Cleansing Rites

Heat pulses off the walls in waves. Steam thick with the smell of plants, pungent and sharp, snakes into my lungs, burning as it enters. Rosa reaches into the ice water at her feet, pulls out a dripping cloth and lays it on her face. The water coats her skin in soft, glistening beads. The firelight, hazy through the steam, lends a liquid sheen to our surroundings. Our faces turn to masks in the dark.

Our guide’s low chanting penetrates deep into my chest, my heartbeat falling in step with her words. Next to me, Mariah hides under her washcloth. Flushed and sweating, her chest rises in long, measured breaths. The wooden bench is hot under my legs and I peel my flesh away, moving closer to the edge of my seat. There seems to be a band around my chest. My lungs, drowning in the sodden air, struggle to expand. I close my eyes. Time has stopped as the heat claims our skins. Another ladle of water hisses as it hits the rocks in the hearth. We are melting.

Rosa rises to her feet, clearing the low ceiling by several inches. She tells us to stand, passing out branches of green, oily leaves. From a small basket at her feet, she pulls two white eggs and places them in our hands. In spite of the inferno, they are cool to the touch. We stand, hunched, and beat the branches against our skin. Starting at our feet, we whip them at our legs, hips, bellies, chests. Rosa throws the used branches on the fire, the sharp green smell piercing the wall of steam. We take the eggs, delicate and soft after the branches, and rub them slowly on our bodies. "The leaves get the energy moving in the body, now the egg takes the bad energy out," our guide explains. The smooth, cool shells warm quickly and we hand the eggs back to Rosa.

She resumes her chant and we settle back onto the bench, the wooden plank hot as coals. Rosa’s words penetrate the cleared spaces inside of us, filling the gap with something new, something fresh and clear, untouched by the stories that led us here. We are molting inside this womb of stone and steam.

As finally the chanting ends and the fire dies down, we sit, silent in the rising darkness, the steam fading around us. Rosa pulls aside the heavy cloth draped across the door and we follow her out into the cool, clear night. A breeze licks the sweat of old things from our skin. Freed from the cramped space of the temazcal, our limbs reach outward, exploring these fresh, clean bodies. We make our way lightly on the stones, stepping our way back into life.