The Magic of Maya Medicine: Traditional Healing, Spiritual Baths & Herbal Wisdom with Rosita Arvigo
Oct 26, 2023
Field Dynamics
In this episode we venture into the captivating realm of traditional Mayan healing, Maya abdominal massage and spiritual "lustration" baths with our esteemed guest, Rosita Arvigo. For thirteen years Rosita apprenticed with the late Maya H’Men (Shaman) Don Elijio Panti of Belize. With her extensive background as a Doctor of Naprapathy, ethnobotanist, healer, and author, we unravel the wonders of Maya medicine which can address not only physical but also spiritual ailments. Our journey takes us from Mexico to Belize, as Rosita recounts her experiences and discoveries alongside Don Elijio, a master of traditional medicine. Unveiling deep-rooted wisdom and practices such as the role of harmonic resonance and the critical importance of collecting medicinal plants with honor, we delve into an ancient world that holds great relevance in our modern times. Rosita shares how she developed Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy, which can be supportive to many reproductive and digestive ailments - including uterine prolapse, infertility, menstrual conditions and IBS amongst others. In closing, Rosita imparts sage advice on how she maintains her own health and wellness, from the significance of diet, the power of forgiveness and the importance of maintaining emotional equilibrium.
Rosita is the author of several books including "Rainforest Remedies: One Hundred Healing Herbs of Belize" and "Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer". She is also the founder of The Arvigo Institute and the well known Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy. Living in Belize for the past thirty-five years, she works to preserve the traditional plant-based remedies, healing techniques, and spiritual practices of the Maya. She has been instrumental in cataloguing and preserving thousands of healing plants and trees of Belize through her work with Dr. Michael Balick of The New York Botanical Garden and the Belize Ethnobotany Project which ran from 1987-1996.
In this episode we venture into the captivating realm of traditional Mayan healing, Maya abdominal massage and spiritual "lustration" baths with our esteemed guest, Rosita Arvigo. For thirteen years Rosita apprenticed with the late Maya H’Men (Shaman) Don Elijio Panti of Belize. With her extensive background as a Doctor of Naprapathy, ethnobotanist, healer, and author, we unravel the wonders of Maya medicine which can address not only physical but also spiritual ailments. Our journey takes us from Mexico to Belize, as Rosita recounts her experiences and discoveries alongside Don Elijio, a master of traditional medicine. Unveiling deep-rooted wisdom and practices such as the role of harmonic resonance and the critical importance of collecting medicinal plants with honor, we delve into an ancient world that holds great relevance in our modern times. Rosita shares how she developed Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy, which can be supportive to many reproductive and digestive ailments - including uterine prolapse, infertility, menstrual conditions and IBS amongst others. In closing, Rosita imparts sage advice on how she maintains her own health and wellness, from the significance of diet, the power of forgiveness and the importance of maintaining emotional equilibrium.
Rosita is the author of several books including "Rainforest Remedies: One Hundred Healing Herbs of Belize" and "Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer". She is also the founder of The Arvigo Institute and the well known Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy. Living in Belize for the past thirty-five years, she works to preserve the traditional plant-based remedies, healing techniques, and spiritual practices of the Maya. She has been instrumental in cataloguing and preserving thousands of healing plants and trees of Belize through her work with Dr. Michael Balick of The New York Botanical Garden and the Belize Ethnobotany Project which ran from 1987-1996.
Welcome to the Field Dynamics podcast. We're here to facilitate inspiring dialogues about the nature of consciousness across disciplines, communities and practitioners, all with a holistic perspective.
Keith Parker:
From energy healing to somatic therapies, from neuroscience to meditation. We believe the most interesting things happen at the boundaries of disciplines.
Christabel Armsden:
I'm Christabel.
Keith Parker:
And I'm Keith.
Christabel Armsden:
Thanks for joining us today and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to the Field Dynamics podcast. Today, our guest is Rosita Arvigo. Rosita is a Doctor of Naprapathy, ethnobotanist, healer and author who has made significant contributions to the field of traditional healing and herbal medicine. She is the author of several books, including "Rainforest Remedies, 100 Healing Herbs of Belize and Sastan my Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer. Rosita is also founder of the Arvigo Institute and the well-known Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy. For 13 years she apprenticed with Master Shaman Don Elijio Panti. Living in Belize for the past 35 years she works to preserve the traditional plant-based remedies, healing techniques and spiritual practices of the Maya. She has been instrumental in cataloguing and preserving thousands of healing plants and trees of Belize through her work with Dr Michael Balick of the New York Botanical Garden and the Belize Ethnobotany Project, which ran from 1987 to 1996. Welcome, Rosita, a pleasure to have you here today.
Rosita Arvigo:
Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Christabel Armsden:
In the Arvigo method, you make extensive use of what's called spiritual baths, and I wondered if you could tell us a bit about what this entails.
Rosita Arvigo:
In Maya medicine, first of all, we determine is this a physical ailment or a spiritual ailment? The most common spiritual ailment that everybody in the world experiences is fright, it's known as "susto": or, in some other areas of Central America, espanto. Susto is the most common word that I hear and it is a result of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and I find that everywhere I lecture, everywhere I teach in the world, when I ask the group in front of me - it could be 10 people and it could be 100 people - how many here can relate to susto or PTSD, where you feel like your physical, emotional and spiritual body have been affected by this traumatic experience? Every hand in the room goes up, every hand, and I've never been anywhere where there was someone who did not have susto. So Don Elijio taught us to treat susto primarily.
Rosita Arvigo:
We do a diagnosis with the pulse. With these three fingers we test the pulse and it is the rapidity of the pulse and the thickness, the fatness of the pulse and then also the position of the pulse. It's not as, I don't know, I could say sophisticated, it's not as complicated as Chinese pulse taking. However, I did see Don Elijio do a health intake with a woman who was there for the uterine massage and he asked her many questions and when he felt her pulse he said you didn't tell me you had surgery three months ago, just from taking the pulse. Now, I never achieved that level of sophistication in pulse reading, but when we feel the pulse we know that there is a susto pulse because it's fat, jumping and rapid, and so the treatment is prayer number one.
Rosita Arvigo:
It's a spiritual disease and we use prayer. Don Elijio taught me 18 different prayers to use for different spiritual ailments and susto, again, is the most common that I use because everybody has some form of trauma that they've been through in their lives. So it's three prayers in the right pulse, said in a whisper, and that's very important. You, with Field Dynamics, you will understand that the prayer must be spoken so that it creates a vibratory movement through the auric field and because it's prayer addressed to a deity or to a angel, to a spiritual being, it brings light, and so we are actually running a current of light through the person's auric field. When you say the prayer nine times, it tends to cover every aspect of that aura, and that is the first step in the spiritual healing. Nine prayers. Then we prepare a herbal bath. It's called a lustration, a lustration made with usually four, nine or seven plants and the number is important.
Rosita Arvigo:
Four and nine are the highest spiritual numbers to the Maya, because every number, from zero to 13, was a God and a Goddess. Every number had a male and a female deity attached to it. So four and nine were the hierarchy of the highest, most important of those number gods. So Don Elijio taught me to use either four sprigs of a marigold plant, perhaps nine flowers or nine branches of oregano. My favorite plants for spiritual baths or lustrations would be basil, rue and marigold. I like rosemary if I can get it, but we don't have rosemary in the tropics and they are all collected with prayer, faith and thanksgiving. The spiritual healing does not work unless the practitioner collects the plants with honor, respect, faith and thanksgiving, and that is done with the prayer. So we stand in front of the plant and wait for connection. We wait for harmonic resonance, if you will, when we feel the connection we gently take from the plant with the prayer, giving thanks and faith, stating our faith, stating our thanksgiving and collecting the prayer. And if I'm having someone or a student prepare their own lustration in a bucket with plants, I must instruct them that they cannot think about the fright, they cannot think about the trauma, because water has memory. While we're mashing the plants and praying it really doesn't matter what the prayer is, as long as it is a dressed to a deity with whom you have a relationship. Spiritual healing cannot be done without higher spiritual forces being invited into the healing session. So the prayers are addressed to one's deity, and it doesn't matter which deity, and so the water is able to absorb the energy vibration inherent in the prayer, and actually I believe every prayer has a powerful inherent harmonic resonance that can reset the auric field of a human being. So all of that is emitted into this bucket of water. If we have time, we set it out in the sun, if not, we use it right away, and then it is a sprinkling and splashing. It's a lustration, meaning that we bring light into the dynamic field, into the aura, into the electromagnetic body of the human being, and it is quite miraculous. I almost never used that word as a healer, but when we see the change in human beings, I remember some people saying I don't remember what I was scared of. Well, that memory that's gone. Whatever that fright was, it's kind of a psychic eraser. When you use plants, it's a combination.
Rosita Arvigo:
First of all, love. I always tell my spiritual healing students, the first step is we stand in love. When you stand in love, your auric field is so bright and so large that, as you are talking to the client, getting the information, hearing the sad story, hearing about the susto or the trauma, your auric field is already healing that person because you first stood in love. So it's love, faith, faith is very, very important. We cannot do this work without faith in our spirit guides, whoever that is, whoever, whether it's Mother Mary, Saint Michael, the Maya spirits or Shekhinah of the Hebrew tradition, it just doesn't matter. But there must be a relationship that the healer has established with that deity. We can't only call on them when we need help. We have to honor, respect and pay homage to those who help us do the spiritual healing.
Rosita Arvigo:
Yeah, and then the bath is splashed over a person, we burn copal incense. So that's how it's done. It's very, very effective. It really doesn't matter the spiritual ailment. There's also grief. Grief is a very large part of human suffering. Anger that's a spiritual disease of the Maya known as coraje. Grief is pesar. Pesar means heavy. So people are carrying heavy burdens of grief, sometimes guilt, and it can definitely affect their everyday life, their physical health mental health, emotional and their spiritual body as well.
Keith Parker:
I absolutely love hearing about, in a sense, hydrotherapy or water as an extension of a spiritual healing process and that connection between the prayer or the energetic, electromagnetic, as you said components. And how the body, the being in water is contained within something that is physical and has the ability to take on that information and that memory so, very powerful. I actually am not aware of any healing tradition that makes use of baths in such a prominent way, and I think that's something that people really could get a lot of use out of. So I just appreciate you sharing that.
Rosita Arvigo:
Thank you.
Rosita Arvigo:
I feel that it's a forgotten healing modality that the ancients used a lot and because of the splashing and spraying, the instructions are very clear that we should be splashing and spraying this luster water the length of the fingertip and the arm stretched out.
Rosita Arvigo:
That means the auric field. So, ancient people were aware of this and of course, they had abilities beyond the ones that we have now today and I'm quite sure that they were able to see the auras of people who were suffering from emotional or physical diseases as kind of muddy. That's the way I see them and when I'm doing the bath it looks to me like every little droplet of water that you splash on a person, especially if you're lucky enough to do it in the sunlight (the sunlight creates a little rainbow of light into every drop) and I see every drop is absorbing that dark charge that's in the auric field, that's holding a heavy memory, holding sadness, holding anger, holding grief, and I see that as kind of dark clouds around the energy body and after a bath it's sparkling and people get a fresh start. It's literally the best fresh start ever.
Keith Parker:
Out of curiosity, how does this extend into space clearing as well? This is also part of the system you mentioned using copal, I know that can be used for space clearing, but what would you say about the energetic residue sometimes held in spaces and the value of people doing space clearing? How do you do that?
Rosita Arvigo:
Anywhere there has been a traumatic event in the household, a sudden death in a household, an argument, a fire, a robbery, a break- in, any of those traumatic events that happen in a household, there are going to be lingering vibrations around, lingering emotions. And these emotions actually are, they're literally and truly sticky. They stick to furniture, they stick to walls, the floors, the corners, especially the corners of a home. That is where a lot of this dark energy I guess you could call it tends to accumulate. So for that we make what's known as a lustral bowl.
Rosita Arvigo:
I know our listeners can't see it, but I'm holding up a little glass bowl of water that I collected with prayer. We must also give thanks to the Spirit of Water. That's very important. We couldn't do this without water, so this is from the tap. I gave thanks to the Spirit. Where I'm visiting right now I only have lavender, but who needs more? So I gathered a little lavender sprig and it's in this lustral bowl.
Rosita Arvigo:
And if I were clearing a space it's nice to have a helper, but if not, I would first carry the copal all the way through the house, paying attention to the doorways and the corners of the house and all the dark places like closets, attics, basements, most especially. A lot of this tends to move into attics. The best way to determine where the energy currents in your house flow is to cook something that's very aromatic, and where does that aroma end up the strongest in your house? That's where the energy currents flow. But if there's been a traumatic event, it's all over the house. But this cloud of human memory tends to linger somewhere dark, so we pay special attention to that. And then we do the copal, and then we walk around with our lustral bowl dipping in a collection, a handful of plants.
Rosita Arvigo:
That's called the aspergillum. It's actually a very old spiritual word. That's what you use to sprinkle and spray. And so we sprinkle and spray around the house while we pray. Of course, prayer must be brought into this, because we need a higher spiritual being, we need a spirit guide, we need an angelic being, we need a deity. We cannot do this on our own, and anybody who thinks he or she can do it on her own is fooling herself or themselves and also working too hard, not getting good results.
Christabel Armsden:
It's a real pleasure, Rosita, to hear you speak about some of these practices, which seem to be incredibly simple. They're available to all.
Rosita Arvigo:
Yeah, simple, keep it simple always. Yeah, me and Don Elijio, Don Elijio was an unlettered genius, never went to school, never learned to read or write. When he saw me taking notes in his clinic, he said, "oh, they sent you to school". I said, yeah, they sent me to a lot of school and I sent myself to school. And he said you'll never, learn.
Rosita Arvigo:
"What do you mean I'll never learn?". He said "that stick and that paper that makes your mind weak", tapping his forehead. I never had a stick, I never had a piece of paper, I never knew a word in my life. But up here" - pointing to his forehead "it's full - que está lleno - up here is full".
Christabel Armsden:
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you became interested in traditional healing and herbal medicine, particularly the Maya healing practices?
Rosita Arvigo:
Well, according to my mother, s he said that I have been interested in plants and healing since I was about four years old. She said my very first game was outside in the backyard in the mint patch, making mud pills with mint and stuffing them in my doll's mouth. And I have just always been a plant lover. Someone who always, always paid attention to plants. And when I learned that plants could be healing, that was pretty much the beginning and I've never stopped since. So I have a fascination and an endless hunger for knowledge of medicinal plants. And then I moved.
Rosita Arvigo:
I was in Mexico during the Vietnam War and from Mexico I went to Belize. While I was in Mexico I studied with different traditional healers, because we were in very, very remote areas of Mexico and there were still traditional healers in every household. Every household in Mexico in the state of Guerrero, where I lived for seven years, had a traditional healer who was an auntie, a grandmother, an uncle, an elder, whether it be male or female. So I had a great opportunity there and I took it upon myself to learn about the medicinal plants of my neighbors, how they use them, what cures did they experience. And then, when I went to live in Belize, of course I needed to learn about medicinal plants.
Rosita Arvigo:
By that time I had gone to the College of Naprapathy. I became a Doctor of Naprapathy and I went to Belize to start a small clinic for women and children with my husband who treated men and boys In Central America. It kind of breaks down that way. Naturally, women prefer to be treated by women, men prefer to be treated by men. It's not that we set out to do it that way, it's just the way it happened. That's what our clients prefer.
Christabel Armsden:
What inspired you to study with Don Elijio Panti and learn from him? I wonder if you could share some of the most valuable lessons.
Rosita Arvigo:
I heard about this old man in San Antonio Village, about five miles away, and everyone in my environment said oh, you have to go see the old Bush doctor in San Antonio, Don Elijio Panti. He's the best, he's number one, he's the person to see. So while I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get to San Antonio, he came to see me. He came to see me because he heard there was an American herbalist in town and he was searching for his favorite herb, which is flor de tilo or linden flower. That happens to be one of my favorite herbs. It's the very most gentle, sure, herbal tea for elders who don't sleep well, for babies who don't sleep well or are fussy. So it has other uses, but primarily it is a very good and gentle, nervine and sleep inducer with no bad side effects. So because he had been recently widowed, he was having a hard time sleeping at night-time. So he came to see if this American herbalist had perhaps any flor de tilo, and I did. I had been shipping it from Chicago to Belize and I had a problem with my herbs rotting. Now we're in the Tropics and I explained to him I do have flor de tilo but as you can see, I have a big problem with my herbs and they're in gallon jars in my clinic in Belize. He looked at them and he said you cannot store herbs and glass jars here. He said just look inside. You see all the drops of moisture falling down on top of the herbs and that's why they're moulding. So you put them in paper bags, take them out into the sun once a week for about an hour and they'll last for months, not more than months, though, because of the dampness. So I gave him his linden flower tea and he looked at my treatment table, because naprapathy is the type of body work related to chiropractic. So he looked at my treatment table and he said "oh, my neck, my neck is really hurting". So I said get on the table, I'll give you an apropathic treatment. Well, I think he was so impressed and so thrilled to have some body work done.
Rosita Arvigo:
When we were done, I said, so you're Don Elijio Panti? He said "right here, you see me. Me, mas, no menos, neither more nor less. And I said well, could I possibly come to visit you in your village? Actually, I was planning to come, look for you, and he said of course, come. And so a whole year goes by and I visit every single week and I have to walk five miles. And then one year goes around and it's almost exactly the same day, in September, as the first day that I went a year earlier. So on this day I got a ride and I was there by dawn, on his doorstep, and he opened the door and the look that he gave me was devastating. The look was oh my God, she's here again. And I said this is it, I'm done and never coming back again.
Rosita Arvigo:
I had no intentions to be a nuisance to this wonderful, brilliant, funny, funny old man. So he said I have no time for you today. I have to harvest my corn. I've been so busy all week with patients I don't have time for you. And I said well, I'll help you harvest your corn. And he said huh, you're from Chicago, what do you know about harvesting corn? And I said Don Elijio, I lived in Mexico for seven years. I can harvest corn. Let's go, I'll give you a hand. So we get to his field and it is a mountain.
Rosita Arvigo:
Now Don Elijio was 87, 88, and he had cleared this mountain side, planted the corn, cultivated it and now was willing to carry his harvest home on his head in a basket slung from his forehead. So he handed me a basket and I'm pulling corn off the cob, filling the basket, tossing it on the ground and I have a pile as big as his pile. And so an hour later we're sitting on the very top of that mountain side, all of his corn, beans and pumpkin below us. And he stood up and he said what is it that you want? O kay, que es que tú quieres? And I said, Don Elijio, if you teach me about the medicinal plants of Belize, I promise to be a good student. I promise not to be a bother and I promise to take care of you. I'm a healer too. I can help you with your backaches. I can help you with your clients. Then he stood up and when he stood up, the sun -because we're on a mountain top - the sun rose up behind him. And the moment he stood up there was this enormous medallion of golden light.
Rosita Arvigo:
And that was the day Don Elijio agreed to take me as his apprentice and I was with him then for 13 years, and after that I began making that same trek on foot. For 13 years. I always walked. I'm not a driver, I do not have a driver's license, and for many years we didn't even have a truck. We were new homesteaders in Belize. We had bought 32 acres of high jungle bush, and we spent all of our time clearing the land, building houses, putting in gardens. And so, then, for me to take three days out of every week, away from home, to be with Don Elijio and study medicinal plants. It was a big challenge, and it was a very big deal for my husband and family as well, and so, then, my apprenticeship with Don Elijio lasted for 13 years before he died.
Keith Parker:
Don Elijio was not only from Belize or holding a tradition from the country, but also, it comes from the Mayan traditions. So could you tell us a bit about what kind of typifies, what might be a Belize tradition, or how does that ultimately connect to the umbrella of Mayan healing? What typifies Mayan healing and what are the primary things? In a sense, you were learning from him during this time that eventually leads to Arvigo techniques and healing therapies that you developed and are well known.
Rosita Arvigo:
Don Elijio primarily was a Maya traditional healer who became a Maya shaman. He came to Belize when he was two years old from Guatemala. His mother carried him in a revoso across the border to live in what was then British Honduras, and so he was much, he never learned English. He only spoke Spanish and Mopan Maya, which is the Maya spoken in Guatemala. In his village of San Antonio they mostly speak Yucatec and Mopan in combination, but Don Elijio was primary Mopan Maya. So I could not say that the traditional healing systems of Belize were particularly what Don Elijio practiced, that he practiced a very sophisticated system of Maya medicine that he learned from a Mexican Maya immigrant. Because of the guerra [war] they lost Costas in 1910, many of the Mexican Maya from Yucatan emigrated to Belize to get away from the Spaniards and then they ran into the English. But Don Elijio teacher was a Yucatec Maya and his family were from Petén in Guatemala. So it was a combination of Mexican Maya and Guatemala Maya and primarily it was a system that addressed both the physical and the spiritual side of healing. And then of course his massage techniques were 5,000 years old. This abdominal massage, that is, for digestive complaints, whatever, all the list of physical ailments of the intestines and the stomach, all the -itises, enteritis, gastritis and then the reflux issues. He was able to have major, major effects and benefits with his massage and herbal teas. And then to lift the uterus, which is the primary cause of most female complaints, like painful periods, lack of periods, scanty periods, late periods, endometriosis, endometritis, fertiility issues, chronic miscarriages. It's a very long laundry list of female complaints that Don Elijio could successfully correct with his massage technique that was external, nothing internal, only external to palpate the pelvis and determine the position of the uterus. He taught me to do that and also then the technique was lifting the uterus after the upper abdomen was massaged in order to ensure, as he said, that the blood and he called the ki in Maya, like chi, that the ki was able to flow properly to the pelvis before he would correct the uterine position. And so he was so successful and so famous for that.
Rosita Arvigo:
Women came from all countries of Central America, all of the districts of Belize and all of the countries of Central America. They came on foot, they came on horseback, they came on horse and buggy, they came in taxi cabs, they came six or eight in a whole family. Sometimes I've seen 10 or 12 women get off of the bus to be treated by Don Elijio. There would be grandmothers and mothers and nieces and aunties and daughters, nieces. So I looked watch Don Elijio do these. He taught me to do the techniques and then I began using them in my own clinic, because while I'm studying with Don Elijio I also have a full blown natural healing clinic in the town of San Ignacio.
Rosita Arvigo:
So I began gradually applying these techniques and I am blown away by the positive results for women's ailments and digestive complaints and quite phenomenal. And then to think that the Maya people knew how to do this 5,000 years ago. And if you think about reproductive medicine and digestive complaints, that's a whole big piece of modern medicine and a simple technique of abdominal massage could correct many of those common digestive and reproductive ailments. So I watched Don Elijio do it and I did the techniques for a few years in my clinic, and then I realized that it's possible to teach people to do this for themselves, and it's very important to do it for ourselves as women and men, because it is also excellent to prevent prosthetic swelling. And so teaching people to do it for themselves. I found was essential because, for instance, women give birth and they come home now, the day later after they have given birth and they're picking up a two year old, they have to carry that heavy seat, car seat, for the baby, which weighs about 40 pounds, with the baby.
Rosita Arvigo:
And so doing heavy lifting, heavy household work, even sweeping and mopping, soon after childbirth or during menstruation, causes the uterine ligaments to be unable to return to their normal tensility, to their normal strength and their normal length, so that the uterus sags and falls. So that's it in a nutshell. There are many ways that the uterus gets out of position. Falling is a very big one for women. Falling on ice, roller skating, gymnastics, there's a lot of pounding on the sacrum, a car accident, that caused the uterus to also to come out of its proper placement in the center of the pelvis, above the bladder, in front of the bowel.
Rosita Arvigo:
So then I spent 20 years doing the research, doing the scientific studies of the anatomy and the physiology, and Don Elijio had only a few words to say "son las cuerdas, son las cuerdas", it's the cords, and I learned
Rosita Arvigo:
by cords he meant uterine ligaments, of which there are 14 that hold the uterus, in its proper position and they are all subject to over stretching or contracting, just like ligaments in the knee, like ligaments in the arm or the neck. They have the same properties ligaments anywhere in the body, and they can be damaged, and this massage is the very best way to correct that very, very dramatic. And little by little, my first class was in 1992 in Belize. I was so excited and so ready to bring this to the world for the sake of women everywhere in the world, and so I began teaching in 1992, and out of that grew the Arvigo Institute and out of that grew the Abdominal Therapy Collective, with which I am now involved. I'm no longer connected to the Arvigo Institute, but I am deeply involved in the daily workings and the teaching of the Abdominal Therapy Collective, which is a collective of 18 teachers of this therapy that I trained. So we're spreading the word around the world and now we have practitioners in 23 countries and growing.
Christabel Armsden:
Quite incredible. Thank you for sharing more background on the abdominal massage there. One facet of this as you're describing it is repositioning organs, including the uterus. Can you give us an idea or a sense of how, as a practitioner, you're detecting this movement of the womb: is it through palpation? And how the repositioning is actioned? And I'd also like to ask if this is related or could be beneficial for instances of uterine prolapse?
Rosita Arvigo:
Absolutely. It's specific for uterine prolapse, very specific. Don Elijio trained me and I train our practitioners in the Abdominal Therapy Collective to palpate externally. When you place your hands on the pubic bone and slide off, there should be a free space. That's the primary movement to determine if the uterus is too low or inferior. When we place our hands on the side, just above the inguinal ligament, there should be free space and if there is not free space, it means the uterus is laying on the right or laying on the left. So there are various positions that cause pathology. One is falling down the cervix, falling into the vagina. That's the prolapse and that could be stage one, two, three or four.
Rosita Arvigo:
There are some women who suffer with uterine outside the body because of, Don Elijio would say there are many causes, but Dona Elijio thought the primary cause was too much pushing for too long during labor and childbirth. That's what he laid most of the blame for extreme prolapses. Prolapses can also happen from a sudden fall. I know one woman who fell onto her sacrum off a second-story porch. Her uterus was also extremely low. Other people might have it. So it could fall low. It could go to the right, it could go to the left and it can fall forward over the bladder and it can fall backward over the bowel next to the bowel. And so if it falls over the bladder there's going to be all manner of health issues with the urinary system, which of course would mean lots of peeing all the time, especially just before menstruation, getting up at night time to pee. And then if a woman gets pregnant then she is nine months on the toilet peeing every hour on the hour because her uterus is pressing on the bladder so that the bladder doesn't have the capacity that nature intended. With the pressure of the uterus on the bladder, it also weakens the trigone muscle of the bladder. With pressure on top it causes that muscle that holds the urine until you get a call from your brain. The brain sends a message to open that that control becomes too weak from the pressure above.
Rosita Arvigo:
So if the uterus is laying backward against the bowel, there's going to be some constipation, there's going to be often painful intercourse with the guy, and then there could be what looks like pencil thin stool because the uterus is pressing against the bowel, which is pressing against the sacrum bone. So there's always going to be pretty extreme low backache around the sacrum when menstruation begins and then women say I have that backache until my period begins to flow. Once it flows the backache goes away. Why is that? Because the pressure has been taken off of the bowel that's pressing up against the sacrum. So as the uterus begins to release its contents it's smaller, weighs less and it puts less pressure on other organs. So those who have the uterus on the right or the left side are always going to have trouble with the leg, the foot, the knee and the hip on that side. It just really it just makes common mechanical sense. There is always going to be lymphatic congestion.
Rosita Arvigo:
When the uterus is in any malposition there will often be arterial flow compromised. So that if the uterus is laying especially on the side where the arteries come in to feed the uterus, the ovaries and the cervix, if the uterus is over on that side, it can actually be laying on top of those arteries. When it's not menstruating it weighs four ounces. When it's menstruating it weighs eight ounces, which is the size of a pretty big potato. So imagine the weight and size of a potato up against very rubbery, very soft arteries and even little capillaries by the time they get into the uterine membrane and then when pregnant.
Rosita Arvigo:
That uterus weighs 25 pounds and that's the poor lady who holds her uterus from the side and pulls it over to the center. And that's how she walks around with her arm against the side of her womb, pulling it to the center to get the weight off of the artery, to get the weight off of the lymphatic return and the venous return. So it involves the nervous system, the arterial, the venous, the lymph and the chi as well, all of those five systems. The flow are compromised when the uterus is out of its place. Don Elijio said the uterus is a woman's center. If it is out of that center, she is physically, emotionally and spiritually unbalanced.
Keith Parker:
I'm hearing all this and it just sounds to remind me a lot of certain osteopathic traditions, visceral manipulation, but that that has a very high level of anatomical understanding. But, like you're saying, these are techniques that originated well before modern physiology and anatomical understanding. So you know there's a just this deep knowledge being passed on. It's really fascinating. Also, this focus on the uterus area. You know I can't help but wonder in like qigong, tai chi traditions they talk of the dantian or the yogis used to call this area the kanda and say that this is like a storehouse of energy in the body and it's the prostate in men, the uterus in women. And I'm just wondering in terms of how this might affect the prostate. You mentioned something, but is this is relevant for men and and prostates and, if so, what happens when the prostate is is kind of off-center. What can happen?
Rosita Arvigo:
No, the prostate? Very rare. I've never heard of a prostate off-center. What I have heard is congestion In the prostate. The prostate has one small ligament. It's not held up by 14 structures like the uterus is.
Rosita Arvigo:
The prostate doesn't really get out of position, but it can become congested and swollen. And that's what the massage does for the prostate, and again, only external work. And when we lift all of the tissues of the pelvic floor, these, the, the prostate has to follow that lifting. Everything is connected within right? No organ is there isolated from any other organ or any other tissue or or artery or vein. So as we lift up the pelvic floor, the the prostate responds. And when there is most of the time, it's lymphatic congestion in the prostate that causes the swelling. Or it could be venous stagnation that causes the swelling. And one of the first signs you'll see on a man is sort of like swollen veins in his feet, because the swelling of the prostate is preventing venous return from coming up through the pelvis and up finally to the liver. So we find that the veins in a man's foot will show that's one of the one of the signs of swelling in the prostate. Yeah, so very effective for the prostate as well.
Christabel Armsden:
As I'm tuning into how you're speaking, it's innate knowledge. It's just simply lost. But there's something that, when you listen to what you're sharing, it's incredibly resonant. It's seen in traditions across the world.
Rosita Arvigo:
I call it intuitive wisdom. My, my teachers, Don Elijio was one, there is Hortense Robinson she was a midwife shaman in Belize. Neither one of them could read or write, yet they were both geniuses who could not use letters, never read a book in their lives, and yet they were, it was like studying feathers in the wind. Trying to catch feathers in the wind with both of them and me.
Rosita Arvigo:
As a well-educated person who loves books and scientific research, I had to really really settle my system down because I wanted it to be recordable. I wanted it to be more, more clear, more exact. But you're catching feathers in the wind with Don Elijio and Ms. Hortense. So I had to really find the space within myself that was calm, knowing that wisdom comes slowly. Knowledge can be gained day by day, book by book. Wisdom comes slowly with grace. Only with grace and patience does wisdom come. I don't think I ever gained the wisdom of Don Elijio or Ms. Hortense, but I certainly understand the wisdom that they shared with me as intuitive. Most of it. They never learned from anybody and it's very hard for them to teach somebody else. It's something that came in their DNA, so to speak.
Christabel Armsden:
May I ask you, Rosita, about your own practices for maintaining your own health and wellness and equilibrium?
Rosita Arvigo:
Well, I'm 82 years old now. I've been on a natural vegetarian diet for more than 50 years. That is extremely important. I eat mostly raw foods, but not exclusively. I eat eggs, fish, it's about my only proteins. And also my spiritual practice in life is an ongoing daily event. I take my own herbal spiritual baths about once every ten days, sometimes more often. Don Elijio said Thursday and Friday were the best days of the week to do the spiritual baths, because those were the days that the Maya spirits are walking the earth, answering prayers and looking out for their people. So I might do one every Thursday, if not every ten days, for sure.
Rosita Arvigo:
I do my spiritual baths and I try to maintain emotional equilibrium. It's not always easy. I try not to take things personally and I just try to be as kind and loving as I can. I believe firmly in the phrase that e"verybody you meet is carrying a burden you know nothing about, so always be kind. I also think it's important to forgive everyone, no matter what they have done, including yourself and perhaps most especially yourself. So I think that's also an important tenant of living a long life and all the other things. Exercise. At 82 I'm not really able to do heavy exercise anymore, but I swim, I walk and I stretch.
Keith Parker:
Thank you for the the timeless wisdom. Very good advice, for sure. And what about your like professional work? Are you still active with the practice or are you researching, studying, developing any curriculum or books at the moment? What are you working on?
Rosita Arvigo:
I'm always working on new classes and new curriculum. I would like now to do one on how to be a healthy elder, healthy and participating elder. I think that's important. And then by now I have something to say. Plus you can't deny that I've made it this far and I do have something to share! And I'm working with the Abdominal Therapy Collective developing new class materials on new handbooks and manuals and teaching as much as I can around the world. I'm not a great fan of long travels any longer, but I did go this last summer to Canada. I was teaching in Michigan and I might, you know, might travel to other countries, but I'm teaching the abdominal therapy and my spiritual healing and I, here in Mexico, I always do community free classes on the local medicinal plants. I'm a teacher, I can't not teach.
Christabel Armsden:
Rosita, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing, sharing so much varied knowledge and wisdom. It's much appreciated. I'd love for you to share any resources you'd like to website or domains.
Rosita Arvigo:
Sure, do you know to check on the classes to find a practitioner of my abdominal therapy or the my spiritual healing. It's www dot abdominal therapy collective dot com, and my personal website is just rosita arvigo dot com. And then I did write a book about my experience with Don Elijio, Sastun. It's still available in hardcover and it's also on Kindle. It's the story of my first seven year apprenticeship. Unless you get the Kindle version, Don Elijio is still alive at the end of the book Sastun, and I think that is really very charming, kind of made him, gave him Eternal life, made him immortal. The Kindle version has the story of the last two or three years of his life.
Keith Parker:
Well, certainly you have immortalized his teachings through your own work and that's a great honor, to do that in a great service that you've provided so many people. So thank you for your time today and everything that you shared, and just really, really appreciate your wisdom, true wisdom, a lifetime of it.
Rosita Arvigo:
It was my pleasure, and you two did a very good interview. I enjoyed it a lot, so thank you.
Keith Parker:
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