We all know it when we see it, a person who is “doing the work”. And no, I don’t mean installing the electricity or digging a ditch. I’m talking about the spiritual work of addressing our own triggers, delving into karmic patterns, or healing wounded spaces within by calling on compassion and bringing healing to the world via various practices intended to address the discordances that arise in our individual lives as opportunities for growth. For those doing this kind of “work”, there is something stabilizing about their presence when they are standing in the room. Something steadfast, something true, but not quite tangible.  This was my first – and continued - impression of Berta Shinaberry – one of the new and featured practitioners working out of the Rose Center for Integrative Health.

Berta has studied Apapaxtli Ketzalxuiteotl Mapahtli – an ancient Aztec healing tradition that’s namesake translates as: “to caress using beautiful brilliant energy with hands that heal” for 24 years. Her first experience with this modality was with her now teacher, Tzenwaxolokuauhtli Tzatzaehetzin (Tzen). While the workshop itself didn’t grab her attention at the get-go, as she was trying to sift through the lecture done in broken English, when she witnessed Tzen’s energy adjustments on audience members, she could see instantaneous shifts in each person’s energy body as he cleared and aligned them. She hasn’t left the practice since.

“Doing the work” for Berta doesn’t just mean answering the door when conflict knocks and asking it to come in for a cup of tea and better understanding. It means daily practices and prayers, it means doing ceremony on auspicious and potent days and times of the year. It means clearing her own energy field as well as the fields of her friends and family and, lucky for us, after over 20 years of her studies, she is now opening her offerings to the wider community.

To be in session with Berta means to lay on a massage table, fully clothed, as she sings sacred vibrational words and songs into your energy field.  There are songs for overall alignment, as well as words for specific physical, mental and emotional blockages based on your needs at the time. These words have been passed on to her via Tzen, whose family has held them in secret for 468 years because of the suppression of spiritual practices.  Many of those from the ancient Tetzkatlipoka kept these healing modalities in hiding until they came out into the world in 1989 once it was safe to be shared once more. It is under his approval she now offers this vibrational and hands-on healing work to the Jemez Community.

If you would like to get a feel for this work, which is far easier to experience than to explain, stop by the opening reception for the Rose Center for Integrative Health this Saturday, December 3rd where Berta - also known as Xikomematzatl  (“Silver Deer” in the tradition)- will be doing brief individual energy adjustments or book a session with her under business, Xoxipahtli (Pronounced as “sho-shee-pa-tlee” – “Flower Medicine”) by calling (575) 663-9080