Customer Reviews

Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

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Rosita Arvigo and Dr. Balick have written a very good book about the her experiences with a Mayan shaman in Belize. It gives great insights about the vanishing breed of "bush" doctors. Good for anyone who wants to study the ethnobotany of Mayas or alternative medicines in general especially those made with tropical plants and herbs.

I read this title when it came out years ago and have collected a few extra copies for loaning out over the years...now my hoarding is over.
This is truly a breathtaking story about the fragile links between traditional healing and current day healing. Truly, one of the most remarkable books I have ever read.

This book is a work of peace and beauty. Each chapter starts with a quick note on unique Mayan herbs and identifies their healing properties. This alone is a treasure. Sastun also gives an insightful, sensitive look into the character a true healer who deeply cares for his patients, mourns his lonliness, yet is energized by his spiritual support he receives in his healing and the thankfulness of his humble, hard-working and trusting Mayan patients. Personally, I loved this book... it reads quickly and easily, is beautifully written with touching humor and is remarkably uplifting.

I can only be grateful that Rosita Arvigo took on this challenge. Her own interests and career in alternative healing practices melded with those of a Mayan traditional healer. She was able to learn from Don Elegio and tap from his knowledge and experiences of his 60 year practice. And all of this essentially time critical, before further destruction of the rainforest and to memorialize Don Elegio's vast knowledge. Here's a real first-hand account of the search for medicinal cures in a rainforest, something we hear about in the media but never quite sure what it all entails. "Sastun" presents a realistic view of an American relocating and establishing a life in a Central American rainforest. One gets a glimpse of the life in a small Belizean village--the meld of Mayan and Catholic culture and the important role that a healer plays in this scene. We're visiting Belize soon and we'll make a specific point of visiting Ix Chel Farms and meeting Rosita Arvigo for a walk down the Panti Medicinal Rainforest Trail. I can only appreciate all that she has done in Belize in furthering the status of traditional healers in Belize and grounding it in science

This book was written very well, but was still packed with ethnobotanical information and experiences. It read like a novel. I enjoyed witnessing the change in Arvigo as she became more accepting of Maya beliefs and less fixated on the thinking of american practitioners; the struggle she had with changing her thinking process and finally being able to kind of mush them together into her own way of healing. For example at first she would introduce a plant and what it was used for and how it had a certain chemical(s) in it that would give it that healing property. But as she learns more about the plants she has to adopt a spiritual understanding on how these plants work to heal. And I loved the ending!

Sastun, is the amazing memoir of an American women's adventure into a renewed way of life as she transports herself and her family deep into the jungles of Belize. Rosita Arvigo, and Italian/Assyrian woman from Chicago, together with her husband and daughter, make the difficult decision to leave the hustle and bustle of today's modern society to attempt a new life by homesteading and opening up a health facility in South America. Rosita is trained in naprapathy medicine, a sort of chiropractic massage therapy, and her husband is a trained paramedic.

Together they purchase a large many acre plot of jungle in Belize, spend years clearing the land as they set up practice, and live like pioneer settlers integrating themselves into this new world of backbreaking work and daily battles with sweltering heat, insect infestations, creeping jungle flora, perpetual damp and mold, and local diseases. Hearing of a local Mayan medicine man, Rosita makes his acquaintance and from that moment on, becomes determined to learn natural and spiritual healing to accompany her already trained hands.

After meeting Don Elijio Panti, Belize's renowned healer and Shaman, Rosita falls in love with the 90 year old sage and soon begins a long lived friendship and apprenticeship in which she will sacrifice much time to slowly learn the ways of the forest, train herself with Elijio's guidance, breathe the natural world around her, and learn to harvest the many hundreds of jungle plants that can heal all of man's physical and spiritual ailments. This story is one of the most engaging and fascinating memoirs I have ever read. I can't imagine any reader not falling in love with the delightful and mischievous Don Elijio, aged and wrinkled, so full of life, love, and laughter, that turns no soul in need away from his door. Hundreds of South American patients travel many miles each day to be treated by Don Elijio, to seek his wisdom, medicine and healing hands.

Never did Rosita imagine that such a full bounty of natural pharmaceuticals was right there at arms reach, just a few steps away in the heart of the Belize jungle. Just ripe for the harvesting, so many trees, plants, leaves, berries and bark samples, were there for the healing with the right knowledge to use them. Spending years with Don Elijio by his side training daily allows Rosita to witness healing and miracles like she had never seen in any modern medical facility or hospital. Medical emergencies and sicknesses abound in Belize and not a day went by where she didn't drop her mouth in awe as she watched and learned what the medicine man was capable of, using combinations of plants, the laying on of his hands, shamanistic spiritual counsel, and his 90 years of common sense and experience with the nature of man and the natural world around him. With a twinkle in his eye, an incredible sense of humor, and with the wisdom of the ages, he teaches Rosita to someday replace him as the village healer. The two embark on a journey close to that of father and daughter, welcoming the village people into their homes and hearts as they line up putting their trust and faith in their hands.

This is a very insightful and illuminating story that will entrance the reader with the wonders of the natural world and what it has to offer us if we just learn to tap into it's gifts. The book surely holds a story that is uplifting, inspirational, and is a book that will renew one's faith in mankind. I found the knowledge within this book eye-opening and felt the man himself, Don Elijio Panti, truly a magical human being. To his own people he is a God. After you read this book you will agree he is what the world needs more of.

Rosita Arvigo narrates a moving and captivating journey through the rainforest to a higher plain. Her record of Elijio Panti is priceless, and the science behind the ethnobotany is fascinating. I finally understand the reason for the success of the plants my wife has given me and my children during illness.

I look forward to visiting Ix Chel one day.

I really enjoyed this book. It tells about Arvigo's true life experiences with a healer. She shows us that it is up to all of us to save our planet. It is also true that we don't have to reinvent the wheel. She was able to get help from the New York Botanical Garden. Arvigo is really a brave woman.

I purchased this book as a prerequisite for a Mayan Self Abdominal Massage class. It is inspiring to read the story and struggles of Rosita Arvigo as she comes to apprentice for one of the last traditional Mayan healers. This book is also a window into the damage we are doing to our rainforests and the potential ramifications as we lose not only our source of oxygen, but potentially life saving plants. This true life story is totally engaging and an easy read.

This book is about Rosita Arvigo's life in Belize and her apprenticeship with a Maya healer. This is a Spectacular True story. The book captivated me, I could not put it down. Thank goodness she learned and is carrying on the knowledge of the Shaman's. We in the US have gotten too far away from Natural Remedies, replacing them with synthetic alternatives. There is a plant given to us for a cure for any human ailment we have, but this knowledge is dying with our Rainforests. I finished this book learning that Rosita is a courageous women living in the Rainforest of Belize who has dedicated her life to learning about the herbs in the Rainforest. She is dedicated to saving plants destined to become extinct thru moderization of our Rainforest. Thru her work a Medicinal Plant Reserve was established called Terra Nova. I felt great energy while reading this book.