Our Team
Our Team - Guardians - Sacred Alliances & Teachers
We are a diverse team from an array of spiritual traditions, beliefs, skillsets, superpowers, and global walks of life.
We are woven together by tied visions and values, and we work co-creativley in family and in service.
Mothers of the Altar
Maya Martinez Gomez
Founder & Lead Guardian
Maya Martínez Gómez, also known as MaYita - is a professional musician, music therapist, and U.S. Sergeant, Army Veteran sound engineer, devoted to activating planetary remembrance through ceremony, prayer, and song. A lifelong student of music, Maya has been immersed in the arts since childhood, growing up as both a musician and an athlete, and receiving extensive training in first aid and safety during her military service. Her life is a testament to devotion and discipline - to art, love, music, and the mission of collective harmonization. Raised between Colombia and New York City, Maya has apprenticed for over 13 years in the medicine path, walking with Indigenous and medicine teachers from Colombia, Mexico, the U.S., and Brazil. As the founder of Somos Sanctuary, Maya serves as a ceremonial guide, altar guardian, and musician, weaving tradition, prayer, and music into offerings of transformation. Her work is a living prayer, turning pain into prophecy and calling communities to rise together - in reverence, humility, and integrity.
LinkTree: linktr.ee/mayitamusic
Willa Kveta
Lead Guardian
Willa Kveta is a mother, medicine woman, and sacred guide, walking as a lifelong student of Mother Earth and her teachings. Raised in the magical forests of Whidbey Island and most at home in the tropical jungles of the South, nature has always been her guide. As a carrier of owl and spider medicine, and a co-mother of this altar, she embodies a loving, maternal presence that holds, nurtures, and connects. Founder of Nalaya Healing, Willa shares her gifts of telepathy, clairsentience, light language, and healing touch, embodying unconditional love in service to her clients and community as a ceremonialist, musician, and sacred photographer. Willa is fluent in both English and Spanish, and is a devoted student of indigenous wisdom and ancient-future technology. As a rainbow guardian of the light and a keeper of the kind heart, Willa weaves magic into all that she does, through beauty, prayer, and remembrance, inspiring others to embody their fullest expression of radiance. Willa is also a talented photo alchemist, capturing energy, magic, and heart, empowering her clients to shine from within. She documents our retreats and pilgrimages and her work is widespread throughout our site.
Esoteric Website: nalayahealing.com
Photography Website: willakveta.com
Sofiia Bretl
Trustee
Sofiia has been a mother of this altar from the very beginning, as a guardian, council, and unwavering support. She also serves as a Trustee to Somos Sanctuary. Born in Ukraine, she crossed the Atlantic carrying with her the prayers of her ancestors and a deep passion for tending the sacred connections between body, mind, and spirit. With over a decade of experience as a professional massage therapist, Sofiia serves through the healing power of touch, deep listening, and embodied presence. For her, healing touch and dance are sacred gateways - pathways into the soul. She is a lover of the stars and planetary systems, and a keeper of memory. Guided by love, curiosity, and a profound devotion to humanity, Sofiia shows up with an open heart - ready to serve, to witness, and to weave her magic in our spaces. Her presence in the altar continues to be one of unwavering support and a blessing for all.
Sacred Alliances
Dr. Miriam Kaiyo
Board of Directors
Miriam Grace Kaiyo is a researcher, educator, and human development nerd. She received her Ph.D. in the Human Development and Social Policy program at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on understanding entheogenic therapy facilitation practices and how they contribute to improving mental health in the United States. Additionally, Miriam teaches at the University of Utah and serves as the Chief Impact Officer for Pneuma Science which is an international research center dedicated to advancing medical, spiritual, and cultural knowledge of psychedelics and indigenous plant medicines, particularly in real-world settings. Miriam is passionate about optimizing the human experience through a holistic, diverse, joyful, creative, and collaborative lens. Miriam serves on our Board of Directors, bringing her vast skillset and knowledge to our organization. Miriam is also a talented musician, weaving her prayers into the altar with gentleness, humility and devotion.
Website: miriamkaiyo.com
Ingrid Schelberg
Board of Directors
Ingrid has devoted her life to healing, transformation, and community. With over 20 years of experience as a mental health care manager and as a non-dual therapist, she bridges clinical knowledge with spiritual depth, walking between the visible and the unseen.S he co-founded the Family of Fire in the Netherlands, a community rooted in love, truth, and courage, where she sustains conscious relationships and is building and sustaining a strong network of light. Her work extends into raising frequency, weaving harmony into ceremonies and collective healing spaces, and guiding others in their journey of awakening. Honored as a “child of the jungle” by her teachers in Colombia and walking in the lineage of María Sabina, Ingrid carries deep reverence for Mother Earth and the wisdom of the plants. She is devoted to protecting the sacred and co-creating a future of unity and harmony. Ingrid serves on our Board of Directors, co-hosts Somos Sanctuary retreats in the Netherlands with Family of Fire, and regularily joins our altar for other in person events and retreats worldwide.
Gina Savino
Altar Guide
Gina Savino is a wisdom keeper, mother, and devoted musician. Rooted in Colombia, she has studied the songs of the jungle and trained as a saumadora, weaving the healing power of plants and sound into her path of service. A professional musician trained in Germany, Gina is a singer of jazz, Latin American, Indigenous, and improvisational music, as well as a bassist and vocal teacher with a Master’s degree from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. For over 20 years she has guided voices and facilitated singing circles around the world - where music becomes prayer and remembrance. As a Guardian for Somos Sanctuary, Gina offers her voice and wisdom to awaken harmony, connection, and remembrance.
Connect to Our Music
MAYA by MaYita
MAYA, MaYita's first solo album, is the result of several years of spiritual transformation that come together in 9 songs with profound codes of life and knowledge. From the activation of early memories and the essential role of music in the fabric of the universe, to the knowledge and use of power plants, to the reflection on the magic and truth that resides within each of us; MAYA is an album full of meaning and reflections that delve into the human dimension and the mission each person fulfills in today's world. “This album serves as a platform to share the medicinal practices entrusted to me, shedding light on the role of the guardians of the land and their tools. It is an invitation to those who resonate with this mission, inviting them to join as fellow guardians on this journey.” MAYA directly addresses the role of being guardians of the land, facilitates connections between territories, lineages and prayers, and helps establish alliances throughout the Americas and the world.
SOMOS by MaYita
MaYita's Second Album SOMOS transmits melodies imbued with multiethnic rhythms that reach deep into the soul. Sacred songs that connect ancestral wisdom with contemporary soundscapes. A musical fusion of cultures, languages, and traditions, honoring the voices of our ancestors and the dreams of future generations. WE ARE is a prayer, a movement, a vibration of love.
ANCIENT FUTUTE by Alexis Gideon and Khotomeh
This Album is a powerful collaboration.
Sound - Visual - Communications
Eric Hoegemeyer
Recording Artist & Music Producer
Eric Hoegemeyer is a soulful, boundary-pushing music producer, composer, engineer, and field recordist. Based in New York City and deeply connected to Colombia, Eric weaves together lineages, nature, and sound into immersive landscapes that carry both spiritual depth and sonic power. Originally emerging from Detroit’s vibrant musical ecosystems -Motown grooves, techno pulses, and funkadelic soundscapes - he has honed his craft over decades, mixing, producing, and composing with a profound devotion to synthesis and immersive audio work. His true mastery is the art of listening - deeply and quietly - co-creating with those he works with, including his longtime collaboration with MaYita, where together they have birthed albums infused with ancestral memory, feminine power, and the voice of the Earth itself.
Website: erichoegemeyer.com
Sebastián Bravo Guerrero
Graphic Media Artist
Sebastián Bravo Guerrero is a Colombian graphic media artist whose vibrant works blend figurative painting, illustration, animation, and multimedia design. His visual language moves between pop-surrealism, mysticism, intimacy, and chromatic explosion - offering portals into dreamlike worlds rich with symbolism and emotional resonance. He designed, created, and executed all of the art for MaYita Music projects - from album covers to concert visuals - and is also a skilled web designer, having built both MaYita’s site and the primary site’s visual identity. His role is both visionary and hands-on, transforming sonic offerings into visual prayer. With formal art training (BA in Arts & Design from Escola Massana, Barcelona) and international exhibitions under his belt (including finalist in New York’s See Me 2024), Sebastián bridges craft and ceremony, aesthetics and soul.
Website: bravoguerrero.com
Samson Zhilyaev
Communications & HR
Samson is a student of both Eastern and indigenous traditions. He started his personal practice and study of Buddhism at 16 years, entered formal residential Zen training in his early 20s, and has a profound spiritual home in the indigenous traditions of the Americas and wisdom traditions of Eastern Asia, including Vajrayana Buddhism. Vocationally, Samson has researched climate change and water resources as a data scientist. He is currently pursuing chaplaincy through an MDiv in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement to deepen his embodied understanding of emotional and spiritual care. Samson serves as council of Somos, offering a strong, steady presence and perspectives that are both supportive and inquisitive. He has been a steadfast pillar of the altar for many years, walking as a devoted guardian. Samson embodies the paradoxical roles as both a fatherly figure to Somos, with strong, protective, grounding, wise energy, and at the same time, carrying childlike playfulness, curiosity, and fresh wonder into the space.
MaYita Inspired Artwork
Illustrations & Digital Artwork by Sebastian Bravo, Photography by Willa Kveta, Studio Portraits by Kelvin de La Cruz, Drawing by Metta Chase, Photoshop Compilations by Willa Kveta.