Meet the Ayllu Medicina Team
You will be supported by our Ayllu Medicina team before, during, and after your plant medicine retreat. Aimé Bertot is a medicine man of the Sacred Fire of Itzachilatlan who leads our ceremonies with his wife, Hwaneetah. Our team is also supported by our facilitators, certified yoga teachers, and volunteers, with all of us sharing the intention of peace, love, dignity, and joy with whoever is called on this healing journey.
Our Team
Multilingual and bicultural guides.
“The team truly made the space ideal for my experience to be what it was – incredibly beautiful and powerful”
– Greg
Shaman and Medicine Guide
Aime Bertot
ayllu medicina
Our medicine community
Aime Bertot
Shaman and Medicine Guide
Born in France, Aime’s upbringing was truly cross-cultural as he lived between France, Guyana and Martinique. In the year 1999, he traveled to South America in search of Ancestral traditions and power plants. In 2000, he joined the sacred fire of Itzachilatlan and began his initiatory path of Vision Quest, learning directly about this medicine path from the elders of Ecuador. He is now Medicine Man of the Sacred Fire of Itzachilatlan, a medicine family based in the Ecuadorian Andes. He is also a Vision Seeker, Sun Dancer, and Canupa Loader. The Canupa pipe is a way to speak truth and prayers to the higher spirits, and only those given a special blessing due to their commitment to integrity, generosity, and courage can hold ceremonies with it. He has also been given blessings to run Temazcales (sweat lodges), Circles and traditional Ceremonies of Medicine. Aime’s commitment to this path is his life’s purpose – sharing the sacred medicines of the Earth with anyone who feel’s this call for their healing and their spiritual development. He has more than 12 years of experience guiding traditional ceremonies with master plants.
Beyond being the leader during our retreats, Aime also performs traditional shamanic cleanses, reiki, and therapeutic massages. His studies, experience, and passion for the art of permaculture and bio construction also bring him joy working with the Earth. Thanks to his bicultural upbringing, Aime speaks and guide ceremonies in fluent Spanish, English and French.
For all our relations, Aho Mitakuye Oyasin
Hwaneetah
Hwaneetah was born and raised in Colombia and also lived for 15 years in the United States to connect with Ancestral traditions and families of North American Tribes. This was also when she was introduced to shamanism while learning ancestral sound therapy, moon path, sacred ritual, and ceremony.
Hwaneetah was initiated and certified in Sacred Geometry by Drunvalo Melchizedek, an internationally celebrated spiritual visionary who is known for defining the Merkaba and the flower of life. She also studied in the Mystery School Yotolon of hermetic sciences, which focuses on the nexus between science, philosophy, and spirit. In this school, she also learned about neo-shamanism, or new ways of seeking visions and healing, and directed the female part of the school for six years, developing a branch of study called the Technology of the Womb. She is currently writing a book based on her studies on awakening all of the secondary functioning of the womb with our consciousness.
Hwaneetah is a quantum holonomic healer, a study based on the individual as a reflection of the whole Universe. This field of healing incorporates Sacred Geometry, and practitioners are skilled in seeing the energies of the subtle body with the human eye. Additionally, Hwaneetah is a reiki master and has a passion for studying Egyptian numerology. She is also the Founder of the group Daughters of Gaia Ma. in Florida.
Hwaneetah leads temazcales (sweat lodges), including all-women purifications and retreats. She is a Sun Dancer and Chanupa carrier. She also supports her husband, Aime, during ceremonies with traditional songs, instruments, incense, and holds sacred female energy in the space of medicine. She also shares her knowledge around womb healing through sweat lodges, workshops and one-on-one sessions.
Emma
Facilitator
Emma came on a one-way ticket to South America four years ago, and never left. After living on the coast of Ecuador for around a year she attended a plant medicine retreat with Ayllu Medicina, began her vision quest, and learning more about this path in service.
Before this adventure Emma had a career for eight years in the mental health field in the UK, in specialist eating disorder services, general psychiatric in-patient and community mental health services. She worked mostly with adults. Her experience and training also helps in ceremonial spaces.
Emma always travelled a lot, with many adventures from hikes and hitchhiking to teaching abroad and studying cross- cultural trauma. She left England to South America to find what was more aligned to her heart, and has found Ecuador, community, and these ways- so the roots have been put down!
She is also a certified 200hr yoga teacher, content writer (check out our blog!), and CELTA English teacher. She loves to hike, write, work with the fire, sing, and travel.
Michaela (Mika) D’Amico
Facilitator
Michaela (Mika) believes that leaping off the traditional path to focus on your own self-awareness and well-being is crucial to hone the skills and perspectives necessary to live a purposeful, joyful, and positive life. Mika is originally from Rhode Island, USA and has been living in Ecuador for the last 11 years working in the experiential education and community ecotourism fields. In university, Mika studied International Affairs, Sociology, Spanish, and Social Entrepreneurship, and began promoting social and environmental justice living in San Francisco, CA.
When she first came to Ecuador, Mika worked in support of an international human rights and environmental justice lawsuit brought by indigenous groups against big oil destruction in the Amazon. Mika also spent spent six years leading groups and coaching students through immersive educational programs with Global Citizen and Amazon Learning. This brought her deep into the rural communities of the Andes and Amazon, to build relationships and learn from indigenous families, local projects, and her ambitious students.
She gravitated towards personal development work and wellness during university and beyond, as her young activist self quickly got disenchanted from all the twists and disappointments that came from overworking in the social and environmental justice fields.
So, woven throughout her life has been deep learning in positive psychology, spirituality, and mindfulness, now at the forefront of her everyday with Ayllu and her personal studies. This is why she founded Joyful Connection, Co. where she provides workshops and group programs to learn and practice mindful, nonviolent communication and personal transformation.
Mika’s time living and collaborating in Ecuador with cross-cultural programs and mentoring students and teammates has given her the background necessary to be of service in retreat and facilitate experiences as a cultural guide, facilitator, translator, workshop trainer, and creative content producer for Ayllu Medicina. She also loves yoga, surfing, learning about topics from communication to meditation to traditional indigenous practices, and exploring and feasting in nature.
Jillian Rey
facillitator
Jillian Rey is all about inspiring beauty and wellness in others — she is both an established master hairstylist with a loyal clientele and a health coach and holistic advocate for plant medicine.
Jillian made her start as a stylist in 2004 and has worked since then to build a loyal clientele in her hometown of Calgary, Canada. Her journey with plant medicine began in 2014 when she traveled to Peru to explore traditional healing practices for an eating disorder that she had struggled with since her teens. Though she found the experience in Peru to be powerful, she also felt the need for guidance and support as she sought a deeper understanding of the world of medicinal plants.
That desire for guidance and support led her to Ayampe, Ecuador, where, in 2018, she became a co-founder of Wild Child Village, an eco-retreat center focused on sustainability, community-building, and healing. Currently, she divides her time between her hometown of Calgary, where she maintains her career as a stylist, and her adopted home of Ayampe, where she hosts and produces plant-medicine retreats with Ayllu Medicina.
Jillian believes that for real change to happen in the world, we must start by looking within and first healing ourselves. She believes that a key foundation of wellbeing is the element of water, and the positive wellness outcomes she has experienced from drinking alkalized, ionized water has since inspired her to become a distributor for Enagic Kangen Water. Her passion for healthy living extends to nutrition, with workshops on how to nurture our bodies by eating from the four food kingdoms and by fasting.
Jillian is also an advocate for the use of medicinal mushrooms in maintaining spiritual and mental wellness which she promotes through her company, Mycrologi.
Upcoming Plant Medicine Retreats
Check out our upcoming 2024/2025 plant medicine retreats in Ecuador here.
We would love to meet you in person around the fire!
Vanessa
Yoga teacher
Vanessa has been practicing yoga for over 20 years and teaching since 2008. She has been studying under the guidance of Yogi Vishvketu in the lineage of Adhi Nath Shiva. She is originally from Canada and moved here in 2008 with her husband. They have two beautiful children together and have successfully run Otra Ola since 2010, a Surf, Spanish, and Yoga School and Organic Cafe in the neighboring town of Ayampe.
Since 2012, Vanessa has been guiding YTT 200 hrs in a range of styles, from Vinyasa Ashtanga Flow to Hatha trainings. She loves to provide access to students to dive deeper into their practices.
Vanessa’s practice is not only about preparing the physical body for the ceremony but also the nervous system and all the automatic systems of the body. The day of ceremony practices are meant to reduce stress and anxiety and provide a deeper connection to the breath. The following day is all about integration, and depending on what medicine is used and what the participants need, she will build a practice to support.
Vanessa has over 1500 hours of study ranging from 200 YTTs to Pranayama Master Program, Yoga Nidra and Meditation Facilitator, Wisdom Years Yoga (50 and over), Reiki Level 1 and 2, Thai Massage as well as many courses in Holistic Education.
Vanessa is so excited to be a part of Ayllu Medicina and the amazing healing space they have created.
Team Offerings
Learn more about our Ayllu Medicina 1:1 offerings, including a Shamanic cleansing with Aime, an online Akashic Record Reading or Moon Session with Hwaneetah…
