A sweaty, spiritual, sing a long, sunday.

Last weekend my flatmate invited me to a Temazcal ceremony in the countryside. Being an 'I'll try everything once except bungee jumping' kind of gal, I decided to go along and see what it was all about.
For those who don't know, a Temazcal ceremony is a 'spiritual purification' supposed to renew your soul and provide you with the inner strength to achieve your life goals.

A typical Temazcal clay hut

It was first practised by the Aztecs in Mexico but many other cultures throughout South America have adopted the ceremony. The main feature is a herbal steam-bath (basically a sauna) which consists of heating volcanic rocks in the centre of a dome shaped clay hut (supposed to represent the womb....)  The ceremony is usually led by a 'Shaman' - a messenger between the spiritual and human world....(Yes, this weekend was definitely going to need an open mind)

On arriving at the location where our ceremony would take place (the back garden of my flatmate's eccentric hippy friend), we met Juan or 'brother of the wind', the Shaman who would be leading the weekend. According to him he was an Indigenous Argentinian. A chat with him later on proved that he did indeed know a lot about the Indigenous Argentinian tribe the Mapuche, but his roots were a little suspect.
'So you are from an indigenous community?'
'No.'
'Oh, but your family are indigenous?
'No, actually I discovered it myself.'
I'm not quite sure how you can discover this, I am pretty sure it's something that you need to be born into, but hey ho, I assumed he was referring to the lifestyle. Anyway, he was quite an interesting guy even if his past was a bit suspicious. (Recovered alcoholic, was suggested by my sceptical French friend)

The night before the ceremony, was the preparation stage. Juan called us to the garden where we formed a semi circle in front of the moon and following his lead, began chanting towards the sky - just a typical Saturday night really. He also played a horn like instrument which at first made the most pathetic dribbling sound (think of a trumpet Fail) and I could not help but burst into laughter. The laughter that you know is wrong and because of that it makes you laugh harder. Luckily my scarf was around my neck to cover my mouth and muffle the sound… this was the first of many laugh suppressing techniques needed throughout the weekend.


The next day was the day of the ceremony. The sacred ground where the steam bath would be constructed was prepared by putting six sticks in a circle and adding some flags (bet you didn't know it was that easy to make your back yard sacred hey? - blue peter would be proud). Unable of course to create an authentic clay dome, we constructed the IKEA version with cane sticks and blankets. We then paid our respects to the trunk outside the sacred ground (The trunk did represent something but I wasn't paying much attention when he explained what) and then we entered the womb.

The ceremony began with Juan's words - 'now we will go around the group and express what problems we have in our lives at the moment and how we want to overcome them' (perhaps a line from the AA meetings? sorry)
Now, the thought of someone asking me 'how I feel about my life' or 'what goals I want to achieve ' fills me with dread. Like a typical Brit I can't just draw on these 'feelings' with a seconds notice. I need time to recall my vast knowledge of trashy American TV so that I can regurgitate phrases like - 'I want to re - connect with my body' or 'I want to love myself for who I am'.

After a standard 'I want to be happy' cop out, I began thinking about what I was actually doing. Admittedly, I was finding myself getting caught up in the pretense of the whole weekend and actually quite enjoying it. It was like nothing I had ever experienced and I was meeting some very intriguing characters. But the facts were these --- It was a hot Sunday afternoon, I was sweating profusely in a small dome of blankets in someone’s backyard, with nine other sweaty people - and a man wearing a headband was saying things like 'and now we shall establish the umbilical cord with mother earth'.

As the sauna ceremony progressed, I cunningly managed to manoeuvre into a position close to the ground where I could have a little snooze. But obviously it wasn’t just me having a wee kip because of the hot temperature, oh no, it happened 'so that the words of the Shaman could infiltrate my sub conscious and connect with my soul' according to the nice hippy lady. She also asked me whether I had been dreaming about fairies...
 'I had a vision of fairies dancing around your head whilst you were asleep - were you dreaming about them?'
Feeling the mood and not wanting to reveal the truth that I was actually dreaming about the next X factor episode, I replied...
'Yes, I think there were some...' (diva fever count?)
'What else were you dreaming about?'
'You know, my family and....traveling and stuff?' (that’s deep right?)

Finally after two hours, the door to the dome was opened and we were released or 'reborn'.

God bless the language barrier. Many times throughout the weekend my silence was reasoned with the fact that I didn't understand the Spanish.
'Do you understand what I'm saying?'
'No, not really, sorry'
'Oh I see, I am speaking too fast'.
Yes that’s it. Its got nothing to do with the fact that I wouldn't be able to understand what you were saying even if you were speaking English (did she just say that she was an eagle in her past life?)

So, I' m not sure the actual ceremony was the most authentic cultural experience I've ever had, but one thing I did enjoy about the weekend, was hearing about the Indigenous Argentinians. They are not people you hear very much about. When I think of Argentina, I basically picture a very European place, but there are indigenous groups around the country. In fact 3-5% of the total population are indigenous people living in rural communities with their own languages. The majority died out years ago, as there descendants integrated into Western civilization and according to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, due to racial discrimination, many indigenous people now hide their true identity.

They also seem to suffer from the same problems affecting many indigenous groups around the world - the battle for land ownership and recognition in general.

So although I did not learn a lot about myself (not actually sure I want to find out 'who I am') I did learn a lot about other cultures here in Argentina. And just for the record, I am sure the Temazcal ceremony is a fascinating experience....in Mexico...with indigenous descendants of the people who created it....in a dome not made from sticks and blankets.

Photo of an Indian shaman. Now, meeting this guy would have been an interesting experience...