Monica Simone wants to help you rediscover your divinity.
The Argentine spiritual leader (or x’min in Mayan) at Chable Yucatán, a boutique five-star wellness resort in the Yucatan peninsula, first discovered her propensity for healing and energy work through martial arts. Since, she has spent 30 years spreading spiritual wellness and practicing holistic healing from Chile to Brazil to Uruguay. Now, under the name Abuela Ak’bal, she is a prominent member of the Council of Ancient and Maya Elders and has published six books. She spends her days in Mexico, empowering guests with ancient feminine wisdom and leading sacred ceremonies through which she helps people connect to the elements of nature in their being.
Here, she explains why living the process means connecting to the magic within:
LIVE THE PROCESS: What first led you to healing work?
MONICA SIMONE: I started with my own healing. As a woman, I needed to find myself, to create my own security. My path to health began at 21 years old when I changed my diet and started going to the gym. But, when I started learning the Japanese martial art aikido, a world beyond the physical opened up and I found my own stability, flexibility and spiritual connection. From there, I studied qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), entering the world of energy healing.
LTP: How did you find your way to Chablé Yucatán?
MS: Over the past few decades, as a spiritual wellness expert and coach throughout Latin America, I have had the pleasure of developing meaningful and lasting relationships with many amazing people. It was through these relationships that I was recommended (by three different people) to the spa director at Chablé Yucatán as a spiritual leader who would perform temazcal ceremonies at the resort.
LTP: How long have you been there and what is special about the place?
MS: I started at Chablé in 2016. The first thing that made it special for me was that they allowed me to work with traditional medicine without modifying my work (because it is a hotel). They allowed me to do my work in an authentic way and without restriction.
The other special thing about Chablé that captivated me is the magic that exists in this place. When I got to know the Sacred Cenote (a sinkhole at a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site) and approached to give offerings to the the Aluxes (little beings of nature or sprites) to ask for permission, I was received with so much love. I knew that it was the heart of and source of energy at Chablé, and it was there that I also knew that I would have to offer and pray for the healing of the Earth.
LTP: Can you describe the type of spiritual and healing work you do and how it benefits people?
MS: At Chablé, I lead the Mayan ceremonies of blessing, engagements, weddings, offerings and more. I guide the temazcal ceremony of Mayan rebirth (like a sweat lodge), I do spiritual healing therapy and Mayan oracle Rrading. I guide exercises and meditations based on ancient wisdom. I work with the feminine awakening in moon dance and circles of women too.
It is not my work, but the energies that come through me guide me in what to do and how to help others on their journey. I am simply an energy channel through which the essences of nature manifest for healing. With my knowledge as a medicine woman, I accompany this process.
LTP: What does "The Divine Feminine” mean to you and why is that energy so important in the world right now?
MS: The feminine divinity is, for me, the physical and symbolic contact with the creative source of nature, our Mother Earth. Like a great womb, Mother Earth conceives, nurtures and tends to the essence of all life found around us. Since humankind has existed, women have had the inherent ability to create life, personas and energies through conceiving, carrying and bringing a child into the world. We gestate a new time for humanity, retaking our own divinity that was forgotten for millennia.
In the book Feminine Wisdom, I speak about the importance after 2012 for humanity to awaken this ancestral capacity that ancient women had in the times when the feminine energy nurtured the essence of life in all aspects. Today, we women are awakening to this divinity through our connection with other women, remembering what our grandmothers' grandmothers did in ancient times and discovering our inner power to heal through the spirit.
LTP: What does happiness look like for you?
MS: Happiness is moments of connection with our own “present," with each breath, each sunrise, each smile and heartbeat. That presence that gives us the possibility of connecting with the great creative source. The connection with those moments unites us to the light from which we come (ajau) that awakens the k’iinam (spirit connected with the divine).
LTP: What does it mean to you to “Live the process” and how can we do that more every day?
MS: Living the process is understanding the magic of nature within yourself. It’s when you manage to connect with the Earth, which is your own body and is made of the same minerals. It's when you connect with water, which is your blood and stores the memories of all your ancestors. (Just like Earth, 75% of us is water.)
Living the process is when you connect with the air, which is in each of your cells, but also in your voice and your words, which are sacred and, through their vibrations, “create" your own reality. It's when you connect with fire, which is your body temperature (physically), but which is also in your emotions, passion, joy, happiness—and is your spirit. It's when you manage to recognize yourself as nature itself and you live in that process of permanent transformation, movement and change.
Every day, you can connect with these elements in you because they belong to you. And when you communicate with them through contemplation, they will whisper in your ear the different ways of living this process in connection with your own divinity.
Image Via @_sightunseen_