A feminine Pilgrimage Into the Womb of the Mother
Fertile Darkness
March 21 - 27, 2026
Catalonia, spain
Descend. Listen. Remember.
A potent medicine journey to meet The Black Madonna and the Radiant, Fertile Womb of the Mother — heal your own Mother Wound and reclaim your Radiant Feminine Power.
Guided by Jane Mayer & Anam Cara Retreats
There are places on Earth where the feminine story has never died. Where the Black Madonna still hums in the caves, where myth and lineage flow beneath the ancient stones, and where the Great Mother waits to welcome us home with unconditional Love.
Fertile Darkness is a one-time feminine pilgrimage and medicine retreat designed to restore your connection to the Great Mother, reclaim your womb’s wisdom, and heal your Motherline through story, song, somatic practice, and Shipibo ceremony.
A Descent Into
the Living Womb of the
MOTHER.
This retreat is an invitation to return to where creation begins: into darkness, into the body, into the unseen places where intuition, voice, and memory are reborn.
Guided through ancestral story and Shipibo plant medicine, you will explore the sacred caves and cathedrals of Catalonia, the geography of the Black Madonna, all while meeting the inner terrain of your own Mother Wound with grace, courage, and reverence.
Why Fertile Darkness?
Because all true creation begins in the dark.
Because the womb is not a metaphor, it is a portal.
Because the feminine does not ascend by bypassing the descent.
We rise by reclaiming what we (and our mothers) once had to bury.
Together, we reclaim our capacity to descend into our wombs, touch our hearts, and channel our voices in our personal relationships and our creative paths.
Together, we will remember what it means to meet and hold our bodies, emotions, dreams and intuitions with the care of the Mother.
Together, we will journey into and touch our own Mother wounds—through personal and guided explorations, as well as communion with Grandmother Medicine.
Together, we will remember the gold and red threads of awakening through the female body as the Black Madonna and the Feminine Christ, especially as woven through the songlines and storylines of southern France and Northern Spain.
What You’ll Experience
An 8-Week Devotional Container
A virtual journey with Jane & Francesca that prepares your body and Motherline before Spain and supports your integration after—through myth, somatics, story, and community.
You’ll be supported to:
gain understanding into your Motherline themes
learn the myths, stories & symbols of the Black Madonna
open the body through somatic, womb & voice practices
cultivate the inner landscape to receive Shipibo medicine
stay connected with your sisters and teachings after Spain
integrate the revelations, shifts, and awakenings that unfold
Ancestral Shipibo Medicine & Ceremony
Held by your Anam Cara family of Shipibo maestros and maestras— renowned healers and lineage carriers who bring decades of Amazonian healing and devotion.
You will be held through ceremonies that:
illuminate and heal ancestral patterns
soften protective armoring around both heart and womb
restore your intuitive voice
heal blockages and reconnect you to your radiant feminine essence
learn about healing with ancient plant wisdom
In addition to our ceremonial work, you’ll receive healing plant baths, traditional herbal steams, and cleansing rituals that support your journey with traditional Shipibo medicine.
Somatic & Womb Work
Daily embodiment, breath, and womb-based practices to:
unwind inherited mother-wound and limited patterning
reawaken intuitive intelligence in the body
reconnect with desire, emotion, voice & truth
reclaim feminine power rooted in the body—not performance
activate authentic expression and the courage to speak from your womb and heart
connect to the authentic medicine you’re here to offer
Voice Reclaimation & Song
Through guided song journeys, devotional storytelling, and intuitive vocal practices, Jane will support you to:
open your channel
speak from your womb
unfreeze the places where you stopped expressing
remember the ancient feminine power of sound
learn to sing yourself and your lineage back into embodied aliveness
Community and Deep Sisterhood
An intimate container (limited to keep depth and safety) where women gather in rawness, prayer, humor, grief, and celebration.
This is a retreat for women who want real transformation, not spiritual tourism.
the space
A Sanctuary Held Between Mountain, Vineyard, and Sky
Just an hour outside Barcelona is a restored Catalonian estate overlooking rolling hills, vineyards, and ancient stone pathways of Catalonia. It is a place that naturally evokes healing… spacious, earthy, luxurious, and quietly holy.
Our healing center features:
elegant, cozy, minimalist rooms that invite rest and grounding
panoramic views of surrounding mountains and rolling Spanish hillside
warm communal spaces for song, story, movement, and prayer
a private yoga shala and ceremony room for our deeper work
outdoor terraces for sunrise practices, integration, and sisterhood time
organic, farm-to-table meals designed to support our journey
a traditional Finnish cedar sauna for detox and down-regulation
saltwater pool overlooking the countryside
close proximity to the sacred sites of the Black Madonna we’ll be journeying to
High on the mountain of Montserrat stands one of Catalonia’s most enduring symbols of faith and identity: the Black Madonna, “La Moreneta.” Seated on her wooden throne and holding the child, she has been honored for centuries as a protector, a mother, and a source of strength.
According to tradition, her statue was discovered in the Santa Cova, a cave on the mountain, in the year 880. A mysterious light and music drew local shepherds to the site, and when the statue was later moved, it became too heavy to carry—taken as a sign that she was meant to remain there. A chapel was built, and Montserrat became a place of pilgrimage.
Over time, the smoke of candles and incense darkened the statue’s surface, giving rise to her distinct appearance. For many, her dark hue symbolizes the earth, the dark feminine, and the grounded presence of the Mother.
Walking the Cami de la Santa Cova, the path from the monastery down to the cave, is a simple and powerful pilgrimage. The trail winds along the cliffs, offering quiet moments for reflection before arriving at the small chapel that marks the place of her discovery.
Today, the Black Madonna of Montserrat remains a cultural and spiritual anchor for the region — a figure who has accompanied Catalonia through centuries of change, offering a steady presence of resilience, devotion, and hope.
Your Guides
Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer is a medicine woman, creative, doula, and guide to the unseen realms, who delights in supporting humans and Earth in coming fully alive. Her life’s work has been greatly influenced by over a decade of medicine work and plant dieta with Shipibo elders, woven with other streams of indigenous medicine from Peru, Hawaii, and her ancestral home in Ireland. She holds a depth of knowledge in the nervous system, subtle body, and the somatic experience of awakening
Born in the church in the deep South, she has been on a life-long path of restoring The Mother to her rightful throne, and honors all of the indigenous lineages for weaving that memory through her body. She travels the world on these golden songlines, listening for the landscapes that want to share their stories and Mother medicine. She is humbled and honored that the Black Madonna has called, and to be collaborating with Francesca and Anam Cara.
She is a mama to an 21-month old son, (who she conceived and birthed naturally at 41), and a wife to a devoted medicine keeper. To learn more, visit iamjanemayer.com.
Leading up to the in-person event, Jane will hold a virtual community container of preparation orienting you to the landscape of the Mother wound, offering practices to prepare you to meet the medicine in your body, and weaving memory, myth and song of the Black Madonna. On retreat, she will guide visits to sacred sites, as well as workshops in womb healing and voice reclamation. Her son Oran, and husband Richy, will also be with her, periodically weaving in and out of our spaces to offer Spanish translation and fairy giggles.
Francesca Barone
Francesca is a practitioner of ancestral and integrative healing, a trauma-informed somatic guide, and co-founder of Anam Cara Healing Retreats, where she has devoted her life to walking in deep relationship with Shipibo healers. Her work centers on helping others unwind the root causes of illness and emotional pain, and guiding them into the embodied clarity, connection, and freedom that emerge when the body is finally allowed fully express.
Alongside her plant-medicine work, Francesca is a dedicated feminine embodiment teacher, deeply influenced by her years of study with John Wineland and Nina Lombardo. Through this lineage, she has cultivated a practice rooted in presence, breath, erotic innocence, emotional range, and the truth-telling of the body. Her work centers on helping women reclaim their full-spectrum expression—grief, desire, rage, tenderness, joy, power, and devotion—as a path to awakening. She believes that women living in their full range of aliveness is one of the most needed medicines in our world: a restoration wildness, integrity, and the feminine intelligence that moves through each of us.
For the past decade, Francesca has guided hundreds of retreat participants through deep emotional, somatic, and spiritual transformation. Through Anam Cara, she supports others in unwinding lifelong protective patterns, reconnecting with their bodies, and remembering the deep truth of who they are beyond the experiences they’ve endured.
A defining pillar of Francesca’s own maturation has been her three-year journey under the mentorship of Jane Mayer, who has served as her somatic therapist, spiritual guide, and initiatory teacher. Jane’s influence has opened new dimensions in Francesca’s practice including womb awakening, devotional feminine mysticism, intuitive expression, mother wound healing, and the subtle-body pathways of descent and return. Their relationship is one of profound respect and shared devotion to the Mother. Co-facilitating this retreat together is a deeply personal offering for Francesca, marking a full-circle moment in her own healing and the deepest joy for her to share the incredible wisdom Jane has to offer with her Anam Cara Retreat Community.
Maestro Teo Ochavano Lopez
& Maestra Marina Sinti Reategui
Maestro Teobaldo began his training in medicine at the age of 13, learning from his uncles in the Shipibo community of Nuevo Zealand along the banks of the Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon. He was eager to learn to sing icaros, and his uncles taught him the process of dieting plants to understand the medicine that could help heal people in his community. Over the years, he assisted those around him, gradually forging connections with individuals from abroad, which allowed the message of his medicine and lineage to spread far and wide. To this day, Maestro Teo remains a world-renowned healer throughout the Amazon Basin and is celebrated for his incredibly joyful heart, humor, and devotion to preserving the wisdom of the Shipibo-Konibo lineage.
Maestra Marina first encountered the medicine when she was 24 years old, introduced to it by her husband Maestro Teobaldo. Although she was new to the teachings, the medicine was not entirely foreign to her, as she comes from a highly respected family of curanderos herself also. Marina grew up at the feet of her mother and grandmother who were incredible herbalists and plant-healers in their community.
Today, they travel together to various parts of the world, including Europe and the Americas, sharing their medicine and healing arts. Their son, Maestro Pio Teo Ochavano, began learning the medicine at the early age of 11 with his maternal grandfather, with whom he shares the same name. As his grandfather grew older, it was decided that Pio Teo would succeed him in the lineage of medicine. This beautiful family embodies the wisdom and teachings of their practice, radiating joy, positivity, courage, and strength. They serve as a profound inspiration in the realm of Ayahuasca curanderismo.
“The Black Madonna is the Mother who remembers us when we have forgotten ourselves, when we have left our body.
A woman who comes home to her body
is a revolution.”
“The moment she reclaims her flesh and her voice, her lineage exhales.
We carry our mothers inside us. Healing ourselves heals her, and those
who came before. When we turn back toward the Mother, the world turns
toward true healing.”
March 21 - 27, 2026
This immersion is intentionally intimate.
Spaces will fill quickly due to the collaboration with Jane and the rarity of this type of pilgrimage.
All-Inclusive Cost
8-Week Virtual Immersion & Retreat (Shared Room) €4000
8-Week Virtual Immersion & Retreat (Private Room) €4500
