I Ran Away to Mexico: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey

by Laura LaBrie

After flying to Mexico to teach English to Mayan children in an effort to escape the pain of losing my husband—after being challenged by an old Mexican man to lay down my agenda and just live with the locals—I finally let go of fear and grief and lost myself in a culture not my own. I spent the next five years living all through Mexico and Central America. For a time, I even lived without electricity and without running water. I rented a house in a poverty-stricken community so I could see what living in poverty was like from the inside. My life became an experiment. But the results of my experiment were more than I bargained for. I unexpectedly found a spiritual thickness hovering over Latin America. From Mayan pyramids and cavernous entrances to the underworld, to shape-shifting beings and places where time and space bend, I found the remote rain forests and islands are rife with other-worldliness. As my journey took me deeper into the bowels of a land wracked with poverty and human suffering, I became increasingly aware of how the struggle for survival on this narrow isthmus is not won in this realm, but in the one beyond.

Genres: Nonfiction

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 2016

About the author

Laura LaBrie is the founder of Poverty Project International. She is also an author, mentor, photographer of the beauty in the poor places, off-the-grid wanderer, spiritual anthropologist, rain forest medicinal plant studier, indigenous peoples lover, cave diver, wearer of flip flops, musician, pyramid climber, chef, story collector, studier of why, embracer of life in Central America, wild animal enthusiast, and most importantly, mom.

Reviews

[Tena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a signed copy in a GOODREADS giveaway - I Ran Away to Mexico: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey by Laura LaBrie - What a wonderful book! Full of vibrant imagery! A fabulous story teller!

[Mary Nee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book! Very uplifting!

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When LaBrie's husband died, she decided it was time for a change...so she set off for Mexico and Central America. She'd planned to teach English, but a chance conversation led her to reconsider, and she ended up trying to set aside her preconceptions and just trying to...live.

I Ran Away to Mexico reads to me less as a single, more cohesive story than a collection of blog posts: chatty, often informal, each chapter with a defined arc. Because of this, it's both harder to grasp the time line and easier to digest the book in small bites.

LaBrie tackles her experience with a lot of curiosity, always interested in other people's stories. She's also quick to find the mystical in things, which in turn intrigued and frustrated me (not that I object to the mystical, but I love research too much to not have wanted more info and more details and more history of what things might have been). But I think the most interesting stories were simply those human ones—the places where LaBrie turns her lens on people whose stories are not often told, people who are poor or disabled, and probes deeper to find out even the smallest bit more.

I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.

[Noreen Lace · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely read. Not only is it the story of a physical journey, but a spiritual journey as well. It's an easy read. A pleasant experience. You'll set down the book feeling uplifted as well as wanting to continue the journey or maybe start your own.

[Joanna]

I gave it to my sister. She liked it.