Temazcal: Entering the Fire
🥷 Side Quest
Grabbed a café au lait at the Starbucks meeting point and clocked a woman in thick glasses, a black dress and combat boots — black hair, sharp presence. I asked if she was the host for the temazcal. She nodded and waved over a pale, lanky guy with glasses who’d been waiting inside.
She introduced herself as Maria, our guide. The other guy was Yannick — Swedish, lived in London, now teaching biology in Greece.
We piled into Maria’s car. After the usual small talk — where we’re from, why we’re here — she eased into the ritual: how temazcals vary by region, how each one carries a unique imprint of the land and its lineage.
The man running ours doesn’t call himself a shaman. He calls himself a Nagual — a Toltec spiritual guide, a walker between worlds.
We arrived at the site. First stop: the bathroom — last chance before the underworld.
Maria led us down a stone path to the clearing where the sweat lodge sat, half-buried like a clay dome from a forgotten time.
We met Nagual Huitzi. A man appeared with a tray of warm cacao. No words — just drink.
I changed into swimming trunks. Maria sent us into the garden to gather herbs and flowers that “called to us.” I let instinct guide me — orange blooms, purple ones, something red and wild-looking.
Yannick went first. The Nagual smudged him with a copalera — burning resin fanned gently over his body.
Then it was my turn. I stood with arms out as the Nagual circled me in silence, blowing copal smoke across my chest, shoulders, and head. It wasn’t performative. It felt ancient — like it knew something about me I didn’t.
I crouched down and entered the lodge.
The seats were padded with straw, but you still sat straight on the earth. Grounded. Exposed. Primal.
It was just the two of us. Plenty of room to spread out. Maria sat quietly in the corner.
The Nagual used a wooden paddle to place the volcanic stones — the abuelitas — into the center pit. Heat crept in. He sprinkled herbs over the glowing rocks.
Then he sealed the flap.
Darkness.
Thick. Absolute. I couldn’t see a thing. My body tightened. Claustrophobia clawed at my chest. This wasn’t a sauna — it was sensory death.
The Nagual began chanting — or maybe ranting — in Spanish. His voice reverberated through the lodge like a possession. Maria translated softly in the dark.
My eyes were open, but I started seeing the closed-eye visuals you get on mushrooms — spirals, shadows, electric veins.
My heart pounded. I told myself what I always do when the come-up gets rough:
It’s temporary. Breathe. Surrender.
Then came the splash — water on the stones.
Steam surged like a dragon.
The minty sting of herbs filled the lodge. Vicks VapoRub in a hell chamber.
A bowl of honey passed around. We were encouraged to eat it or smear it on our bodies. I licked some off my fingers, smeared a little across my chest. Sticky, sweet. Somehow grounding.
The Nagual eventually reached the core of his message — a sequence of truths he delivered like ancient code, half-chanted, half-roared into the steam and shadows. He spoke with urgency, as if these four pillars were all a man needed to walk with power:
1. Fear
“Become allies with fear. It never leaves.”
Fear isn’t the enemy — it’s the gatekeeper. Most men wait for it to disappear before they act. But the Nagual reminded us: it won’t. Fear is a constant companion, and your job is to walk beside it — not behind it. When you stop resisting fear, it becomes a compass instead of a cage.
2. Passion
“Be passionate in everything you do.”
Half-heartedness was treated like a spiritual disease. The Nagual demanded intensity — not just in love or work, but in how you live. Whether you’re building a fire, washing your face, or raising your child — do it with presence. With fire. With heart. Passion isn’t performative — it’s how you keep your soul from going dull.
3. Delusion in the Soul
“Believe in yourself, even if it feels like madness.”
This was the most cryptic — and the most powerful. The Nagual spoke of “delusion” not as a flaw, but as fuel. That seed of self-belief you carry, the one no one else understands? That’s not delusion — that’s your soul insisting it’s real. You have to believe in your path long before anyone else sees it. Every warrior must walk through the desert of doubt, lit only by his own inner fire.
4. Decisions
“Be decisive. That’s how you move forward.”
Stagnation was framed as a form of death. The Nagual hammered home that motion — any motion — was better than paralysis. A wrong decision teaches. A right decision transforms. But indecision? That’s how you rot. Progress only happens when you commit to a path and walk it like you chose it. Even if you’re unsure.
After his message, the Nagual raised a conch and let out a deep, echoing call. Then the clay bird whistle — sharp, piercing, ancient.
He lifted the flap.
Cool air rushed in. Light poured through. I could breathe again.
The Nagual stepped out and blew the conch once more — this time skyward, like a signal to something beyond.
Maria, still curled in the corner, barely stirred. She’d been here before. She lived here.
We caught our breath.
Round Two.
More stones. More heat. The flap closed again.
This time, the heat hit harder — faster. The water sizzled on the rocks and the steam coiled up like a spirit.
The Nagual told us each stone was an abuelita — a grandmother. A source of strength, warmth, and wisdom.
His words drifted now. Less precise. More scattered. We were deep in the sweat. Maria kept translating, but the words had lost their grip. It was all sensation now.
Orange slices came around.
Then:
“Two minutes left.”
He gave us space to speak — to share anything we had to release.
Yannick and I said nothing.
The flap opened again. Light, wind, freedom.
I crawled out. Sunlight kissed my skin like resurrection.
A man handed us warm herbal tea.
Maria told us we could lie in the grass. So I did.
Flat on the earth. Eyes closed. Letting the sun light up my eyelids.
Bliss.
Would I do it again?
I’m not sure. But I’m damn glad I did it once.
Post-divorce, it was perfect timing.
If ayahuasca is the full exorcism, this was the sweat-lodge preview.
Less intense. Still unforgettable.
And no matter what comes next — I left part of the old me in that dome.
Burned clean.
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