CTM Team 
An exploration of how death, grief, and mourning are experienced across religions and cultures, examining customs, protocols, and healing practices, and highlighting the ways people find comfort and restoration through support and ceremonial rites that revere the cycle of life.
Fermentation is a time-honored practice used across traditional medicine systems to enhance digestion, nutrient absorption, and therapeutic effects of foods and herbs. This article explores research evidence on fermented foods, probiotics, and psychobiotics, alongside cultural knowledge and a practical herbal tepache recipe.
Explore how intergenerational trauma affects Indigenous communities, the biological imprint of historical trauma, and the transformative role of collective healing, cultural connection, and resilience across generations.
Discover how relational healing, oxytocin, and the tend-and-befriend stress response expand traditional biomedical models and support trauma recovery, resilience, and holistic well-being.
Traditional practices, such as drinking cinnamon tea, once helped protect against diabetes in Mexico; however, modern diets have shifted these traditions. Managing blood sugar is essential for well-being, and herbs such as ginseng, bitter melon, fenugreek, and neem continue to offer support, reflecting the wisdom of ancestral plant medicine.
Estafiate has long been central to Indigenous medicine in Mexico, valued for treating digestive and respiratory ailments, while also playing a key role in ceremony and cosmology. Documented in early codices and still widely used today, estafiate reflects the resilience of Indigenous knowledge and its ongoing dialogue with modern science.
Cacao holds deep cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance for Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Once central to creation stories, rituals, and local economies, it was later transformed into a global commodity under colonization. Today, communities are revitalizing cacao’s sacred and ecological role, honoring ancestral knowledge.
Trauma is not only about events, but also about how they are understood within a culture. For Indigenous peoples, ancestral stories and communal practices can buffer the effects of disaster, while disruptions fracture lifeways and deepen loss. These contrasts reveal how meaning-making, kinship, and resilience shape the legacy of trauma.
For centuries, Amaranthus has nourished Indigenous peoples of the Americas as both food and a sacred plant. Once called the “grain of the gods,” it symbolizes resilience, cultural continuity, and nutritional abundance. Today, its revival bridges ancestral knowledge with modern science, offering pathways toward sustainable food and health.
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