MYCELIA
Oaxaca Mushroom Pilgrimage
We invite you to join us on a sacred mushroom pilgrimage through the ancestral lands of the Zapotec people in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico. This five-day retreat is an invitation into communal medicine and embodied study—an immersion into the entangled systems of reciprocity, care, transformation, and healing woven through the mushroom kingdom. Rooted in ancestral healing traditions and Indigenous science, this journey offers a rare opportunity to learn from and support the living continuity of Indigenous knowledge systems and cosmovisions.
Held in a spirit of reverence and reciprocity, this retreat is a transformative learning experience—one that calls us into deeper listening, relational attunement, and reciprocity and care. It invites us to reimagine pathways of healing and wellbeing through the lens of Indigenous cosmovisions, both within ourselves and in the worlds we are collectively shaping into being.
Oaxaca, Mexico
Duration: 5 days, 4 nights
Group Size: Intimate gathering of 6 participants
Investment: $3033 CAD per person (shared rooms)
10% discount for early bird registration until May 1, 2025
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Dates: Two sessions available
JULY 31-AUGUST 4, 2025
AUGUST 7-11, 2025
Sierra Norte Pilgrimage
The Sierra Norte of Oaxaca is a land of mist-laden cloud forests, ancient mountains, and vibrant biocultural diversity. It is a region where the relationship between land, people, and the mushroom kingdom has been nurtured for generations by self-governing Zapotec communities—guardians of one of the world’s most prolific fungal regions and best-preserved biospheres.
As we walk ancestral pathways that have connected Indigenous communities for millennia, through forests alive with biodiversity and more-than-human intelligence, we begin to re-attune to the rhythms of living systems and remember ways of being, seeing, and creating in harmony with the Earth. This healing journey offers us a living blueprint—an invitation to reimagine future systems of wellbeing rooted in interdependence, regeneration, and re-alignment with nature’s intelligence.
Our pilgrimage will culminate in the community of Lachatao with a sacred mushroom ceremony overlooking the mountains atop an ancient Zapotec ceremonial site that the community continues to be guardians of.
Ancient Technologies of the Future
In communities like Cuajimoloyas, mushroom culture is more than ecological tradition—it is a way of seeing and relating to the world, rooted in reciprocity, regeneration, and kinship with the land. The mycelial networks beneath the forest floor, sustaining entire ecosystems, reveal nature's original blockchain: an intelligent decentralized system that distributes resources equitably, transforms decay into renewal, and fosters resilience through collaboration over competition.
These vast underground webs mirror the deep wisdom and earth-based consciousness alive in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca—reflecting how Indigenous communities have long understood interconnection, reciprocity, and collective care as essential to life and the wellbeing of future generations.
Across Mesoamerica, including among Zapotec, Mazatec, and Nahuatl cultures, mushrooms have been revered not only as food and medicine, but as sacred technologies—portals to deeper understanding, healing, and relationship. In Nahuatl, sacred mushrooms were called teotlnanácatl, “God’s Flesh,” while today they’re still referred to as los niños santos, “The Holy Children”, names that carry the weight of their spiritual potency and the profound reverence these cultures hold for them as living, sentient beings.
A Journey Co-Created and Held in Community
The MYCELIA Mushroom Pilgrimage is a living testament to what becomes possible when we co-create in kinship. Rooted in shared resources, relationships, and mutual support, this retreat reflects the wisdom of the mycorrhizal web—reimagining healing and wellbeing as emergent, co-creative processes grounded in systems of reciprocity and collective care.
In collaboration with our extended family at Tierra Sagrada, we are honoured to offer this unique journey alongside local healers, knowledge keepers, guides, and community leaders from Oaxaca. Together, we cultivate a space of deep healing, reverence, relational exchange, and bio-cultural regeneration—nourishing the continuity of Indigenous knowledge.
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We’ll be picking you up at a central location in Oaxaca City in the morning and head to Santa Maria del Tule, a small village outside the city. Here, we will be received by Venus Rodriguez, a local traditional healer, herbalist, and plant medicine expert and educator, who will open our pilgrimage with a land acknowledgement and ceremony honouring the 4 directions, as well as a collective energetic cleansing and reading of the Mesoamerican Tonalpohualli calendar system.
As we leave the Valley of Oaxaca, we’ll enter the Sierra Norte and arrive to our first home base at 3300m elevation in the community of Cuajimoloyas where we will stay for 2 nights in cozy eco-cabins in the middle of the lush forest.
We’ll make an offering to the land and connect sitting around the fire.
Meals Included: Lunch, Dinner
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Waking up with the sun, we’ll connect with a slow morning of meditation followed by a traditional breakfast.
Esther, a local healer, herbalist and guide known for her extensive knowledge of the medicinal and healing properties of local plants and fungi, will guide us on a medicine foraging walk through the lush forest of Cuajimoloyas to begin connecting with the land and mushroom kingdom.
Later this afternoon, we’ll be honoured with a talk by Doña Marta, a local mushroom maestra and celebrated cocinera. We’ll learn how to identify the mushrooms we collected before being shown some of the community’s culinary traditions in a collective cooking class.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
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Waking up with the sun, we’ll begin with a slow morning and light breakfast before embarking on our silent meditation pilgrimage of 6km through ancient forest pathways to Lachatao.
Arriving to Lachatao in the afternoon, we’ll be received by Don Juan, one of the community’s knowledge keepers and share a circle of words over lunch, learning about the communal governance structure the indigenous communities of Oaxaca organize and make decisions aorund.
After lunch, we’ll have some rest time to get grounded in our eco-cabin accomodations for the next 2 nights.
In the evening, we’ll receive individual energetic cleansings and share a traditional temazcal ceremony (Mesoamerican sweatlodge) led by traditional temazcalera, Venus Rodriguez. These traditional healing practices are profound purification processes that bring the mind, body, spirit, and emotional and energetic bodies back in harmony.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
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Waking up with the sun, we’ll get grounded with a meditation before continuing our pilgrimage to the ancient temple of the sacred Hill of the Jaguar, a significant Zapotec ceremonial site.
Here, Venus will share the medicine of cacao with our group as a heart-opening ritual. Ruben and Sindy, our ceremony guides, will open the mushroom ceremony honouring the 4 directions and the sacred land receiving us as we culminate our journey with the healing medicine of los niños santos, as they’re referred to in Oaxaca.
Meals Included: Lunch, Dinner
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We will wake up with the sun one last time and return to Hill of the Jaguar for a sunrise walk and to close our pilgrimage with a collective offering to this sacred site, the land, and its guardians.
Returning to the village, we’ll share reflections over breakfast and begin to integrate more of our individual and collective journey before descending back down to Oaxaca City early in the afternoon.
Retreat Schedule
* Final schedule may be subject to minor changes
Retreat
Booking Details
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This intimate retreat will be limited to 6 participants and will be facilitated by Ioana Todosia, of Comuna, our collaborative partner, Tierra Sagrada, and local healers, guides, and community leaders in Oaxaca.
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A non-refundable and non-transferable deposit of $500 CAD + tax confirms your participation in the retreat. The remaining amount will be due no later than June 15, 2025. This last payment can be split into 2 installments.
Early-bird registration pricing of 10% off the total retreat fee is available to all applications received and accepted by May 1, 2025.
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We will be hosted for 5 days, 4 nights in cozy community managed eco-lodges in Cuajimoloyas and Lachatao.
All accommodation will be shared occupancy.
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Meals: All meals will be included.
Accommodation: Shared occupancy in beautiful and rustic eco-cabins managed by the communities hosting us.
Ground Transportation: Transportation for the duration of the retreat, including pick-up and drop-off in Oaxaca City.
Activities, Workshops, and Excursions: All activities, workshops, and excursions in the Retreat Schedule are included. The final itinerary may be subject to minor changes. We will do our best to notify participants of any major changes as promptly as possible.
Experienced and knowledgeable facilitators: There will be 6 experienced facilitators present during the retreat and final ceremony.
Support before, during, and after the retreat: Ioana will be available leading up to the retreat to help you prepare for the retreat. Ioana will also facilitate a pre-retreat group connection session as well as a post-retreat group integration session, online via Zoom.
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Airfare: To and from Oaxaca International Airport.
Accomodation in Oaxaca City: You will need to arrive to Oaxaca City a day before the start of the retreat. We will pick you up the morning of the first day of the retreat. We also recommend you book an extra day after the end of the retreat.
Personal Travel Insurance: Personal travel insurance covering at least $200,000 USD for medical emergencies, death, theft, trip cancellation and delays, etc. is required for all participants. We will ask that you provide us with proof of insurance prior to the start of the retreat schedule.
Extra Activities and Excursions: Participants will be responsible for all extra services, activities and excursions that are not included in the retreat.
Personal Expenses: Incidentals, medicine, extra snacks outside of scheduled group meals, alcoholic beverages, etc.
Tips: All of our collaborators are compensated fairly. If you feel anyone went above and beyond and you would like to give more, you are more than welcome to, but this is not necessary.
Extra Nights in Oaxaca: If you would like to book additional nights in Oaxaca, you are welcome to but understand that this will be an extra expense. We may offer suggestions, but it will be your responsibility to make the booking.
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We are motivated to make our offerings as financially accessible as possible while sustaining and honouring the contributions and work of all involved. Therefore, we offer a limited number of retreat spaces through a sliding scale option that is based on your economic situation and access to savings and wealth. Offering this payment system is made possible by those with more access to savings and wealth covering the costs of those with less access. We don’t believe in financially separating folks based on where in the world you live or are coming from, as we recognize the complexity and diversity of lived experiences and how this leads to varying degrees of economic divisions that currently exist across the world.
Please feel confident continuing with your application and choosing the “sliding-scale payment option” in your application. We are committed to working with individual needs and constraints on a case-by-case basis to the very best of our ability. We trust in your discernment and self-reflection of how you fit into the global economic context of privilege and access to savings and wealth.
If you would like to become a Seed Supporter of our bursary fund and sliding scale, so that we may offer more access to those experiencing financial constraints, we would be honoured if you considered choosing “Seed Supporter” when confirming your participation.
QUESTIONS? Please get in touch.
READY TO JOIN? Submit your application below.
*Applications received and accepted by May 1, 2025, will be eligible for early-bird registration pricing of a 10% discount.
