Learn how we were called by the weather.

Adam and Erin met in college at the end of 1993 and married in early 1994 in a whirl of drama and romance, pulled together by fate. Erin was drawn to this young man for mysterious reasons, but she knew she admired his sun-filled smile and his propensity and gifts for healing, dreaming and creating. This lovely lady’s perserverence and dedication to her healing journey attracted Adam like a moth to a flame.

Going back in time: as a youngster in 1988 trying to nap while a storm was blowing in, Erin was jolted off her bed by a giant crash and feeling of shock and energy that left her reeling and shaking. The lightning and the fire it produced, whipped up by the storm-wind, burned her family’s home to the ground that day in a torrential rainstorm. In time, she and her family picked up the pieces and moved on from that tragedy thanks to the selfless support and care of their country Appalachian community. She experienced many strange events and chronic, difficult-to-diagnose illness throughout her young life.

Fast-forward to 2002, when, upon learning of the lightning strike and several specific dreams, a trusted spiritual mentor advised Adam and Erin to go to Mexico to visit a teacher named David Wiley, who would take them to don Lucio Campos, a respected traditional shaman in the countryside of Central Mexico. When the moment came, don Lucio confirmed both of them were specially called to devote themselves to his ancient Nahua indigenous tradition, to become weather workers, known as quiatlzques and quiapaquiz in Nahuatl and tiemperos or graniceros in Spanish.

You must be initiated, or “crowned,” into the lineage at once under the watchful eyes of the Weather Beings (Rain, Clouds, Wind, Lightning, and Sun), he told them. He insisted it was dangerous for them to fly through the sky to return home without this ancient rite to protect them.

Since their crowning in 2003, the couple has dedicated themselves to the learning, trials, generosity and growth that go hand-in-hand with an authentic traditional path. Since then, just like their weather working colleagues, they engage in active relationship with the weather of their geographic region, petitioning for balance and protection for the people, for abundant crops and beneficial blessings for the region.

In 2012, they began the deep journey into becoming traditional tepahtiani healers in this tradition, led by the steady mentorship of the leader of their tradition since don Lucio’s death, don David Wiley. Their healing practice is located in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, near Asheville.

Their offerings include traditional healing (both in-person at a distance), life counseling, public events like Making Friends with Weather and, with their local compadres, seasonal ceremonies like the Traditional Weather Harvest festival every fall.

See our ancient, living Native American tradition at work.

This story is Taken verbatim from the main website of our tradition, weatherwork.org

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 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 weather gods 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 Lucio Campos de 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 learn more about this group and the tiempero tradition, click here.

We were initiated into this timeless Native American tradition of working with weather in 2003 by maestro don Lucio Campos de Elizalde. We were initiated as tepahtiani healers by his chosen spiritual inheritor and elder in his own right, don David Wiley.

Enjoy these photos of our teachers, don David Wiley and don Lucio Campos de Elizalde, our seasonal ceremonies in Mexico and our Traditional Weather Harvest Festival, which takes place every fall near Asheville, North Carolina. We hope you come and join us for our Harvest Festival and our other events!

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