Heritage of Healing

What Ancient Ways Can Teach About Beauty

• Michelle Rios Rice and Liz Howard • Season 1 • Episode 16

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This episode uncovers the transformative powers of ancient beauty rituals, melding the magic of nature with everyday self-care. Through practices like intention-setting, earth magic, and elemental wisdom, listeners learn how to enhance their beauty from the inside out.

• Incorporating intention to enhance beauty 
• Using earth-derived herbs for skin and hair 
• Grounding and restoring with the elements after burnout
• Reflecting on the broader definition of beauty

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Speaker 1:

Do you ever wish to be so good-looking that you stop people in their tracks? What if ancient ways, magic ways, could make that happen? Michelle says they can Listen in, as this is being recorded. In 2024, the beauty industry is worth over $646 billion per year and it's only expected to grow. But what is beauty? Is it just skin deep? And is there a way to use magic to increase the beauty of a man or woman? In curanderismo, the answer is yes. Let's ask Michelle. Hey, michelle, can you use magic to create beauty Of?

Speaker 2:

course. Of course Every single person has something beautiful about them, right? Every single person a physical attribute. They have something about them that's beautiful. And so when you look at that and you want to enhance, let's say, a quality, you can definitely use magic to do so. You can use intention and manifestation to really enhance for that quality to really be. Let's say, you're wanting it to be noticed more than maybe your flaws, and so you can definitely use things like candle magic to create and manifest that is more noticed and it's enhanced than other parts of you.

Speaker 2:

And I also think that there's things that you can use that really come from the earth.

Speaker 2:

So earth magic, herbal magic, to create certain things, ointments and creams and waters and fires to bring that essence around you. So let's say, for example, you're wanting to make your skin glow and you're looking just on the level of magic, you could use Romero, rosemary and you could either grind it or you could dry it and you can place it in a fire and bring that fire around your field to enhance your skin, to make your skin glow, and that you can place it in water and let it steep overnight and use that water to pat it on your skin to make your skin glow. So those are definitely ancient things that we do. You could use roses Roses are the love vibe you and I were a little bit talking about roses and in visualization, and that's another form of magic that you could use the roses to come into your face and bring that essence through you and let you glow and shine in that beauty like a rose. And so those are magical things that use the mind in our ancient ways to promote the physical beauty.

Speaker 1:

We know beauty is more than skin deep, but let's just start at the surface level, starting with the hair. But let's just start at the surface level, starting with the hair.

Speaker 2:

Is there anything in ancient ways that people could try from the earth or from their kitchen cabinet that would help give them beautiful hair? In our area here in New Mexico there's a particular herb it's called hierba de la negra and it's a common thing and shampoos are made from it and it strengthens the hair and gives it body and fluff and shine and it's very nutritious for the hair. I think when you're looking at your hair also, you're looking at external, but you're also looking at what your body is taking in. Are you, do you have enough good nutrition? Are you taking enough supplements on a general basis? Not hair supplements, but just for your body, for your health, for your wellbeing-being.

Speaker 2:

I know with myself in my routine I do a lot of vegetables and a lot of fruits and so I make I have done this for years and years, long before it was a popular thing. I would make my vegetable smoothies and I would put, yeah, and they might not taste the best, but I make them. Like, on a Sunday I'll make my vegetables smoothies and they got spinach and kale and cucumbers and tomatoes and if you look all of that, what the vitamins are in those items, pineapple I would do pineapple and I'm fresh, all fresh and put it in a blender with a little bit of water and sometimes a bit of yogurt for probiotic and mix that up and then have it for the week. I have a mason jar full for each day of the week and that makes a difference in your skin. It makes your skin glow, your hair shine. It's a huge thing.

Speaker 2:

You're talking about the outward things that you can do. A lot of us know that you can condition, do a condition with oils once a month and that really nourishes the hair. Romero I'm going to pound on Romero rosemary as a beauty magic, because you can make a rinse with Romero Like you boil it like a tea, and you can rinse your hair or bathe in it and dip your hair in it, your body and your skin, and it is amazing, beyond it being a beauty agent, it's a wonderful cleansing, energetic cleansing bath and I think, when I think about too, I think our energy contributes to our beauty and so we want our force to be clean and our body and our hair to be clean. Our minds we want our minds to be sexy.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of being clean, there's a lot of concern right now about all the chemicals and pollutants in the products that we use. What do we need to know about chemical additives from a magical and energetic and ancient perspective.

Speaker 2:

If you're putting chemicals on your face and on your hair and I know all of us do we can't get away from it completely. Our waters are treated with chlorine, for example, as city waters. So you've got the chlorine, so it has its poison in it. When I look at it first, let's look at it at the physical level. Our bodies are not meant to be trying to process out. The levels of toxins that we use in our makeup are natural and perhaps make your own soaps, make your own shampoos, use your herbal rinses. If you look at an ancient way and you were to say, if I'm going to put some color on my cheeks, for example, or on my skin, look at what the ancients would do. Look at the Egyptians and their eyeliners. They would. They were ground up. Ground up stones or clays or flowers that they would dry and then make into teas and then seep them out and get a paste out of stuff. And there's lots of ways in which the ancient ones would beautify with makeup enhancing their eyes or enhancing their skin tone or different things on them. That's all available to us. It's just a matter of coming into the place of saying I do want to be more natural in my beauty. I want to use more natural things.

Speaker 2:

You and I were talking earlier before about coconut oil, and guess what? It's really inexpensive. You can buy a huge jar and you can use it for moisture. You can use it to mix for lip coloring, putting different items within it for the lip coloring, and you can use it to take off your makeup, which is what I do. I use it to take off my makeup. I use for my moisture at night. I use lotus oil from the flowers. You can use roses Also. Our ointments that are fantastic for the skin. Romero. Your vitamin Cs are very good for the skin, both internally and externally. So all of those are magic ways.

Speaker 1:

A lot of things impact the way that we look. I'm thinking about how much this hustle culture is glamorized right now and how common it is for people to be overworked, overstressed. A lot of people are in debt or have money problems. It takes a toll. Is there a way, through magic and ancient ways, to start to revive or maybe even blossom after an absolute burnout?

Speaker 2:

I think as you're speaking about that, I think about the elements, the natural elements. I think about the use of the earth and in that, with stones and the ground, grounding yourself. You hear these words a lot the grounding. But if you were to look at the elements, let's just go through the elements and then talk about a little bit of things within each element of what you can use to restore yourself. So you have the element of the water, you have the element of the fire, you have the element of the earth and you have the element of the air, and then we have, of course, the upper and lower worlds, the heavenly ways and kind of the rooted in the earth, in the core, the heavenly ways and kind of the rooted in the earth in the core. And so if you were to look at each of those things and say there's items and capacities of every element that can assist us in restoring ourselves? So let's say you're looking at water. Water is one thing, that one. It cleanses us and it also energizes, it restores us, it calms us, it soothes us. So you can do things like have a small water fountain in your home when you get home at the end of the day and don't have the TV on. Turn the water on. Turn the water on and listen to the flow of water, or listen to it through YouTube. Listen to the water, listen to the rain falling, bring water in Wash yourself, pat the water on your body, put cold water on your neck, on your belly, on your feet, to restore yourself with the water, with the element of the water. If you go into the fire, you can light a candle. You can light a candle, you can burn a fire to cleanse the area for you. You can gaze at the fire. Gazing is very powerful to take you into other states of mind, and those states of mind can be very peaceful and very restorative. They can be very energizing as well, depending on what happens in that moment in time, of course. Then you can look at the earth, you can step outside and you can take your shoes off and put your feet on the ground and just lightly lift up the back of the and go down and up and down. This exercise of just rooting yourself, literally taking your energy from your body into your feet, into the earth, and feeling the pulse, the heartbeat of the earth and feeling that pulsation. That is also something that is going to help you rejuvenate, right and ground yourself and earth yourself. You can lay on the ground, face down, and pour the stress from your body into the earth from head to toe, and then roll over and do the same with your back. You can hug a tree which a tree is rooted in the tree, and speak to the tree. This is an ancient way Speak to the tree and ask it to take out that pain and that stress or that worry or whatever it is. Those are methodologies.

Speaker 2:

You can use stones and we know that through different crystals and the uses of different crystals, you can put those crystals on your face, that through different crystals and the uses of different crystals, you can put those crystals on your face to take the stress out of your face. So you have that. And then, of course, the air, or the element of the air, to stand with your arms spread out and your legs spread out and let the wind blow all the shit off of you, literally and figuratively. Just take it off and restore yourself. So those are. When you're talking about that, I think, oh my gosh, we need to come in touch with nature, because the frequencies of all of those elements are much, much higher than the frequencies that you'll find inside of an office and in the grind, and so it's going to, by the nature of energy, just by itself it's going to the grind. And so it's going to, by the nature of energy, just by itself, it's going to shift you. And so those are magical things.

Speaker 2:

I always love thinking about the ancient Egyptians. I have a very deep connection to the Egyptian world. Since I was very little. I've always been pulled to it and drawn to it, and there's another story behind it which we won't talk about that now. But I just know that some of the magical rituals that they use for beauty is drinking the light, drinking the sunlight at a particular point in time, and that time is in the in-between world. It's between the light and the dark. The darkness in that moment at dusk, when the sun is going down and it's still light, but it's becoming dark, right at that moment to drink in the light of the sun, to literally pull it in you and drink it into you, and those are things that transform the skin, transform the body, transform your vision, meaning, inner vision, transform your perception, transform everything about you.

Speaker 2:

We need to return to nature in order to enhance our beauty and to enhance ourselves on that, both on the physical level, but also on the spiritual level. We need to learn, we need to remember to bring nature into our world and to ourselves and, like I said, with the elements, I think that is a great teacher just saying how can I bring the four elements into my everyday life? What am I going to do? These rituals? I've talked to you a little bit about it, but when you're making something if you're making your coffee or you're making your smoothie and you're praying over it and you're praying, you're blessing it you need to make that time to cultivate beauty, to cultivate that way, physically and mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We need to tap in and feel that we are the divine in a human body, that we're a temple of the creator and that we are going to be shining that essence, that grace, through our eyes, through our words.

Speaker 1:

What's the most important thing for people to remember when they're thinking about cultivating beauty?

Speaker 2:

Take five minutes in the morning, five minutes midday at lunch, five minutes in the evening, to really calm their bodies and connect with the light inside of them and to shine that light through them, through their face, inside of them. And to shine that light through them, through their face, move it in and out, up and down their bodies, making themselves into a river of light. Five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, not a lot. And then just to build on that, to build more and more on it, so that they're in the place of self-care and really honoring themselves and listening to themselves and, of course, as I said, using the elements, because that's free, that's there for you at any point, in any time, no matter where you're at, even if you're in a city.

Speaker 2:

The earth is beneath you, your ancestors are underneath you, they're the ashes of the earth and they're with us, and that beauty is everywhere around us. You can look up and see the sky, or you can feel the air, or you can light a candle, or you can place your hands in running water. It doesn't have to be at a river or a lake. It could be right there in your home and feel it going on your hands in running water. It doesn't have to be at a river or a lake. It could be right there in your home and feel it going on your hands and look at it. Look at that water and give thanks to it and really cultivate yourself in a different relationship to your own body, your own mind and to everything around you. Release that grind. Release it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, michelle. You embody so much beauty and thank you for sharing your ways. That is all for this week. As always, if you get anything out of this podcast, we need your help. Please share it with anyone that you think might enjoy it as well. And again, follow us on Instagram at Kudandetta Podcast to see what we are offering and what we have coming up next. We can't wait to connect with you more Until next week. May you be surrounded by blessings and beauty.