3-day Essential Ayahuasca Retreat w/ Nilton Santi

Hieros Gamos embodies the stories, wisdom and frequency of our Celtic homelands and that of the Avalonian spirituality. We bring heart-centred, compassionate space into our work. We pray for harmony and balance within, striving to live in a relationship with nature itself. This is our main motive for this work. 

My passion is primarily carrying sacred songs from varying medicine traditions. I am a multi-instrumentalist and sound healer and also a recorded medicine musician. Having worked in many different ceremony styles, the essence that links these ceremonial styles is the power of sound, and it is here where most of my work takes place. I carry ikaros, saitis, and mantras and create soundscapes with various ancestral instruments. My partner and I also write our own songs drawn from our own experiences on the healing journey.

We also work closely with indigenous communities in the Americas, such as the Yawanawá, Huni Kuin and Mazatec lineages, to ensure reciprocity for the work we do, regularly fundraising and assisting in projects to support those who share the knowledge of this profound work with us in the west, at this time in history where we need it most.    

I am your humble servant and companion, and I am pleased to guide and serve you as part of the Avalon family.

My first experience of “spiritual awakening” in 2012 led me onto the path of studying meditation, energy healing and travelling the world, offering myself in projects to communities living in poverty.

I was always drawn to be in helping professions my whole life – acting as the “wounded healer” and finding meaning in supporting others. I have studied psychology, social work, and counselling skills and worked within the social care sector with vulnerable children and adults. I did not resonate with working within these systems, and my true passion has always been in the realms of the creative, spiritual, and magical.

I first travelled to the jungle of Peru in 2013. Four years later, in 2017, I began studying core shamanism and a trauma-informed approach to space holding with sacred plant medicines. This was an extremely profound time of my life, where I connected and provided healing to my own ancestral line. I combined this work with reflective practice to illuminate and work with my personal shadows and trans-generational trauma. I began regaining my power and embodying once again my ancestral gifts.

My greatest teachers have, of course, been the sacred plant and fungi. I have been deeply devoted to this path and study –working with several lineages and traditions of different medicines, including from Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

My partner and I have had the privilege to work alongside widely respected wisdom keepers and elders and have received the honour of their blessing for our work.

It has been a beautiful journey to hold spaces and share our medicine music worldwide with my partner, Chris Adeyoka, together as “Hieros Gamos”. The name of our project means the “sacred marriage” of masculine and feminine, as we endeavour to hold this energetic harmony together behind our altar. 

I am also a coach and integration guide for those who are navigating life transitions the spiritual journey or need support with psychedelic integration. I am currently also studying psychotherapy to deepen my capacity as a talking therapist. Further to this, I am a co-facilitator of shamanic training and mentor to students studying shamanism and space holding.

I am always holding the prayer that humanity can live in the right relationship with the Earth and each other. Indeed, my own salvation came through establishing this relationship and reconnecting to myself and the sanctity of all life through these incredible plant and fungi teachers.

So, I refer to myself as a “sacred activist”, and I began a non-profit organisation in 2019. I have been engaged in environmental projects and activism since then, as well as fundraising for and supporting indigenous communities.

I am so grateful for my own life experience of moving through personal darkness to self-empowerment and joyful service to others. I believe everyone has this magic within them to alchemise their pain into power and turn compassion into action, and it is my mission to support you in doing this.