Do you want to feel better? Go outside. The forest is a natural tranquilizer. Just smelling the trees and watching the sun dance on the leaves is relaxing, refreshing and energizing.
The Japanese have a word for it: shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing. Scientific studies have proved that forest bathing has actual health benefits for relieving stress and increasing happiness.
But Mother Earth’s medicine cabinet is much more extensive. For hundreds of years, native shamans in West Texas and northern Mexico have known about the healing powers of the hot springs near the Rio Grande in Hudspeth County. There are 22 springs, and each seems to have its own unique properties. At one, drinking the water and bathing removes toxins. At another, the mud is used to relieve arthritis. At another, sitting on a particular stone eases menstrual cramps.1
This idea is hardly new. Hippocrates in Airs, Waters, Places wrote that some places helped heal certain illnesses, while other places made people feel worse.
In 1998, I interviewed Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen about healing energies. She told me there was an internal, psychological element that worked to amplify earth energies.
“The energy of sacred places is very subtle,” she said. “The healing capacity of a place can aid the healing process similar to the way that prayer can. When someone goes on a pilgrimage believing that they may be healed there, they set powerful forces into motion. In Close to the Bone, I described a number of ways in which remarkable remissions began with a belief or a psychological or spiritual shift. I think that a life-threatening illness is a crisis for the soul as well as the body, and that healing the soul and healing the body can go together.”
The most amazing place of healing I’ve ever heard about has only been discovered very recently (although some believe it was in use millennia ago by a now-unknown civilization).
I’m talking about the labyrinthine tunnel called “Ravne” that lies beneath the Pyramid of the Sun in Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Donna Tierney was a visitor from Australia who came to the Bosnian Pyramids as a volunteer. For 4-5 years, she suffered from a chronic sinus infection that antibiotics couldn’t cure. After shoveling dirt in the tunnel for four hours, she was amazed that her sinus issues had cleared up.
Donna said, “I had an abscess in a tooth, and the infection then spread to my sinuses. And I’ve seen multiple doctors and been on numerous courses of antibiotics – and in fact, two weeks prior to coming on this trip, I had another course of antibiotics, because I didn’t want to get into a plane with this sinus condition – and it’s never been effective. I found, after that stint in the tunnels, I was breathing easier. The infection has gone. I’m a nurse, I know what an infection looks like, feels like. And so, yeah, I’m infection free and have been now for, what is it? Tuesday. So, four days. ”
Donna’s anecdote is just one of many. A diabetic noticed a drop in blood sugar levels after being in the tunnels. A visitor from Slovenia reported their Parkinson’s tremors and leg pains disappeared. Marie-sophie Gristi said her asthma was healed. Evelina was recovering from ankle surgery. Her stitches had been removed just one week before the trip, and her leg was swollen before entering the tunnels. She was using a cane to help her walk. After her visit to Ravne, she she could walk normally, without the cane.
Bosnian Pyramids Healing Energy Tour June 15 – 22, 2023
We now have several spaces open in our Bosnian Pyramids tour that includes much more than the Ravne tunnel complex. Here are more highlights on the itinerary…
- See the strange giant stone balls at Zavidovici archaeological park
- Summer Solstice celebration
- Visit the archaeological dig at the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun
- Meditation session at the Vratnica tumulus
- The tour will be hosted by Dr. Semir (Sam) Osmanagich, the archaeologist who discovered the Bosnian Pyramids.
Get Complete Bosnian Pyramids Tour Details Here
Footnote
1. Pat Ellis Taylor, Border Healing Woman: The Story of Jewell Babb (University of Texas Press, 1981)
Photo credit
Rio Grande hot springs bathing: Jessica Reeder, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons