A sastun is a tool of the Maya healer, a kind of supernatural 'hot line' to the spirits that tells a healer if an illesss is rooted in natural or spiritual forces. Sastun is the captivating story of American herbologist Rosita Arvigo's apprenticeship to Don Elijio Panti, one of the last surviving, and most respected, traditional healers of Belize. Set in the imperiled Belizean rainforest that serves as the pharmacy of ancient Mayan medicine, Arvigo's story is an unforettable personal account as well as a vivid reminder of the need to preserve both the rain-forest's irreplaceable plant life and its ancient healing traditions.

When Arvigo met Panti, the legendary healer was eighty-seven years old. Slight and sinewy, with failing eyesight and rheumatism, he still ventured into the forest to gather plants and ministered to patients from near and far each day. Arvigo was determined to become Panti's apprentice so that she could learn more about the native plants of Belize. What she discovered instead was her life's work-the quest to sustain and study rainforest plants and bridge the gap between Panti's traditional wisdom and modern healing practices.

Making regular, laborious treks to Panti's ramshackle home clinic, Arvigo slowly gains the confidence and respect of the cantankerous, compassionate, and deeply spiritual healer and of the community he serves. We follow the unlikely pair into the jungle to collect plants, listen as Panti teaches Arvigo about the physical and spiritual tools of the healer, and meet unforgetable characters-including the mysterious Carib named Jeronimo who taughtPanti the art of healing, a little irl suffering from an intestinal disorder unfathomable to teh many doctors her frantic parents have consulted,a woman 'posssessed' and near death because of exposure to the black arts that are the flipside of Pant's white art of healing, and athe visitin film crew of a Hollywood movie with anintergal part to play in Arvigo's initiation as a healer.

Ultimately, Arvigo's efforts to preserve and explore Panti's healing wisdom attracted the attention of the prestigious New york Botanical Garden and the National Cancer Institute. Today, in their remarkable joint effort, rainforest plants are researched as potential treatments for HIV and cancer.

Rosita Arvigo was born in Chicago and trained in the United States as a doctor of naprapathy. In addition to her natural healing practice in Belize, Arvigo teaches and lectues in Central and North America. Her efforts to educate the world about rainforest plants and preserve their healing tradition incude adminsitration of Belize's six-thousand-acre Terra Novea, the first extractive medicinal plant reserve in the hemisphere, and the founding of Ix Chel tropical Research Fokundation; Rainforest Remedies, a cooperative company that makes herbal drops from rainforest plants about to be destroed; and Panti Mayan Medicine Trail, a poopular and educatonal tribute to Don Elijio.

Nadine Epstein is a writer and artist whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, and Ms.

The compelling, true drama of American herbologist Tosita Arvigo's quest to preserve the knowledge of Don Elijio Panti, one of the last surviving, and most respected, traditional healers in the rainforest of Belize.

'Sastun is a story of an extraordinary relationship between two people from two different cultures who find a common language in their love of traditional healing and plants of the rainforest.'-from the Foreword by Michael Balick, curator, New York Botanical Garden

'Rosita (Arvigo) is Mother Earth personified. Don Elijio gave my daughter a Mayan blessing, and cured a strange jungle rash on my leg...It was quite an experience for us, these pale Western girls in our Nikes, having the wisdom of generations bestowed upon us.'-Tracey Ullman, star of 'The Tracey Ullman Show'

'(Arvigo) captures the smells, the color, the very feel of the jungle even as she gives us an honest portrait of one woman's arduous and successful quest for knowledge.'-Gloria Levitas, Professor of Anthropology at Queens College, The City Universiy of New York, and co-editor of We Wait Until Darkness

'The rainforests of the world are an enormous repository of valuable medical knowledge-knowledge that is often overlooked by Western medicine. This book is an important attempt at trying to preserve some of that knowledge.'-Howard Rheingold, editior, Whole Earth Review

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword by Michael Balick
Introduction
Sastun
Epilogue
Glossary of Mayan Words
A basic catalogue of medicinal rainforest plants

Belize.

This documentary memoir describes the author's intention to live off the land and practice non-allopathic medicine in Belize. There she met a Mayan healer, apprenticed to him, and carries on his work. It's interesting to watch her commitment to her life and profession in her adopted country grow. I appreciated her balance of syncretic spiritual and scientific aspects of her work, including those aspects where she acknowledges that she does not believe--a refreshing change in this genre.
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Circle of Life in the Jungles of Belize

Sastun, is the amazing memoir of an American woman’s adventure into a renewed way of life as she transports herself and her family deep into the jungles of Belize. Rosita Arvigo, and Italian/Assyrian woman from Chicago, together with her husband and daughter, make the difficult decision to leave the hustle and bustle of today’s modern society to attempt a new life by homesteading and opening up a health facility in South America. Rosita is trained in naprapathy medicine, a sort of chiropractic massage therapy, and her husband is a trained paramedic.

Together they purchase a large many acre plot of jungle in Belize, spend years clearing the land as they set up practice, and live like pioneer settlers integrating themselves into this new world of backbreaking work and daily battles with sweltering heat, insect infestations, creeping jungle flora, perpetual damp and mold, and local diseases. Hearing of a local Mayan medicine man, Rosita makes his acquaintance and from that moment on, becomes determined to learn natural and spiritual healing to accompany her already trained hands.

After meeting Don Elijio Panti, Belize’s renowned healer and Shaman, Rosita falls in love with the 90 year old sage and soon begins a long lived friendship and apprenticeship in which she will sacrifice much time to slowly learn the ways of the forest, train herself with Elijio’s guidance, breathe the natural world around her, and learn to harvest the many hundreds of jungle plants that can heal all of man’s physical and spiritual ailments. This story is one of the most engaging and fascinating memoirs I have ever read. I can’t imagine any reader not falling in love with the delightful and mischievous Don Elijio, aged and wrinkled, so full of life, love, and laughter, that turns no soul in need away from his door. Hundreds of South American patients travel many miles each day to be treated by Don Elijio, to seek his wisdom, medicine and healing hands.

Never did Rosita imagine that such a full bounty of natural pharmaceuticals was right there at arms reach, just a few steps away in the heart of the Belize jungle. Just ripe for the harvesting, so many trees, plants, leafs, berries and bark samples, were there for the healing with the right knowledge to use them. Spending years with Don Elijio by his side training daily allows Rosita to witness healing and miracles like she had never seen in any modern medical facility or hospital. Medical emergencies and sicknesses abound in Belize and not a day went by where she didn’t drop her mouth in awe as she watched and learned what the medicine man was capable of, using combinations of plants, the laying on of his hands, shamanistic spiritual counsel, and his 90 years of common sense and experience with the nature of man and the natural world around him. With a twinkle in his eye, an incredible sense of humor, and with the wisdom of the ages, he teaches Rosita to someday replace him as the village healer. The two embark on a journey close to that of father and daughter, welcoming the village people into their homes and hearts as they line up putting their trust and faith in their hands.

This is a very insightful and illuminating story that will entrance the reader with the wonders of the natural world and what it has to offer us if we just learn to tap into it’s gifts. The book surely holds a story that is uplifting, inspirational, and is a book that will renew one’s faith in mankind. I found the knowledge within this book eye-opening and felt the man himself, Don Elijio Panti, truly a magical human being. To his own people he is a god. After you read this book you will agree he is what the world needs more of. ( )

A personal account of a traditional healer in the imperiled Belizean rainforests, serving as a vivid reminder of the need to preserve both the rain forest's irreplaceable plant life and its ancient healing traditions