The Creative Medicine Path

05/07/2026

✨ New Workshop Announcement ✨

Clay Altars & Cone Incense Workshop
Sunday, June 28, 2026
10am – 5pm
Sliding Scale : $135-$165
Private Residence in Midtown Tucson, AZ

Join us for a day of intentional making, ritual, and creative reflection as we gather in community to handbuild personal clay altars and craft natural herbal cone incense.

This workshop is an invitation to slow down, find creative flow, and explore meaningful connection through clay, fire, herbs, and shared space. Whether honoring a transition, creating a space for reflection, or simply longing to unplug and make alongside other women, this day is designed to nourish both creativity and spirit.

This intimate workshop is open to 10 women. All supplies provided. No experience necessary.

✺ Learn hand building and embellishment techniques
✺ Craft your own herbal incense blend
✺ Slow day and play
✺ Share nourishment with a Potluck-style lunch
✺ Fired altar piece included

Hosted by Melissa Schwindenhammer & Amanda Ma of The Creative Medicine Path

Registration now open! Link in bio!

03/27/2026

✨ FREE TICKET GIVEAWAY ✨
Are you craving a night of music, magic, and expression?

Win a free ticket to see Yaima at La Rosa in Tucson this Sunday at 7pm.

We’re especially proud to have Sonoran Soulfire’s very own Venus DelMar opening the evening alongside as Vachu Adu.

Come bask in their dreamy soundscape, take in the temple-like beauty of the historic La Rosa, and dance with yours truly.

To enter:
Follow + +
Like this post
Comment your favorite Yaima song

Entries close Saturday at 5pm
Winner will be contacted Sunday at 8am

03/18/2026

So grateful to have gathered with 23 women for another Medicine Doll Ceremony & Workshop.

Held over the Total Lunar Eclipse Blood Moon, this threshold invited us to release perfectionism and soften into a more authentic way of being, where vulnerability could be met with community and care.

Each woman showed up humbly and tapped into the medicine that was ready to meet them.

I am honored to carry this work and gently shepherd practices that help reignite and reminder others of the inherent creativity we all carry. To witness this awakening and transformation in others is so healing and inspiring.

I’ll be offering this practice during the Moon Session at the this summer in Cave Junction, OR, and again at the Restoration Room in July.

What message is your medicine doll waiting to share with you?

02/27/2026

Registration now full! ✨

I’m so grateful to be holding another Medicine Doll Ceremony during this weekend’s threshold into the Total Lunar Eclipse Blood Moon, a time for honoring our creative nature and what wants to take form through us.

When I use the term “medicine,” I’m not referring to anything clinical or prescriptive. I’m using the word in a symbolic and human sense, to point to the qualities that help us return to ourselves and to what matters. Things like presence, courage, tenderness, steadiness, or the ability to listen more honestly.

In many traditions, “medicine” simply means what brings us back into balance or right relationship with our own lives. And even simiplier, it can be anything that brings you joy, peace, or relief.

A Medicine Doll is not a charm or a promise of healing. It’s a handmade companion that carries story, intention, and memory. Through the process of making, people often discover something they are ready to remember, tend, or strengthen in themselves. The doll becomes a physical reminder of that inner work. Something you can see, hold, and return to.

Everyone carries their own unique medicine (informed by their history, past experiences, wisdom), qualities and gifts that are needed in their own life, and often in their communities too. This creative practice is about listening, shaping, and giving form to what is already trying to emerge within us.

Thank you to for having us for another special journey 🧡🙏

02/24/2026

So much gratitude to our title sponsor Sprouts Farmer’s Market for their generous contribution to the Devour Culinary Classic (). I am deeply honored to have brought my intentional art practice into this beautiful celebration of the state’s culinary excellence at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Using grains and foods from , I created this 4 ft mandala to honor the cycles of growth, seasonality, and nourishment. Pumpkin seeds, popcorn kernels, and coffee beans form the sprouts. The radial pattern of lentils, blood orange, and pineapple slices symbolizes the sun and blossoms. While the outer face of naval oranges, lentils, and lima beans mirrors a clock face, and represents the rhythm of time and cyclical nature of the seasons. The piece took over 19 hours to create, not including the resin pouring, curing, and final detailing on site.

During the festival, I also hosted a mindfulness art experience, inviting guests to pause and play to create their own mini mandalas. Guests were gently encouraged to hold the intention of where our food comes from, how it sustains us, and hold gratitude for the earth’s abundance. This activity wasn’t about the final product, but about the process. It was a hit!

Thank you for supporting this project and allowing me to weave sacred arts into this staple culinary celebration. Thank you for your continued partnership and vision. And endless appreciation to the incredible team for making production feel so seamless for artists, vendors, and guests alike.

02/16/2026

❤️‍🔥 Sonoran Soulfire Retreat 2026 ❤️‍🔥

Words cannot express the magic and nourishment of our time together in the sacred womb of Aravaipa Canyon. We were surrounded by so much beauty and stepped into the great mystery with our hearts wide open. Our descent inward was carried by trust, presence, and communal sisterhood, and we rose renewed, softened, inspired, and joyous. Together, we touched something ancient, raw, and powerful that lives within each of us.

Our work was called to honor water as much as flame. In the rains that welcomed us and the creek moving with its own fierce song, we were reminded that transformation does not only come through heat, but through flow. Our days followed that rhythm, making space for ceremony to breathe and for each voice to rise when it was ready.

Women’s work asks for honesty and true support between women. Thank you so much to those special sisters who answered the call of the Soulfire.

This offering came from my full heart. A women’s retreat had been brewing in me for years, and it took honest shadow work, courage, resource, and a leap of faith to trust that what I have to offer has value, lasting impact, and is needed in the world.

Endless gratitude to my beautiful sisters Ashley, Casey, Melissa, Spirit, Vanessa, and Venus. To Donnalee for feeding us the most delicious, healing Ayurvedic meals. To our outstanding photographers .club, , . All the hands that helped to support last minute. And to the women who said yes and showed up so fully. I bow to you all. You are medicine.

The fire altar burns brightly as we step into the Year of the Fire Horse. May we continue to tend the flame within, so we may carry our light forward into the world. ❤️‍🔥🙏👯‍♀️🌺🌊🌀🐎🎉✨

01/23/2026

✨ Medicine Doll Ceremony and Workshop ✨

Registration is now open for my next Medicine Doll Ceremony on Sunday, March 1, 2026 from 10am to 5pm at .

This is a full day workshop for women to enter into sacred relationship with the art of doll making as ritual. Through guided, intuitive, hands on practice, you will craft a personalized Medicine Doll using the ancient technique of needle felting with wool, cloth, and natural adornments. Each doll becomes a vessel of story, intention, and ancestral connection, shaped slowly through presence and care.

No experience is necessary and all materials are provided. This gathering is open to 20 women.

Our gathering coincides with the total lunar eclipse, a symbolic time of release and renewal, making our day together a powerful threshold for our dolls to emerge.

The workshop is offered at a reduced rate of $85, supported in part by the 2025 StART Grant from the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona.

A limited number of need based scholarships are available, including support reserved for BIPOC participants, LGBTQIA+ participants, and wise elders 65+ on a fixed income. These are intended for those who would not otherwise be able to attend.

More details and registration through the link in my bio!

01/07/2026

✨ SOLD OUT ✨

I’m beyond grateful to share that the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat is full.

Today, twenty-four women step into the wild embrace of Aravaipa Canyon.

Each one said yes in her own way.
Yes to making space.
Yes to showing up for herself.
Yes to slowing down in a world that rarely invites it.
Yes to creativity, reflection, and being held in community as we cross into a new year together.

What we’re stepping into is ancient and alive. Each woman brings her own medicine, lived experience, culture, and wisdom into the constellation we’re forming.

May we all receive the nourishment our minds, bodies, and spirits need to keep our inner fire burning bright.

Thank you to each woman who felt the call and answered it. We’ll see you on the other side.

Ritual WomensCeremony WomenSupportingWomen Art Wellness Retreats Yoga Sedona RitualArts Creativity

01/05/2026

01/05/2026

We are thrilled to welcome Jess (.club) as one of our retreat photographers for Sonoran Soulfire! ✨

Jess is a mother, photographer, and a community builder devoted to supporting women & families throughout all seasons of life. Her work is rooted in nourishment, warmth, and the belief that every person deserves to feel beautiful, seen, accepted, and radiant exactly as they are.

Through her photography, Jess aims to capture moments without performance or pressure. Her lens is guided by reverence rather than perfection. She aims to encourage women to relish in all the portals of transformation found in life, honoring each season with compassion and acceptance.

With over 1,400 hours of formal yoga education gathered across India, Australia, Cambodia, and the United States, including her first training in Rishikesh, India, all of her work is grounded in intuition, attunement, and care. While she will not be teaching yoga on retreat, this foundation shapes the way she sees, listens, and holds space through her photography.

Jess also reads tarot, which she loves to use as a reflective and intuitive tool for insight, storytelling, and self inquiry. She approaches tarot as an invitation to listen inward, name what is present, and reconnect with the inner wisdom that lives within each of us.

At the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat, Jess (who will be 33 weeks pregnant!) will be thoughtfully documenting the experience so the magic, connection, and transformation can live on long after the retreat ends. Her presence is intentional and supportive, allowing participants to fully inhabit the moment while she quietly captures it. ❤️✨

Thank you, Jess!

01/03/2026

Starting 2026 with new growth and opportunity ✨

I’m honored to be teaching at this year’s 13th Annual Spirit Weavers Gathering, a five-day ancestral craft and ceremony gathering for 800 women held on the sacred Cedar Bloom Farm in Cave Junction, Oregon.

I was fortunate to attend in 2024 and truly felt what it means to live inside a village shaped by reverence, wisdom, song, and shared care. I left deeply inspired, with a clear knowing that my own humble offering, the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat, is needed in the world and that I am resourced to shepherd it.

I’ll be offering Needle-Felted Medicine Dolls as a two-part skillshare during the Moon Session, June 18–22, held at an accessible community scale of $40–$50. Registration for the gathering opens January 17 (my birthday!) and is available on a sliding scale of $525–$775 for camping, with two meals provided each day. If you’re a woman feeling called to a space like this, I’m always happy to share about my experience.

I’ll be spending some time in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California this summer, and if the stars align, possibly Canada, South America, and Europe.

May opportunities and connections like this continue to unfold in the year ahead. 🙏