DREAMING WITH THE ANCESTORS JOURNEY

We invite you to enter the ancient landscape of Lucania - land of caves, springs, and sleeping gods, where the boundaries between dream and waking are porous and pilgrims seek healing, prophecy, and communion with their ancestors through the ritual of sacred sleep.

This journey leads us along the old pilgrimage routes of water and stone, from mountain sanctuaries and miraculous springs to subterranean grottoes where the Earth itself was once an oracle. Here, the lineage of incubation - the ancient practice of sleeping in the temple to receive divine messages - has left its traces in the caves of San Michele, the Fonte Miracolosa of the Madonna dei Bagni, the sanctuaries of the Seven Sisters, and the remains of dream temples of Paestum and Velia.

Through this guided experience we will:

Reawaken the ancestral art of dream incubation, the practice of lying upon the Earth to receive healing and guidance from below.

Visit sacred waters, shrines, and caves whose living traditions still echo the ancient oracles.

Engage with plant and tree allies - olive, myrtle, oak, bay, broom, rose, sage, and juniper - each holding memory of the old rites of purification and offering.

Participate in rituals of descent and return, tracing the soul’s journey through darkness, vision, and renewal.

The Chthonic Oracle

In the deep silence of the grotto, under the vaulted stone where water drips like the pulse of time, the ancient powers of the Earth still whisper. Here we lie upon the threshold - between life and death, waking and dream - listening for the voices that rise from the chthonic realm. To dream with the ancestors is to remember what the Earth has always known and what she longs to share. It is to drink from the same sacred spring, to hear the same heartbeat of the mountain, to let the chthonic oracle speak again through us.

This pilgrimage is not only geographical - it is mythic and interior, an act of remembering our own sleeping wisdom.

We’ll be staying in our ancestral village nestled within the Cilento National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site rich with natural beauty and cultural depth. You’ll participate in daily hands-on practice, visit incredible sites, be served amazing traditional meals, and be nourished by the food, plants, people, traditions and spirit of this ancient land.

Led by Gail Faith Edwards, author of Benedicaria: The Blessing Way of Southern Italian Folk Medicine

If you feel the call to return to ancestral roots and reclaim traditional knowledge, this journey is designed for you.

We'll also be weaving an artifact with natural materials gathered from our daily travels, do some painting, create a traditional Dream Amulet, make plant medicine with herbs gathered on our mountain, experience and learn traditional songs and music and participate in a traditional Sud Italia healing ritual as well. We'll visit incredible archaeological sites, pay homage to a few of our most powerful Madonnas and thaurmaturgic saints, visit caves and ancient Dream Temples and explore the first medicinal herb garden in all of Europe overlooking the bay of Salerno.  You’ll be utterly amazed, deeply inspired and no doubt personally transformed by what you see and do!

Total Cost: $5,989

Fee includes: Your flight from Boston to Naples and back again, car pick up in Naples and return to the airport from our village, all transportation during the journey, your housing, breakfast and dinner and entrance fees.  Your private room is modern, spacious, immaculate, with full bathroom and includes a private balcony as well.