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What is a Colmenera?
A colmenera is a woman who tends the hive, someone who understands that individual actions shape collective wellbeing and that the health of the whole depends on the care of each part. The colmenera works quietly and steadily, creating conditions where growth, connection, and contributions can thrive.
Colmeneras Collective takes its name from this idea.
Tending a hive isn't only about stillness. The bees themselves fly out past the hive, cross open country, find the bloom worth discovering, and carry something back that enriches the whole. A colmenera knows this rhythm because she lives it too: the going, the gathering, the return, each one in service of what she tends.
My work supports individuals in reconnecting with their authenticity while strengthening the communities and relationships they are part of. Through coaching, ceremony, and the journeys I plan, when one person grows in clarity and alignment, the entire hive feels the impact.
About Colmeneras Collective
About Me
Hi, I'm Melissa. I've spent my life working with people and stories, from a retail sales floor to public human services, in English and Spanish, in cities from Portland to Madrid.
Before anything else, there was Spain. I spent years living in Madrid, teaching English and learning where madrileños actually go. I traveled every chance I got, from Barcelona's Gothic Quarter to stone villages an hour outside Madrid. What stayed with me wasn't the monuments. It was the people: neighbors lingering in the plaza after dinner, a whole town turning out for a saint's day, a stranger offering me an apple when the village's only market was closed for a wedding. Life there felt simpler, and more worthwhile.
Then I came home to "the real world" and spent more than a decade in public human services, leading teams through constant change. I learned how systems work and how people hold up inside them. Eventually I learned what it costs to carry too much for too long, and I spent time recovering from burnout.
Along the way, I learned to notice and remember the small details, the ones that show where you are and where you might be going. That habit is the thread through everything I do at Colmeneras Collective: coaching, ceremony, and travel design.
My Background & Experience
Human services leadership. More than a decade supervising staff, developing workflow processes, and managing programs in public human services, including teams of up to 30 people.
Retail management. Nearly three years with Pier 1 Imports, advancing from sales associate to assistant manager to sales manager.
Spain. More than six years living in Madrid teaching English, two summers as a camp blogger at English camps in the Sierra de Gredos and a 16th-century monastery in Uclés, and almost a decade traveling the Iberian Peninsula.
Languages. Bilingual in English and Spanish.
Training and ordination. ASIST-trained in suicide intervention, a Level Two Quantum Human Design student, and an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church.