OUR STORY

Our Ayahuasca Retreat Center was initially founded in 2008. After a transition to a new piece of land took place in 2013, Spirit gifted us a new name in honor of the expanding vision of healing for humanity and our Mother Earth. Nimea Kaya signifies “Spirit of the Jungle” in the Shipibo native language. You also may have known us as the Tierra Vida Healing Center which was founded in 2008.  The calling to create a space of safety, integrity, comfort & support became paramount to be able to share this healing with all of those seeking. Our vision and mission here at the Nimea Kaya Healing Center is providing a peaceful and eco-friendly environment where people may participate in a variety of healing modalities. We offer Ayahuasca ceremonies in a natural jungle setting with traditional Shipibo curanderos along with other native plant medicines and holistic modalities for deep healing and life transformation. We use nature’s teachings to strengthen our Divine connection with the Creator, developing our consciousness into expanded states of awareness. We believe that Ayahuasca is not only a magnificent healer but shows us how to awaken to our true authentic selves. Through the medicine we are able to re-remember our Divine nature, our Oneness with all things, and are able to take this wisdom back with us into our lives to assist in manifesting a beautiful and harmonious paradigm on Earth.

The Nimea Kaya Family

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Cecilio Cauper & Rosenda Flores

Shipibo Healers

Cecilio and Rosenda are originally from the Shipibo Village of Santa Isabel de Bahuanisho.  Cecilio is 67 years old and has been working with Ayahuasca and dieting master teacher plants for 32 years. He comes from a lineage of healers in his family. He first apprenticed under his grandfather and his father also became a medíco. He has been working with westerners and helping them heal for the last 7 years.  He is new to the Nimea Kaya family as of 2022.  Rosenda is Cecilio’s cousin and also comes from a long line of healers in her family.  She began to feel called to heal others with Madre Ayahuasca over 20 years ago. She has been a part of the Nimea Kaya family since 2013. With their extensive experience in this healing practice, they both continue to diet many plants of the Amazon to expand their wisdom, knowledge and abilities to heal more deeply those they work with. They work personally one on one with each participant in ceremony to help them release what no longer serves them and to bring more energetic balance and harmony into their lives.  Their beautifully sung medicine songs are a blessing to experience in ceremony!

Agusto Gomez & Ercilia Flores

Shipibo Healers

Agusto and Ercilia are native Shipibo from the Contamana region along the Ucayali River.  As husband and wife, they have both been practicing curanderismo for the last 30 years.  After their daughter fell gravely ill and was healed by a local healer, Augusto felt called to follow in his footsteps and began his long journey of apprenticeship and plant diets thereafter.   Their vast knowledge in medicinal plants lends itself towards great healing and transformation at Nimea Kaya.  They both are very incredibly strong healers and together as a team is something very special to be experienced.  Agusto and Ercilia have been a part of the Nimea Kaya family since 2013.  Their powerful Icaros along with their loving and caring nature are a blessing to have in ceremony.  Listen to one of their medicine songs HERE.

Shipibo Ayahuasca Shamans Nimea Kaya

Jill Levers

Nimea Kaya Founder

Jill Levers is originally from the U.S.  She spent a decade during her twenties experiencing many different aspects of life, from attending University in California, Arizona and Mexico, helping build alternative eco-homes and doing humanitarian volunteer work in various countries. After years of struggling with depression and seeking more spiritual fulfillment in her life, she made her first journey to Peru to experience Ayahuasca in 2007. During her second ceremony she received the call from the sacred medicine to dedicate her life in helping heal and transform humanity and Mother Earth.   She helped co-found the Tierra Vida Healing Center in 2008.  The vision had expanded to relocate the Center, and in 2013 the Nimea Kaya Healing Center was birthed.  Jill has been serving as a bridge between the western world and the traditional lineage of the Shipibo culture over the last 16 years.  She helps oversee many of the programs within Healing Center and the Selva Spirit NGO Association.  Jill coordinates the Ayahuasca retreats, organizes bookings,  assists as a co-director of community outreach projects,  serves as a yoga instructor and a Spanish/English interpreter.  Jill is an ICEERS accredited Psychedelic Integration Coach and offers personal one on one Ayahuasca Integration sessions for Nimea Kaya guests.   Some of Jill’s interests are in health and nutrition, biohacking, astrology, hypnotherapy, alternative eco-building and permaculture.

Nimea Kaya Ayahuasca Retreats

Matt Julian

Retreat Facilitator & Yoga Instructor

Matt grew up in Adelaide, Australia where he gained a degree in Human Movement. He worked as a Personal Trainer in Adelaide and Sydney, until a nagging sense that there must be more to life convinced him to pack up his things and explore the world. He eventually ended up in London where he stayed for 12 years, managing Health Clubs and teaching yoga.  As yoga became a deeper passion and the quest for answers to the bigger questions of life grew, he felt the calling from Madre Ayahuasca which became impossible to ignore, bringing him to Nimea Kaya in 2016.  That first visit was a deep and profound experience and helped him see through many layers of conditioning that he didn’t even realize were there.  He has spent the last six years traveling to all parts of the world teaching yoga and returning to Nimea Kaya each year as a retreat facilitator. He is incredibly grateful to the medicine for the insights and teachings he has received and considers it a privilege to assist others at Nimea Kaya as they embark on their own healing journeys.  Matt will be facilitating from January through June, 2024.

Candace Garland

Retreat Facilitator

Candace was born in Germany and lived in many countries including Saudi Arabia, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States. After attaining a degree in Communication and English, Candace moved to New York City to work in hospitality and pursue her love of music. Candace first came to Nimea Kaya in 2018 to heal from traumas, depression, and to unravel her conditioning.  Her journey with Ayahuasca has been transformative and the medicine path continues to reveal gifts that allow more presence and wholeness in her life. She is committed to the path of healing and has a deep reverence for plant medicine and the indigenous tribes who have been the guardians of these sacred rituals.  Ayahuasca opened many doors for her, leading her to serve Kambô, Reiki, Mayan Womb Massage, and other modalities with the intention to help guide others to come back to their truth and sovereignty. Music is her passion, and she likes to incorporate intentional sound and movement in trauma informed healing spaces to create freedom in our hearts, minds, and bodies. Passionate about community and connecting to our roots, she believes Nimea Kaya provides the foundations we need to evolve as a collective.  She feels eternally grateful to have the honor to be of service at Nimea Kaya and to support others on their healing journey.  Candace will be facilitating from January through June, 2024.

Ella Lobkowicz

Retreat Facilitator

Ella was born in Italy and has spent every living moment of her life travelling and living all around the world. Her mother’s early death propelled Ella to discover and experience all the healing and spiritual modalities she could encounter, at first to try and ‘save’ her mother, and later to unearth that her path was to serve humanity through the mystical and ‘alternative’ branches of wellness and spirituality. For the past 20 years she has lived on many continents, apprenticing, and studying practices, modalities and medicinal lineages primarily from India, Africa, and the Amazonian Jungles. She is now a guide in shamanic breathwork, and trademarked her Somatic Alchemy group sessions; she is a tantric bodyworker and Kundalini de-armoring practitioner as well as an Akashic Record channeler. She arrived at Nimea Kaya in 2017 looking for expansion and direction from feeling lost and in chaos, and since then she has been an apprentice of ancestral medicines including Ayahuasca, Kambo, Bufo and Psylocibin that she serves across Europe. Ella sings and works with sound medicine, writes poetry, dances and at heart, is an artist and a mystic who is passionate about creating spaces for ceremony and ritual. Nimea Kaya has been her home and the Centre of her blossoming into the devotion to humanity and life, allowing her to Be who she is today, free and at peace.  Ella will be facilitating from June through December, 2024.

Saeed Moeini

Retreat Facilitator

Saeed was born in Iran, a country rich with mystic history, ancient music and poetry inspired by spiritual practices, mainly Sufism. His upbringing and life challenges lead him on a search for the true meaning of life and existence. After he moved to Vancouver, Canada he realized more than ever a need to connect to his roots and ancestral heritage. His journey with plant medicine began in his mid twenties and it inspired him to follow a path in transcendental music. Saeed plays two beautiful Iranian traditional instruments used by indigenous people of western Iran. After his introduction to Ayahuasca, he grew more intimate with the Sufi music of Iran and India and began holding spaces for transcendental meditation and ecstatic whirling dance. Saeed believes in ancient rituals and their powerful healing properties of songs and movement. Ayahuasca has been an amazing ally and teacher on Saeed’s journey of self transformation and he delights in facilitating such spaces for other’s healing.  Saeed will be facilitating from March through December, 2024.

Pedro Rojas

Pedro, originally from Pucallpa, is our lead caretaker. He assists with many aspects of Nimea Kaya.  Picking up guests from the airport, shopping for groceries and supplies, helping maintain the land and much more.  He is also the son of Hilda and has been part of our team for the last 10 years.  He has a very cheerful personality and is a joy to have on our team.

Nimea Kaya Ayahuasca Center

Gledis Panduro Vasquez

Gledis, originally from Pucallpa, is our lead chef. She helps to create our delicious meals during the retreats and fills the food with an abundance of love!  She is also an exceptional artist and has been offering her handmade arts at our Art Fair for many years. She is a joy to be around and brings much laughter into our kitchen.

Alondra & Luz

Alondra and Luz help prepare our amazing meals during our retreats.  Alondra is Gledis’ sister in law and Luz is Hilda’s daughter in law.  Alondra and Luz bring much joy kitchen and their smiles and laughter always add more love to the food we eat throughout the retreat!

Nimea Kaya Ayahuasca Center

Hilda Ochavano

Hilda joined our team in 2010. She is originally from the the Shipibo village of Poh Yan. She helps with the cleaning around the Center. Hilda has a beautiful and joyful spirit and is always excited to meet new guests and to share more about her culture. She is an incredible artist of the Shipibo tradition and offers amazing embroidered and painted textiles at our Art Fair.

Nimea Kaya Ayahuasca Center Staff

Our wonderful team of of carpenters and landscapers from the surrounding community. They have been the backbone of building and maintaining our Center and keeping it looking beautiful!