Maya Abdominal -Massage Course
This 45-hour introduction course to Maya Abdominal Massage gives you the training to perform this ancestral healing technique on yourself, deepening the connection to our bodies. It also offers direct contact to the foundation of Maya healing — a space to connect and immerse yourself in this divine art of service so you can then offer it to others, as done by the Maya midwives.
We practice holding space for others and offering this healing art. It is a highly effective healing modality used for a wide range of conditions, bringing balance back to the body: spiritual, physical, emotional, energetic, and mental. It is used for men and children as well, and specifically for women after giving birth, to help the uterus contract back to its original position and size. During the week we learn the essentials to practice and give the massage to others, working on each other and incorporating as much practical hands-on work as possible.
What This Course Includes
✦Receiving three massages, one in the temazcal or tuj
✦Preparation of heating massage balm
✦Learning to prepare and receive a yoni steam session
✦Guided practice to learn to give the massage
✦Learning to hold space energetically, support in trauma release and moving blocked energies & emotions
✦Wild plant foraging walk
✦Temazcal ceremony, plant bath and massage
✦Connecting with your birth Nahual and Maya Cosmovision
✦A hand-woven faja
✦A Maya fire ceremony
✦A course manual
"As we tap into our womb, the source of our inherent power to bring forth life — the source of our creative life force energy."
— Mariu Gobbato
MEET YOUR GUIDES
Maria Eugenia Gobbato — known as Mariu — was born and raised in Guatemala and has made San Marcos La Laguna, Lake Atitlán, her home since 2010. She is a dedicated mother to three, a well-regarded midwife, a renowned massage therapist, and an experienced teacher.
Mariu's path began when she lived in Spain for four years, where she birthed her first two children in a beautiful birthing home in the mountains of Catalunya. This experience marked the trajectory of her life. Through birthing and becoming a mother, she discovered a deep calling to support other women and create safe, respectful, and dignified spaces for birth.
She has been apprenticing and working with local Maya midwives, herbalists, healers, and ajq'ij for over 13 years — learning and integrating ancestral Maya medicine as it was meant to be lived: as an integral part of community life.
TIERRA VALIENTE | BRAVE EARTH
Brave Earth is located between San Ramon and La Fortuna, nestled in between Arenal Volcano and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the largest reserve of protected wildlife in Costa Rica.
As a living lab, we have experimented with different building modalities using AirCrete and materials sourced on the land including bamboo and adobe. We have implemented biophilic design, closed-loop systems and permaculture design principles. Ornamental, food, and medicinal gardens surround the center as well as hiking trials to a nearby river, and a natural swimming pond.
CULTURES OF TRANSITION
The impulse for Tierra Valiente stems from an awareness of our civilizational trajectory within the dominant culture with its source code of extraction, domination, commodification, colonization, control, entitlement, and separation from the living world.
We are both informed by this critical lens and inspired to create outside of the old values and incentive landscapes to build a culture based on reciprocity, regeneration and resiliency.
In this collective transition - whether you call it the Anthropocene, the Kali Yuga, late-stage capitalism or capitalist modernity - our intention is to become more attuned to this cultural context in order to decolonize the conditioning of the dominant system and be in deeper service to our collective potential.