “demand,” to their homes and support the arrival of those “water-bearers” and diminish destructive storms. As part of this, they strive to inspire others to, once again, look skyward and appreciatively recognize the living expressions held by the sheltering sky. This opens the possibilities for relationship and reconnection so that humanity may live a better, more hopeful future. The property, Casa Xiuhtecuhtli, is now protected by a 501(3)(c) non-profit dedicated to preserving traditional healing. 

To see a short documentary video about this group and the tiempero tradition, click here.

If you feel that there may be a possibility of being called to this work from experiencing a lightning strike or maybe extraordinary dreams, and you would like to investigate this prospect, please contact us at workingforweather@keepsthefire.org.

For information about attending the Spring or Autumn seasonal ceremonies as a visitor, click here.  If you would like to help support this important work so that it may continue, click here.