Are taking your first steps into birth work.
Online Immersion · Four Months · ~18 Classes
Guardians of Birth
the Art of Birth Care
A four-month transformative immersion for birth workers and women — to embody guardianship, awaken ancestral wisdom, reconnect with original birth arts, and reweave relational, elemental birth care.
Guardians of Birth Is
A non-clinical immersion for those who recognize that our collective health and power rely on the reclamation of our birthrights and creativity.
For those who want to empower women and families through their gestational and birth initiations. It will provide information, practices, resources, and inspiration to make you a resource to your community — and it will require you to face your own programming, activate your investigative sovereignty, and commit to your personal evolution.
Who This Is For
This space is for you if you…
Already serve as a doula, midwife, or birthworker and seek deeper coherence.
Feel called to hold this knowledge and wisdom for your family or community.
Recognize birth as a site of initiation, responsibility, and intergenerational impact.
In Guardians of Birth, You Will
What you'll cultivate
- Develop trust in your perception, intuition, and clinical discernment.
- Understand physiology, gestation, and birth as living, relational processes — not just checklists or protocols.
- Learn to orient yourself calmly within complexity, uncertainty, and intensity.
- Activate the practice of birth care as an art form — rooted in listening, presence, and skilled response.
- Cultivate the capacity to self-direct gestational-birth care, and to accompany others in doing the same — without coercion or fear.
The Arc of Study
Seven movements of formation
Foundations of Cyclical Life & Conscious Conception
Embodied fluency with human physiology — the hormonal matrix of preconception, gestation, and birth, and cyclical intelligence as the foundation of reproductive decision-making.
Prenatal Care — Ancestral, Elemental & Holistic
Tend pregnancy as a relational, ecological process: health histories and lineage mapping, common discomforts without pathologizing, nature as mirror.
Physiology, Energetics & Consciousness of Birth
The phases of labor, the cervix as a living responsive space, induction's benefits and pitfalls, and the shifting states of consciousness of birth.
Intuitive & Somatic Technologies
Sound, breath, and movement as supportive technologies; awakening the intelligence of the hands; original birth arts for personal and community care.
Systems, Immunity & Sustenance
The nervous, lymphatic, endocrine, and endocannabinoid systems; sacred lactation and innate immunizations; honoring placenta birth.
Ritual, Grief & Inner Work
Ancestral rituals for inner work; navigating grief with integrity; holding pregnancy release and loss without bypassing body or spirit.
Integrity, Responsibility & Reclamation
Accompany others without collapsing into authority or abandoning yourself — self-reflection, dispelling medicalized narratives, reclaiming birth as sovereignty.
This Formation Offers
A woven container
~18Core Classes
~4Integration Sessions
6Ceremonies & Rituals
2Arte-Sana Workshops
2Food Ways Classes
1Grief Arts Class
Arte-Sana (art heals) workshops in clay and fiber, food ways and prayerful cooking, movement for gestational discomforts, a grief arts class, and a collective Earth Offering ceremony — taught with a circle of guest guardians.
From the Circle
What the guardians say
"The Guardians of Birth immersion was pure medicine. As a practicing midwife… Aya Maria's gentle guidance prompted the self-reflection needed to better understand myself as a midwife. I now have life-long tools and practices for healthy, aligned relationships with myself and my clients."
Janell Moore, CPM, LM"I remain amazed at the depth of knowledge and applied wisdom woven into this curriculum… This is more than a knowledge-based course — it's an immersion into our inner world, a living memory of who we are and why we're here."
Wasi Rivera · @wasiflora"…beyond a birth training, it's a step closer to liberation…"
Blaine · @sanasanawellness"…a transformational experience that empowered me to self-direct my birth & pregnancy & facilitated much-needed healing for my partner and I."
Alisa Gonzales · @terrabonitabndita"…opened the path for me to connect to my origins & return to my practice in greater vitality."
Jillian Murphy, LMT, IBCLC"…Guardians of Birth has brought spirit and balance back to my life as I move through my clinical midwifery program…"
Anaya Wilson, LMTWhat to Expect
Study, ritual, embodied practice, community
- ~18 Core Classes — approximately 2–3 hours each, live and recorded.
- 6 Rituals — Conception, Elemental Guardian, Lineage, Nesting, Earthside / Placenta, and Sealing.
- ~4 Live Integration Sessions — reflection and communal integration of the work.
- Arte-Sana Workshops — clay with AYASHAM, fiber/textile with Senna.
- Food Ways — ancestral nourishment and prayerful cooking with Monica and Catherine.
- Movement & Grief Arts — somatic tools for gestational discomfort with Kia; honoring pregnancy release with Tamate Uta.
- Earth Offering Ceremony — a collective ritual of reciprocity and ancestral remembrance.
Session by Session
The complete curriculum
Twenty sessions, met live on Mondays and Thursdays.
Opening Ceremony
Introductions & orientation · Conscious Conception ritual — a despacho earth offering.
Origen, Pt. 1 & 2
Reclaiming our origin stories · womb-complex anatomy & physiology · elemental fertility awareness & cycle mapping · anatomy & physiology of menstruation, conception & implantation · the placenta.
History & Anthropology of Birth Guardians
The evolution of parteras, midwives & OBGYNs · discerning your authentic way of care-giving and who you're meant to serve · interweaving ancestral & allopathic models · visioning pathways.
Sacred Systems, Pt. 1–4
Anatomy, physiology & energetics of the nervous, lymphatic, endocannabinoid, and endocrine systems and their roles across preconception, gestation & birth · the father/partner matrix · foundational neurobiology of pregnancy.
Lineage Mapping + Health History
The Seed to Body lineage-mapping & devotional-observation modality for practitioners, providers, and family units.
Elemental Gestation, Pt. 1–3
Anatomical, physiologic & spiritual development across trimesters · tending common discomforts · benefits & pitfalls of medical protocols and diagnostic testing · palpation, pulse, breath & fluids · culture and law around birth · due dates and inductions.
Elemental Childbirth, Pt. 1–3
Anatomy, physiology & energetics of labor · brain waves & expanded states · inductions (clinical, phyto-therapeutic, ancestral-elemental) · babies as active participants · childbirth as psycho-spiritual initiation · intrapartum assessment, maternal & baby vitals · true informed consent.
Honoring Placenta Birth
Physiology & energetics of natural placenta birth · dispelling the collective fear of the third stage · discerning projection from emergency · blood essence as sacred offering · placenta curing & seeding.
Golden Hour + Sacred Grief, Pt. 1 & 2
The hormonal matrix of the golden hour · lactation & innate immunizations · immediate postpartum infant & womb care · physiology of miscarriage and pregnancy release · initiation into matrescence and fatherhood.
Praxis in Coherence + the Art of Sealing
Birth-guarding as infinite, non-linear tending · group Q&A and integration · presentation of initiatives · closing Sealing ceremony.
Your Guide
I am Aya — Maria Jose Maldonado Leon, CPM, TAMP
A Certified Professional Midwife and elemental fertility educator who weaves ancestral midwifery, plant medicine, and the clinical physiology of birth into a single living practice.
I do not certify anyone's knowing. I support your development for the benefit of the collective — your validation comes through the impact you have on those you serve.
Guardians is held with a circle of guest guardians — AYASHAM, Senna, Tamate Uta, Monica, Catherine, and Kia — each carrying clay, fiber, foodways, grief arts, and movement.
Reflections
Birth has been absorbed by the medical industrial complex. We are reclaiming it.
Guardians of Birth integrates ancestral wisdom with modern science to meet the genuine maternal-infant needs of our times — honoring all tools and knowledge to the level of an art form. To truly reclaim birth, we must assume our rightful place as the ultimate authority over our own reproductive health, so we can inspire that in others.
Questions
Before you join
Is this a doula or midwifery certification?
What if I can't make the live classes?
What do you mean by ritual?
Do you offer scholarships?
Certification benefits
Refund policy & materials
Enrollment Between Circles
Join the waitlist
Guardians runs in cohorts, with scholarships and payment plans offered each round. Leave your name and I'll write to you when the next gathering opens — before it's offered anywhere else.
