Taita Juanito
Taita Juanito is a medicine-man, healer and botanist, he was born in the Condaugua indigenous reservation in the Putumayo department of Colombia and belongs to the Inga town.
By knowledge learn generation by generation in his family and his native town, and the studies of medicinal plants for more than 15 years, Juan Guillermo Chindoy belongs to a long lineage of botanist and healers, they are looking for heal mind, body and spirit through plants, plants that are sacred for him and his community.
Juan Guillermo invites us to share these beautiful traditions that today are healing and helping a lot of people around the world, this is a call to keep these ancestral memories which ones can reconnect with our essence or “ Our origin: God” as Juan Guillermo says.
Eli Rechtschaffen
Since a young age Eli has been drawn to self-exploration and has felt a strong connection with the spirits of nature. This connection led him to explore the world of Shamanism and to intensively study with indigenous people in South America. His journey has taken him to the depths of the Amazon jungle to learn about their medicinal plants and to learn a way of healing people in the truest form as our ancestors teach. The lineage that Eli follows is carried by Taita Juan from the Ingano tribe of Colombia.
Each year Eli leads healing retreats in Costa Rica with people from all around the world. Eli lives year-round in Costa Rica and there he has his own shamanic healing practice and leads medicine ceremonies. His life intention is to bring these sacred healing tools to all beings whose hearts are open and to support the collective awakening of all human beings.
Peia Luzzi is an American born song collector, writer and multi-instrumentalist based in the mountains of Southern Oregon. Like water from a deep well, she draws inspiration from her ancestral roots of Celtic and Old World European folk music. With the voice of a lark, Peia dances nimbly from Child Ballads and 17th C. Gaelic laments, to Waulking Songs, and Bulgarian mountain calls. She has traveled extensively over the past 10 years to uncover melodies wrinkled and wise with time, laboring to honor their language and stories, while bringing a piece of herself to each song she carries.
At the Nature Within we are beyond thrilled having Peia join us on our upcoming retreats. Having had the chance to sit in ceremony with her it’s amazing how her voice supports the healing journey and acts as a bridge in the activation of the plants. A voice unlike one we have ever heard before, she brings the song of the heart of the natural woman who has been calling us home since the beginning of time.
Mariah Gannessa was born and raised in Northern California and now lives in Colombia, working directly with the Indigenous tribes. She’s spent the last decade immersed in the healing cultures of the Amazon and has dedicated her life’s work to the plants and the peoples of the Amazon Rainforest. Through her studies and opportunities to spend time with various indigenous communities, what the people told her they needed most was economic sovereignty. This led her to establish Four Visions Market, a fair trade cultural sharing initiative, as well as help found the nonprofit organization, MAGIC Fund, working to preserve the Amazonian people, their culture, and lands.
Juan David is a medicine musician of the highest caliber. Not only in his musical capacity, but in the way that he energetically and spiritually supports the holding of the ceremonial space. Juan David is a gentle soul with deep wisdom and this pours through his music, which can be felt to come directly from the ancestors.
Juan David has been studying with the medicine plants for over 20 years, as he began when he was just a small child. The importance of having a clear channel who guides the ceremony through music cannot be understated. And this is exactly what is received when sitting with Juan David.
