IN-PERSON TEACHING
Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive
A Four-Day Residential Gathering
Vendôme, France
with Dr. Daniel Foor and Ancestral Healing Practitioners
Aug 20-23, 2023
Ancestral lineage healing emphasizes learning to relate directly with one’s recent and more ancient blood ancestors for personal, family, and cultural healing. In this four-day intensive, attendees can expect to learn both a life-long framework and tangible skills for connecting directly with their own wise and kind ancestors.
Coming into relationship with your ancestors can help to transform intergenerational troubles, re-establish obscured blessings, improve relationships with the living, and encourage clarity of purpose.
The structure for our four-day intensive is one that is psychologically grounded, ritually safe, and culturally inclusive, led by Dr. Foor and a team of trained ritual supporters. Those new to ancestor work, as well as adoptees, and folks with a tough experience of family and culture, are all warmly welcome. This is a residential event that includes healthy meals and accommodations.
You can turn on the English or French subtitles by clicking the CC icon next to the sound icon.
With all the blessings and challenges included, we are the face of our people on Earth.
In this intensive, you will
- Learn a life-long framework to relate in direct, safe and empowering ways with your family and lineage ancestors.
- Engage in experiential practices to make connections with ancestral guides and teachers, partnering with them for personal and family healing.
- Enjoy a nurturing blend of teaching, direct practice with your ancestors, and inclusive space for group dialogue and exchange.
- Explore ways to join with your ancestors to support the resolution of larger systemic, generational, and cultural wounding, within the vessel of group ritual.
- Make tangible offerings of healing and beauty for your ancestors and for the larger prayer of cultural and Earth healing.
Investment
This is a residential intensive which means that meals and accommodations are included in the cost of participation. A limited number of single rooms and a larger number of shared rooms (with two separate beds) are available. The accommodation options below list the total price for three nights’ stay. Click here for more on the event location.
A limited number of spaces in shared rooms are available at reduced pricing. These spaces are reserved for people who experience some form of systemic oppression and marginalization in ways that also impact financial means (e.g., travelers or recent immigrants from less economically developed countries; participants from historically persecuted groups in France). Native French speakers who do not meet this criteria but nonetheless need cost reduction to join are also welcome to request a reduced cost space. You can apply for one of these spaces here: Application for Assisted Registration.
A minimum of 50% of the full registration cost is due at the time of registration; 25% of this is a non-refundable deposit. The remaining registration payment may be refunded as follows:
- A 75% refund is available for cancellations made anytime before May 22, which is 90 days before the intensive begins.
- A 50% refund is available for cancellations made between 30 and 90 days before the intensive begins.
- There are no refunds available for cancellations made after July 21, less than 30 days before the intensive begins.
We reserve the option to extend some flexibility on this policy, especially in cases where an open space has been quickly filled. However, in-person intensives require significant organizational resources and these policies help to ensure these offerings remain sustainable.
About the Instructor
Daniel Foor, PhD
Dr. Foor is a licensed psychotherapist, doctor of psychology, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. He is an initiate in the Òrìṣà tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa and has learned from teachers of Mahayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and the older ways of his English and German ancestors. Daniel is passionate about training aspiring leaders and change makers in the intersections of cultural healing, animist ethics, and applied ritual arts. He currently lives with his wife and two daughters near Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Participants are welcome to arrive any time after 5pm (17:00) on Sunday, August 20. Opening circle will be from 6-7:30pm (18:00-19:30) followed by dinner at 8pm (20:00).
The following two days, August 21 and 22, we’ll gather around 9:30am until 5:30pm (17:30) with time for breaks and three healthy vegetarian meals a day. On the final day, Wednesday, August 23, we will check out of our rooms by mid-morning, enjoy lunch together, and stay for teaching and ritual completions until around 4:30pm (16:30).
These sessions are a blend of teaching, direct visioning and trance work (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 as participants connect and partner with ancestral guides to support any among the dead still in need of assistance. Note, this book is also available in French. Our 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 process itself originated from years of in-person events, 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 intensive is not a substitute for the nearly year-long professional training that practitioners undertake in how to guide this work for others.
Our venue is La Picotière in Loir-et-Cher, roughly 175 km southwest of Paris. This cozy, ecologically mindful, family-run retreat center is situated in a rural, agricultural area 10 km from the Loire and from the center of neighboring Vendôme. Participants typically share a taxi from the nearby train station for around 5€ per person, and our team can help to coordinate this with registrants well in advance.
The intensive will be guided in English with options for small breakout groups led by supporters fluent in French and English. In the main group space, we intend to provide “whisper translation” as needed for a small number of primarily French-speaking participants. After registration everyone will be asked about their language needs, and if there is a strong need for full, live translation services, we can likely arrange for this. We are committed to this offering being accessible to French-speaking people.
Our core values and ethics affirm full inclusivity for people of diverse genders, ancestries, religious orientations, and other factors that can lead to exclusion and harm. Robust scholarship and reduced cost options aim to support financial access especially for people of such demographics.
We are also mindful that this retreat is financially accessible to French participants. For this reason, the reduced cost spaces are also available to native French-speakers (including those from Belgium, Switzerland, etc.) who need the reduction to join.
All participants are requested to choose from the available accommodations at the retreat center and to work within existing conditions as much as possible. With respect to meals, the retreat center can likely accommodate specific allergy needs if those are communicated clearly well in advance.
In consideration for fellow participants, attendees are encouraged to test for Covid-19 prior to arrival, as well as to be current with their vaccinations. Masking for anyone who wishes to do so is welcome but not required. For immunocompromised persons or those with sensitive medical disability, due to the in-person nature of this event, we are not able to offer full Covid safety protocol.
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 our organizational core values, intensives are rooted in feminist, decolonizing, anti-racist, LGBTQ-friendly, 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. With respect to the specific history of France we firmly oppose any form of ancestral supremacy (e.g., French colonialism, anti-semitism, anti-immigrant nationalism) while welcoming historical honesty and acts of healing and repair for past and present troubles. Among our retreat supporters, four of five have also lived outside of France and both Jewish and African backgrounds will be represented. Participants descended from ancestors who have both enacted and experienced major harm are all welcome.
Participants can expect an in-depth experience and should be personally well resourced. In addition to the lead teaching from Dr. Foor, there will be five ritual supporters from the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network, four of whom will be fluent in French. Even with the care from a coordinated and culturally welcoming team, when guiding a group ritual for four days, 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 or physical medicines.
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.
We’d be happy to help with any additional questions! Reach out to info@ancestralmedicine.org with your question and someone from our team will be in touch, usually within two business days.
