“ I was surrounded by the spirits of my Guides, Spiritual Allies, Angelic beings, and Ancestors. I saw and felt them as a tunnel of light and loving presence witnessing my entrance to earth. Their hands caught me as I emerged with gentleness and reverence. I knew in that moment that I was meant to be here on earth in this body, that I have the protection and guidance of mighty and loving beings, and that I have a sacred mission on planet earth.”
Dear Ones, I had a Mystical, Divine, and totally life-enhancing experience in January of 2020 that has shaped the course and quality of my life ever since.
I chose to take a leap of faith and join a unique woman-guided and sacred group-journey to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. I’ll share the juicy details of my other-worldly healing experiences in just a little bit, but I first want to share about how this particular journey caught my attention and called to my soul because it harmonized with my hearts deepest visions and strivings. This Journey invites us:
To learn from a traditional midwife practicing and teaching abdominal massage, herbalism, and birth attendance in Mexico (Doña Rafaela in the Yucatán).
To catalyze sacred healing and embodied growth by exploring and connecting with the rich culture and intricate temple-cities of the Maya in the Yucatán.
To integrate this healing and growth into life as we return home to offer healing back to the communities we serve.
Make real reciprocal connections with the communities we travels to.
To experience all of the above in a group space that centers cooperation, ceremony, and mutual reverence for one another.
“We are all called to embark on the journeys that contain some medicine for us, some glimmering piece of our own souls magic we are here on earth to rediscover.”
As a home birth midwife (with a heavy lean toward the magical and spiritual realms -but nonetheless) steeped in Western clinical midwifery, I relished the opportunity to expand my awareness of traditional indigenous knowledge, skills, and tools for supporting healthy, primal, and empowered living and birthing.
I felt enchanted by this unique opportunity to learn from this revered healer and her incredibly humble and wise presence.
You can find a video of Dońa Rafaela speaking about her work (in Spanish) below:
I was magnetized toward the luxurious pace of the journey.
Two full weeks to deeply immerse ourselves in the cultural richness of this powerful land and culture feels true in my bones. Sarah Gress explains that she intentionally designs these journeys with spaciousness to honor that we all integrate more of the medicine and wisdom in our experiences if we have time to ground-in when we arrive. Time to unwind and shed the layers of tension, stress, and hurry of our daily lives. Time to stop and smell the flowers, to pilgrimage to the temples near and far, and to be active in ceremonies guided by local medicine-holders and ceremony keepers as well as by Sarah herself.
I anticipated that the journey would be powerful, even transformational. That the people who joined would be other healers seeking their own healing, like myself. We are all called to embark on the journeys that contain some medicine for us, some glimmering piece of our own souls magic we are here on earth to rediscover. But I had no idea how transformational this journey would be. I had the pleasure of witnessing the prayers of each woman in my group and how each one manifested exactly the experiences she needed to fulfill them. Through the hand of the divine, and the masterful skills and facilitation Sarah brings, we each returned home inspired and activated, remedied and rejuvenated. I’ll delve into my own personal healing transformation and how it’s still continuing to bless my life a little further in. First, I want to set the scene for you.
Our journey melded together Midwives from the US and Germany, as well as Massage Therapists, Doulas, Musicians, Herbalists, and Mothers.
Sarah is German herself and spoke fluently between German, English, and Spanish to translate Doña Rafaela’s words for us. She ensured that all of us at varying levels of Spanish fluency (some of us couldn’t speak a word) were able to navigate everywhere we went.
Our home-base was a sweet little town called Izamal in North Central Yucatán, just East of Mérida. Sarah taught us the history of the main Mayan temple that still towers above the town, as we ascended to the top to look out over the town and forest below. Mayan temples are formidable structures- often boasting staircases ascending hundreds of feet at a steep incline. Even more fascinating and intimidating to note are that some of these stairways were designed to tumble the bodies of sacrificed people down after their hearts had been cut out in the times of the ancient, complex, and thriving Mayan civilization.
This is not to say that the Maya have disappeared, many thousands of peoples speak the Mayan language and live by Mayan traditions in the Yucatán today.
Like indigenous peoples throughout the world the Maya face extreme discrimination and stigma from generations of colonization and the extreme encroachment of modern culture. Their land has been stolen and much of the world seems to believe they are extinct. I believe it does a disservice to the indigenous peoples of the Yucatán to misunderstand them as having disappeared in the distant past. The Yucatán is alive with their magic, weavings and art, traditional foods and ways, and their voices if one stays respectfully perceptive.
As we climbed the temple in Izamal (Phoenetically pronounced Eee-Sá-Mal) Sarah taught us that the town itself is named after the Mayan God Itzamna, the divine consort of the multi-faceted healing Goddess and Creatrix Ixchel. Sarah believes this town is a vortex of healing and that it’s part of the reason why she and so many other healers feel called here. To do the work of self-healing and learning the old wisdom-ways in connection with these ancient deities and forces. Sarah had revelatory insights into many facets of the multiple sacred sites we visited throughout the journey.
“I personally came with a prayer to reawaken enchantment in my life”
Sarah first discovered Izamal while traveling through the Yucatán more than 7 years ago and she fell in love with the community. She quickly became friends with Doña Rafaela and her family as well as many other people in Izamal and the Yucatán. The love and respect this community has for Sarah is obvious and her ability to interact with clarity, reciprocity, compassion and a sense of the sacred shines through in every part of the journey.
The spark of the idea to bring people to learn from Doña Rafaela was inspired when Rafaela shared with Sarah that she loves teaching but doesn’t want to have to leave her home to share her knowledge. Rafaela feels that she belongs close to her own family and children and serving her own community, attending the folks who seek her out and catching babies right where she has lived her entire life. Doña Rafaela and her family are welcoming and kind to all who come to their door, a rare quality in our modern cultures. She and her family are especially gracious and seem genuinely excited when Sarah brings her groups to visit and learn from them.
Rural Cenote outside of Izamal, Yucatán, 2020
Rafaela’s husband Julio (who has since passed away and is deeply missed!) explained to our group on our last day with them that he sees us as his family and that any one of us is always welcome in their home. Like a doting grandfather his eyes shone with pride as he told us he knew we would go out into the world and share our medicine in a good way! Everyone in our group had tears in our eyes as we said goodbye to Rafaela and Julio at the end of our journey.
“There was never a moment during our journey that our steps didn’t feel warmly welcome and divinely guided. A sense of sacredness and magic filled the air.”
From the moment we touched ground in Yucatán I felt completely safe. There was never a moment during our journey that our steps didn’t feel warmly welcome and divinely guided. A sense of sacredness and magic filled the air. Trees were In full flower and fruit (In January!), and the streets filled with music and laughter everywhere we went.
In our first sacred circle we each went around and shared our intention for coming on the journey. We went deep together immediately as we each shared from our hearts. I personally came with a prayer to reawaken enchantment in my life. Tears caught me off guard as I realized in the moment I spoke why I had really come. A deep longing and a sense of hope and possibility filled the circle as we witnessed one another in all our rawness, strength, and vulnerability
The pressure and politics of being a home birth midwife was feeling so heavy at the time. I felt like my body, mind, and spirit had never fully recovered from the extreme rigors of attending midwifery school. Maternidad La Luz (MLL) is a birth center and midwifery school on the US/Mexico border where I’d completed 13 grueling months of 24-hour clinic shifts (3-4 per week!) on top of being on-call for specific births and completing an entire midwifery didactic curriculum. The program was exceptionally intense due to its condensed length, and the fact that it’s one of the only midwifery schools with so much hands-on experience.
By the time I was in the final stretch at MLL in 2015 I was curling up in fetal position on any available surface and in any spare moment between tending to laboring and postpartum babies and mamas during our over-night shifts. I’d gone through so much sleep deprivation that I was having trouble falling asleep (something I’d never had trouble with before) and I felt like my waking life was in a surreal haze.
While I’d done a lot to nourish myself in the 4 years since graduating, I was also continuing to lose entire nights of sleep attending births and building my own midwifery practice. The rigors of education had morphed into the equally stressful ethical and spiritual conflicts of the regulatory and political landscape of home birth. The general cultural misunderstanding and condemnation of home birth midwives, and the regulations that come in direct conflict with the autonomy and empowered informed-decisions of birthing families are a constant source of tension for many midwives. I’ll speak at length about these challenges in other writings but suffice it to say:
I felt depleted, exhausted, and the shine and color had faded from my usually starry and inspired eyes. This journey came along at the exact time I most needed it, an answer to my prayers for healing.
My life-changing experience of actualized healing occurred while we were in a sweat-lodge ceremony guided by one of Sarah’s collaborators, an Izamal native and Mayan shaman named Israel. Israel hosted our ceremony in a lodge he built by hand on land he’s cultivated for his healing work. As we all sang together and the water was poured over the stones I felt layers of heavy, murky energy peel off of me and reabsorb into the earth. Sarah invited us each to face outward and vocalize. At first my throat was raspy and my voice felt weak. As I continued to raise my voice in authentic expression I felt a visceral opening, a release, and my throat felt tingly and open, more alive and vibrant than before. The sensation in my throat suprised me, as the tightness and constriction moved up and out of my mouth! My voice rang louder and clearer than before and I felt vibrant and powerful in that moment and onward.Then we were guided to lay our bodies directly on the earth inside of the lodge and curl up comfortably. She began walking us through a guided meditation.
I immediately saw and felt myself as a vast and boundary-less shimmering ocean of turquoise-blue loving light. I felt utterly peaceful and a sense of total belonging. Power thrummed through me.
I looked down upon planet Earth, feeling her as both very distant and yet close enough to see my mother with ease. I felt myself make a choice to dive down and implant an ember of that shimmering light right into my mothers’ womb, seeding this ocean of light into the planet. I felt confident. I felt completely connected with the light that I was basking in and a sense of purpose and courage. I felt the shimmering turquoise-blue ocean of light cheering me on and enveloping me in love from above. Then I felt wave upon wave of rushing change come over me. I physically felt the first light of the earth touch and illuminate the crown of my head as my mother birthed me onto planet earth.
As my shoulders and body glided into the world I was surrounded by the spirits of my Guides, Spiritual Allies, Angelic beings, and Ancestors. I saw and felt them as a tunnel of light and loving presence witnessing my entrance to earth. Their hands surrounded and caught me with gentleness and reverence as I emerged as a tiny baby. I knew in that moment that I was meant to be here on earth in this body, that I have the protection and guidance of mighty and loving beings, and that I have a sacred mission on planet earth.
“I immediately saw and felt myself as a vast and boundary-less shimmering ocean of turquoise-blue loving light. I felt utterly peaceful and a sense of total belonging. Power thrummed through me.”
When I returned from this vision I felt a sense of deep awe and gratitude. A part of myself was reclaimed and embodied and a sense of wholeness filled my being. As we emerged from the lodge on hands and knees, and my body saw the light outside I felt completely reborn. I was swimming in the succulence of my enhanced senses. Colors looked brighter, sounds filled my ears like beautiful song, the air on my skin was soft and smooth. I felt tender and open and curious.
For total clarity around this: no plant medicines were imbibed during this experience: the altered state I reached was not the result to any ingestion of enthiogenic compounds.
From that moment onward I’ve remembered myself again. I received a softening within my being, a spaciousness full of trust and gratitude where there was once fear and suspicion. Even now as I write this, nearly 2 years later, I’m able to bring greater ease and flow to my life experiences. I’ve realized (meaning: made real in my embodied experience) that I am not ultimately in control of the unfolding of life. I’ve surrendered what I cannot change. I now remember that I chose to incarnate on this planet, and that I am protected and guided by beings of incredible mercy and power. These beings are unconditionally loving as well as fierce protectors.
I did not come here to worry about money or stability. I now refuse to engage with fear around money. When fear starts to come up within me I choose to lay my abundance at the feet of the Divine.
To trust that Life knows better than I do what I’m meant to be and that She will support me to do just so, without any strategy or manipulation of life necessary on my part. When I articulate this in words my logical brain is skeptical. But when I stop intellectualizing my Truth and just allow it, this way of navigating life works exceptionally well for me. I allow myself to look more deeply at what my life IS really about once I release the need to focus on money and fear. I feel safer, and the rest that sense of safety offers opens my mind to otherwise untapped inspiration and energy to create in the world.
Through all of the times in the past when month-after-month, year-after-year I’ve worried about having enough- I see now that it ALWAYS works out. I give myself permission to trust that I will have abundance, love, joy, grace, peace, community, and purpose. I give myself permission to trust that I am led to the experiences, people, opportunities, and challenges that I came here to have. This trust allows me to live in the present moment without hurry, to love and take exquisite care of myself unconditionally, and to follow my own inner compass in the face of the blaring banter of our times. Accessing my deeper self allows me to find my true offering toward the healing of the world within my own healing. I am the only one who can give myself this permission.
The more whole and healthy I am, the more clearly I see how to bring the outside world into health and wholeness. It’s like the old saying “work smart not hard” suddenly took on new meaning for me. Or the Mary Oliver poem that begins :
“You do not have to walk on your knees through the desert for a hundred miles repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” - Mary Oliver
I know that I (and YOU too!) came here for more than fear and struggle- though we live in times rife with both.
Each time one of us clears old trauma and raises ourselves out of a layer of fear, we inherently apply that newfound courage toward amplifying the well-being of the people and projects we love most. I’m passionate about sharing and witnessing stories of healing and transformation because they allow those who witness to resonate, feel connected, and be inspired that healing is alive and possible. This has a ripple effect.
I’ll choose to honor the privacy of the other women on my journey by not delving too deeply into my perceptions of their experiences. I will share (with permission) though, that one of the other women on our journey came seeking healing for an ailment that began about 3 years earlier during her first pregnancy that was causing her immense pain. She had tried numerous medical treatments to resolve the constant nausea and vomiting she was experiencing, including surgery. Her doctors were stumped. She had another experimental surgery scheduled after our trip that she never had to show up for. Her prayer and purpose for embarking with us revolved around this healing journey she was enthralled in.
In our first few days in Mexico, this woman volunteered to have Doña Rafaela demonstrate abdominal massage on her. A few mornings later over breakfast she shared with us that her pain was completely gone and had been since the demonstration! Tears welled up in all of our eyes to hear how much it meant to her. She was very encouraged but was still waiting to see whether symptoms returned. At the time of this writing she is healthy and well, relieved of her previous symptoms, and rocking motherhood and midwifery school! To see her thriving is such a gift!
Our 2020 group with Rafaela, Julio and their children. Rafaela baked us this cake on our last day together. We had a local woodworker make her the custom birthstool on the right as our thank you for hosting and teaching us.
I believe the sacred spaciousness of our journey allowed our group to really unify into one entity, one sisterhood.
We sang on the bus together, sat in ceremony together, ate nearly every meal together, prayed and swam in Cenotes together. I feel so grateful that every single one of us on this journey held an attitude of adventure and positivity the entire time. We felt extremely collaborative, enjoying one anothers’ company and giving each another space when needed. We all still keep in touch a year and a half later, even across oceans, and talk of a future reunion!
Sarah has curated this journey based upon her own sacred practices and the connections she’s developed with the local communities through her travels over the course of many years and many trips.
A ceremony we shared at a Mayan temple on private property before eating a delicious traditional dinner with the multi-generational Mayan family who live on the land.
I’m aware that western tourism into economically strained countries often has a negative impact on local residents and indigenous peoples. It’s extremely important to me that my travels do as little harm as possible to the indigenous and current residents of the areas I travel to. I also acknowledge that it may not be possible to do absolutely no harm- and that we must walk with awareness and actively seek to give back to the communities that host us as we travel. I’ve been extremely impressed by Sarah’s way of navigating these dynamics. Her relationships with the people we encounter are warm, deep, and genuine.
She knows the names of everyone who supports the journeys, as well as the names of their children, spouses, and extended family. It’s palpable how excited everyone is to see her when we arrive. I was able to feel that we were in a reciprocal relationship with the folks who support these journeys. Rather than channeling tourism money into multinational hotel chains or restaurants or travel companies, Sarah invests directly into individual people she’s met during her travels for our lodging, food, transportation, education, and ceremony. When COVID heavily impacted the communities our group had formed connections with, Sarah and many of the women in our group all channeled resources to support the people we know there. In this way I believe it is possible to generate a travel culture of mutual benefit rather than extractive tourism.
I’m so grateful that Sarah has built her life around the bonds she’s formed and the sacred ways she tends. It’s such a gift to the groups who join her on these journeys who benefit from her knowledge, experience, and open-hearted nature.
Please join us on a future journey if you resonate with this story, we’d LOVE to welcome you into the magic!
This journey is coming up again:
Follow the above link to Sarah Gress’s page to find the journey itinerary and numerous photos of previous journeys! You can email or Facebook message Sarah with any questions about the journey as well.
***You will find the registration form in a blue link below the itinerary and photos***
A testimonial given by one of the women on my 2020 journey:
“Sarah Gress is a healer, leader, advocate, friend, and so much more. She has a sacred talent of knowing what the soul needs and truly sees people. She creates journeys like the one I attended, that are full to the brim of meaning. Not a vacation, no gimmicks, a JOURNEY. A journey into your self, into others and closer to mother earth. I’ve never been out of country till the journey I attended with Sarah, and I couldn’t have felt more safe and cared for. She also has a talent for finding the most magnificent humans and placing them in front of those who need them most. If you want to heal, expand, learn or grow… You are in the right place with Sarah.”
-Haley Kate Grow of Tuscon Doula/Raising Flowers Birth