About Us
“While many spend time arguing on protocol and tradition, members of our community are dying. Please forgive me and our center’s practitioners as we excuse ourselves from the discussion and opt to walk in service of our community. We answer to spirit and our ancestors, only.”
Ninay Akua Two Hawk Maat, Center Coordinator & Practitioner
Our rituals and practices are inspired by the Babaylan women of the Philippines and are rooted in the medicine of our ancient African maroon and Indigenous ancestors. We walk in profound respect and work to uphold these ancient traditions while working to adapt them to the current times and needs of our community. We are firm believers in de-colonizing our traditions and take an immovable stance against any ritual, custom or practice that was learned through our experience from our enslavement and/or colonization.
Our Story
Our center sits on an active geothermic aquifer. Our foundation is primarily water therefore all of our services, rituals and practices command the integration and incorporation of water in one of its various forms. We use water infused with plant medicine to open portals in order to access ancient ancestral wisdom with the intention to awaken the divinity within.
Meet The Team
Akua Two Hawk Maat
Founder • Clinical Hypnotherapist • Certified Medical Massage Practitioner
Certified Massage Therapist — CAMTC #57526
Medically Trained • Ancestrally Rooted • Spiritually Grounded
Akua Two Hawk Maat is a founding member of Nana’s African Maroon Spiritual Science & Wellness Center, where her work exists at the intersection of medical massage, traditional medicine, spirituality, hypnosis and ancestral healing practices.
An African Maroon descendant and member of the Mvskoke (Muscogee) Creek Nation, Akua’s approach is deeply influenced by her Afro-Native and Filipino ancestral lineages. Her connection to Filipino traditional healing was inspired in part by her Filipino great-grandmother and the legacy of the Babaylan, the traditional spiritual and healing practitioners of the Philippines.
Akua received certification through the Hilot Academy of Binabaylan as a Magtatawas, Pangutanahan, Paganituhan and Pangatauhan practitioner. These traditions inform her approach to Hilot-inspired bodywork, intuitive observation, spiritually intentional touch and care for the whole person.
Her traditional medicine studies extend beyond the Philippines. Akua is an Ifa practitioner and has received training in Akan traditional medicine. Through travel, study and collaboration, she has exchanged knowledge with Afro-Indigenous spiritual practitioners from a variety of traditional healing systems. These experiences have shaped a philosophy that views the individual as an interconnected being of body, mind and spirit, existing within family, community, ancestry, nature and the greater whole.
Medical & Cancer Massage
Alongside her traditional training, Akua has developed an extensive foundation in therapeutic and medically informed bodywork.
She is a Certified Medical Massage Practitioner and a member of the Society for Oncology Massage, with specialized training in massage for people living with cancer and other medically complex conditions.
Her education includes Oncology Massage, Acupressure, Foot Reflexology, Craniosacral Therapy, Aromatherapy, Polarity Therapy, Swedish Massage, Hot and Cold Stone Massage, Therapeutic Touch and additional therapeutic bodywork modalities.
Her specialized cancer massage training helps her consider when adaptations may be needed in positioning, pressure, pace or areas of touch because of surgery, radiation, medication side effects, medical devices, compromised lymph nodes, changes in blood counts and other individual considerations.
This allows Akua to provide appropriately modified massage for people undergoing cancer treatment, living beyond treatment and receiving end-of-life care. Her experience has included providing massage to individuals while they were receiving chemotherapy in infusion-center settings.
Her philosophy is simple:
Medical knowledge guides my safety.
Ancestral wisdom guides my hands.
Spirit guides my intention.
Clinical Hypnosis & Trance Work
As a Master Clinical Hypnotherapist, Akua incorporates hypnosis and trance work into her mind-body-spirit practice.
Her training includes Past Life Regression, Soul Fragmentation and Soul Retrieval work, and hypnosis approaches addressing fears and phobias.
Rather than separating emotional, physical and spiritual experience, her work invites clients to explore the ways memory, stress, belief, emotion and lived experience may be carried within their relationship with the body.
Water, Heat & Traditional Healing
Water is central to Akua’s work.
She approaches water as both a physical element and a sacred medium for ritual, reflection and transformation. Her work with water includes spiritual bathing, hydrotherapy and immersion experiences incorporating botanicals and other traditional practices.
Depending upon the experience, sessions may also incorporate sound, vibrational practices, spiritually focused energy work, moxibustion, lymphatic touch, warmth and traditional bodywork.
Many experiences take place within the Temazcalli at Nana’s, where heat, water, stillness and intentional touch become part of the environment for rest, reflection and connection with the body.
Birth, Transition & End-of-Life Care
Akua’s work also honors two of life's most profound thresholds: birth and death.
Her postpartum offerings include traditional practices inspired by Closing of the Bones and belly binding, creating space for rest, reconnection and honoring the body following pregnancy and birth.
She also offers end-of-life and death doula support, bringing together compassionate presence, gentle touch, traditional practices and respect for the spiritual and personal needs of the individual and family.
Whether working with someone experiencing pain, navigating cancer, entering motherhood, approaching the end of life or simply seeking a deeper connection with themselves, Akua does not believe in giving every body the same treatment.
She listens.
She observes.
She adapts.
Her work is an expression of what she calls The Medicine of Touch—a meeting place between modern medical knowledge, ancestral wisdom and spiritually grounded care.
Medically trained. Ancestrally rooted. Spiritually grounded.
Dr. Ahmses Maat
Co- Founder, Cardiovascular Perfusionist
Dr. Maat is the founder of Montu University of African Defense and is an Kemetic (African) Spirituality Scholar and Practitioner. He is the developer of Maat Thermal Therapy which utilizes whole body hyperthermia in conjunction with nutritional and detox support to help individuals improve overall health and vitality.
As a Level I lymphatic Touch & Movement Therapist, Dr Maat specializes in both complementary and natural healing methods used in African Maroon Traditional Medicine. He has traveled on Medical Missions to Tanzania and Ghana and taken part as a volunteer perfusionist in life saving Open Heart Surgery procedures. He has also conducted hyperthermic therapy research at the Tanzanian Heart & Surgery Center and has submitted many peer reviewed papers on heat therapy.
Dr. Maat is a Registered Respiratory Therapist, Certified Clinical Perfusionist and Doctorate of Metaphysics. He offers Hyperthermia training and is an American Heart Association (AHA) – Health Care Provider Trainer BLS / CPR / First AID.