Luz de Primavera is a two-day gathering devoted to the return of light, the turning of the season, and the ancestral practice of making by hand. As we move into spring, we gather to mark the shift from dormancy to emergence, honoring this threshold through candle making, sound, shared presence, relationality, and reciprocity. Spring teaches us about timing, patience, and care.
Together, we will create candles through intention and ceremony, working slowly and attentively with fire, wax, breath, and relationship with plant ancestors. Candle making becomes a practice of reverence, a way of shaping light with care, purpose, and relational accountability. We enter relationship with our plant ancestors, calendula and tobacco, approaching them with respect, restraint, and gratitude. Rather than instruction or extraction, we practice presence, learning how to tend, honor, and work alongside these relatives with humility and care.
Sound healing practices are woven throughout the gathering to support grounding, rest, and integration. Through vibration and tone, we create space for the nervous system to soften and for the body to settle into the rhythm of the season. Sound is offered as accompaniment, not performance, allowing each participant to receive in their own way.
As with all Chingona Retreats, nourishment is central to the experience. Meals prepared by Chef Silvana are offered as ceremony, memory, and care. Food anchors the gathering, reminding us that tending the body is inseparable from tending the spirit and the work we do together.
Luz de Primavera is held with cultural responsibility, intention, and restraint. It is a space to gather, make, listen, and remember without urgency or explanation. We arrive as we are, meet the season where it stands, and leave carrying light shaped by our own hands.


We open the gathering by marking the Spring Equinox, honoring the return of light and the shift from dormancy to emergence. Ceremony sets the container through intention, relationality, and reciprocity with land, season, and one another.

Candle making is held as a ceremonial practice rooted in relationship with plant ancestors. Working slowly with calendula and tobacco, fire, wax, and breath, we shape light with care, gratitude, and respect rather than extraction.

Reset your nervous system while soothing tones and vibration move through the body, supporting deep relaxation, release, and integration.
Our intention is to offer Luz de Primavera as an accessible gathering grounded in care, respect, and relational accountability. While this gathering is not offered as a pay-what-you-can retreat, we are committed to setting a price that is fair, transparent, and reflective of the true cost of hosting at Casa Salcido. Pricing will be shared once finalized.
This is a two day, one night gathering. All meals are included, and sleeping arrangements are shared in community. Casa Salcido is a lived-in home, and the way we gather reflects values of togetherness, consent, and care. Bedding, linens, and all necessary supplies will be provided. Sleeping spaces are arranged with attention to comfort and respect.
For participants traveling more than one hour, arrival the day before the gathering is possible with prior notice and coordination.
We believe transparency is an essential part of accessibility. The cost of this gathering reflects chef-prepared meals, food and kitchen labor, water, propane, cleaning supplies, waste disposal, preparation of the home, and facilitator labor. Sharing this openly honors the work it takes to hold a gathering with integrity, respect, and care.
Meals are a central part of the experience at Casa Salcido. Food is offered as ceremony, memory, and nourishment. Meals prepared by Chef Silvana are crafted with intention, creativity, and ancestral knowledge, supporting both body and spirit. Including food and kitchen labor within the cost reflects the understanding that nourishment is not an add-on to the gathering, but a core part of the care we offer one another.
All sleeping arrangements for this retreat are shared. We gather in community, and the way we sleep reflects that spirit of togetherness, care, and reciprocity. Casa Salcido has four bedrooms available, along with several additional spaces that can be made comfortable for rest.
All bedding, linens, pillows, and warm coverings will be provided. What matters most is that everyone has a place to land, to rest, and to be held by the space. We will work together to make sure sleeping arrangements honor comfort, consent, and community care.
We honor that people move through time differently. Some arrive shaped by work, travel, and schedules, while others move at the pace of the body and the season. This gathering is designed to hold both with care, offering structure where it is needed and spaciousness where it is nourishing.
Please consider our time together as ceremony. In ceremony, arrival matters because we are entering a shared vessel of intention. The gathering will begin promptly at 11:00 am on Saturday with an opening ceremony. This is the one moment we ask everyone to arrive on time, as it sets the container for the work, builds trust, and establishes the relational field we will hold together.
Saturday is devoted to learning about our plant ancestors and entering relationship with them through intention and practice. We will work slowly and attentively with calendula and tobacco, allowing the process of candle making to unfold as ceremony. Throughout the day we will gather for lunch, snacks, and dinner, creating natural pauses for rest, conversation, and integration.
On Sunday, we begin with gentle yoga, sound healing, and meditation to support grounding and integration. We will complete our candles together and share a closing brunch. The gathering will formally close by 1:00 pm, allowing participants time to transition back into their journeys with care.
The flow of the retreat moves with rhythm rather than urgency. There is shape to our time together, and there is also room to pause, listen, and respond to what the group and the moment require. Activities are invitations, not obligations. If rest or solitude is needed, participants are encouraged to honor that call.
While the agenda holds intention, it remains responsive. Facilitators may adjust the flow in real time in service of the group, the season, and the work we are tending. We will close our time together intentionally, and while the hosting will conclude at the scheduled time, the space will remain gentle for departure.
Dra. Serina Payan Hazelwood (Dra/She/Ella) is a queer, Indigenous Chicana scholar, educator, and community gatherer. Steward of The Elsewheres, she creates spaces for learning rooted in ceremony, storywork, and embodied practice. She holds a PhD in Sustainability Education and an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Prescott College and is currently pursuing a second master’s in Regenerative Design. As an AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator, Organizational Provider, and Supervisor in Training, her work bridges professional education with Indigenous and decolonial pedagogies. Living on Kumeyaay lands in Playas de Rosarito, she teaches from a core truth: violence to the land is violence to our bodies. Guided by the Nahui Ollin, her work re-animates Chingonisma as a body of knowledge that restores voice, memory, and communal power. Through The Elsewheres, Serina stewards spaces where people remember themselves, practice accountability, and build futures with land, body, and ancestors in right relation.
Serina will guide participants through somatic grounding, movement, and voice practices that reconnect the tongue, womb, and fascia as sites of remembering. She will offer teachings on Malinche as archetype, experiential work on embodied voice and Chingonisma, and a music circle that invites collective sound as medicine. Her facilitation centers ceremony, intimacy, and embodied truth.
Monica Magdaleno is a Los Angeles–born Chicana and intuitive sound healer who creates calming, heart-centered sound bath experiences rooted in presence and vibration. Though formally trained, Monica is guided by her own naturally grounded essence, offering sound baths that support emotional release, mindfulness, and energetic harmony.
She has facilitated sound baths for private gatherings, corporate events, and community mindfulness circles, always focusing on grounding, clarity, and inner peace.
Monica will offer sound healing sessions throughout the retreat, using vibration, tone, and intuitive presence to support emotional release and energetic harmony. Her sound baths create spaciousness for integration and grounding, helping participants settle into their bodies, soften the nervous system, and prepare for deeper ceremonial and vocal work.Mama Shabeta will lead a sacred polvo ceremony and guide participants through the Monster meditation and drawing practice. Her offerings support transformation, ancestral presence, and the courage to meet shadow with tenderness. She will share teachings carried by the plants and by sacred tobacco, helping participants enter relationship with land, breath, and spirit.
Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza is an award-winning chef, visionary, and cultural warrior whose work has redefined Mexican cuisine in the United States. Born into a family of bakers with an 800-year legacy, she blends ancestral traditions with fearless creativity and a lifelong commitment to justice. After studying at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, she traveled across Mexico learning from traditional cooks, a journey that shaped her mission to reclaim and elevate Mexican gastronomy as art, history, and resistance. Founder of the renowned Barrio Café in Phoenix and its sister projects, Chef Silvana has earned nine James Beard nominations while centering food as activism. She created Taller de Cocina Mexicana in Playas de Rosarito, a free culinary program teaching youth ancestral and contemporary cooking as pathways to empowerment. Her book, La Hija de La Chingada: Chronicles of a Mexican Chef, is available in Spanish and English. Through flavor, art, and radical love, she continues to protect culture and nourish her communities today.
Chef Silvana will nourish the circle through meals prepared with ancestral intention, creativity, and deep cultural memory. Her food is ceremony, crafted to honor the wisdom of the tongue and the generative power of the womb. Through her artistry and presence, participants will experience nourishment as teaching, as healing, and as a form of love that sustains both body and spirit. Her meals invite guests to slow down, savor, and remember the lineage carried through flavor, texture, and care.A seasoned chef and baker with a rich background in the restaurant industry, she has worked in many fine dining establishments, including the Ritz Carlton in 2017. As of 2023, Jessenia has transitioned to the role of an educator. Currently shaping young minds at a Seattle, WA title one school, she has become a beacon of light and support for both students and staff, pushing the boundaries of culinary education and increasing opportunity for all students. Her journey reflects not only her personal success but a commitment to being a safe space for others.
Passionate about giving back to the migrant communities similar to those who helped raise her, Jessenia has realized a career milestone as a culinary instructor. Her goal is to empower Latinx and other students of color coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and showing them a mirror of possibility and potential. Jessenia’s story is one of triumph, resilience, and the embodiment of breaking barriers.
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