The changing social, cultural and economic conditions of transmigrant communities in rural Mexico require that women who stay behind, while their loved ones travel back and forth to the USA, create social relations that ensure their survival. From over five years of ethnographic research, this article explores the healing potential of women-centred teaching and learning spaces. By juxtaposing Ortega y Gasset's notion of vivencia--to live--with hooks' idea of collective healing and drawing on empirical data from Mexican rural women's "convivencias" (gatherings; coexistence), the author analyses the relationship between the mutual coexistence transpiring in women's gatherings and their survival ("super-vivencia"). (Contains 1 figure and 4 notes.)