About Us
Meet your hosts!
Chantelle and Esja have been close friends since 2021 when they became roomates at nine mountain retreat center. They bonded over their shared love for art, dance, and nature.. especially animals. Since then we have recognized a shared interest to hold community spaces that are based in ritual, organic beauty, and the simplicity of loving human connection. Esja brings forth a gentle, unusually creative, and playful essence to all experiential space shared with and held by her. Chantelle comes forward with wise counsel, sweet humor, and a strong sense of direction to community spaces. Together, they harmonize to create art experiences that are holistic, fun, experimental, and profound with an emphasis on collaborative ritual.
Chantelle Castano of Soluna Medicines
Chantelle carries songs and teachings from time spent in Buddhist monasteries, kirtan trainings, backpacking Peru - Mexico - Thailand - Nepal - Colombia – Guatemala — Costa Rica+, bioregional herbalism apprenticeships, 1:1 work with medicine mentors, yoga teacher trainings, and more. She holds a BA in Psychological & Brain Sciences from Boston University. In the summer of 2021 she completed an apprenticeship with ayahuasca where she assisted over a dozen ceremonies, helped brew the medicine, and learned how to sing + work healings in ceremony. Chantelle walks the beauty way. Her personal artistry has included nude body painting, song writing, painting murals, and performing in sacred theater acts. She is always learning how to allow change, enjoy life, open her heart, follow her dharma, and play her unique role in healing her ancestry-- kind of like you.
soluna medicines offers holistic artist retreats, women's circles, yoga classes, plant medicine ceremonies, kambo ceremonies, and creative workshops. soluna translates to sunmoon in Spanish. soluna stands as a symbol of connection to Latin American indigenous wisdom and the ever present universal symbols of light -- the sun-- and dark -- the moon -- within human history. Chantelle’s work focuses on returning to an all inclusive spiritual wholeness that welcomes our need to grieve, to celebrate, to create, to connect with nature, to know others, and to be known. She works well with the creative-revolutionary beings that want to participate in shifting our culture towards higher wellness and quality of life for all.
What people have to say about Chan:
"Chantelle has such a great ability to bring in play and sacredness. I felt like she was a great role model for leaning right into engaging with people and getting curious about one another. I especially think of the song circle and how the structure of it really held us. She was tapped in and ready to facilitate us going deeper into the present experience instead of overthinking or getting caught up in self consciousness, or any other ways of unfocusing. I got a feeling from Chantelle that she has a lot of wisdom and experience relating with people and radical acceptance of people." - Tonya, Winter Warmth 2024 participant
"She's beautiful, she's honest, she has a GREAT sense of humor. Great communication skills and she's very go with the flow. I enjoyed meeting her chicken nugget (dog) and I also enjoyed how excited Chan got every time she got to make art with us!" - Saniece, Winter Warmth 2024 participant
Esja Morningstar of Nine Mountain Retreats
Esja is a bipedal hominid. Her heart beats more than 100,000 times a day, and like most members of her species she spends her days in a delicate tight-rope walk somewhere between enraptured awe and existential terror. She has more than a decade of experience in meditative and embodiment practice under her belt by now. Some of this experience was acquired in formal settings, though mostly not. She is an artist, a poet, a facilitator, a certified Wholeness Energetics practitioner, a staunch animist, a dirt-worshiping heathen and is perhaps best known as the resident house elf of Nine Mountain, where she lives and works in service to the space and land there. Most of her free time is spent laying in the grass, looking at flowers and wishing that she could kiss bugs without hurting them.
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Esja's offerings range from death cafes, group rituals and guided eco-sensual experiences to multi-day creative retreats and one-on-one healing sessions.
What people have to say about Esja:
"I appreciate how Esja brings in such a love and curiosity for all of the workshops and processes she shared. It feels like everything she offers is coming from such an authentic, tender place. I could see and join in with the awe and surprise she expressed as she watched this vision of a retreat unfold. I felt a lot of modeling and permission to be quiet, take breaks, and be in my sensory body."
- Tonya, Winter Warmth 2024 participant
"Her presence is so Zen and fun. She's so uplifting to be around! Without even knowing it she has taught me that I am great just the way I am! I need to receive that energy and hold it near and dear to my heart. Just watching her live her life the way she wants to; was very refreshing and reminded me that I have that same power within me." - Saniece, Winter Warmth 2024 participant