Journey to Belize
On the morning of Feb 5th, I braved a cold water shower, scrubbed the city grim off my white sandals and put on the best dress I had packed for the trip. It was 9am and already over 70 degrees! A few classmates and I met in the San Ignacio town center with our traveling bags and loaded into the Chaa Creek shuttle. As a new group, we enthusiastically asked each other questions about our massage practices back home and shared our excitement for meeting Dr Rosita Arvigo that morning.
I devoured her biography, Sastun: A Apprenticeship With A Maya Healer, 4 years prior while still a student in massage school. To me, Rosita blended the paths of healing and badassery in such an inspiring way. She felt relatable to me. Homesteading in the Belize in the 1980s with her husband and young daughter, Rosita would walk over 5 miles in the jungle with her machete, canoe down the river to town to learn the traditional ways of healing from the land and elders as they had before her. With my background in mountain guiding and climbing, and my own personal spiritual path, her story captured me and I wanted to met her in the flesh.
Arriving at Rosita’s Belizean home on the 28th anniversary of her mentor Don Elijio Panti’s death was extremely special. We were invited a day before course started and got a behind the scenes preformance of the worldwide Zoom call helped put context to all my other viewing of her.
She was siting at a card table in the corner of her living room. Behind her was a painting of the colorful Motmot bird on the wall about an alter containing another painting of the Goddess Ix Chel, a bouquet of flowers clearly picked this morning from her lush garden outside, a picture of Don Elijio, and the burning incense of Copal. Rosita wore gold hoop earrings and necklace, a bright red gown and lipstick to match. At 83 years old she radiated an abundance and sacred life!
After a grand introduction from another Zoomer and member of the ATC in the UK, Rosita told stories of her times with Don Elijio, focusing on his jubilant humor and personal struggles of missing his departed wife up until his own passing at the age of 103. His spirit was so present in the room; the Copal hissed and crackled in unison to Rosita’s punchlines and kind words. The hour passed so quickly!
After a quick goodbye, our group walked back down the forest paths to settle into our rooms on the eco-lodge. Most of my life I have chosen the simple over the luxurious, a tent over a hotel room. But even the most basic dorm room at Chaa Creek had me feeling like a goddess! Throughout the week stay there, I enjoyed many early mornings listening to the cacophony of tropical birds while drinking coffee, pool side lunches, evening wanderings through the jungle’s friendly trails and gentle canoeing on the Macal River to decompress and integrate in between class sessions.
Chaa Creek Resort
Our classroom time flowed effortlessly by, each moment gushed with juicy details of the female reproductive process that had me wondering why is this the first time I’m learning this?!?! I felt equally enraged that my adolescent schooling failed to educate this *absolutely essential* material, as well as feeling endlessly grateful to be learning it now rather than never.
Learning from Rosita was wonderful, but I didn’t anticipate was the immense collective wisdom of healers, educators, nurses, doulas, chiropractors, herbalists and midwifes that came here as students too. Everyone’s experience was so diverse and deep in it’s way, and it provided so much nutrient to the conversations and questions brought up in class.
Becuase Rosita is.. well, famous, she was able to coax 3 pregnant mothers from surrounding towns in as demos for the bodywork, with +20 eyes intently watching! But Rosita’s warmth and easy humor melted those women’s nerves within minutes, and the techniques described in my text book made perfect sense when brought to life with her hands and their backs and bellies.
When Friday finally came, I truly felt that I was graduating out of my “maiden” phase of life and on the brink of becoming a mother (Check out Ix Chel’s stages of a women’s life ). My understanding of how to read and tend to my body deepened drastically in just those 4 days….
Rosita’s living room that doubled as our classroom for the week. All students watching her massage our pregnant guest.
That evening, we changed into white gowns, combed our hair, dabbed smudges of lip stick and mascara on our faces and commenced the scared Primicia ceremony. Friends and family gathered outside Rosita’s casita and we assembled in a line from oldest to youngest. Being second to youngest in the class, I was sandwiched between two mamas holding their 3 year old baby girls. One by one we walked through the doorway to be cleansed and blessed with Copal incense before standing on the perimeter of the living room surrounding a central table. Alongside objects we had placed on the alter to be blessed were 9 bowls of cacao that we offered to the 9 Maya Spirits while facing the four directions and reciting an ancient Maya prayer. The little girls next to me in their mother’s arms looked around in wide-eyed curiosity and as the rhythm of our voices fell into harmony, they too began to wave their hands and bounce their bodies in the sweetest little manor. Who were they waving to? I wondered..
The ceremony ended and we were called up to receive our certificates of completion, candles to burn with each full moon, and a beautiful necklace made by our instructor Donna Zubrod. With all the energy in the room, tears flowed down my face freely. I felt so grateful and at home.
Rosita and I in our Primicia attire
The tables were cleared once again and a fest was laid out for everyone to enjoy. With plenty of beverages to keep our whistles wet for the evening, we all relaxed further into laughter and casual conversations. And once again, the living transformed! This time into a dance floor. The night was becoming so merry, and from the kitchen I heard the matriarchal call, “Let’s go visit the Basil!! Let’s go visit the Basil”
A few dancing in the living room
A conga line began to form trailing into the starlit gardens. Rosita leading the way! She began handing each person bouquets of marigold and basil and repeating Squish, squish, sniff, sniff! Upon receiving my plants and squeezing the fragrances into my face I was immediately washed into a fresh new world. MEDICINE!!! For the first time in my life I felt more from Basil than what was coming from my mouth and nose. The healing spirit of the plant was unmistakable. Rosita came back around to encourage the squish squishing and sniff sniffing, this time, holding me by my shoulder. Together we bowed with each inhale then raised our heads back to the heavens and exhaled. Everything about this moment brought me to a spiritual high I will cherish for life.
I slept so soundly that night and dreamt of returning back to this place to learn more about the wise ways of these women. How to practice spiritual bathing and more about medicinal plants. My journey to Belize was a springboard experience to continue gathering knowledge for both myself and those knocking on my practice’s doors.
