calling the muses

A five Night gathering honoring the creative mystery.

Welcome friends,

Thank you for landing here. Calling the Muses is the result of a dream to create a space where we can commune in celebration of the dark passages we have passed through and awaken resting creative instincts. The ones extinguished by circumstance or confused minds. The ones we know are within us, waiting for the right environment to express and the ones we never knew were in there in the first place.

This is the place to conceive, grow and birth creative projects. connect with other artists and birth your creations into this world.

We are meeting for 5 nights on October 30th 2025 at the Hayulima Spiritual Sanctuary in Mindo, Ecuador. Deep in the mystical terrain of the Cloud Forest, surrounded by vibrant, wild, life.

If you are ready to create art from the deeps of your story. To share in celebration with community. To get weird and move, speak, dance and create in beautiful ways.

This is for you.

Learn more about the process, how to join and what to expect below.

With love,

C

Ayahuasca Sweat Lodge

By Salvador Villalobos

Clay Creations

By Cynthia

Intuitive Movement

By Chritiana

Tratika Meditation

By Chritiana

Daily Sweat Lodge

Psycho-Drama Workshop

By Fernanda

Traditional Andean Cleansing

By Amalia

Celebration

Guided Mountain Night Walk

Cacao Magic

By Diana

Vocal Activation

By Christiana

Instrument Making

With Valeria

Many of us have sat in the trenches of our healing work, talking, puking, restoring and building our way back into the land of the living. This is the next step.

This is embodied liberation back to your creative essence.

Healing forces take on many forms.

Sometimes serious or austere. Office bound expressions, certified and diplomatic.

Sometime sterile and extractive. Surgical and driven by the intellectual mind.

and

Sometime…. magical.

They re-entangle us with the divine mystery. They alchemizes our pain into magic potions and enable us to build dream homes on the solid foundation of our rock bottom.

They stir us.

Like a cauldron of centuries old broth ready to heal ancestral maladies.

They court us .

Teasing us until we are ripe for creation.

They devour us

Digesting all that was, has been, may of been and never was.

They birth us

Into something wiser, more beautiful and ready to play.

This retreat is for those….

Seeking to awaken new levels of creativity
Desiring connection to the Animate World
Interested in investing in magic and celebration
Tending to and resolving fear
Interested in exploring dreams for a more beautiful world
Desiring community and connection
Who love adventure

In order to apply please…

Make sure you can comply with the two weak preparation diet. Please reach out to us with questions.

Are able to traverse uneven ground and are comfortable walking around a property with hills.
Make sure you have a few days after the retreat to integrate the experience
Are open to expanding your comfort zone and exploring new ways of being and relating.

Included

Ayahuasca Medicine Sweat Lodge
Psilocybin Mushroom Journey + Sweat
Night Exploration of the Hayulima Mountain
Meditations + Circles + Workshops
Opening + Closing Sweat lodge
Traditional Andean Energetic Cleansing
All meals
Comfortable Accomadation

+Optional Ayahuasca Ceremony, Body Work, Energetic Balancing, Kambo

If you have visited rock bottom, and know how to bring your light.

You are ready.

To plant seeds in the fertile soil of your deep psyche.

To make art from the memory of tragedy.

For the forgotten parts of yourself to express in beauty.

You are ready to awaken the muses.

Let’s polish the channels of diving inspiration and grow, grow, grow.

Meet the Team

Christiana Schelfhout

Retreat Leader
Christiana is a healing arts facilitator and creator of Animate Healing. Born and raised between various cultures and
She is a musician, dedicated student of the plants,
Salvador Villalobos

Ceremonial Leader

Salvador´s devotion to medicinal plants began at a young age. Since then he has worked with many elders and masters of different ancient traditions.
He is initiated into the practices and rituals of the Red Path such as the Sweatlodge, Vision Quest, Sun dance, Star dance, limpias and various kinds of ceremonies, using power plants as Ayahuasca, San Pedro in Ecaudor, Mexico and around the world.
Diana Oviedo

Cacao Workshop
Chocolatier. Mother. Vision quester. Sun dancer, and singer. Diana carries the altars that she received the blessings from the ancestors of the “Camino Rojo”such as the ceremonies of Two Tobaccos and Temazcals.
Diana carries and holds her prayers from her land Killawasi, located in Quito. There she lives with her two children and shares medicine with her community.
A passionate musician, Diana’s sacred tool is singing and sharing the vibration of her beautiful voice and instruments.
Karl Holland

SALES MANAGER
Jaya Dixon

MARKETING DIRECTOR
Jamie Kokot

CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

In the darkness seeds of creation are planted. A matrix of potential and nourishment, the night is a fertile place we go to dream. To conjure new realities. To gestate the desires of our heart and birth them into the light of the day. Through proper relationship with the darkness we can come to understand our selfs and the world in a more beautiful way.

It is in the cool, all encompassing privacy of the darkness that we can process and tend to aspects of ourselves needing repair.

By familiarizing ourselves with the midnight of the psyche new parts of ourself may be reveled to the light.

Come explore the potential of creation with us.

WHERE ?

Mindo is a village in the Andes Mountains of northern Ecuador. It's known for the many bird species, butterflies and orchids found in the surrounding cloud forest,

Located in the heart of the Mindo cloud forest, Hayulima’s Spiritual Sanctuary spans over 112 hectares of protected and pristine jungle, rivers, lakes, and lush mountains