Get Rooted
Reclaim Your Soul, Serenity, and Sisterhood Through the Healing Medicine of the Grandmothers
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The alchemy for real personal transformation lies in digging up your own medicine and tools. Your ancestors, with all their struggles, strength, and resilience, are your greatest guides.
Anyone scrolling through Robyn Moreno’s social media and seeing her with her adorable kids and taking the stage at empowerment conferences would have thought she had it all together. But the truth behind her well-curated pics was that Robyn was burnt out: in the midst of a full-on, midlife meltdown caused by that all-too-familiar working mom tightrope walk coupled with painful family drama.
To save her soul, sanity, and family, Robyn quit her manic #mommyboss existence, and set out on a 260-day spiritual journey based on an ancient Mexica (Aztec) calendar, studying the medicine of her Mexican grandmothers: curanderismo. She learned about sustos—soul losses—and ser—your true essence. She reconnected with family she hadn’t spoken to in ages, and learned fantastical stories about her great-grandmother, Mama Natalia, who was a curandera. She took cooking lessons with a tough but tender-hearted Mexican chef and found community, and joy, in hiking. She had dramatic moments with her sisters, her mom, her husband, and herself. And finally, she went into the jungle of Belize and found healing in the most unexpected way.
Reckoning with the hidden stories and aspects of her family and her Mexican American culture that were transforming and heartbreaking brought Robyn to an unshakable understanding of who she is and how she fits into this world. And, by looking to her past to decide which traditions, which medicines, to pass on to her daughters—and which to leave behind—she began to root into the person she was meant to be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Media executive Moreno (Practically Posh) details in this affecting spiritual memoir how she reconnected with her Mexican heritage and became a folk healer. Struggling to balance work and family, Moreno was having a "full-on midlife meltdown" when her cousin introduced her to curanderismo, "a Mesoamerican earth-based healing practice." Moreno quit her job to become a curandera (folk healer) and embarked on a 260-day "healing journey" ("symbolic of the gestation period of a baby") during which she had to confront the susto ("soul loss") she suffered after her father's death when she was 13 and discover her Ser (or "true essence"). To do so, she traced her father's lineage to the Indigenous people of Coahuila, Mexico, learned Aztec herbalism, and participated in a healing ritual in a Belizean cave. Each chapter includes such exercises as connecting with one's ancestors through meditation and writing a farewell letter to the thing or person of which one needs to let go. Through personal anecdotes and pained introspection, the author maintains a frank and open disposition that readers will find stirring. The result is a restorative testament to family and heritage.