Scotland Autumn Equinox Pilgrimage
A 16-day journey through ancient lands of song, stone, and remembrance
September 12th - 27th, 2024
Have you felt the call to explore the beauty and mystery of these sacred lands?
To commune with the ancient stones and healing waters?
To listen to the songs that are whispering on the wind?
Join Lana Lanaia & special guests on our 3rd annual sacred pilgrimage through some of the gorgeous and mystical landscapes of Scotland.
At the heart of this journey is the simple call
to be with the land.
We invite you to join us for a wild & magical 16-day journey through ancient landscapes, sacred sites, lochs, seas and skies - including gathering with a few special, ancestral tradition-carriers of song, story and craft.
This is a truly heart warming, life inspiring voyage, where dreams are woven into being, and deep beauty feeds the heart and soul as we walk, sail, sing, weave, offer, gather and share together within the sacred land & Isles of Scotland.
We have some deeply beautiful experiences planned for this trip:
Part I:
"Growing Roots Gathering"
A week of Craft, Story, Song & Sacred Sites
Nestled in Loch Tay & Glen Lyon
w/ guest teachers
Peter Ananin, Bethan Bray & Dougie Mackay
Ritual & Shrine Tending
Pilgrimage to an Ancient Site
Ancestral Crafts
Storytelling
Old Lore
Song
Optional traditional Scottish Wecht Drum Making Workshop
Walking journeys through the Sacred Landscape of Glen Lyon:
Schehallion ~ Crystal Mountain
Fortingall Ancient Yew Tree
Stone Circles
and more...
Part II:
Growing our Wings
Journey to the North & West
w/ guest guides
Àdhamh Ó Broin & others
Visit to ancient druid sites near Inverness
Clava Cairns & Druid Temple
Sailing by Ferry to the Isle of Lewis
To stay in an old blackhouse village by the sea,
Listening with the land, sea, sky, stone & stars
& walking the sacred landscapes around Callanish
Creating a simple ceremony for the Autumn Equinox
Onwards to Harris and her lustrious shining beaches,
&
The magical Isle of Skye
And on to Kilmartin Glen, her cairns & stone circles
Where we will join Àdhamh Ó Broinn
for a day of ritual, language and reciprocity with the land.
From there, farewell
& onwards from Glasgow each we shall go...
****
*Trip subject to small variations in itinerary
We invite you to join us for this pilgrimage journey in Scotland, visiting some of her sacred and beloved places, while creating space to listen & be with the land. Through opening our hearts and making simple offerings of gratitude, may we receive of the wisdom and remembrance held within the earth. May we offer our songs, and weave our stories & dreams...leaving only footprints and blessings behind us.
What's Included:
~ 15 nights accommodations
~ 2-3 healthy & organic meals per day
~ 7-day "Growing Roots Gathering"
~ Storytelling with traditional Scottish story carriers
~ Guided journeys into ancient landscapes, sacred sites & animistic culture
~ Simple ceremony & Earth honouring rituals
~ Listening with the land practices
~ Song circles & sound healing
~ Optional traditional Scottish Wecht Drum making workshop
~ Wild plant foraging & local foods
~ Transportation costs throughout Scotland
~ Airport pick-up & drop off from Glasgow Airport
Not included:
~ Travel or health insurance
~ Flight to Glasgow airport
~ A few optional restaurant meals
~ Optional extra nights in Glasgow
Discover the pure beauty and magic of these holy lands
Our Guides:
Lana Lanaia
We will be guided through these landscapes by Lana, a musician & facilitator, who lives in the Scottish Highlands, in loving connection to the land and the stones. For 25 years she has been immersed in a journey into earth wisdom, sound & healing practices; and weaves this into the world through her music, courses & retreats.
Lana will be the steady and courageous driver of our mini-bus, supporting in the facilitation of organic ritual, listening with the land, singing with the earth, and more.
Weaving with Guest Guides:
Bethan Bray & Peter Ananin
Crafting, Ancestral Foods, Shrine Tending, Traditional Lore & Drum Making
Bethan is an artist and craftswoman, specialising in hide and wild pigment painting. She uses with the subtle world of ochres to reconnect with the heart of the Earth, restore deep intimacy with place and translate the primordial voice of animal, soil and stone.
Peter is a traditional tanner, teacher and craftsman focusing primarily on connecting people to our human and natural heritage through working with animal hides and other ancestral materials, as well as exploring Scottish folklore and how it weaves together the practical and the spiritual.
Together they run their small bark tannery from their home in the Highlands of Scotland, where they also run Ancestral Skills Gatherings and courses in Hide Tanning throughout the summer months – reconnecting people to place, and to ancient ways of being and working with the land. Tending to wild shrines is a deep love and ongoing act of devotion for them both, as is making traditional offerings and feeding their hearts and bodies with ancestral nourishment from the land on which they live
Dougie MacKay
Storytelling & Animate Lands
Dougie is a native Highland storyteller with a passion for tracking key aspects of ancestral cultures through mythology, lore and story. A professional storyteller for over 12 years, he has been mentored by some of Scotland’s finest seanachies, seeking modern applications for these timeless tales.
His recent show ‘Animate Lands’ allowed a deep dive into the Fianna cycle, gleaning aspects of the older animistic culture once thriving on these islands. It was described as ‘a fresh and joyful take on Celtic lore and Scotland’s landscape’. In his "Myth as Medicine" course, he explores a cycle of northern myths with a group of students, tracking the treasure within each tale and offering exercises to journey with each story and touch the medicine within.
Àdhamh Ó Broin
Dùthchas Beò: Revitalising Reciprocity with the Gaelic Landscape through Simple Ceremony
Àdhamh Ó Broin is a Gaelic tradition bearer and activist of Irish and Highland Caithness heritage who has spent 15 years documenting and revitalising the native language and lore of Central Argyll where he grew up, embodying its value system and bringing his children up as first language Argyll dialect speakers.
Àdhamh joins us on behalf of Dòrlach, a Scottish micro-charity which seeks to encourage intercultural solidarity across minoritised peoples worldwide and a return to indigenous practice in Gaelic Scotland. Through his work with Dòrlach, Àdhamh has visited dozens of Gaelic elders across the Highlands and Islands, recording Gaelic lore and vocabulary which would otherwise have been lost to time.
Over the last decade, Àdhamh has also had the privilege of stepping into ceremony with dozens of guests from all around the indigenous world; the Maori of New Zealand, the Mohawk of Six Nations Ontario and the Karajá of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest to name but a few. These experiences have assisted and inspired the process of re-establishing a working, reciprocal relationship with the land whose dialect Àdhamh has diligently retrieved from extinction through long hours spent with the last of the areas’ native Gaelic-speaking elders.
***Optional extra workshop***
Traditional Scottish Wecht Drum Making Workshop
With Bethan Bray & Peter Ananin
A beautiful opportunity to make your own traditional Scottish Wecht drum.
Peter & Bethan are currently the only remaining living makers of these drums, having drawn from their research to develop their own unique yet traditional style of Wecht.
These ancient Scottish drums would have been used for a variety of purposes – alongside being a musical instrument they functioned as an agricultural tool to process oats, process wool and as a communicating device in times of rebellion and war from as early as the 14th century.
Evidence shows that the earliest Scottish drums came with open back which allowed them to be played similar to a Bodhran, which has similar origins.
Traditionally they were primarily made of sheep, along with deer and goat which would be widely available to crofters working out on the land. We will be making them in a variety of these hide types.
Plus more special guests TBA..
An excerpt from Lyla June's essay
"Reclaiming our Indigenous European Roots":
"But one day, as I sat in the ceremonial house of my mother’s people, a wondrous revelation landed delicately inside of my soul. It sang within me a song I can still hear today. This song was woven from the voices of my European grandmothers and grandfathers. Their songs were made of love.
They sang to me of their life before the witch trials and before the crusades. They spoke to me of a time before serfdoms and before Roman tithes. They spoke to me of a time before the plague; before the Medici; before the guillotine; a time before their people were extinguished or enslaved by dark forces. They spoke to me of a time before the English language existed. A time most of us have forgotten.
These grandmothers and grandfathers set the ancient medicine of Welsh bluestone upon my aching heart. Their chants danced like the flickering light of Tuscan cave-fires. Their joyous laughter echoed on and on like Baltic waves against Scandinavian shores. They blew worlds through my mind like windswept snow over Alpine mountain crests. They showed to me the vast and beautiful world of Indigenous Europe. This precious world can scarcely be found in any literature, but lives quietly within us like a dream we can’t quite remember."
Through communion with these sacred waters and stones,
may the living reality of earth and ancestral belonging be strengthened within you.
Cost:
Full 16 Day Journey
$4200* / £3,300
*Payments plans available
*****
Optional Scottish Wecht Drum Making Workshop:
$200 / £150
*****
It may not make sense to the rational mind, but when the heart says "GO!" -- Say YES!
"This is the best present I have ever given myself, ever! I did not know what to expect, this is the first time I have gone on any sort of retreat and it was a life changing experience. The most outstanding feature of the retreat was how each day stretched us and took us deeper into our spiritual, emotional and physical cleansing, which led to amazing healing and re-connection to soul spirit in ways that I could not have even guessed. Thank you. You have set me on the path to living and healing, to discover and actualise my true path and life purpose. To reconnect to Spirit, Nature, the Ancestors and myself, is a gift that I have no words with which to thank you. Blessings and love to you always." ~ Naluwembe
"A life changing experience. The journey brought healing and cleansing on many levels, awakening to ancient memory and honouring of the gifts I have to bring to the world" ~ L
"I am deeply grateful for your unfailing non-judgemental support, your wisdom and your kindness, all of which fill me with confidence and a sense of the possibilities before me." ~ Ingrid
"A space filled with love that allows you to connect back with where you are from, creating time and room for reconnecting with your body, heart and nature, realizing what stops you from doing this more often so you can go back to the "real world" feeling a bit stronger and equipped to live a more fulfilling life more in tune with Mother Earth" ~ Wendy
"It is almost impossible to separate a 'favourite part' as the beauty of the retreat was its weave into an integrated whole; the magnificent land that held us; the deep gentle physical work with our bodies; the cleansing nourishment; the reflections within our circle of women; the prayer and remembering of the sacredness of life. In the miasma of forgetting, they are deeply precious reminders of who we are on this earth, what is our calling, our work, our joy." ~ Nicole
"I feel that this way of teaching and understanding myself and my place in the world is deeply wise. I would like to learn more. Life is short and these opportunities to grow and heal are precious." ~ Amelia
"I found Aluna Healing at a very difficult time and I feel with all my heart that without it I would not be in the place that I am today. It has helped me re-connect to myself and to the Earth through many beautiful yoga classes as well as healing retreats and weekends which have never failed to inspire me and transform me into the best version of myself that I can be. I owe an awful lot of gratitude for the soul work I have received from Aluna Healing and it will always remain a big part of me." ~ India
"Dear Daniela, I want to really thank you for all of your kindness and teachings at the retreat, I am extremely grateful. The week was really special, as you know, and powerful for me - I so enjoyed learning from you and I feel like it has helped me to put together the missing piece of the jigsaw.
And I just loved the group - truly incredible souls under one roof. Thank you so much for everything - the place, the company and the learning were all wonderful. Heartfelt thanks to you, and lots of love,” ~ Katrina, Scotland
