EMBERS BY INVITATIONS

This is the more intimate version of the work. Your own people, your own ceremony—the same hot stones and sacred steam.

In a private ceremony, the prayers are more personal, and the guidance can go deeper. The lodge becomes a space where your intentions are not just spoken, but deeply held and carefully carried through the fire.

Your place in the circle is waiting. We’re pre-heating the temazcal.

WHAT TO EXPECT

  • The fire is already waiting when you arrive. Guests are welcomed with tea and a heart-opening practice that helps the mind and body soften with intention.

  • Copal is used to cleanse the field before the ceremony begins. It’s an ancient ritual that invites presence, protection, and opening your energetic channel.

  • Dressing the temazcal is part of the ceremony itself. Layer by layer, we cleanse the fabric and seal the lodge in a tradition that reaches back thousands of years.

  • The altar takes shape as a turtle and serpent that honors nature, shedding, and rebirth. Crystals, jewelry, or small sacred objects can be activated and blessed at the altar.

  • We start with an opening to the elements, then enter the lodge. The heat, stone, song, steam, and herbs come together in ritual for a deeply spiritual, full-body release.

  • Return to refreshing fruit, homemade electrolytes, and an outdoor shower beneath the open sky. From there, the circle closes with care and clarity.

Meet Abuela Tzila

Her medicine is subtle in the ways that matter—and exact in the moments that count. She knows when to press, when to soften, when to sing, and when to let silence have something to say.

Her path has moved across continents and cultures, shaped by decades of study in metaphysics, energetic and elemental healing, womb renewal, herbs, movement, dance, and indigenous ceremony. Not as performance. As devotion. As practice. As a life lived in relationship to the work.

Guided by Abuela Tzila and Ale, her partner and Hombre de Fuego, the ceremony unfolds through breath, intention, and song. The stones hold the fire, the steam carries the prayer, and the Abuela holds the people.

Inside the lodge, the sweat is real and so is the reverence. Abuelita Tzila helps light the way through.

THE KEEPERS OF THE FIRE

Abuelo Paolo París Chávez

Abuelo Paolo is a Costa Rican practitioner with more than three decades of ceremonial expertise. In the same lineage as Abuela Tzila, he has walked the red path beside her—an indigenous way of life, rooted in ritual. Abuelo carries forward a tradition shaped by devotion, discipline, and lived practice.

Michelle Macluf

Her work is rooted in Family Constellations, while her ceremonial path has been shaped through years as a Moon Dancer in the same lineage. Michelle brings a quiet authority to the temazcal, softened in service to the circle—allowing people to feel both supported and seen.

IMPORTANT DETAILS

    • Dress for heat, not the Met Gala. Skirts, dresses, shorts, or lightweight pants. Cotton or linen only–polyester traps heat and may catch fire.

    • Expect a little earth. You’ll be seated on the ground and get your hands dirty. Guanacaste is famous for its iron and mineral-rich red soil.

    • Everyone shapes the opening. Guests help build the altar and prepare the temazcal by cleansing and dressing it with fabrics. Physical activity is involved.

    • Finishing touches. A red headband and ceremonial belt are provided as part of the practice. Leave jewelry at the altar—it can heat u.

    • Pack for the afterglow. Bring a towel and toiletries if you’d like to have a rinse, and a change of clothes for after.

    • Heat and steam help open pores and awaken circulation.

    • A deeper connection to the earth and the wisdom of the elements.

    • Space to honor your ancestors, prayers, and personal intentions.

    • Grounding that comes from being held in tradition and community.

    • A physical and emotional release after carrying stress or tension.

    • The temazcal experience is spiritual, mental, and physical. If you have any health conditions or physical limitations, let us know. We can accomodate you accordingly.

    • You will be seated inside the lodge for between 1.5 and 2 hours. Depending on space, guests can also lie down.

    • We ask participants not to leave the lodge once the door has closed. Emergencies are always an exception.

    • The ceremony is approximately 6 hours from start to finish.

    • Our Abuelos and Fire Keepers speak both Spanish and English.

THE CIRCLE AT THE CENTER
THE FOUNDERS

SURÁ began when we stopped trying to force alignment out of lives that were asking too much—and giving too little back.

We were just three corporate girlies working as executives, entrepreneurs, and creatives for brands you’ve definitely heard of. Fluent in KPIs, product launches, and burnout as a personality trait.

Then, we found our reset on the edge of paradise. Not because we were chasing escape—but because we were being called to something truer. 

We chose a different pace, a different purpose, and somehow found more of ourselves walking barefoot than working off a brief.

The people who find SURÁ are usually already on a path—seekers, creatives, conscious leaders, nomads, and travelers who feel at home in nature and around honest conversation. They come because they want a place that lets them slow down without checking out of their lives.

We are honored to hold the heat with you. May the lodge give back more than you knew to ask for. That’s usually how the medicine works.

— LA SURÁ FAMILIA