In the lush and energetically potent landscapes of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, a retreat unlike any other is quietly preparing to unfold. Set across four locations, Tulum, Bacalar, Mérida, and El Cuyo, Portals of Light is not marketed as an escape from life or as a wellness trend. Instead, it presents itself as a ceremonial return to wholeness, offering women a space to reconnect with themselves through breath, sound, nature, and ancestral tradition.
The retreat, which runs from June 20 to 28, 2025, is designed for an intimate group. Only eight women are invited to participate. This intentional intimacy is not incidental but central to the experience. At its core, Portals of Light is about depth, not volume. It is a path carved carefully by guides who understand the profound impact of presence, pacing, and shared vulnerability.
Joey McCune and Marissa Abisai Ceja lead the program. Marissa is a long-time practitioner and space holder in trauma-informed somatic work. Her approach is grounded, relational, and rooted in a genuine connection to the land. Ceja resides in the Yucatán and has spent years leading group and solo immersive retreats worldwide. Marissa guides women through Breathwork, emotional release therapy, and transformational coaching.
McCune is the curator and owner of a private cave and cenote sanctuary in the Yucatán jungle, a sacred portal where she hosts immersive retreats and transformational healing experiences. Her work is rooted in frequency, Light Codes, and multidimensional energy, inviting participants into deep remembrance, soul activation, and inner alignment. Through her intimate connection to the land and mastery of sacred space, she tends to the unseen with precision and reverence.
They do not teach from a platform but walk beside each participant, holding space as guardians rather than instructors.
The retreat begins just outside Tulum, in a secluded sanctuary within the jungle. There is no fanfare, no spiritual theater, just the steady arrival of women who feel quietly ready for something they can’t quite name. The opening ritual includes ceremonial cacao, a traditional plant ally meant to soften the emotional body and open the heart. Afterward, the group enters the waters of a private cenote, where the first moments of release often happen without words. The water element throughout the retreat becomes a kind of co-facilitator: always holding, consistently cleansing.
As the journey unfolds, each location offers its own layer of initiation. At dawn, women will participate in a traditional temazcal, or sweat lodge. Guided by a local medicine woman, this purification ritual uses steam, prayer, and ancient songs to help women shed what no longer serves. Bacalar serves its beauty as the ladies sail across the Seven-Color Lagoon, not as tourists but as seekers. A water ritual on board invites participants to let go of emotional residue while the natural beauty of the surroundings becomes both mirror and balm.
In Mérida, the focus turns toward expression and remembrance. A guided voice ceremony in a sacred chamber invites women to reclaim their truth, not as a performance, but as liberation. Visits to Uxmal’s ancient ruins and local women’s artisan cooperatives offer cultural immersion and a felt connection to Maya and contemporary generational knowledge. It is here, amidst stone and story, that many participants report feeling a shift in perspective.
The final leg of the journey takes place in the coastal village of El Cuyo. Unlike the more visited parts of the Yucatán, El Cuyo retains a sense of rawness and openness. The sea is not simply a backdrop but a sacred force in its own right. Optional ceremonies involving heart-centered plant allies, such as cacao-infused mushrooms, are offered here with deep respect, explicit consent, and experienced facilitation. Whether or not participants engage, the space invites a natural introspection. Long walks on the beach, silent swims at sunrise, and the soft company of others provide more than enough transformation for those who prefer gentler forms of integration.
Throughout the retreat, participants engage in somatic breathwork, sound healing, and movement practices tailored not toward catharsis but toward embodiment. Sound journeys using crystal bowls and planetary gongs occur in a jungle sound temple. In contrast, ancestral sound activations are held within the acoustics of cenotes, natural formations long considered sacred by the Maya. These are not staged performances but deeply immersive experiences designed to activate what facilitators call “cellular remembrance.”
The retreat’s language is spiritual, yes, but it avoids abstraction. There is no promise of enlightenment, no bypassing of difficulty. Instead, participants are offered tools, space, and support to feel what needs to be felt, and to leave not transformed in some romantic sense but more connected to themselves and the world around them.
“This is not about escaping,” Ceja says. “It’s about remembering. Returning to the core of who you are: unfiltered, embodied, radiant.”
McCune echoes the sentiment. “The most sacred part of the retreat isn’t what happens inside the ceremony. It’s what begins to change afterward. When a woman goes home and begins to move differently, rest more deeply, speak more clearly, that’s the real work.”
In a time when many retreats have become products, packaged, photographed, and algorithmically optimized, Portals of Light offers something refreshingly sincere. There are no promises of perfection, only the possibility of presence. There is no agenda to “fix” anyone, only the hope that each woman might meet herself with new eyes in a space where she can feel everything she has been holding.
If there is a miracle here, it is not in spectacle but in subtlety. In the breath that deepens without force. In the voice that returns, not louder, but truer. Knowing that what was sought outside had always been waiting within,
This retreat may offer answers for women who feel the stir of something ancient, something unshakably familiar and tender. And in that space, something long-silenced might finally be ready to speak.
To learn more or apply for one of the eight available spots, visit sakredjourneys.com/portals-of-light.
And if you feel moved, join the conversation on The Tulum Times’ social media channels. The story begins here, but it does not end there.