Shaman by the Gulf

Galveston shamanic practitioner Anthony Rios brings a spiritual awareness to his work.

By ZACH McKENZIE

Healing comes in all shapes, sizes, and even sounds. Anthony Rios, a shamanic practitioner in Galveston who offers a range of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing services, offers a healing lifeline for queer folks who are harboring unresolved anger, hurt, and pain.

Rios has trained extensively as a healer, both locally and abroad, following a period of spiritual explorations. “When I was 29 years old, I had my break with the Catholic Church. I was going to Mass and I was part of Dignity Houston, an LGBTQ+ Catholic group,” he recalls. “I eventually left the church and was looking for something to fill that spiritual void. I hopped around and I looked at Buddhism, Wicca, and some other things that were interesting, but nothing really ever clicked. I came across a workshop on shamanism in Houston, taught through The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, called ‘The Way of the Shaman.’ I took that weekend workshop in 1999 and it all fell into place.”

Rios was pleasantly surprised by how his spiritual shift also helped him reconnect with his Mexican American culture. “Shamanism brought me back full-circle to my roots with traditional healing called Curanderismo,” he explains. “I go to Mexico, Belize, and Yucatán and study with teachers down there. That’s been a big part of my life in the last dozen years.”

Today, the experienced shamanic practitioner offers a range of services including extraction healing, soul retrieval, divination, power animal retrieval, psychopomp, and power renewal. He specializes in shamanic extraction with a focus on removing energies that don’t belong in the body anymore.

“People think that they need to burn a ton of sage and have 500 crystals,” Rios says with a laugh. “I work primarily with sound. I use drums and rattles—that’s the way I’ve been trained. I always start off with a blessing and ask for whatever divine energy needs to come in and work with us, so that that divine energy comes in and does that.” He has even used water from Hurricane Harvey and other weather events that he has saved and blessed.

His clients come to him with a num- ber of issues, and the reactions they have continuously reaffirm the power of his work. “People come to see me for physical pain, and they get better. I remember a good friend of mine was having a lot of hip pain and he wanted me to work on him. He was able to move around so easily after our session. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it,” Rios recalls. “That was a big confirmation for me. There’s something here that’s really powerful, and it works. I’m just a conduit for [these healings] to come through.”

As modern medicine continues to advance, skepticism about shamanic healing practices is to be expected. Rios assures those interested in exploring his services that these practices have been effective for generations. “I like to let people know that shamanism is the oldest spiritual practice known to humanity, going back 30,000 years. Some say 50,000 years, and some say even longer.” He encourages prospective clients to come with an open heart and a clear intention. “I tell people to come with an open mind if they’re serious about their healing. They’ve got to be committed to their own personal healing.”

The former contractor, who owned a family business that worked on high-end homes and condos specializing in ceramic tile, can also point to the benefits he has seen in his own life since taking that initial class at The Foundation for Shamanic Studies over two decades ago. “My biggest personal benefit in practicing and studying shamanism, and being with some wonderful teachers, is that I have been able to let go of a lot of anger and resentment that I had held on to for a long time, for all kinds of reasons. If you’re going to do spiritual healing on other people, you’ve got to do inner work on yourself first, or it’s just not going to happen.”

Rios specializes in helping others reconnect with their spiritual side and their divine self, and he encourages queer folks to consider the emotional healing that his services could provide. “The LGBTQ+ community has so much hurt that we’re holding on to, and we invest so much energy in putting up our own façade to look like everything’s cool. It always comes to the forefront for me during Pride Month. I used to do some work in gay men’s groups, and that was always something that would come up. There’s so much unresolved anger, sadness, and hurt that needs to be resolved. I know what that’s like, and I can serve [my queer clients] because I understand exactly what that feels like in the body.”

For more info, visit Rios’ Instagram feed @anthonyrios797.