About Agua y Sangre —
About The Work
I support individuals and communities in navigating the portal-like experiences of grief, fertility & TTC, and the postpartum. I offer space holding, somatic care, intuitive coaching, and herbal remedios for folks going through their “goo eras.”
I believe no one should have to go through these transitions alone.
This work is trauma informed and serves our whole selves - mind, body, and spirit. It offers the compassionate nourishment needed to help create home in our beings, honor the transitions we’re navigating, and vision our paths forward.
This work is an ode to my BIPOC fam and LGBTQIA+ sibs, hopeful, expectant, or current parents who have been historically marginalized, and all those seeking heart centered care.
I currently offer space holding through:
healing circles + wellness workshop facilitation,
plant ally readings,
custom and proprietary herbal herbal remedios,
culturally rooted plática aka peer counseling for grief and/or fertility support,
more portal & postpartum doula services *coming soon*
I specialize in:
Pregnancy after loss
Fertility support & family building planning for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and Solo parents
Relationship loss
Collective grief support
Nervous system care & resilience of spirit
Read more about our work, including common questions + what to expect:
What’s a Portal Doula?
Portal = a gateway, an entrance, a threshold. To paraphrase Arundhati Roy, portals force us “to break with the past and imagine [our] world anew.”
Doula = a companion for before, during, and/or after significant events who provides support, guidance, information, and resources. Most often for events like birth and death.
Portal Doula = a steward who provides support, guidance, space, and resources for - and along with the expertise and wisdom of - individuals and communities navigating portal-like experiences.
Change - of all kinds - acts as a sort of portal in our lives. Change can be personal, collective, “positive,” “negative,” desired, or unexpected.
Our Portal Doula offers you a nurturing, braver, and steady space to navigate these portal experiences. Helping you with understanding, honoring, and integrating the emotions, love, grief (and more) that carried you here. And supporting you as you imagine and live the life that exists beyond the threshold.
About Michelle
Agua y Sangre Healing is femme, latine, BIPOC, and queer owned! Founded by owner, Michelle Castor (she/they) with love and ancestral magic <3
Pictured: Michelle, smiling in a denim top and red lip, against a backdrop of green foliage
Hi! I’m Michelle and I’m a portal doula. I offer space holding, somatic care, intuitive coaching, and herbal remedios to help hold a gentle chrysalis for folks going through their “goo eras.”
I have my grandmothers and BIPOC and queer communities to thank for bringing me to care work. It is their love, care, and support that showed me how to love and how to hold space.
One of my favorite flowers, cempasúchil, is known as the flower that represents "la vida que nace de la muerte," the life that is born from death. And that feels like the most accurate way to describe my connection to this liminal space of portal work, to both grief and creation work.
While I have not always known their names, I have long known the heartbreak of collective grief, grief from trauma and oppression, other forms of disenfranchised grief - as well as the grief of losing loved ones. I have *also* long known the bliss of ancestral strength, embodied choices, and celebrations of life.
My wish is that we all get to grieve and create in these ways. Loved, held, nourished, fed, cared for, in community, unhurried, vulnerable, out loud, resourced, protected.
My work is rooted in mental health care, trauma sensitive somatic practices, nurturing liberated futures, herbal medicine, anti-oppressive values, and the wisdom of my ancestors and teachers. I’m currently apprenticing with Maestra Lisa Martinez and Maestro Samuel Nez as a Practitioner of Curanderismo.
This queer mixed latinx femme of color was raised by the Midwest, shaped by the Mountain West, and I’m currently bouncing back and forth between Oregon and Colorado.
I’m deeply grateful to all those that helped propel me on this path. Most especially to my grandmothers.
Se habla español: Michelle offers services in both English and Spanish.