Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive

We gather each day, Friday through Sunday, from 9:30-1:00 then 2:30-6:00 with shorter mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks and a spacious two-hour lunch break. Our shared time each day consists of four teaching and practice sessions of roughly 90 minutes each, two before lunch and two after.

These sessions are a blend of teaching and guided, experiential practice (often with drumming), sharing in small break-out groups anchored by trained supporters, main group dialogue, and other elements of ancestor-focused ritual, such as offering practice, song, and prayer. There are no prerequisites, however, prior experience with ritual and personal healing are helpful.

The lineage healing intensive closely follows the first nine chapters of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing by Dr. Daniel Foor, as participants connect and partner with ancestral guides to support any among the dead still in need of assistance.Ancestral Medicine’s signature online course Ancestral Lineage Healing also follows the steps of the lineage healing process, and these are the fundamental steps that practitioners are trained to guide in individual session work.

The intensive itself originated from years of in-person events hosted by Ancestral Medicine, and there is an alchemy to multi-day group ritual that is unlike any of the other approaches to the work.

It’s important to note that the lineage healing intensive is fundamentally different from the Ancestral Healing Practitioner Training. Participants at intensives learn life-long skills for personally accessing ancestral support. However, this three-day intensive is not a substitute for the nearly year-long professional training that practitioners undertake in how to guide this work for others.

This approach is experiential, rooted in an ethic of kindness, and welcoming to people of diverse ancestries and any spiritual background (or lack thereof). Consistent with the organizational core values of Ancestral Medicine, intensives are rooted in feminist, decolonizing, anti-racist, LGBTQ-inclusive, class-aware, Earth-honoring ethics.

We seek to embody these values in ways that are non-dogmatic, warm-hearted, and encouraging of the vulnerability that supports depth ritual work.

Participants work directly with their own lineage ancestors, and are not expected to hold space for others beyond showing up in a mindful way during group shares. Attendees work alongside one another, each in their own space and personal process.

Each intensive also weaves in explicit respect and healing for the histories of place. This also includes distancing from any forms of nationalism, supremacy, othering, or dehumanization that would hold one ancestral group or ethnicity as superior to another. Without shame or judgment, we aim to hold a safe, supportive space for healing and reconciliation.

Unless other arrangements are made, 25% of the overall cost is a non-refundable deposit.

If you need to cancel, please let us know as soon as you can. If something changes and you can’t join us, the closer cancellations are to the date of the event, the more difficult it is for us to fill the seats. The remaining registration payment may be refunded as follows:

A 75% refund is available for cancellations made 90 days in advance and a 50% refund is available for cancellations made between 30 and 60 days before the intensive begins. There are no refunds available for cancellations less than 30 days before the intensive begins. We reserve the option to extend flexibility on this policy especially in cases where an open space has been filled. In-person intensives require significant organizational resources and these policies help to ensure these offerings remain sustainable.

Participants can expect an in-depth experience and should be personally well resourced. In addition to the co-lead teaching from Elisa and Jen, they will be available during breakout groups, however, even with the care from coordinated and culturally welcoming leaders, there are still limitations to the level of individualized support we will be able to provide.

If you have doubts about whether the intensive is a good container for your depth work, be in dialogue with the team beforehand. The intensive is not a substitute for personal therapy.

In addition to the in-person support during the time of the intensive, many participants find working with an individual practitioner to be beneficial. To connect with practitioners or practitioners-in-training, see this link for the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Directory. The network includes options for different language needs, low income sessions, and other specializations.