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medicine making retreat
Become your own medicine woman!
Tune into the wisdom and healing power of Mother Earth
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There's nothing more empowering than knowing how to use the medicines that grow right outside your front door.
My own personal love and passion for working with medicinal herbs has led me to create this retreat as a space for women to connect with the incredible healing powers of Mother Nature and tune into their own medicine woman within.
Throughout these days, you'll be learning everything you need to know to create your own medicines at home!
This will be a hands-on learning experience, connecting with the plants as they grow in nature, harvesting, mixing, infusing, extracting...
You will learn step by step how to make medicines such as teas and tinctures, salves and balms,
as well as ways to use the plants for beauty, bathing, energy cleansing and more.
You'll be taking home all of the beautiful creations you make, as well as the wisdom and knowledge to continue practicing at home!
what you'll learn
During the workshops, you will receive plant millenary wisdoms, ancestral guidance, science studies and the hosts own experience. You will be guided to connect to your senses and bodies through degustation and medicine crafting. All to receive wisdom ourselves in direct connection to the plants. During these workshops, they utilize medicines and herbs from the Denomination of Authentic Source, where all the herbs are sourced from a known origin.
On our Path we cherish plant authentic origin and millenary wisdom, we recognize all the plants as sacred. It is a study and a path on how sustainable and loving practices honor nature's healing abilities.
~ SuperYou Botanics
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Forage and Harvest
Taking a walk and stepping into an inspiration to connect to nature and plants.
Finding local and native medicines and learning about their use and properties.
Explore unique ways of healing through direct connection to the herbs as well as harvest your favorites to develop your own further study and remedy creation.
Explore and forage herbs from La Senda forest and 'Secret & Sacred' Medicine Garden to later gather around the tea degustation altar for sharing the flavors, stories and deepen connection to the wisdom of herbs.
Photo & description by SuperYou Botanics
Teas and Tinctures
Teas - Herbal tea brewing is just as much of an art as it is a science. Herbal infusions, cold or sun water brews provide the best way to get acquainted with the aromatic herbs, flowers and leaves and their properties to support us at any moment of life.
In this wisdom circle we will discover different kinds of native and universal medicinal plants and learn about them directly in a tea drinking ritual. Mix your own special tea blends to enjoy during your stay.
Tinctures - Receive potent healing abilities with millenary medicines from local forests and around the world. Flowers, leaves, barks and roots that hold potency to aid, detoxify and boost nervous, digestive, liver and kidney systems, heart and emotions. And to deeply connect us to nature's healing ability.
In this workshop we will learn and prepare 1 or 2 different tinctures or extracts with local sugarcane distillate or homemade vinegar. To guard plant essences and properties for them to be utilized as a multipurpose tool in our daily moments of life.
Photo & description by SuperYou Botanics
Balms and Salves
Learn the natural ways to nurture your skin and discover the holistic connection between medicinal herbs and self-care.
You will receive an abundance of knowledge alongside ways to create your own products using medicinal ingredients found in la Senda’s medicinal garden.
During the workshop, we will learn how to make sun-infused oils, skin and hair serums, lip balms, and healing salves.
You will take home an infused oil, serum and a healing balm that we make together.
Photo & description by Aya Natan
Sweet Bath
Connecting to the herbs as medicine for your wellbeing and highest potential can also be created through Sweet Bath practice.
This ritual is a millenary wisdom and cultures around the world have been practicing plant and flower bathing for support, harmony and alignment.
It can become a special ritual for self care and self love, to take care and nourish your energy body, emotions and skin. Bring protection and raise your vibration.
The name of this practice unfolds its meaning of bringing more sweetness, more goodness to our lives.
Photo & description by SuperYou Botanics
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Smudge Making
Spark divine harmony and connect with plants and their wisdom through the millenary practice of burning herbs for smudging.
We will connect to local aromatic herbs and select our favorites to craft a smudge.
Discovering and exploring endless possibilities of this powerful instrument.
For purifying space from harmful bacteria, for connecting with our intention, for finding clarity, harmonizing and balancing.
For herbs and smudging practice can serve in our lives as a potent tool to amplify and activate our manifestation, prayer and intention.
Photo & description by SuperYou Botanics
Herbal Crown Weaving
Connect to Guanacaste dry-forest plants and herbs to create a herb and forest plant crown.
Ancestral wisdoms show us the power and value of a circle element and infinite possibilities intertwined in its creation.
Weaving new potential, beginning and intention for ourselves through the tools of nature- flowers, aromatic plants, and forest elements in creation of our own crown or wreath.
Photo & description by SuperYou Botanics
where you'll stay
La Senda is a powerful energy center and truly magical place.
As a world-renowned wellness center, surrounded by 74 acres of farmland and home to the world's largest labyrinth, built to amplify the power of two strong opposite charged energy centers, it is sanctuary for those wishing to truly get in touch with their innermost spirit.
A place where personal growth, transformation, spiritual wisdom, nature inclusivity, sustainability, and co-creation of a conscious society are empowered and celebrated.
With its prime location in a valley surrounded by hills, La Senda provides an environment of seclusion.
Here you have the privilege of being surrounded by nature, sheltered within its tropical dry forest, joined by howler monkeys and countless other mammals as you listen to the sweet songs of many tropical birds.
Lodging at Las Hojas
In the middle of the tropical jungle, close to the beneficial energy of the labyrinth, are 9 luxury glamping units.
These units, called Leaves or Hojas in Spanish, are architectural pearls; 4 meter high and 9 meter long (13ft high, 30ft long).
They each have a private, open-air bathroom to fully connect with nature.
A private terrace with view of the forest completes your experience.
They have movable fans, no A/C to enhance good prana and stay connected with Nature.
Except for the numerous monkey families, there are no neighbors, so there is no light pollution, and the night skies are magnificent.
The Labyrinth
The labyrinth, built out of more than 5,000 cactus, is supposed to be the largest in the world; it measures more than 2.5 acres (1 hectare) and the path is almost 2 miles (3 km) long.
Without a doubt it is the only labyrinth in the world which claims 2 centers, a feminine and a masculine one, united in the Vesica Pisces, the point where creation takes place.
Traveling through the labyrinth can serve various purposes.
You can walk it just for fun or for physical exercise.
It can be journeyed for health reasons; by walking it, the biochemistry of the body is readjusted.
Labyrinths have been used around the world in hospitals as a therapeutic tool to heal patients.
You may use it to find a purpose in your life (vision quest) or to go deeper within yourself as part of a meditation to create awareness.
Walking the labyrinth balances your whole physical, mental and spiritual Being. More clarity, light and peace help you to live your life to your full potential.
The labyrinth functions as a huge heart, expanding the electromagnetic field of the site with each “heartbeat”.
All living beings: humans, animals, plants and minerals in La Senda constantly benefit from the influence of this big pulsing heart of energy.
Conscious Eating
La Senda is home to a 100% organic and sustainable vegetable garden, where they grow a considerable variety of vegetables to provide their chefs with fresh and organic ingredients for both their restaurant at Cala Luna Boutique Hotel and the farm-to-table experience at La Senda.
It enables them to not only offer some of the best cuisine in the area, but also give the opportunity to experience the true flavor of natural ingredients, daily freshness, non gmo and no chemicals.
While the cuisine is fusion and not exclusive, they love to prepare tasty vegetarian or vegan meals and can cater to any type of allergies.
The Dome in the Labyrinth
Facing the labyrinth, a 10m (33ft) diameter transparent dome, sitting on a 3m (10ft) raised wooden deck, provides a magnificent view of the labyrinth.
The dome has air conditioning and is where some of the evening events will take place.
At night under a million-star sky, the labyrinth is magically lit, evoking even more the feeling of connectedness with nature and the universe.
evening events
To compliment our connection to Mother Nature and our Self, this retreat offers evening events to raise our vibration, bring inner harmony and peace, and support our body, mind and soul.
Pura Vida Vibrations
Sound Healing
Experience the sounds of the Universe as you are showered in waves of primordial vibrations by some of the richest sounding instruments in existence: High Alchemy Crystal Bowls and Powerful Paiste Gongs
In this activity, you simply lay down, relax, and enjoy the majestic sounds and vibrations of these unique instruments (the beautiful sounds are out of this world!).
The frequencies and sounds help you transcend normal limited thinking and activate self-healing mechanisms in the body, providing a synthesis of harmonious resonance for Growth, Relaxation and Deep Meditative states.
Catherine Jane Paulson
Yin Yoga/Yoga Nidra
Catherine is a 34-year practitioner of Ayurveda, Nada and Raja yogas focused in the styles of Kundalini, Kripalu and Iyengar. She received both her 200 and 500 hour yoga teaching accreditation from the Kriplau Center for Yoga and Health in western Massachusetts.
Catherine’s style blends a Yin sequence of long held poses to build energy and to enhance the marma and organ systems, combined with a flow — or Yang practice– to invite strength and flexibility, all influenced by Hatha and Raja teachings with a healthy influence of the kryias and meditations of Kundalini. From beginner to seasoned practitioner, all students have an opportunity to deepen their practices through Catherine’s comprehensive and compassionate teachings of asana, pranayama, mantra and meditation.
La Senda
Farm to Table Dinner
Enjoy an exciting and educative walk through the extensive vegetable gardens of La Senda Farm.
You will learn about our fully organic cultivations, biodiversity, water conservation, nurturing of soil, development of organic fertilizers, and more.
You’ll experience where your food is cultivated while savoring the ingredients at best freshness, bursting with flavor and vitamins, all artfully and passionately prepared by our chef, right in front of you and at the vegetable garden.
rest and connect
The flow of our days will be in rhythm and harmony with nature.
As it can get quite hot this time of year, the middle of our days will be for resting and connecting.
You are welcome to bring a book, journal, relax in a hammock, make tea, take a sweet bath, meditate, walk the labyrinth, explore the grounds, visit the farms and sacred medicinal garden...whatever feels best to you!
the flow of your days
Below is the schedule for how we will be spending our days.
You'll find information on each of these workshops and events above.
Wednesday
3pm Arrival
5:30pm Dinner
Thursday
7am Breakfast
8am Forage and Harvest (nature walk & medicinal gardens)
12pm Lunch
4pm Sweet Bath Preparation Workshop
6pm-8:30pm Farm to Table Dinner
friday
7am Breakfast
9am Medicine Making Workshop (teas & tinctures)
12pm Lunch
5:30pm Dinner
6:30pm Sound Healing
Saturday
7am Breakfast
9am Herbal Skin and Hair Care Workshop (oil infusions, serums, balms & salves)
12pm Lunch
3pm Herbal Crown Weaving Workshop
4:30pm Yin Yoga/Yoga Nidra
6:30pm Dinner
Sunday
7am Breakfast
8am Smudge making workshop
12pm Departure
meet your medicine women and host
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SuperYou Botanics
Viktorija and Inese
SuperYou Botanics and Secret & Sacred medicinal plant garden at La Senda is a prayer and creation by Viktorija and Inese; supporters and promoters of all living plants, and intuitive herbalists from Latvia. Using nature's elements – roots, barks, leaves, flowers, and seeds, they create holistic multi-purpose remedies and offer Wisdom Sharing Workshops.
Cherishing herb authentic origin and millenary wisdom, they recognize all plants as sacred. It is a study and path on how sustainable and loving practices honor nature's healing abilities and how to cultivate ancestral wisdom to offer Immunity for the Community.
Cura Sana
Aya Natan
Aya is the creator of Cura Sana; a unique line of homemade, high vibrational, natural medicines & skincare.
Originally from Israel, she left in 2000 and traveled the world. She set roots in Costa Rica in 2010 and has since been living the Pura Vida life with her 3 beautiful children.
Aya has been channeling concoctions and recipes since 2011. Embodying her soul purpose as she brings healing to people all around the world through the gifts provided to us by our sacred Mother Nature. She is in humble service and devotion to a new paradigm of healing naturally.
Host
Heather Gilman
Heather has had a passion for natural remedies since she was pregnant with her first child.
She has a love for learning and creating with medicinal plants, which led her to create this retreat.
She's excited to offer a space where women can connect and tune into the wisdom and healing power of Mother Earth and see how simple it can be to become your own medicine woman.
dates, location and pricing
Available for Private Bookings
Groups of 8-12 people recommended
Location: La Senda, Santa Rosa, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Pricing: Private Accommodation $1,850
Shared Accommodation $1,600
Shared accommodations have 2 people per unit.
Each unit has a private bathroom and shower.
Price includes lodging, meals, workshops and events.
For additional information and reservation,
please contact Heather at HealingbyHeather@gmail.com
