One&Only Palmilla’s resident shaman, Raul Retana is a master of the Temazcal, an ancient practice inspired by curative ceremonies that have been honoured in the region for over a thousand years.

Retana is a member of the Sonoran Mayo tribe, and has spent his life developing holistic therapies using indigenous medicine created from natural herbs, clay and energy. An expert in natural medicine, holistic massages, neuromuscular stretching techniques, bio-magnetism and bioenergetics, Retana strives to both conserve and build upon his tribe’s ancient traditions.

Q: How would you personally define shamanism and where does it originate from?
Personally, I understand the word shamanism (word outside our tradition), as a type of curanderismo that combines body, soul, mind and spirit healing, using the practice of traditional indigenous medicine. This practice helps to restore inner being and body, using the millennial knowledge about plants, herbs, remedies, energy, magnetism and elements. The intention is the most important part.

The word itself, shamanism, I still do not know it well because it comes from other distant cultures, although similar, but curanderismo comes from time immemorial, it is impossible to know the origin since it is transmitted from generation to generation through families and the formation of the elderly. A shaman is perhaps, what for us would be a medicine man or a medicine woman.

Q: You grew up as a member of the Sonoran Mayo tribe and live in close touch with nature. What makes it particularly special to you?
I was born in the mountains, without doctors or hospitals, as people used to do in the past. During my childhood I did not have plastic toys, I grew up in direct contact with nature, my toys were little animals, cicadas, frogs, hummingbirds, eagles, vipers. The raindrops, the movement of the trees by the wind, the sun that made its way through the shade of the trees.

We did not have television, telephone, internet, amenities or luxuries, but we contemplated life in the great horizons, in the heights of the mountains or contemplating the microcosm or contemplating the approach of the clouds with water, the contact of the skin with the earth, breathing the scent of the humid earth, etc.. Today, I think that most people who have always lived in the logic of cities have lost the multiple forms of life, as moving away from nature dilutes the perception of the senses, and the senses are what connect us to what happens around us.

Q: How did you become a shaman?
I come from a family that for generations has practiced traditional medicine, but I also had the fortune to have strict training in keeping with the traditions of the wise elders who were in charge of keeping the traditions alive.

Everything has its time, each learning, each knowledge is processed in a specific age, it is more difficult to learn from adults what should have been learned during adolescence, it is not the same. I was fortunate to be educated by several elderly people at the exact moment, during my childhood, adolescence, and training is very hard because it is something that is practiced throughout life.

Q: What exactly is a Temazcal, how is it constructed and what makes it such a holistic wellness experience?
The Temazcal is a steam bath with medicinal herbs and volcanic rocks heated that is made in a semi-circular construction made of clay. During this ceremony or Temazcal ritual we will remember what we are, we will purify and detoxify. It is to feel again the belly of the earth like that of our mother, it is to be born again, to remember the first breath again, it is to feel clean physically and inwardly.

During the Temazcal, there’s a radical change of energy, of emotions. You are freed from fears, traumas, wounds of the soul; freed of toxic emotions and eliminate a large amount of toxins that make our bodies sick. It deflates the body and strengthens the function of the organs.

The Temazcal is a sacred heritage from our ancestors who were responsible for conserving and transmitting this knowledge for generations. In ancient times there were no doctors, hospitals, pharmacies or medicines but they had the temazcales to heal, to strengthen themselves and to remember the origin of our nature.

Wellbeing