During the last six years, I have experienced living and Rolfing in Guatemala, then being asked to apprentice to Elena Avila, a Curandera of 20 years in New Mexico (whose book on Curanderismo, Woman Who Glows in the Dark, in which Rolfing is mentioned, will be printed in the spring).

From her teaching, I was introduced to Ehekateotl Kuauhtlinxan, a Mexican medicine man and teacher of a beautiful system of self-knowledge and medicine, Tetzkatlipoca, the “smoky mirror.” These experiences have profoundly influenced my work as a Rolfer. All of it has led me towards consideration and constant questioning about “spirit” and “soul.”

This is an attempt to convey a very small, personal part of what the people of Guatemala taught me, what my work as an apprentice to Curanderismo in New Mexico and in Mexico have to do with spirit, soul and Rolfing. Curanderismo will be explained further in this article.

I wrote the following description while I was working in Guatemala:

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Rolfing in another country, an “undeveloped country.” I asked a Rolfer from South America once 6 years ago what he thought happens in our work in the context of a different culture with a different political and economic system, different history, language etc. He discounted my inquiry quickly and said, “Rolfing is Rolfing. It is irrelevant where and with whom.” I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it exists in a vacuum separate from the context of the person’s reality whatever that may be or include. I find myself in Guatemala, a country in a 34- year civil war with a brutal oppressive history of violence, torture, disappearances and the killing of approximately 150,000 indigenous people. It is mostly unimaginable by the average US person. I am in the middle of a time period in which clandestine graves of hundreds of massacred people are being dug up and an army is denying they did it. I am in a country in which violence is in every corner of life in some way, even in the past in the way of kidnappings, torturing for political alliances and the realities of a country at war. Fear is everywhere, with reason. I see more than a tourist. I travel with journalists to hidden communities where these atrocities occurred-where people have hidden for 12 years from the army.

As a Rolfer, I see much of life manifested in our bodies. Expression does not occur outwardly. Faces do not talk. Bodies are quietly held to not reveal any truth. Trust does not come for a very long time. The U.S. has played its horrific role in this so I as a “gringa” can be seen in many ways. I have the liberty of leaving. I have hot water and a car. I can afford medicine. I know where my next meal is. I have choices. I have been here 1 1/2 years experiencing my own fears and rage at this reality. But still, their experiences are not my lived reality. I have traveled into small pueblos and Rolfed local people on stick made beds by candlelight (no electricity) at night. It is, to say the least, humbling to any sense of power I might have thought I had to “help.” There are communities in the jungle that actually decide if you can come into their village and if what you want to do is of use to THEM. One doesn’t enter and “give” them what one feels they need. After 7 years of Rolfing, I am a beginner in this context-an absolute beginner.

They are an incredibly courageous people underneath the monstrous oppression that crushes their bodies and expression. They do not demand. They wait in lines for hours looking glazed over at times, unable to express anger at the inconvenience anything is causing. But when they do speak-they do it courageously, at the risk of losing their lives-marching in streets demanding justice and human rights. Imagine what it might take to move out of this paralysis in a body that fears torture and possibly murder in order to ask for a different life. It seems absurd and arrogant to me to assume that Rolfing in this context could be the same as Rolfing in a beautiful office in Albuquerque for $75 a session, in English, for people who just came from their psychologist or astrologer and are going out to dinner after. What is that difference? How does it look? What does it really do for each person in the unique social context? Ida spoke at times of wanting to research the effect of Rolfing in the social context. I have these same questions. I have to question what the benefits are of more verticality, breathing better, more spaciousness, fewer physical restrictions, moving better are to each of these people. It isn’t our usual context. What is their spirit, their soul thriving on? In the context of this kind of oppression, what happens when one establishes the possibility and awareness of options in a person’s being, their spirit, their soul? What is the role of Rolling when taken out of a middle class, dominantly white context? This feels vastly different to me than Rolfing an unhappy business presorts who is considering their creative options, their yin/yang balance etc. in our culturally acquired language-having them discuss changing their job and its affect on their body. It is different for me in that it demands that I watch my assumptions and projections about the very ground the person stands on and what really serves their reality. This person knows they either have no job or they cannot stay home from the field today or their families don’t eat. Or, maybe speaking up isn’t an option unless one wants to be killed. I work with what is in front of me and in my hands. They tell me what use it is to them or not. The reality of these lives cannot necessarily change day to day. They still have to carry wood and get food and avoid sickness. However, they want this work and they love it. They do not have to be sold on it. Bodywork is a given. Even their midwives, the most trusted medicine people in the community, always use massage in treatment.

Language is another influence to consider. Initially, not being fluent in Spanish, it forces me to rely on my hands and the work more, less on the languaging and teaching aspect-no fancy cliches and slang we all use. It was here, in the beginning, with the absence of language, where I began to feel it was possibly my “spirit” I was having to draw upon-my own intuition and a different listening to them to respond to what was needed and to hear who they are. There are Mayan and Catholic. They practice Mayan ceremonies. Their lives are dependent on nature. The ceremonies included all beings, all animals, all of nature. They speak to each other in their Mayan dialect, then have to switch to Spanish (which in some cases was forced upon them) to speak to others and me. Watching body gesturing change with language is something I directly understood. I felt painful frustration and physical discomfort in my inability to communicate in their language. It is crucial I learn Spanish. Their political and social realities exist in their bodies a; they exist in ours. Our language and vocabulary is part of our body as the sounds vibrate and affect our posturing. When I speak Spanish, I use different vocabulary, different ways of expression. It is more poetic at times. I feel this differently in my body. It is part of their spirit also. To not consider those realities feels arrogant in putting my language as the standard. I look to be taught by their realities, not mine.

I know my work, but it is done in their embodied reality that then teaches me. To work on someone who has no money but who has walked miles at times to knock on my door to get help, shifted the attention I give to money, scheduling ant even ideas of “professionalism.” The return to me was always reciprocal in some manner and very generous. I watch and wait to be taught what they do with it, what it does for them and how it manifests in their reality.

Because their traditional indigenous medicine treats spirit and soul as part of physical pain, they brought that assumption to all Rolfing treatments. These were the first times people spoke to me of their soul being in crisis, their spirits being tired and at the same time knowing the physical treatment was part of the “healing.” Without language, my hands and my own heart and intuition were called upon in a very different way. I realized how our culture in the U.S. can couch spirituality in language-New Age lingo, psychobabble adopting other cultures’ words to express our spiritual persona. Without any spoken words, one has to draw upon other means of understanding and communicating. One begins to listen in a different way.

POST GUATEMALA – CONTINUATION OF MEDICINE THAT TREATS SPIRIT

Curanderismo, from the Spanish word “curar,” which means to heal, has been part of New Mexican life for centuries. Its roots come from Arabic countries, Spain, Africa and Mexico. Its very essence is that one cannot separate the body from the soul or spirit. Spirituality is in the medicine. One’s environment in all its aspects is part of one’s spirit, and the medicine. The condition of the plants and animals and how they are treated is part of the spirit of one’s environment and therefore part of the spirit of the person who uses them. Sick plants, sick people. Some people have prejudices and fears that Curanderismo is brujeria, witchcraft. I was even told when starting the apprenticeship to not tell everyone I was learning this because of the negativity that can surround the word. There are always stories of black magic, bad spells, good spells etc. The heart of Curanderismo is not about witchcraft or curses. It is considered a traditional medicine deeply engrained in the culture of all the Americas. As in Guatemala, it approaches life, health, and human development from the heart and intuition first and always includes the health of the spirit and soul.

For example, in Totonicapan, Guatemala, the health cooperative consists of a Mayan Priest, three or four midwives, herbalists, groups who grow the herbs (the medicine) for the community, and a coordinator. The structure for health care here is thus: a person enters the building with a symptom, complaint. The coordinator determines if the symptoms show a sickness that comes from the spirit’s illness. If so, that is helped first by the Mayan Priest with ceremony, personal work and talks and other ways I am not privy to. Then they are treated with natural medicine, herbs, food, etc. The last stop would be a hospital if tests, surgery or drugs are needed. The system also extends to the community. They feel empowering the women is a necessary part of the health of the family and community, so they have women running the herb-growing and other products they create for the town. The health of the individual reflects the health of the community and vice versa. I went through the markets with the midwives to learn all the herbs and foods they use as medicine and also the objects used in ceremonies for “limpias” which are for purification and removal of energies that do not belong to the person. The food they grow, the community they live in, the self-esteem of the women are all part of health, the health of the spirit. The spirit then is what is “treated.” It is a palpable, treatable presence.

My role as Rolfer in these communities in Guatemala seemed to be an immediate link to a warm relationship. Mostly, I was drawn to them from my own interest and desire to understand the world I was living in from the inside and not as an observer. Rolfing them, however, was always a strong thread that took me into quick relationship. At times, it was a spontaneous moment in a village at night. Someone would mention their mother, who “can’t walk up the hills very good since she hurt her knee six months ago.” I offer possible help and then I find myself in a small room looking at a hugely swollen knee and no ice within miles and no way of keeping ice. What are my tools now outside the secure dwelling in New Mexico and anatomy in my head? My response was always intricately linked to the essence of the life and reality of the person in that moment which included their complete environment and way of being and also my ignorance of their being.

Why mention this? Not to add to a travel resume and glory stories. Context-environment-intuition responding to the spirit of the entire moment usually completely out of my familiar surroundings-began my learning and questioning of what it is we think we (I) are doing when we do such deep work even in our secure setting, with no challenge to our own conditioned thinking and viewing. And perhaps, even that so called “thinking” in our cultural setting was preventing me from seeing and feeling what influences and possibilities were available in that moment. Knowing one’s limitations and powerlessness seems to be a relevant lesson with each new session. Not having an agenda was a must. Ridding myself of the illusion that we fix and that we “heal” was more stark to me at that time. Spiritual systems seem to teach that a person already has what they need. Ida Rolf said it Curanderismo says it. As I learned more about Curanderismo in New Mexico, I saw these connections to my experiences in Guatemala and realized much of what we learn, even in the basics of Rolfing class, are echoed in these spiritual systems.

Over the last two years of my apprenticeship (which will last a lifetime), I have experienced many beautiful traditions which feed and expand the depth of Rolfing. Being in a field in which I am able to work directly on people who come for a change, usually at a deep level, seems to be an advantage to me. Some who study Curanderismo are in other non-body oriented fields. Not all Curanderas work on the body. Some are herbalists, some work directly with soul and spirit and some are sobadoras (massage therapists). When a person comes to see a Curandera, they usually begin with a platica, a talk heart-to-heart. It is not the medical history first. She listens to the vibrations of the person’s voice, notices the fluidity or lack of movement in her gestures. It is not New Age therapy. She is listening to know what the person’s deeper self, the soul, is asking for. It is not psychotherapy. She is not a therapist or a religious minister. She works from intuition, many times in unknown territory, with an open agenda. Again, this reminds me of frequently mentioned insecurities by Ida: “You almost cannot teach Rolfing because you are everlastingly dealing with something that is as uncertain as a water bed. This is the problem, to get secure in an art where there is no security. The only security comes from relationships.” Curanderas, medicine people, learn to be secure in the unknown. They see relationships to everything in life. People coming to a Curandera tell her things they would never tell a doctor, priest or therapist. One does not become a Curandera in a workshop or even in a few years. A teacher in Mexico once said a person does not call oneself a Curandera or a Shaman, a village does. I certainly do not call myself one; however, the influence of this medicine shows up everywhere in my life.

In the apprenticeship, I learn treatment of susto (fright-trauma which fragments our “selves”), envidia (envy), bilis (rage), empacho (constriction of our guts), and loss of soul. All of them have symptoms in our lives as well as our bodies. As Rolfers, we see them all the time. We see them as disassociation, disorientation, inability to be “in” the body, etc. Curandera work emphasizes seeing where a person’s face and heart conflict. Rolfers see it as a fragmented person, even disjointed in the body.

Curanderas are taught to sense and intuit voice, movements, emotions. And crucial to all of this is one’s own inner state when treating another person-to be impeccable with ourselves. This means constant self monitoring for things such as self importance, self-pity, self-righteousness. One should be “stalking” oneself for one’s intention when working. As Rolfers, we are also told to know our intention. It is a wake-up call. A Curandera has to always work to know who she is, not just who the client is. And again the correlation to Rolfing: Ida says, “There is only yourself and what you can learn to see and feel that will give you a certain security.” The beauty of apprenticing in Curanderismo is that the world becomes the place to draw upon for relationships of seeing and intuiting where loss of structure and integration occurs.

CONNECTING BACK SOUTH TO MEXICO

Through my work in Curanderismo, I have begun to learn the Azteca medicine from Ehekateotl Kuauhtlinxan. Again, as in Guatemala, the medicine belongs to the spiritual leaders, the teachers. They also treat spirit and all health symptoms by working with a patient’s true identity, again working with their “face and heart.” The particular branch of the Azteca medicine I am learning works with how human beings can live together in community. According to this tradition, community reflects the health of the individual. Self-responsibility is the keystone. Health, they say, is a choice based on our habits and customs. In Rolfing, we are very close all the time to seeing the result of a persons’ life choices on their health all the way to the fascia.

Part of the Azteca medicine, that has also become part of Curandera teaching, is the recognition of harmful false-belief systems. The system I study is called the Nawi Ollin Teotl (“the essence of the four movements”). One part of this tradition is bodywork. Ehekateotl visits Albuquerque 3-4 times a year and gives treatments, many times to my clients. In all the work, he speaks of the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual as things he can touch in the body and that clarity and health in all four areas need to exist for the soul to be able to clearly choose, to decide to “drive the car.” Emphasis in both Curanderismo and Azteca medicine is to not tamper or touch a person’s soul or life. It is their responsibility, not ours. His bodywork is as deep a Rolfing session as you’ve ever had but with no stopping or pausing. Movement of energy in the four areas is the purpose. I saw many of my clients experience relief of chronic knee pain and pelvic pain that no other therapy had resolved.

A SPIRITUAL BODY TREATMENT

I traveled with Ehekateotl to the Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico to help him in the treatment of kids with asthma. This was, by far, the most complete treatment of illness I’ve ever been part of. Body work, deep committed bodywork, was done. A member of the family was always present. I translated, so again, I got to experience how language and words affect and imprint vibrationally in the body.

Emotional release was always present and always encouraged with much tenderness and safety. Ceremony, flute playing, which is also used in treatment, wrapping the child tightly after the bodywork, sometimes having the child tell a story of what scared it-these were all elements of treating asthma. This was not just a set of lungs and fascial restrictions. This was a spirit and soul composed of many elements in the life of the child that affected her health. After, a discussion with the family member was done in a very respectful and frank way, sometimes asking if the child was left alone frequently, abused ever, scared of being in school, lonely, etc. Again, as in Guatemala, all present did not question that treatment of the physical problem, asthma, included all that surrounds the person and all that is inside the person. Perhaps, the interface of these two worlds is the place we touch in the body. The plants and herbs used were part of the child’s environment. Parents were encouraged to give more tenderness and holding to their children.

CONCLUSION

My experiences in Guatemala and Mexico and Curanderismo in New Mexico brought the gift to me of seeing that our social landscapes enter our minds, our bodies, our gestures and our words. Our language creates structures that determine our relationships and how we define or separate ourselves from them, including our relationship to nature. Our political systems, our religious structures, our economic class being challenged and critically questioned all the time, can affect even our work as Rolfers and our ideas of spirituality. They enter and form our ideas of who we think we are and what our role supposedly is in this profession. They can even manifest at times as an arrogance and assuming power of ourselves as the central player in “healing,” as if we have all the answers that come from our reality and life.

In the medicine I am learning, the loss of a meaningful life, meaningful work, personal relationships, loss of joyful and easy movement in our bodies, the sense of emptiness in general is a symptom of soul fragmentation and susto to the spirit. As Rollers, we also hear people mention these emotional pains-really, pains of their spirit. Clients speak of depression, stressful lives that do not connect to what is in ; their hearts. We watch their faces tell one story, their body another and their words yet another and then hear the resulting physical pain symptoms.

My thoughts on writing this piece changed frequently. Spirituality is very personal to me and very private. I experience the huge loss in our culture of our relationship to nature in all parts of our life as a deadening of spirit and an alienation of our souls. In the Mexican medicine, one has to learn acute attention to even how one picks an herb and never using metal to cut plants. It wakes one’s soul up again to our dependence on this earth and the cost to one’s own health when we compartmentalize what events one calls spiritual. “It is this but not this.” Perhaps, this was going to be a political statement, more about how our economic and cultural set can separate us even as Rolfers from truly seeing.

All of these thoughts and questions I have posed are my own questioning of spirit as I have been allowed to practice other forms of health traditions such as Curanderismo and to work in contexts of no money being charged, to participate in ceremonies to re-member our selves and to bring those selves back in relationship to nature and earth as an essential to our health individually and communally. Rolfers are seekers of better relationship. My involvement in this medicine and relationship to Guatemalan life has created for me a view of relationships in a matrix that now extends in all directions.

We can always ask, what truly is the spirit of anything? We enter homes and say the house has a “good or bad spirit.” What is the spirit of a city, of our government, our laws? People use phrases like “the spirit of the law.” What was the spirit of the person who wrote it and what was the world and context of their environment in which they wrote it? A person’s spirit is a landscape of all elements. It seems impossible now to me to parse and separate out one element of a person’s reality.

Curanderismo, and most indigenous medicine I am familiar with, unites inner and outer worlds as a barometer of spiritual health. As Rolfers, we are in a position to see, feel and intuit this everyday. The complaints of meaningless lives and their concurrent physical and emotional symptoms may be the longing of the outer face and voice to match the inner heart.

Rolfers, I think, eventually know and talk to each other about what our hands and eyes feel, see and suspect in terms of the composite of a person’s life in the fascia. Even though we may or may not limit our work to the change of options in the body, we know we have an entire spiritual landscape before us and around us all the time if we choose to include it in our consciousness and our way of life.