Diwa Tierra did not begin with a business plan. It began with a feeling  the kind that stays with you long after you have left a place, that follows you into your daily life and quietly insists that something needs to change.

For founder Maries Rebucas, a Filipino surfer and yoga teacher whose relationship with the ocean has shaped everything she has built, that feeling took root in Costa Rica. Since founding Surfer Goddess Retreats in Playa Santa Teresa in 2021, leading retreats, teaching yoga, and holding space for people in some of the most beautiful natural settings in the world taught her one undeniable truth: when people are given land, time, and genuine permission to slow down, they transform. Not because of any single practice or program but because of the quality of the container they are held in.Diwa Tierra is that container, made permanent

The Vision:

  A sanctuary with a longer timeline than most businesses dare to plan for. The vision for Diwa Tierra Andalucía has been years in the making. Twenty acres of fertile land above Playa El Palmar in Cádiz Province, southern Spain chosen not for convenience, but for the quality of the land itself. The soil, the climate, the light, the proximity to one of Europe's last truly wild Atlantic coastlines. Every element of the location was deliberate.

Playa El Palmar is one of southern Spain's finest surf beaches a long, open Atlantic break that works for all levels and draws surfers from across Europe year-round. For a founder whose life has been shaped by the ocean, building a sanctuary within reach of a wave like this was never incidental. It was essential.

The sanctuary is being developed as a fully integrated eco retreat center solar powered, ecologically designed, and built around a living permaculture system that will grow more productive and more beautiful with every passing year. Ten eco rooms. An outdoor yoga shala. A natural pool. A food forest. A community kitchen. A ceremony and gathering space. Surf lessons on one of Europe's most accessible and beautiful breaks. Infrastructure that serves the land as much as it serves the people on it. This is not a fast project. It is the right one

The Roots: Two programs. One mission before Diwa Tierra Andalucía, there was Costa Rica.

Surfer Goddess Retreats was founded in 2021 in Playa Santa Teresa one of Costa Rica's most celebrated surf destinations combining surf, yoga, somatic movement, and genuine community on a coastline that draws people from across the world. In a short time it became a proven model, a beloved program, and the financial engine that makes Diwa Tierra possible.

Alongside it, the Diwa Tierra Retreat at Rancho Mastatal offers immersive experiences in regenerative living at one of Central America's most respected permaculture and sustainability education centers. Set within 300 acres of tropical forest in the mountains of Puriscal, this program is where the Diwa Tierra philosophy is lived in practice daily yoga, land stewardship, farm-to-table nourishment, and conscious community, all within a working ecological farm.

Together these two programs represent the operational foundation, the proof of concept, and the ongoing funding source for everything being built in Spain

The Philosophy:

We believe the way we care for land is the way we care for each other. Diwa Tierra is built on a set of principles that do not change regardless of location, program, or season.

That land is not a resource to be consumed but a living system to be participated in. That genuine rest and restoration require more than a comfortable bed and a good view. That community real, intentional, diverse community  is one of the most powerful forces for personal and collective change available to us. That the ocean, like the land, is a teacher and that learning to move within it, rather than against it, changes people in ways that are difficult to put into words. That the most sustainable businesses are the ones built in honest relationship with the ecosystems they inhabit.

Every retreat, every workshop, every surf lesson, and every gathering hosted at Diwa Tierra exists within this framework. We do not compromise on it. We do not scale past it. We build slowly, carefully, and with the full weight of that responsibility in mind.

The People:

Practitioners, facilitators, and a global community of aligned individuals. Diwa Tierra is not a solo project. It is being built in relationship  with facilitators who bring their expertise and their communities to the land, with investors who understand the long arc of regenerative development, with founding community members who want to be part of this from the beginning, and with the guests who will arrive, be changed by what they find here, and carry something of it home with them.

We are selective about who we work with. Not because we are exclusive, but because the integrity of what is being built here depends entirely on the quality of the people within it.

If you are reading this and something in you recognizes what Diwa Tierra is becoming we would like to hear from you.