ISTA Luxury Level 1 Guatemala / Araminta Barbour, Federica Clemente & Nimai SunRa

In 2025, The International School of Temple Arts will be hosting its transformative Level 1 Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Experience residential retreat at one of the world’s most majestic destinations: Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.

From February 9th through 15th, ISTA Guatemala level 1 will take place at our luxurious and eco-friendly resort, located on the shores of the lake, surrounded by three breathtaking volcanoes.
This magical location, combined with a dynamic team of facilitators: Araminta Barbour, Nimai SunRa and Federica Clemente, it promises to deliver a powerful and life-changing experience for those that are ready to step into their power.

Guatemala is a jewel in Central America – unknown to most – and we welcome the chance to support your exploration of this beautiful land and its rich culture while journeying deeply on the spiritual, sexual, shamanic path. ISTA has been holding trainings annually in Guatemala since 2012, honored to be partnering with our world-class luxury retreat on the shores of stunning Lake Atitlán. Our venue is one of the most luscious and breath taking retreat centers ISTA hosts trainings at, and the longest-standing ISTA venue. We’re honored to be welcomed in this ancestral Mayan place of power. Lake Atitlán is surrounded by three striking volcanoes and over 1,000 feet deep; this magnificent lake’s beauty is encapsulated in the meaning of the Mayan word Atitlán: “the place where the rainbow gets its colors.”

ABOUT THE VENUE
Our venue offers one of the most luxurious hospitality experiences available in Guatemala, and is the perfect spot for engaging in this life-changing work in a comfortable, magical and natural setting. The solar hot tub is available for you to soak and relax, as well as optional bodywork and astrology sessions. The restaurant offers a splendid view of the lake, and a blend of local and international vegetarian cuisine. All food is carefully prepared and almost entirely locally sourced. The center operates in a sustainable, ecologically and socially engaged way.

ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
As humans, our deepest desire is for connection, but when our connection to ourselves is not optimal we can get stuck in repetitive relationship patterns or accepting and tolerating relationships that don’t serve us. Continually living with these kinds of patterns can cause us to feel lost, afraid or out of control.
The 7-day ISTA (Sexual Shamanic Spiritual Experience) Level 1 has been offered to thousands of people across five continents from more than fifteen years. In a safe environment with other people looking to take back control of their lives, graduates from these week-long experiences uncover and heal deep core wounds and reactive patterns. They leave feeling empowered, healed and courageous to take control of their lives and relationships.

The 7-day level 1 SSSEx residential experience gives you a space to clear your physical, emotional and mental bodies of shame, guilt and fear. We use guided visualisations, emotional release, energy tracking, conscious touch and ceremony to open a doorway into a deeper a knowing of the Self as whole and complete.

Do you feel like something in your life needs to shift?
Does it feel like you’re not accessing your full power?
Does your current relationship feel like it needs a reboot?
Do you keep attracting the same type of people into your life?
Unable to keep the relationships that you really want?

Araminta Barbour (Lead Facilitator)

Araminta is an international speaker, group facilitator, and 1-1 guide specializing in empowerment, relationships and sexuality, transformational healing, soul initiation, and the esoteric mysteries. Lead Faculty with ISTA (the International School of Temple Arts) with whom she has collaborated since 2011, Araminta is the founder of The Sanctuary Guatemala, creator of The Resilience Journey, and co-creator of the Women Who See In The Dark project.

Weaving together an academic background in History, Ecology, and Theravada Buddhism (BA Hons & MA), over a decade spent in the international development NGO world (reproductive health focus) with 25+ years traveling, studying, and practicing a wide range of alternative healing modalities, and philosophical/ esoteric traditions, Araminta’s work can be encapsulated in the phrase “spiritual sexual shamanism” – an attempt to address the fullness of our human gifts and capacities. In 2005, Araminta’s heart settled in Guatemala’s Lake Atitlan – her home base for continued event facilitation around the world.

Araminta’s life path has been shaped from the learnings brought from death, grief, travel, and the deep questioning of collective beliefs. She supports clients to transform painful experiences into power, heal from parental and relationship wounding, step-free from sexual or emotional abuse, and navigate the psychological hurdles to self-acceptance, self-belief, and self-love. Her deeper focus is awakening to expansive levels of Self untangled from collective consciousness.

Araminta utilizes skills from Meditation, Non-dual Spirituality, Shamanism, Sacred Sexuality, Tantra, Breathwork, Yoga, Bodywork, Shadow Integration, Emotional Release, and Initiatory rituals. Her teachings aim to bring together the tools and maps that reactivate our full human capacities. Araminta’s core passion is the process of radical self-acceptance – the inner marriage of love with power. She is here to support humanity’s evolution as liberated, heart-centered creators.

Nimai SunRa (Co-Facilitator)

Nimai SunRa is a peace walker, A server of the great mother. A part of a global community of peace seekers through the act of love. Nimai is facilitating and leading different inner journeys around the world. Navigating and bridging between the worlds of modern and ancient Shamanism and the worlds of communication and tantric journeys.

Driven by a desire to create a paradigm shift across the world, Nimai’s focus is to live and to learn the ways to truly be in unconditional love. He believes that when we are able to change the story we live in and go out of our inner maze releasing the fear of pain in love, we are truly able to live life free and in our full expression. changing the old story into something new. Coming back home.

Nimai has spent the past years living between India, South & Central America, Israel and Portugal, studying with many teachers, masters and shamans around the world. He has explored the topics of tantra, sexuality, relationships, free-love and global peace within the inspirational global peace community Tamera. He has also studied under the guidance of Gaia Ma, (co-founder of “Inanitah community” and the Tantric Way Series) and is a faculty member for ISTA – international school of temple arts.

Currently Nimai is in the process of building a new community-tribe that moves with a global vision of love. The center of this community will provide a safe and open space for people to go through their healing and transformation processes. He is a facilitator of men’s circles and retreat journeys around the topics of love, gender issues and roles in society. He also offers couples guidance as invitations for more people to step onto the path of love. The path of life living in deep resonance to our core desires, honoring and loving all living beings.
Nimai is the creator of the Re/MEN/ber journey with Frank Mondeose – a 5 days men journey into the inner mystery of our path.

Federica Clemente (Co-Facilitator)

I’m a creative soul, a free spirit, a mother and a passionate human being. I’m an alchemist, born to transform, heal and shape a new paradigm of reality that is anchored in consciousness and truth. I’m here to raise group consciousness for the heart of the planet.

I have devoted my life to Self-awakening. I’m a human being who created myself by transforming my pain into power, and adversity into strength. I’m a spiritual alchemist who understands the value of facing shadows and transmuting them into light. I journeyed down to the core of the devil and dark matter to illuminate the unseen realms, and to support the awakening of the soul to manifest love and healing.

I incarnate the spirit of a warrior, an ancient priestess, a joyful child, and a wild feminine fire goddess.
My wisdom comes from scratch, from true experience, and from my resilient nature. I’m a free spirit committed to honoring the gift of life, and to supporting people to awaken and vibrate in happiness.
I am a Yoga Alliance certified instructor, certified biodynamic craniosacral therapist, shamanic healer, massage therapist, and certified Gestalt counselor. I have been practicing and studying Mysore Ashtanga, Iyengar and other forms of yoga since 2002. I began practicing vipassana meditation in 2004, and use it as a very important tool to help others gain mindfulness.

The beauty in my approach is rooted in the variety and knowledge that I have gained through my self-development journey. I have studied conscious movement, 5 rhythms dance, dance therapy and bioenergetics. With all my experience, I have developed my own approach to body-mind-heart medicine, and body soul movement. And recently, I began to study and incorporate sacred sexuality and tantra into some of my work, especially with women. I have been working with women on self-development and successful transition through different life phases since 2009.

I carry in my heart the vision of a humanity awakened and liberated from suffering.
I stand and trust the inner infinite source of self-healing in each of us and in the core of our planet.
I hold space for the unfolding of your own truth and the manifestation of your unique power and soul purpose.
We create together a safe, secret space where we can rise – despite all false sense of separation – to honor the gift of being alive.