Hello, I'm Eliseo "Cheo" Torres, administrator and professor at the University of New Mexico and this is part of a series of Traditional Medicine of Mexico and the Southwest and today, we have Tonita Gonzales. Tonita, thank you for being with us. Thank you. We appreciate. Tonita is a graduate of CEDEHC, Centro de Desarrollo Hacia La Comunidad. It's a holistic school of Traditional Medicine in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. She graduated from the school. She now has a clinic in the North Valley of Albuquerque and she also has a Mexican sweat lodge called Temazcal. She will be demonstrating what they call in Mexico, geoterapia or Geo Therapy or Earth Therapy, working with clay and working with the Earth and Mother Nature and we'll be talking about how they can be very helpful and curative. Tonita, we're glad that you're with us. Thank you. We're looking forward and her assistant is Cristina Navarrete from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Well, thank you. It's an honor to be here today and to share this wonderful medicine. As Dr. Torres mentioned it's called geoterapia in Mexico and basically, it's the concept of how we use Earth to heal. If you were on the beach and you're using that type of sand, we call talassoterapia and it has a little bit different properties because we know that if we're using sand and we were to bury somebody within the sand, the natural salts have a way of healing people that have inflammation or arthritis. So, it's a way that we use salt therapy and we use the sand, which is in the beach salt. So, we would actually bury somebody within the Earth and the way that you would do that would be a little different. Basically, you'd be the same position that Cristina is in now, but you would be about three feet on any beach. You would dig a hole about three feet, you would lay the person in and their only face is the only thing that remains out. The person would actually be covered with about a half a foot to a foot of sand on top of them and that whole process helps pull out uric acid and really works on changing the pH of the body. So today, as one of the things that we practice is that, we know wherever we are in the world, we always have Earth that can help us heal. When we think of Earth, we want to think of concepts that we reference to heat and cold. A lot of illnesses, when we know when they have infections, are talking about extensive heat in the body. So, the Earth has a way to be able to pull out the heat of the body in a natural way without having to use chemicals internally. Now, one of the things that people usually ask is where do you get the Earth. Now, one of the things that's really important, what I'm going to use today is actually considered clay and it was actually made by Dr. Ernesto Garcia. He's in Mexico City. However, this is something that people can get on their own and basically, the concept is wherever you are, you want to dig a hole, a minimum of three feet deep. Because the own sediment of the dirt helps clean out any bacterias. Once you reach three feet underneath the Earth, that's the dirt that you want to take, which will actually be a form of clay. So, you're going to want to sift that clay and that's the type of clay that you would use from healing. In New Mexico, we have a great plethora of different types of clays and dirts that we can use. If we look at the Jemez Mountains, they have an amazingly powerful healing red clay. We use that a lot before we go into the Temazcal and people will cover from head to toe with the clay and then go into the Temazcal and allow that to change and to help them heal. One of the benefits of Clay Therapy is it changes the permeability of yourselves. So, it allows medicine to go more profoundly into your cells and into your skin. So, for example, today I brought boiled and I didn't bring it. This is Yerba del Manzo, which is swamp root and it's a medicine that's great here in New Mexico and we use it a lot for skin infections or skin bacteria. So, what you'd want to do is to get a little bit of clay and in this case, you could mix it straight with water but in this case, I would mix it with clay. You take the tea that's been prepared. Normally, your tea will be cold because like we said, most of the times when you have skin irritations, you're going to feel the warmth. In this case, I really use Yerba del Manzo and I use clay especially with teenagers. Because teenagers have an interesting way of suffering from a lot more than acne or whether it's women that are in age where they have suffering more from acne, Yerba del Manzo is an amazing herb that you can do. To me, it has a great smell of like an earthy smell. So, you're going to want to mix your clay, so you have more of a clay-like consistency and it can be done in two ways. So, with this, I would actually put it straight on the face or if the person was a little concerned about the glumping of the clay on the face, you can always get gauze and you can open the gauze to cover wherever you're going to put the clay. You want to open it to the thinnest layer because it's easier to remove if you are going to put it on wherever they're having acne. It's also very healing and porous when you use this on the clay. As you could see, the very thin shelves that are happening, the thin holes within the gauze. So, on this clay, now you could actually do it directly on the skin. You do not have to use gauze. You're going to want this therapy and you're going to want the herbs of the Yerba del Manzo to totally soak into the skin. This just makes it a little bit easier to do the cleanup and you would do the entire face with the clay. Now oddly enough, one of the big problems that people have as well is eye irritation. So, something that we do a lot as far as like eye irritation, instead of using Yerba del Manzo, you could actually use a tea of Rosa de Castilla, which is French Rose. One of the amazing things that we have to help with inflammation is lettuce, oddly enough. So, any type of lettuce has a great way of bringing down inflammation in your body. So, what I always do if somebody was having a lot of eye infections or eye inflammation is, you could actually take a piece of lettuce, put it right over the eye and instead of using like in this case that I use Yerba del Manzo, which is totally fine. Especially Yerba del Manzo, if you are using it like having any type of pink eye or anything like that. You would use the same clay and you would put it right over the lettuce because you're bringing in the properties of both the lettuce and the clay and the cooling, it's going to actually pull through the little holes that happen within the lettuce. It's a great way of using lettuce to heal within the eyes. You do the entire face. It's a great way of healing and the person feels wonderful because you've actually pulled down the heat in the body. If it was for the eyes, another thing that you could use rather than French Rose or Rosa de Castilla, you could also use Chamomile or make some Chamomile tea. Now, a lot of times, people are very concerned when their children have fever or when somebody has eaten something bad and they get a lot of indigestion and one of the great things that you can do is simply get the same clay. Now, these are all in different illnesses of course and you would create that mask. You could do it directly on the skin and it just helps cool the body, and you'd actually want to have about a good quarter inch of clay that you would have along the entire body and it's people that are having fever or any type of like they've eaten something bad or food poisoning. It allows the heat to escape the body. As the clay cools, it ends up pulling out any toxins, any bacteria. We also use this for women particularly that are suffering from menopause and they're having severe heat flashes. They could either put a towel down or a gauze again or you could just do it like this and they feel great after and they're usually able to seat because you're changing the level of heat in the body and as we go to the feet. One of the best-known things; now, lettuce is an amazing thing that most people don't realize. They could actually bathe with lettuce because it's great anti-inflammatory properties. So, you could actually take a head of lettuce, put it in your hot bath water or boil it before or just put the whole lettuce. I tell people to use here in New Mexico, we get a lot of local farmers, to go to those farmers because a lot of times, they'll shed the first edges of the lettuce and for people that are suffering from arthritis, it'd be a great bath. However, one of the things that we know if we look in reference to gout is that it causes a great amount of heat in the feet. So, usually they feel like their feet are on fire. So, one of the things that we do and you can encourage and teach people to do this with themselves is that they actually, you'll get lettuce and you're going to cover the foot completely. With lettuce, and you're going to create a little bit of a natural cast. This does get kind of messy, but you'd be surprised on how well this works over time. Now, what are the plants that you could use to help with this, is estafiate which is Artemisia vulgaris, which has a great antibacterial property but it's also great for the skin and bringing down inflammation. Sometimes, when you have your clay and you're mixing it, you can actually get some fresh plants and put it right straight into the mixture. You would put the plant in, too. This is actually rosemary which is another great antibacterial property. If people were having Infection, a lot of times you can put it straight in there and you're going to create what we call a cataplasma. It allows the body to just cool. You're also getting the properties of the different plants. So you could use the plants as a tea or you could use them fresh into the clay. Now, in this case, when you do it on the feet because you want it to support, you want it to be a little bit thicker. When you use the fresh plant, it actually helps the clay stick more together, almost as if you were building an adobe. Basically, you're going to get the clay and you'll start pasting it right over the lettuce. One of the things that you learn in traditional medicine is how to feel your patient, how to tell when there's been a problem, where the heat is, what is going on in the body exactly. It's an excellent way of doing this. Now, we really want this lettuce and this mud combination to stay on for about a good 45 minutes to an hour. You could do this while the person's meditating outside or inside. In order to help that stay together, you can get some more gauze or cloth and just wrap the foot completely. It's going to support as the clay dries that it doesn't fall out. This is an excellent treatment for people that have gout. We also use barro in some cases with people that have skin infections. One of the ways is people always ask is how do you do that and what's the process of doing that? Now, if somebody had an infection or like a thin skin infection, one of the ways that you could do that is to take the skin. The onion has a very strong antibacterial property. Now that my hands are full of mud, it may be a little more challenging. But right on this side of the onion, you're going to find a very thin layer right here. Do you see that thin layer? You'll remove that. This was in case somebody had a wound and you needed to bring that cleansing. You'd actually want to put, the antibacterial properties in onions is phenomenal. You'd get quite a few of these layers. You're going to cover it directly on the wound. You want to make sure that you're getting the skin. There's actually some commercialized products like Bio-Oil that sells exactly under onion skin in a property. Once you get those tiny, thin layers, basically what you would do is you would get your barro and tea of [inaudible] would be another excellent remedy to use. Right on top of the onion skin is you would put the mud or the clay. Again, you would want to leave it for about 45 minutes to an hour. As it changes the permeability of the infection in the cells, it allows it to open so that the healing plants can get right inside. Another example of a great plant that we use, which is great for skin I use specifically for people that have psoriasis or have eczema which is very common here especially in New Mexico and especially in children, is this is Cempasuchil or marigolds. You could also use calendula or arnica. You could imagine, if somebody had a really severe muscle strain how this would help them if you use calendula or arnica and made it as a tea or even put it with fresh plants. This would have a direct access to the muscle. If this was a whole other remedy, and I had somebody who had eczema or psoriasis or even some types of allergies or skin infections, what I would do is I would chop up the flowers of these marigolds to use them as a skin, they'll bring down the allergies in the skin. It will cool down any type of allergic reaction that's happening. A lot of times you see people both having a lot of eczema on the legs, on the face. It's very, very uncomfortable. It itches quite a bit. They need you to find remedies that you could do. The whole goal is to teach people to be able to heal themselves and enable them to use things that are right outside there door and right outside their garden. This would be a great combination with rosemary or romero. We have just an amazing amount of healing plants in our gardens or that just grow outside our door. For example, common plantain [inaudible] would be another excellent plant that you could use that has great antibacterial properties. If this was a case of somebody that had eczema, you could see how beautiful it looks with the flowers and it has a wonderful aroma. It feels great on the skin. Basically, what you're going to do is the same thing. You're going to make the skin consistency. Now, sometimes, it doesn't have to be when you're doing eczema or allergic reaction, it doesn't have to be as thick. We want it to be thicker when it's on the stomach and you're working as pulling out fever or if you have a sore muscle. But when we're treating just a skin infection, you can actually have a very thin layer and it would be very beneficial. Now, sometimes, I tell my patients when they're doing this that they can do this at home and then just be prepared. They'll just go into the shower after. You could do a very thin layer and let it dry. It's amazing the things that we have that are healing around us even our own corn. Cornmeal has amazing properties. You see it at all these amazing spas charging hundreds of dollars when you could simply get some corn, grind it up and use it as a medicine as well in pulling down inflammation. As you can see with Cristina here, when you're removing it from the face, this is still moist so it's much easier to remove once it's completely dried. You can see on the belly that it's starting to dry and crack. It will crumble right off. I'm going to remove first where I put on her eyes. You're going to see that her eyes has stayed completely free of the barro or the clay. You can see on her face that once we take the gauze off that it has completely come off. There's a few spaces where we just have to clean up. Kids love to, even your teenagers, love to treat themselves. What I usually do is have them boil the [inaudible] tea in advance. Keep it in the refrigerator and use it as a tonic. They can do this once or twice a week. It's something very simple that we can enable kids to do. This is still in the process of drying but once you remove it, it would be a matter of bathing. As you can see, we've made a beautiful mess here. We want to remember that the earth gives us exactly what we need to heal. Even the combination that when you are rinsing and cooling down with cool water, it's amazing properties that have in here with mud. So it's an honor to be here with you guys again and just teach you some more strategies. I know it's a little messy but normally, when we're in a clinic situation, it works much more easier. Thank you again for having me. If you have any questions, just let us know. Tonita, thank you so much. It's amazing what we can do with Mother Nature. You're right. Again, Tonita, thank you for sharing this wisdom. Thank you. This doesn't have to cost anything. Think about it. You're working with Mother Earth. You're working with plants. For a serious illness, simple remedies are very effective. Again, let me thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thank you. I hope to see you in the North Valley soon at your clinic. Great. Thank you. Thank you. You bet.
