Embodied healing, held by the land.
The AYA Healing Institute is the practice of Karen Ayash, who brings more than 25 years of experience to personal mentorship grounded in somatic therapy, hands-on bodywork, and plant medicine tradition. Offered by virtual session now, and at The Palindrome when it opens.
I work as a mentor, drawing on somatic work and plant medicine tradition. Hands-on bodywork and structural realignment support the process, so people carry more presence, ease, and capacity into their lives.
Sessions and longer programs weave together structural work, breath and nervous-system attunement, and ritual. The aim is for each person to remember who and what they are beneath the patterns they adopted to survive, and to carry that into daily life.
Wellness culture often suggests the nervous system should stay regulated at all times. A healthy system doesn't work that way. Life moves us, and it's meant to. This work builds capacity and internal flexibility, so that when life happens you can respond instead of react, and return to a regulated state with ease.
Many people continue with me over months or years as the work deepens. I keep the circle small enough to know each person's history and hold continuity between sessions.
I'm bringing my work home to The Palindrome, a small studio on my own High Desert property. While it's being completed, sessions are held virtually, and in-person work will begin when the doors open.
About Me
For over 25 years, I have accompanied people on their paths to healing. I trained across Quechua, Santo Daime, and Shipibo traditions, including a seven-year formal apprenticeship, and spent years traveling to facilitate ceremony four to five nights a week. My approach integrates that lineage training with formal study in Somatic and Transpersonal Psychology, Clinical Hypnotherapy, NLP, and Energy Medicine.
My work is rooted in community, and the relationships it creates are close. Many last a lifetime. That closeness is a gift, and it carries real responsibility, because power can shift in ways no one intends. For that reason, I work alongside licensed, psychedelic-informed therapists who stand outside of ceremony. Their clear, neutral view allows them to challenge, reflect, and help untangle the deeper material that rises, keeping the work grounded and everyone in it safe.
A practice shaped around the whole person.
Every offering draws from the same roots: attuned presence, deep respect for the body, and the wisdom of plant medicine lineages.
Somatic Therapy & Bodywork
Hands-on work with fascia, tissue, and structural alignment, paired with nervous-system attunement and embodiment coaching. This is the foundation that helps everything else land and stay.
In person · The Palindrome, opening soonMentorship Programs
Programs of 3, 6, or 12 months for those ready for sustained, relationship-based work. For members of the community, ceremony becomes part of the work. The longer we walk together, the deeper the layers we can move through.
3 / 6 / 12-month programsMentorship for Practitioners
Some are called to walk beside others on the medicine path. This mentorship is for them: therapists who want to support people before and after psychedelic experiences with greater understanding and skill, and those drawn to serve, whether by learning to hold ceremony or through another form of service. Knowledge like this is traditionally passed on through years of apprenticeship. Here it is shared directly, drawing on decades of holding ceremony, to deepen your understanding of preparation, integration, and the responsibility this work carries.
Therapists · The medicine pathCeremony
Ceremonies are held for members of our community. Those who feel called to the work are welcome to begin the membership process, which includes a referral and an interview. Once welcomed into the community, members gather for ceremony together, and private ceremonies for individual members or small groups can also be arranged.
For community members · Membership by referralVirtual Sessions
Breathwork, hypnotherapy, embodiment coaching, energy clearings, and distance healing by video, on their own or between in-person visits.
Virtual · By video
The Palindrome
Ravens call from the fence line. Open desert, dotted with junipers and Joshua trees, stretches out to the mountains. The Palindrome sits quietly within it all. Built as a steel hangar, it has been reshaped for this work. Inside, the room is open and filled with desert light, and at sunset the whole sky catches fire. Time moves differently here. The studio is being completed now and will be opening soon.
- Private sessions, one-on-one or in small groups
- A High Desert setting within easy reach of most of Southern California
Attunement reaches across distance.
Wherever you are, much of this work can happen by video. Hands-on bodywork and some types of ceremony remain in person.
Ask about virtual sessions
The land is part of this work. It holds the practice. Sacred. Sun-drenched. Still. Here, the body feels safe enough to let go, breathe, and remember what it knows.
Practical questions
Begin with a conversation.
Share a little about what brings you here, and I'll reach out personally to find what fits.
Moments in Time
