After months of working in the high-pressure world of climate policy, Renée Leduc arrived at Mahai carrying more stress than she realized. In this Voices of Mahai interview, she shares how the rhythm of the sea, nourishing community, and quiet evenings under the stars helped her rediscover deep rest.

Create a simple natural glow scrub with coffee and honey, inspired by Mahai’s Wild Apothecary workshops and our approach to clean, earth-conscious self-care.

In this edition of Voices of Mahai, Karena reflects on quiet mornings, self care, boundaries, loneliness, and the practices that help her return to herself. From sunrise rituals and prayer to learning how to care for herself without closing her heart, this conversation is a gentle reminder that healing rarely looks the way we expect it to.

At Mahai, one of our favorite recipes begins with the coconuts growing outside our kitchen. After guests finish drinking fresh coconut water, the soft young coconut meat is transformed into a bright Caribbean-style ceviche with lime, cilantro, tomato, and herbs. Over time, each of our chefs has created their own variations — from mango and avocado to caramelized onions — turning a simple recipe into one of the most loved dishes we serve by the sea.

In Gabylu’s Wild Apothecary workshops, guests gather near the sea to create herbal remedies, botanical body care, and simple wellness tools by hand. More than a workshop, it is an invitation to slow down, reconnect with nature, and remember that care and healing can often begin with the simplest ingredients and rituals.

After a few summers of sargasso overwhelm, I began to focus on protecting our beachfront. That eventually led to sewing giant experimental barriers and learning through repeated failures, repairs, and redesigns. What began as a practical experiment slowly became something deeper: a lesson in adaptation, persistence, and living in conversation with a changing coastline.

What began as an attempt to protect our beach from erosion slowly changed the way I saw sargasso entirely. By layering seaweed behind rocks and covering it with sand, we watched dunes begin to form and plants take root where bare shoreline once existed. Over time, the coastline itself seemed to start adapting — reminding me that in nature, even the things we first experience as destruction can sometimes become the foundation for renewal.

At first, I saw sargasso as whimsical washing onto Caribbean shorelines. But over time, living with it began changing the way I understood the ocean itself. Tangled in the floating seaweed were plastics, debris, and signs of larger environmental imbalance. I began wondering whether the sargasso was not simply invading the coastline, but responding to the condition of the waters it moves through.

Living off-grid at Mahai has changed the way we think about waste, water, and our relationship with the natural world. Without municipal infrastructure, we’ve had to build systems that work with the environment rather than simply pushing consequences out of sight. Over time, our humedales became more than infrastructure — they became a reminder that in nature, nothing truly disappears.

At Mahai, living off-grid was not originally a philosophical choice — it was a necessity. With no electrical or municipal water infrastructure reaching our stretch of coastline, we built the property around solar energy, rainwater collection, and ecological wastewater systems. Over time, what began as necessity became something deeper: a different relationship with the natural rhythms and resources that sustain daily life.

What I eventually realized was that I was never truly searching for another festival property. I was searching for a different relationship with healing, community, and life itself. After years of crowds, production, and constant movement, I found myself longing for something smaller, quieter, and more human — a place where healing could happen through shared meals, honest conversations, time in nature, and the simple act of finally being able to exhale.

On my final night before leaving Mexico, I found a listing for a property in a tiny town near the Belize border called Mahahual. When we arrived, it looked almost abandoned — collapsing palapas, bats, snakes, and massive termite nests. Everyone assumed we would walk away. But beneath the decay, I felt something completely different. For the first time in years, something inside me became very still.

After letting go of the vision of building another festival space, I found myself searching for something entirely different. I drove from Virginia down through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida looking at properties on rivers, lakes, and coastlines, knowing only one thing for certain: whatever came next needed to be near the water. Eventually, that search — and a warning from my brother that “Mexico is not for the weak of heart” — led me to board a plane to the Yucatán pen

In the strange silence of the early COVID years, I traveled up and down the east coast wandering through abandoned summer camps and empty retreat centers, imagining what they might become. But as painful truths emerged within the Kundalini Yoga community, the future I thought I was rebuilding began to dissolve once again. What followed was a deeper reckoning — one that ultimately led me away from large gatherings and toward a search for something smaller, quieter, and more hu

We imagined our farm in New Hampshire becoming a home for healing, education, music, retreats, and community — a place where people could gather, stay on the land, and reconnect with themselves and each other. But when local regulations made that vision impossible, we were forced to let go of a dream we had spent years building. What followed was grief, uncertainty, and ultimately the beginning of a search that would lead us somewhere entirely unexpected.