Coherence Guide | Artist | Cultural Creative
www.obatalia.com
1. What are you building, and what inspired you to begin?
I build worlds with energetically sound intention filled structure.
When I first arrived in Playa del Carmen, I created a community resource that gained traction and was later taken and circulated without credit. It was intellectual property theft. That experience clarified my commitment to authorship and visibility and taught me to keep my hands clean when it comes to IP, attribution, and collaboration.
I treat ideas like living missions. If they are going to exist in the physical realm, they deserve this good nutritious structure.
Collaborative Video Made in Playa with Featured Founder Dayana Chege
2. You wear many hats. How do they all connect?
Through inspired organization. I treat my interests as expressions of the same core practice: guiding people into embodied transformation and creative presence. I’m a dancer and movement minister, a sound and meditation artist, a teacher of rites of passage and esoteric wisdom, a lifestyle and ritual innovator, a community builder, a scholar and justice advocate, and a curator of creative media.
All of these roles connect because the work in one space flows into the others: my performances inspire meditations and teachings; my courses feed into community initiatives; my creative projects inform rituals and retreats. Together, they form a single ecosystem where people can learn, experience, and transform through multiple gateways.
3. What is your relationship to Playa del Carmen?
Playa has been a lover, a teacher, and friend to me. I came here grieving and seeking the salty air and soothing waves to rock me gently through several complex and often overwhelming emotions.
My relationship garden began to bloom and my grief looked different. I started saying yes to things that terrified me. The heat, walking and biking everywhere, the quiet cooling calm of cenotes all drew me closer like one of those firm hugs that you can fall into and feel held.
Image By Polly Dawson Photography Shot In Puerto Aventuras
4. What moment required the most courage in your journey so far?
Still choosing to live in Playa Del Carmen after a horrific experience in immigration hold/prison. It was sad and eye opening. I still am working on the language to express how it changed me. Softened and hardened me at the same damn time.
Image Curated By Polly Dawson, Shot In Playacar
5. How does your work reflect your philosophy?
My work is the embodiment of my philosophy: that transformation arises when mind, body, and soul align with care and tenderness.
Through movement, music, ritual, teaching, and creative expression, I create multiple portals for my community members to engage, learn, and evolve. Each offering — from courses and retreats to community projects and creative media — is interconnected, flowing from the same core practice, honoring natural cycles and the unique path of each individual.
In this way, my life and work are not separate from my philosophy; they are its living expression
Image Curated By Featured Founder, Viktoriya of Lumina Soul
6. What does collective progress mean to you?
Collective progress looks like not turning away from the horrors of what is happening and being outraged enough to do something about it. For years, many of the present day issues have been existing insidiously in the base of the collective spine like a parasite.
Progression looks like multi disciplined multi dimensional detoxification and holistic habit replacement sprinkled with pattern recognition; so that we we never have to repeat the same lessons over and over.
Image By Polly Dawson Featuring Founder’s, Majida & Mimi
7. What is unfolding next for you?
Eureka, miracles, and getting into an intimate comprehension of the Mayan and Spanish language.