Sotterranea
The Sensual Underworld: Life, Death & Pleasure
A 7-Day Creative Immersion in Palermo, Sicily
25 September - 1 October 2026
Pleasure and loss, death and grief, joy and sex
…are all braided together throughout this city gridded by saints and mothers, and frescos along every corner. Palermo holds a sacred darkness, the profound light of the sun, and the richness of human history & culture that invites you to remember your own radiance—layered, dark, potent.
Are you craving a spark of creative fire—a return to your senses, your body, and your art?
Are you longing for community, expression, and a space to rediscover passion, poetry, and pleasure?
Have you always wanted to visit Palermo, or the Mediterranean, in a way where you get to spend time with the layers of place—and also yourself? To witness, experience, taste, absolve — and create?
Join us in Palermo, our favorite underworld city
Palermo is one of the most sensuous and mysterious places on Earth. Life here pulses here with devotion, history, and raw beauty, a place where shadow and light coexist, where the underworld is not hidden—it’s revealed and celebrated.
Sotterranea is a 7-day creative immersion that explores life, death, and sensuality through creative exploration and workshops, communal storytelling, and embodied learning throughout the city. Each day, we journey through the layers of Palermo—its sacred sites, its mythic streets, its ancient pulse—and through the layered stories within ourselves, with time and space to be held while you create.
Together we’ll ask:
What transforms a story, a life, a body? What is written pleasure? What is sensual creation? What is the language of the shadow? What uprising blooms within you? What has been forbidden? What is being reborn?
Beneath our layers, who are we when we live fully…bursting, alive, and undone?
A Living Creative Immersion
Sotterranea is not just a writing retreat—it’s a living, sensual, and spirit-heavy creative immersion.
It is an invitation to uncover what’s beneath the surface, to enter the cave of your creativity in a wildly colorful and alive city, and to make whatever art you want from the pulse of life itself.
Over six days, we’ll move between circle, ritual, and exploration through:
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Guided creative and mentorship sessions
Every day we will meet for support in writing, journaling, storytelling, expression, and artistic experimentation of all kinds. We will hold these sessions 2-3 hours a day for 4 of our 6 days together. This is time for deep work—where your voice & Palermo’s voice, your layers & Palermo’s layers, and your senses within this city all weave together in a generative and supporting space.
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Oracular & Ritual Practices
During our creative sessions we will make space for oracular practices and ritual to help support us in our creative longings.
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Guided Journeys Through the City
Each day we’ll explore Palermo’s sacred and historical sites—subterranean chapels, markets, art, monasteries, and fountains—through a mythic, human, and ancestral lens. We will also learn from locals along the path.
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Cultural & Culinary Experience:
We will savor the sensuality of Palermo through taste, scent, sound, and story. We will experience a guided food and sensory experience in a thousand-year old market with the cheeky chef, Linda Sarris. Gelato will be involved.
Creative Themes:
Each day we will move through one of Palermo’s archetypal rhythms—both in the city and within ourselves:
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The path of grief
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letting go and release
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a reclaiming ritual
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what lies underneath
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delicious and forbidden
We Will Journey To:
Subterranean crypts and sacred underground spaces
Ancient piazzas and artistic sanctuaries
Palermo’s vibrant Mercato Ballarò with our local chef-guide
Monte Pellegrino, to enter the cave and honor Santa Rosalia, Palermo’s patron saint
A centuries-old monastery where baked goods are made by cloistered nuns
A day at the sea with a choose your own adventure itinerary
Other secret, spirit-filled places that pulse with ancestral memory
Each place becomes part of our creative process: a muse, a mirror, a guide.
Through context, story, and sensory experience, we root into Palermo’s living mythology, allowing it to awaken our own.
What Is Included
6 nights / 7 days accommodations — our hotel includes 2 beautiful pools, indoor and outdoor (one hot and one cold). All the rooms are single rooms for comfort and privacy.
All breakfasts + one group lunch + two group dinners
Daily creative workshops (2–3 hours)
Daily connection and oracle practices
Guided experiences and entry to all sacred and historical sites
Transport within the city during group journeys
A beautiful hand-made gift to support you on your journey
What Is Not Included
Airfare
Transport to/from Palermo airport (public transport and taxis available)
Remaining meals and any personal expenses
Train ticket to the beach (14 euro round-trip)
SOTTRERRANEA IS FOR FOLKS OF ALL ANCESTRAL LINEAGES AND ALL LEVELS OF CREATIVITY – writer, artist, or someone who loves to journal. This is an immersion to spark our creativity, to support it, to soak it in the beauty of place, to connect with the spirit of a city, and to embrace the kinship of togetherness. All genders are welcome !
Accessibility for this immersion: This immersion involves a lot of city walking — anywhere from 8,000-13,000 steps a day. Palermo has ancient stone streets. Our accommodations are on the first floor, but there are stairs to get up to the rooftop breakfast and gathering space.
Sotterranea: The Invitation
In Palermo, life and death dance together. Saints, goddesses, and ghosts whisper their stories through stone and salt. They are sacred, profane, layered. They are not just one thing; they are everything. This is where your creativity is reborn—where art, ancestry, and sensuality meet.
It is time to enter the underworld of creation.
To listen. To write. To move. To transform.
Join us in Palermo. Let’s create something creatively wild, sensual, and sacred together.
We stay open, curious, and electrically receptive to the muses, the oracles, and the particles of this ancient, multicultural, time-decayed and deliciously layered city. And we write.
SPACE LIMITED TO 6 GUESTS
Questions?
Learn about our cultural agreements here.
Learn about redistributing money in Sicily here.
Want to know which immersion is right for you? Click here.
Want support traveling before or after Radici immersions? Send us an email.
MaryBeth Bonfiglio
& Lisa Marie Basile
your co-guides
MaryBeth Bonfiglio
I’m a second-generation Sicilian and Italian American writer, independent researcher ancestral connection facilitator, and the founder of Radici Siciliane. I received my MFA in creative non fiction from Antioch University and have been leading writing workshops since 2014. I’ve published one book of poetry, Dear Earth, and completed a memoir in essays on longing and belonging. My writing has been published in the LA Weekly, The Boston Globe, Amulet Magazine, and many others. My most recent essay was published in print in VIA from Bordighera Press / Calendra Institute. I spend three months per year in Sicily holding space for people to savor the island and connect to its essence.
Palermo is my favorite city in the world and I’ve spent many, may days wandering the streets, exploring her underworld and writing from my own subterranean body. Read my full bio here.
Lisa Marie Basile
I am a Sicilian and Italian-American writer and poet whose paternal grandmother was born in Palermo, Sicilia (the city of my heart, where I also got married!). I have explored Italy & Sicily over the last decade, including with Radici Siciliane’s Ancestral Arts immersion. I’m the author of a few books of poetry & nonfiction, including Saint of, Andalucía, and City Witchery, among others. I’ve led writing workshops at Manhattanville College, Emerson College, Pace University, the Jersey City Free Public Library, The Moon Studio, Writing The Cosmos, and others. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Best American Experimental Writing, Ovunque Siamo, Best Small Fictions, and more. I hold an MFA in Writing from The New School in NYC and a journaling therapy certificate. I edit Luna Luna Magazine, a journal for poetry. I am also a foster youth & chronic illness awareness advocate. Read more here.
Testimonials
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MaryBeth did such a beautiful job of accompanying the group of us into an open journey full of rich experiences.It has become a significant value along the path of discovering who I am. I felt a deep level of connection immediately to the land, and to the people drawn together with me.
~N.G., 2024
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Just come on the trip. If you’ve been thinking about it but you’re not sure you’ll fit in for whatever reason, take a chance - come on the trip. This island has so much to teach you if you are willing to receive it, and it’s will be a beautiful experience.
~S.N., 2024
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The spirit of the Sicilian people- warm, generous, exuberant, and resilient. Every experience was deeply embodied - I felt so connected to my flesh and blood, the land, the ancestors.
~A.S., 2024
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Sotterranea held me with quiet strength. Every moment—each meditation, every shared silence, the softness in the facilitators’ guidance—reminded me that healing doesn’t need noise. It requires safety, intention, and space to simply be. This was my first immersion and my first step onto European soil. Palermo welcomed me not just with its beauty, but with a sort of stillness that allowed me to set down burdens I had not yet named.
- A.M., 2025
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I cannot imagine better guides in the alchemy of the soul than Marybeth, Lisa, and the city of Palermo. Every day was thoughtfully planned magic. The themes infused our experience, with each day flowing seamless into the next. I particularly enjoyed how Marybeth would lead us into a somatic practice every morning. I found her guided somatic exercises, mediations, and oracle exercises exceptional. Lisa’s writing prompts were clearly crafted doorways into the themes, excursions, and the unconscious. The word ineffable was mentioned multiple times by our group during on week in Palermo. On reflection, that word best describes the experience. I could not recommend it more.
- N.D. 2025
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My trip with Lisa Marie and Marybeth for Sotterranea in Palermo was very moving. I was able to experience a bit of my maternal ancestry, and Lisa and Marybeth were very helpful in providing cultural and historical context for an American traveler.
- T.Z., 2025