About Marisa
Soul Midwifery, Celebrant Ceremonies & Rites of Passage, Priestess, Shamanic Practitioner, Intuitive healer.
Marisa is a qualified mental‑health nurse who was registered and practiced for 28 years, working in both community and inpatient settings. She has always had a broader interest in health care and has built an impressive toolbox of physical and emotional‑care skills, drawing on a wide range of alternative and eclectic experiences.
Her skill set includes complementary therapies, which she has been working with since the early 1990s. Marisa completed a Diploma in Anatomy, Physiology and Body Massage in 1994 and has practiced Reiki for over fifteen years, completing Reiki Level 1 in 1999 and Reiki Level 2 in 2010. She also trained in Indian head massage in 1995.
In 1997 Marisa qualified as a practitioner of Ericksonian hypnosis, psychotherapy and NLP with the British Hypnosis Research and Training Institute. Later, in March 2001, she achieved Master‑Practitioner level in the Art of Neuro‑Linguistic Programming with PPD Personal Development.
Marisa has trained with Kristoffer Hughes on his Death Midwifery course, with William Bloom on Passing Over, Creating a Graceful Death and Transfer of Consciousness, and with Felicity Warner on her Soul Midwives training. She has also attended workshops with Stephen Jenkinson, who was her initial influence when she embarked on this work. Marisa has served as a facilitator for Death Café Glastonbury.
She previously volunteered at Weston Hospice care as a companion and with Marie Curie as a helper and companion, offering emotional and practical support to adult in‑patients in their final days or hours of life at Musgrove Hospital. She also completed her funeral‑celebrancy training with the Fellowship of Professional Celebrants in 2015.
Marisa’s strong interest in the end‑of‑life cycle began when she realised that our society, on the whole, suffers from a death phobia that often leads to unsatisfactory end‑of‑life care. She wanted to counteract that by offering a service in which she can be present and honour the life journey as it ends, including acting as a celebrant in the important acts of remembrance and saying goodbye.
Marisa moved to Glastonbury in the winter of 2009, at least in part to deepen her spiritual practice within a community. A keen student of spirituality teachings from the sacred land, she follows an eclectic mix of traditions, finding nourishment in her own personal spiritual and nature‑based practices.
Marisa is a student of traditional and authentic shamanic work and healing, using teachings and techniques that go back thousands of years. She completed a two‑year apprenticeship with Annie Spencer at Hartwell, studying the medicine wheel and ceremonies in 2014 & 2015, followed by shamanic practitioner training and a three‑year program with Chris Luitticau at the Northern Drum Shamanic Centre in June 2021. She is currently studying with Chris on the Medicine Lodge Training.
