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World Healing Exchange Trip
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Yucatan World Healing Exchange Trip 
November 9 - 17, 2013
Trip Full!

Ritual Cleansing 1
Ritual Cleansing

November 9 - 17, 2013


Our Guides- Tierraventura's Claudia Schurr de Chavan, Sociologist,
and Diana Fried, M.Ac., AWB Founder and Executive Director


AWB is excited to announce a World Healing Exchange Program in the Yucatan, México. The Yucatan is a peninsula in southeastern Mexico that separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico and is home of the ancient Mayan people. In addition to the depth of the culture and people, it is an area known for its tropical rainforests and jungle. The Yucatan has an abundance of archaeological ruins, extraordinary beaches, culture, unique food, wildlife, magical freshwater cenotes (sinkholes, which are swimmable), underground caves, and more. The vegetation is middle and low tropical. In November, temperatures will range from lows in the mid-60's to highs in the low 80's.


Chichenitza 3 

Our trip will provide a unique opportunity to work directly with Mayan Elders as well as visiting ancient sites and receiving spiritual initiations. The destination is Yucatán, but the goal is the personal and group journey into ourselves as practitioners and healers.

Maya Girl 

Along with its beauty, like many Mexican states, the Yucatan has a significant portion of its population living in poverty and extreme poverty. This population is lacking basic necessities and has inadequate access to health care. Those who suffer the most are the indigenous Maya, where the deepest levels of social and economic marginalization prevail. Additionally, natural disasters, in particular hurricanes, exacerbate these existing social vulnerabilities. Participants on this AWB trip will visit health care clinics throughout the region and offer community- style acupuncture. As with our other introductory World Healing Exchange trips, this is an opportunity to get to know a region, local healers and others, with the intention of coming back at a later time to do more in-depth training, if invited.

Our journey will bring us deep into Mayan lands, and into important teachings and ceremony with Mayan elders. We will do free acupuncture clinics in Mayan villages, and will visit important archaeological sites as well as Yucatan cities and towns. We will learn about Mayan wisdom traditions, including the Mayan calendar and hieroglyphics. We will also spend a day exploring the ecosystem of the Rio Lagartos, with flamingos, exotic birds and crocodiles. There will be opportunities to learn other forms of traditional healing for the body and spirit with indigenous healers. We believe this learning is an important part of expanding the body of wisdom for all healers. Where possible, we will also offer our medicine to the healers from whom we are learning.

Tierraventura specializes in taking people to places they wouldn't ordinarily see on a visit to Mexico - to what they consider to be the "real" Mexico. Claudia has a special interest in traditional medicine, and has developed many contacts over the years, working with shamans and healers in Mexico.

We will experience a Temezcal, an ancient sweat lodge. (The Nahuatl word temaz means either bath or rock/vapor/knowledge, Calli means house.) Our hope is to support and keep alive the local Yucatacan healing practices and strengthen our own.

Temazcal 2 

Temezcal session 


As we all know and have personally experienced, traditional healing methods seem to be fading out of existence. How can healers around the world compete with strong and powerful medicines that seem so intriguing and immediate? It is with this awareness that AWB's World Healing Exchange Program is developing partnerships with local healers for cross-cultural exchange and training that will support indigenous practices.
 
 

Sincerely,

Diana Fried, Founder and Executive Director
Acupuncturists Without Borders
 

Izamal 3
 *Note: NCCAOM now gives 10 PDA points for volunteer service for which this trip is eligible, and we will be providing letters to this effect for all participants.
 
 

Trip Fee (does not include international airfare):


Early Bird:Early Bird: Full payment is due by August 1, 2013
$2495.00 (cash or check price)/ AWB Member (add 3% for credit card payment)

$2695.00 (cash or check price/ Non-member (add 3% for credit card payment)

 
Regular Rate: Full payment is due by September 15, 2013

$2795.00 (cash or check price)/ AWB Member (add 3% for credit card payment)
$2995.00 (cash or check price)/Non-member (add 3% for credit card payment)

 
Included in price:

- Hotels (double occupancy); in-country transportation;   meals (B,L,D) as listed in the program below; in-country guide service in English; preparation materials.  All ceremonies with the healers, the temazcal bath. (Single Supplement: $250.00 - please add to total payment)

- All overnight stays

- Excursions and entrance fees as mentioned in the program

 

 Deposit:

A non-refundable $500 deposit  is required to hold your spot.

 Trip is limited to 17 participants
This trip is for acupuncture and oriental medicine practitioners


Note: There will be a one day required AWB clinical training, for those who have not been to an AWB training, offered on November 9th at the hotel in Izamal.  Those taking this training will need to leave the U.S. earlier so as to arrive by the night of November 8th

 

7.5 CEU's will be offered, and the course fee is $150.00 or $75.00 for returning trainees (recommended, even if you have already done a training). Hotels for additional nights for training are not included in fee. Cost is about $60/night single or double occupancy. Tierraventura will book those rooms. We will be sending you a registration form, and will need to know if you need additional nights.

 

CEU's/ PDA's: 4 CEU's will be offered in addition to the training. An additional 10 PDA's (recognized by NCCAOM only) will be given in the form of a letter from AWB, for service work provided on the trip. So if you take the training, you will receive up to 21.5 CEU's in total.

 

    

 

Participants tell us how their lives changed...
As I feel into our intense journey together and sense the subtle changes in my awareness. I've noticed a deepening in my heart and a loosening of the grasp to outer situations and my notion that things need to be a certain way. My gratefulness for this particular life that I experience with its degree of comfort, which is considerably more than most in the world, has increased since my first hand experience of how life is for so many others. How I have chosen to use this comfort and design a life that supports the cultivation of compassionate awareness...is beyond my comprehension. I only have the clarity now to not resist what has been given, continue my dedication to being and serve however I can. I have been deeply touched by my experience with all of you and the beautiful indigenous souls of Ecuador.        

--Sara Gordon

 
Sara_Gordon_Ecuador
Sara Gordon Treating in Ecuador

Making the choice to travel to Nepal with Acupuncturists Without Borders' (AWB) first World Healing Exchange Program in October 2009 was one of the best decisions of my life. Through stepping out of my comfort zone, deeply experiencing
 another culture, sharing the intense healing effects of acupuncture, and meeting life long friends, I discovered who I really am. I discovered my passion and place in this world. I became a full time volunteer for AWB, a member of the World Healing Exchange Program Committee, trained local acupuncturists after the earthquake in Chile, and became an AWB Board Member.  One "small" decision to say "yes" literally altered the direction of my entire life.  I now understand we are all more alike than different in this world, and I thank AWB and Diana Fried for the opportunity to realize this.    
 --Micah O'Neal
Jand and Michal in Nepal
Micah O'Neal and Jan Yoder in Nepal

Please call (505) 266-3878 if you have questions or want more information or email info@acuwithoutborders.org

We hope to see you in Yucatan!


Acupuncturists Without Borders     
909 Virginia NE, Suite 211  
Albuquerque, NM 87108
(505) 266-3878

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