A GODDESS ODYSSEY IN SICILY
- Ignite the flame of the sacred feminine.
- Kindle the fire of your creativity.
- Feast on succulent Sicilian cuisine and wine, creating community through cultural exchange.
- Nourish your soul and feel the healing energies of the ancient Goddess temples of Sicily, known as "Magna Graecia" or the "Greater Greece."
- Engage in conscious mythmaking through song, breath and dream incubation, strengthening your vision for personal and planetary transformation.
- Find and free your natural voice as we learn new ways to sound and sing in a prehistoric cave, a temple dedicated to Venus, and other sacred sites.
When we breathe in song in a sacred place, we receive the imprint of that space into the architecture of our bodies, where it reverberates and awakens our consciousness to new heights and depths. SACRED SPACE, SACRED SOUND, The Acoustic Mysteries of Holy Places by Susan Elizabeth Hale
We will immerse ourselves in the archetypes of the many sacred sites in Sicily, remembering and harvesting the wisdom from these energies. In the village of Erice, high on a mountain in western Sicily overlooking the Mediterranean, are the remains of an ancient temple to the Goddess of Love, known as Astarte to the Phoenicians , Aphrodite to the Greeks and Venus to the Romans. The Demeter and Persephone myths emerged from the center of the island, near Enna and Lake Pergusa. The famed ‘Grotta dei Genovesi’ cave is located on Levanzo, a small island off the coast of Trapani. The cave contains wall paintings from Neolithic and Palaeolithic times, including the famous red fertility Goddess, painted onto the cave walls with ochre and animal fats thousands of years ago.
In antiquity, historians and poets reported that the Goddesses loved Sicily more than any other isle. Join us and find out why. Our odyssey will begin in Palermo, Sicily and proceed to Erice, Trapani and Agrigento. Lodging will be in carefully chosen B&Bs or agritourismos.
Retreat Leaders: Susan Elizabeth Hale and Char Selsvold