Leisha Imagine placing a single drop of your own blood on a slide and, within seconds, watching it come alive on the screen in front of you. Red blood cells drift and tumble through the plasma, white cells move about their work, platelets gather, and strands of fibrin, crystals and other formations begin to tell a story that no laboratory report has ever shown you. You are not reading numbers on a page or somebody else’s opinion of your health. You are looking at your own living terrain, moving in real time, and once you have seen it you will never think about your body in quite the same way again.
That moment is where our Live Blood Analysis Immersion begins. For one week at Living Ground in southern Ecuador, you will learn to read what you are seeing for yourself. We look at your blood at the start of the week and again at the end, and you leave with a personalised before-and-after report with full explanations and recommendations for your own terrain. In between, you eat from our gardens, learn to use food and herbs as medicine, and receive personalised spa treatments made with compost microbes and herbs chosen for your dosha.
What is the body actually doing?
I am far less interested in asking, “What disease does this person have?” than in asking, “What is the body doing, and why?” I often compare the body to a construction site. If you walked onto one without knowing what was being built, it could look like chaos, with walls coming down, materials being moved and waste being hauled away. Yet there is intelligence in all of it, because something is being repaired and rebuilt. Many of the things we call symptoms are part of that same active response, and live blood gives us a window into it. Rather than reducing everything to one isolated marker, you learn to see relationships and to ask what might be contributing to a pattern and how it fits the whole person.
From the soil to the blood
My years with the Soil Food Web have shaped how I see human health more than almost anything else. Under the microscope, soil is a living community of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, roots and minerals, all feeding and responding to one another. We are ecosystems too. The health of the soil shapes the plant, the plant becomes our food, our food feeds the microbiome, and all of it shows up in the blood. That is why this immersion happens on the land rather than in a classroom. You can study a sample in the morning and walk into the garden that afternoon to see the same ecological principle at work.
Your week at Living Ground
Part of each day is spent at the microscope. You will learn to collect and prepare a sample, use the microscope and camera, and recognise patterns such as rouleau, fibrin, plasma congestion and immune activity, along with how hydration, minerals, protein, food, herbs and ferments may influence them. The group is small, so there is plenty of time to compare samples and ask questions. Live blood analysis is a tool for observation, and it becomes far more valuable when it is combined with an understanding of the whole person.
That is why we also go deeply into food and medicinal herbs, and into how to prepare everything from broths and resistant starches to sprouts and fermented foods as medicine. We work with herbs from our gardens and apothecary, and with Ayurveda and the doshas, because there is no single diet, herb or protocol that suits everybody. The terrain belongs to the individual.
Alongside your spa treatments, massage, Bowen therapy and reflexology are also available. We have a sauna, and a yoga, meditation and library room for quiet time between sessions. We eat together at the Gratitude Café, work in the gardens and share long conversations, and people who arrive as strangers from different countries usually leave as friends. My aim is to build an international community that understands self-reliance and how nature works. For those who wish to stay longer, we are happy to help you get to know our special corner of the world.
Who this is for
You do not need a medical background or any microscope experience, only curiosity and a willingness to learn. If you simply want to understand your own body, we build from the beginning so the microscope becomes familiar rather than intimidating. If you already work in natural health, nutrition, herbalism or bodywork, we can go much further into interpretation and the relationship between patterns, history and terrain.
What participants say
“Thank you, Leisha. The course opened up an awareness of the inner world and of how nutrition, mood and environment affect our being. I hope you will continue offering your knowledge to the world, as it is invaluable.”
Kaya
“I am so appreciative of all the help, insight, learning and exploration of both retreats.”
Bob Vogel
“Leisha is a pioneering author and practical processor bringing us into a paradigm shift in understanding our absolute interface and independence with the soul of health and healing. It is all one with nature. Thank you for birthing this into existence and gifting it to the world.”
Dottie (Dorothy)
January 16–23, 2027
The next immersion runs at Living Ground in southern Ecuador from January 16 to 23, 2027, and again on the same dates in 2028. Every participant receives:
- A copy of my book Live Blood Analysis and a student manual
- A personalised before-and-after report with full explanations and recommendations
- Personalised spa treatments with compost microbes and herbs based on your dosha
- Hands-on microscope time throughout the week
The workshop is $2,000. Onsite packages include accommodation and all meals at the Gratitude Café, and we cater for vegan, vegetarian, meat-eating and gluten-free diets.
Elizabeth Wysen’s retreat on spiritual and emotional healing runs here just before the immersion, with a rest day in between. For more information, visit twelvedimensionalpath.com/retreats.
A $500 deposit reserves your place and goes toward your total. Apply at livingground.art/application or message me on WhatsApp with any questions.
Living in Ecuador?
Ecuadorian citizens and residents receive a local rate. The immersion is taught in English, so please make sure you are comfortable in an English-language workshop, and message me on WhatsApp for the resident price.
