We were lucky to catch up with Ren Gutierrez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ren, thanks for joining us today. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

My story is one of a lifetime. I felt called to the healing path and witnessed healing within my family and friends, at a young age. I always liked the outdoors when I was young, painting, drawing, and being in nature was my home. I loved the simple acts of sitting and listening to the grackles caw, as I drew my neighbor’s house or the cows moo while I wrote poetry. I was absorbed in my environment completely. I knew this would take me somewhere, in my mind. A daydreamer, a wild spirit in rural Texas, blossoming into more.

I remember one of my first jobs was working as a CNA in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients. I loved developing a relationship with each of my patients and hearing their stories of growing up. I enjoyed practicing energy medicine while I worked the night shift. I would use reiki ( A Japanese healing method) to help soothe them, they loved me. That’s when I knew I was destined for something outside of the walls of a hospital or nursing home.

In 2008, I graduated from massage therapy school with a bolt of inspiration. I then went to Sedona, Arizona for an intensive Reiki 2 Retreat and was catapulted into another universe. I was already very much into angels, auras, and the somatics of life, this just helped me know that I had gifts, that were passed down from my grandmother to me.

After Sedona, I worked for myself and others and started to study tantra, Taoist practices, and the polarities of our nature. Learning as I went, I met and have had some amazing experiences worldwide. I then learned the art of combining both natures of light and dark into folkloric healing.

I would frequent my neighborhood Botanica in East Austin, Green, and White, always picking up supplies for my healing. I became acquainted with Yoruba Root Magic and certain lineages of ritual. I was listening to my intuitive gifts, already reading tarot for many years, and I knew this path was for me. I fell in love with the Orishas. Then that is when I started to combine everything from my 20 years of practice into Rio Goddess Botanica.

I call myself a “traveling witch”, but honestly, I feel like my spirit wants to rest now. The broom is in zen mode. I have served a vast community for over a decade and desire to pass down the knowledge to the younger souls. I have been in Lockhart, Texas for a little over a year and a half, with Rio Goddess Botanica, and I am understanding the natural ebb and flow of what small business in rural Texas looks like, especially if you dance to the beat of your own drum.

This road hasn’t been the easiest to maintain, but I feel like I birthed it out of the dirt for myself from the patchwork of my natural intuition and I am thankful.

I now provide massage therapy, somatic healing sessions, energy healing sessions, readings, classes, and clearings. I am excited to be learning more information and skills to serve the community I am in. I look forward to what the future holds.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Rio Goddess Botanica is my intuitive healing business where I practice my craft. I provide massage therapy, energy healing, classes, tarot readings, and consultations. I have over 16 plus years as an LMT specializing in Thai massage, cupping, and advanced Eastern techniques. My goals for RGB are to build community, share in our collective gifts, and explore the nature of healing outside of the realm of the West.

I am different than most massage therapists because I offer folkloric healings and rituals. I combine my love for the Orishas and my knowledge of ritual and craft and create an “experience” for my clients. The El Raiz, which means root in Spanish, is a specific healing where I combine energy medicine, earth elements, flowers, candles, and several ceremonial tools to help aid people in transition, anxiety, depression, loss, grief, and heartbreak. I feel that the symbols allow people to use their creative minds to help “release” them from the storyline of their fixation. I love to provide shelter from the storm for people who have never experienced Love, Compassion, and Truth, or that desire to come back home to themselves. I love to see the light in their eyes glow from the knowledge that they are loved!

I also love Hathor the Egyptian Goddes of Childbirth and The High Priestess. I offer womb healings where I use her energy to help clear old patterns within the womb and of our collective ancestors. This is wonderful for self-love and appreciation. For women and femme-identified bodies, to go deeper within themselves. The cosmic womb is universal.

My gifts developed from maternal grandmother and her Mother, Luddie. Raised on a farm in rural Texas, both my Grandmother and Great Grandmother, picked cotton. She would tell me stores of rolling cigarettes in-between the rows of cotton and picking the large, green worms off the bulbs. She was a victim of sexual abuse, as so many of our Mothers have been. She would tell me stories about her encounters growing up in rural Texas in the depression era. This is where I realized that “I am a portal for her…” That by liberating her story, I in fact, am liberating others. As I came out as a sexual abuse survivor later in my life, I could feel the force of my ancestors shine  from my heart. I knew that was why I was called to this healing path, because of Woman!

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I feel like if I could go back I would want to be in more of a specialty, maybe like an OBGYN or hypnotherapist. I have always loved the medical profession and also have loved counseling.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This is a lesson of worthiness. I had to go back to my childhood to create new pathways to heal, learn, and grow in my worth. As a highly sensitive child, there was a lot of control, religious and otherwise that I was immersed in. I had to break free from certain lineages of thought, and still am in the process of that transformation act. I had to let the wild girl free to fly!

I realized that my worth isn’t only in my gifts to the world, but my worth is my heart, in my actions, in each breath. Each breath is a miracle. I can always talk to my inner child and tell her that she is worthy of success. That success is my birthright, that worthiness is in the eye of the beholder. We all hold the keys to unlocking ourselves. Breaking the cycles of the wounded healer, honoring where I was oppressed, and giving that part of me a deep drink of water, were crucial to my development.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.riogoddessbotanica.com
• Instagram: riogoddessbotanica

Image Credits
@girl_in_the_docsphotography @alexrcady