Memory and Purification

Cenotes: Portals for Healing in the Maya Region

Located within the 130-hectare sanctuary guided by Mayan elder and healer Abuelo Antonio Oxté, two sacred cenotes form the heart of a living ceremonial territory where ancestral wisdom and ecological balance are practiced daily.

These cenotes—natural freshwater portals formed by the collapse of limestone and sustained by subterranean rivers—are not only geological phenomena but also spiritual entities, revered within the living cosmology of the Maya people. Their presence is central to the therapeutic, cultural, and cosmological work carried out in the sanctuary. These two freshwater formations are revered not for what they offer to human activity, but for what they preserve untouched: the purity of water, the silence of the Earth, and the unbroken relationship between the natural world and the spiritual domain.

In Mayan cosmology, cenotes are sacred portals—living beings that connect the three planes of existence: the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. They are not entered, exploited, or disturbed. They are approached with reverence, acknowledged through ceremony, and guarded as sites of sacred presence. Within the sanctuary, both cenotes remain entirely virgin and unentered. No human has ever descended into their waters, and there are no plans to do so. Their purity is preserved as an act of spiritual and ecological responsibility.

The first cenote, partially visible near the forest’s edge, is surrounded by native medicinal plants and is acknowledged as the elder of the land. It is a being to whom offerings are made: not with the expectation of healing in return, but as an act of gratitude and acknowledgment. Incense, prayers, and traditional songs are offered at its perimeter. The wind, birds, and falling leaves carry the voice of those ceremonies. The water remains untouched—mirror-like, deep, and alive with the presence of the ancestors.

The second cenote lies deeper in the jungle, veiled by layers of vegetation and time. It is encircled by trees whose roots hang like curtains, and its mouth is partially enclosed by rock. This cenote is even more hidden, known only through its energy and presence. It is not visited casually. Only those called into ceremonial service approach it in silence, with tobacco, copal, or flower offerings. Its depth is unknown, its waters untouched. In the oral tradition of the sanctuary, it is considered a guardian of dreams and a portal of collective memory.

Abuelo Antonio teaches that the sanctity of these cenotes lies not in their use but in their protection. They are not places to enter, but to listen to. In a time when water across the world is under threat—polluted, commodified, and extracted—these two cenotes stand as a radical testimony to restraint, reverence, and sacred guardianship. They are sites of non-intervention, kept in their original state as part of the sanctuary’s commitment to biocultural continuity and spiritual discipline.

The presence of these virgin cenotes shapes the rhythm and ethic of life within the sanctuary. The land is cultivated in silence and devotion, meals are prepared with vegetarian principles, intermittent fasting is practiced in harmony with lunar cycles, and healing takes place through traditional Mayan methods such as the Pudzyáh massage—none of which disrupt or violate the stillness of the cenotes. Instead, all life in the sanctuary orbits respectfully around them, as planets circle a gravitational center.

They are not spectacle. They are not destination. They are not opportunity. They are ceremony made matter—liquid archives of planetary history and sacred cosmology. Their mystery is their medicine.

By maintaining their untouched state, the sanctuary refuses to reduce sacred sites to instruments of tourism or wellness marketing. These waters are not for the body to enter but for the soul to contemplate. They carry the prayers of the Earth and the ancestral instructions of the land. They are the sanctuary’s elders—present, intact, and sovereign.

To stand in the presence of these cenotes is to enter a contract of humility. No technology, no curiosity, no ritual authority justifies entry. Their sanctity is upheld through silence, offerings, and non-possession. In this way, the cenotes teach a forgotten ethic: that some places must remain untouched if the sacred is to endure.

Here, in the sacred forest of the Yucatán, under the care of Abuelo Antonio Oxte, the two virgin cenotes continue their silent vigil. They are womb and tomb, teacher and oracle, memory and mystery. Their presence reminds us of the deeper law—that the Earth does not belong to us, and that healing begins where control ends.