About the Organization
Ancestral Medicine
Ancestral Medicine encourages the embodiment of animist values and practices in ways that are culturally healing, non-dogmatic, and accessible to people of diverse means, ancestries, and geographies. We seek to honor each person’s unique goodness and to fulfill our mission in partnership with the ancestors and the old ones who are the Earth.
Ancestral Medicine is also a business based both in the U.S. and in Granada, Spain, the adoptive home of our founder Daniel Foor. Our team includes seven core team members and many other ritualists from the AM Practitioner Network who help to guide our Online Courses, Ancestral Healing Practitioner Training, and In-Person Intensives.
We offer online programs for an international audience and steward a professional network of ancestral healing practitioners. To stay informed of employment opportunities, consider joining our newsletter. Also see our Core Values and Frequently Asked Questions.
Our Team
Daniel Foor
Founder & Director
Daniel is a teacher and practitioner of practical animism who specializes in ancestral and family healing and in helping folks learn to relate well with the rest of life. His recent ancestors are settler-colonialists to Turtle Island from England, Germany, and Ireland. He is a doctor of psychology, amateur naturalist, life-long student of earth-honoring traditions, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing.
Since 2005 Daniel has guided many ancestor-focused trainings, community rituals, and personal sessions in healing arts. Training as a therapist, living in other cultures, and immersion in different lineages of ritual all inform his kind and non-dogmatic approach to ancestor and Earth reverence. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Andalusia in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Granada, Spain. For more info see his full bio here.
Shannon Willis
Ritual Director
Shannon is a ritualist working at the crossroads of ancestral healing, oracular work, psychopomp service, and dream midwifery. Founder of Red Earth Healing and co-visionary of the Ancestral Healing Practitioner Training, she brings over 40 years of experience in ritual, facilitation, and consultation. An initiate of Ọbàtálá and Ọ̀ṣun and a student of Jhankri shamanism, she walks with reverence in diverse traditions.
A featured teacher and guide in Ancestral Medicine’s foundational courses and in-person intensives, Shannon offers grounding leadership, wise counsel, and skilled support across the network. She lives in Athens, Georgia, ancestral land of the Creek Muskogee, and descends from settler, African, and Indigenous lineages, including Cherokee and Kaskaskia/Illini peoples.
Lauren Leonardi
Managing Director
Lauren is a skilled generalist who employs her enterprise-level expertise with hands-on care to support Ancestral Medicine’s operations. She works closely with Daniel on strategy, planning, and daily decisions: smoothing bottlenecks, nurturing team health, and ensuring offerings are delivered with integrity and excellence. From finances to systems-building, she brings clarity and cohesion to a global, mission-driven organization.
Her connection to the unseen was shaped in Brooklyn and deepened in Mexico, where she studied with Huichol and Otomi teachers. She’s created bespoke rituals in three countries and holds space for plant medicine and ceremonial work. A Jewish and Sicilian/North African New Yorker, Lauren walks humbly in Earth-honoring ways while working across cultures with respect and care.
Antonio Charalampous
Website and Systems Manager
Anthony is a healing-oriented Web Designer and Creative Consultant with over 14 years of work experience in the IT industry and extensive background in ancestral teaching of yoga philosophy and practice. In his role at Ancestral Medicine, he provides IT solutions that shape the online presence of the organization and serve the needs of the audience.
Through his ImbaCactus company, Anthony has supported the development of websites and digital content of hundreds of international businesses across diverse sectors. Anthony is also a founder of two wellness-oriented entrepreneurships, the Yoga Mala studio and the Modern Yogi online magazine, that promote spiritual and physical wellbeing, integrity, and resilience among communities in Greece. His ancestry spans from the Greek islands of Kea and Evia, where he currently lives.
Michael Linden
Customer Support Lead
Michael is a big-hearted support specialist who brings their experiences across the gender- and ability-spectra into every aspect of their work. Their history in the arts, I.T., and public education supports their passion for connecting people with liberatory opportunities.
Guided toward a rematriated world, Michael strives to relate reciprocally with the living Earth and to address the impacts of oppressive, exploitative systems. The ancestors most known to him include English, German, and Polish peoples, which help inform his personal ritual practice. His path weaves decolonization & renaturalization, composting & transformation, existential dread and meaning-making, all in the ancestral lands of the Timucua and Seminole peoples in central Florida.
Minerva Arias
Call + Administrative Support
Minerva, Iya Ọyaladé, is a disciplined creative mind with over 20 years’ experience seeking ways to stand in the true essence of who she is—an empathic leader, visionary, and griot. She is a mother, death doula, PhD candidate, yoga & meditation teacher, Ayurvedic wellness counselor, and author of Ancestral and Òrìṣà Shrines as Places of Deep Research in Terrapsychology: Further Inquiry into Self, Place and Planet.
At AM, she provides admin support and anchoring/tech support for our live teachings. Born and raised in “the Heights” in NYC (originally Lenape land), to a Puerto Rican mother and a Dominican father. She is an initiated priestess of Ọya in her paternal ancestral tradition of Ifá, and is currently raising her daughter, a child of Ṣàngó, on their ancestral lands Dominican Republic, indigenously known as Ayiti.
Monica Melhem
Marketing Writer & Communications Manager
Monica is a creative entrepreneur with over a decade of professional experience. As a freelance copywriter and strategist, she helps purpose-driven brands elevate through authentic storytelling and strategic marketing. A multidimensional artist and free spirit, she is driven by creative expression, cultural curiosity, connection to nature, and collective healing.
Egyptian-American raised in the Midwest US, Monica is currently based in Mexico City, the ancestral lands of the Nahuatl, Otomi, and Mazahua people. Her ancestry is from North Africa and the Levant region. In addition to her professional work and many passion projects, she offers authentic guided tours for those interested in experiencing the most unique and beautiful parts of Egypt.
Teachers, Speakers, & Mentors | 2024-2025
Each year, we’re proud to host at least 60 guest speakers as well as trained ritualists from our Practitioner Network for both public and Practitioner Training-only events. Below are listed just a few recent teachers and mentors (all folks from our Network). Keep your eye on the bio sections of each course page to see who’s teaching what.
Amber McZeal
Chi Young Kim
Erica Nunnally
Adrián Villaseñor Galarza
Annie Blackstone
Mikki Baloy
Langston Kahn
Catherine Dunne
Michelle Ayn Tessensohn
Trece Spalten
Gita Thandika
Jason Engledoe
Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network
Our network of practitioners and practitioners-in-training includes folks with lineages from all inhabited continents, and we are committed to offering ancestral healing services in ways that are kind, culturally mindful, financially accessible, respectful of place and histories of colonialism, and anchored in sound and effective ritual practice.
Sessions are available in nearly 30 languages and with practitioners of diverse nationalities, professional training, genders, geographies, religious backgrounds, and life experience. Distance sessions are just as well for this modality as the focus is on your connection with your ancestors.
Community & Who We Serve
The ancestral healing work we facilitate is focused on the healing and elevation of the dead along participants’ blood and family lineages. In this way we serve both the living and the many generations before them on back to unbroken ancient magics that hold the world together.
Ancestor reverence and ritual is one part of a larger prayer and vision to bring wayward humans back into humble and healing relationships with the rest of life. In this way, we situate our collaborations with the ancestors in larger movements for social and earth justice and in an animist or earth-honoring framework that celebrates the personhood of our other-than-human kin.
Through online courses and rituals, the book, the Practitioner Training, and in-person events, our offerings reach participants around the world and seek to respect and include the unseen and other-than-human communities who hold and surround us. Like most everyone else who’s honest with themselves, we’re improvising—with love, humility, and a commitment to ongoing learning.