ONLINE COURSE

Ancestral Lineage Healing

Practices for Personal and Cultural Transformation

Live Teachings Wednesdays, Beginning May 15

We’re never truly alone, in our joy or in our struggles. The practice of learning how to connect with our ancestors – to really speak to them and understand their wisdom – reveals this to us. Join us and remember how to listen and to trust.

Through inclusive, well-crafted teachings and guided practices, explore living in conscious relationship with the many generations who came before you. The course is appropriate both for beginners and those with years of experience in the terrain of family and ancestral healing.

Registration includes 12 pre-recorded lessons and over 20 live teachings. Live calls will be anchored by Daniel Foor, author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Cultural Healing as well as by Shannon Willis, Ancestral Medicine’s Ritual Director, and three other experienced Ancestral Lineage Healing Practitioners.

Weekly calls supplement the recorded lessons and dive deeper into each lesson’s themes. You’re encouraged to keep pace week-by-week and welcome to move through the course at whatever pace best suits your schedule. There’s no requirement to attend the live calls, but it is an opportunity to interact and ask questions in real time with a diverse, international community.

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* please note, the video refers to 14 lessons, but the most current course is 12.

In this course you will

Learn a
five-step framework

Learn a five-step framework for safely engaging with your blood ancestors and for partnering with elder guides to heal your family lineages.

Acquire
new ritual
skills

Acquire important skills through over 20 live teachings guided by Daniel and other experienced ritualists in the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network

Establish
boundaries
with the ghosts

Affirm and maintain clear boundaries for ritual and psychological safety. Engage in lineage healing in nourishing, trauma-aware, and sustainable ways.

Join a diverse, international community

Enjoy learning and guided practice in an international community, where you can honor your own pace and enjoy support from experienced practitioners.

Build deep relationships with your ancestors

Internalize and make use of simple, effective practices to sustain a lifetime of potent and nourishing connection with your personal lineage ancestors.

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Curriculum

Lessons emphasize psychological, cultural, and energetic safety and move through the foundational steps of the Ancestral Lineage Healing method.

Live calls, held each week, are followed by small-group breakouts with practitioners. These calls parallel and complement pre-recorded lessons and emphasize building ritual skills in areas that both nourish your ancestral reconnection practice and support relational wellness in everyday life.

1 One
2 Two
3 Three
4 Four
5 Five
6 Six
7 Seven
8 Eight
9 Nine
10 Ten
11 Eleven
12 Twelve
One

Lesson 1: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence

  • Explore the animist and cross-cultural basis of ancestor reverence
  • Learn the origins and framework for this approach to lineage healing
  • Address ritual safety and differences between ancestors and ghosts
  • Consider family inquiry, DNA ancestry tests, and historical research
  • Enjoy resources on animism, ancestor reverence, and family research

Topic of the live call in week one: Intuitive and Historical Honesty

Sign Up
Lesson 1: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence
Two

Lesson 2: Assessment of Four Blood Lineages

  • Assess the current condition of four of your ancestral lineages
  • Establish any necessary boundaries for you and your family
  • Explore ways to trust your intuition and reclaim direct knowing
  • Determine the focus of your ancestral repair work
  • Enjoy resources on epigenetics, psychology, and epistemology

Topic of the live call in week two: Boundaries and Ritual Safety

Sign Up
Lesson 2: Assessment of Four Blood Lineages
Three

Lesson 3: Contacting Ancestral Guides

  • Learn a framework for sustained connection with older ancestors
  • Safely seek direct connection with wise and kind ancestral guides
  • Invite blessings and support for your life from these ancestral elders
  • Explore ways to nurture and expand into new ancestral connections
  • Enjoy resources on West and Central African ancestral traditions

Topic of the live call in week three: Trusting Intuition and Direct Knowing

Sign Up
Lesson 3: Contacting Ancestral Guides
Four

Lesson 4: Deepening with Lineage Elders

  • Learn about offering practices and ways to tend an ancestral altar
  • Expand into spirit-guided historical inquiry and cultural recovery
  • Practice attuning, listening, and following the lead of the lineage elders
  • Ask the guides to surround the generations between in healing prayer
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Celtic cultures and Ireland

Topic of the live call in week four: Altar Tending and Feeding Relationships

Sign Up
Lesson 4: Deepening with Lineage Elders
Five

Lesson 5: Ancestral Blessings and Burdens

  • Learn to conceptualize, identify, and transform ancestral legacies
  • Consider six major types of cultural trouble and their antidotes
  • Seek understanding from the ancestors on lineage gifts and burdens
  • Embody blessings and transform burdens with ancestral support
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Mayan and Nahua cultures

Topic of the live call in week five: Aligning with What is Healing

#register
Lesson 5: Ancestral Blessings and Burdens
Six

Lesson 6: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors

  • Explore causes of ancestral wounding and pathways for healing
  • Support as needed in the ancestralization of older lineage ancestors
  • Practice allowing the guides to oversee and enact the healing
  • Reinforce previous steps and focus on stoking what feeds life
  • Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions in China, Mongolia, and Korea

Topic of the live call in week six: Deepening Trust in the Sacred

Sign Up
Lesson 6: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors
Seven

Lesson 7: Grieving and Forgiveness

  • Consider the importance and benefits of grieving for and with the dead
  • Practice regulating the intensity of collective ancestrally infused states
  • Seek to balance emotional courage, cultural awareness, and ritual safety
  • Partner with the ancestors for potent grieving and forgiveness practices
  • Enjoy resources on prehistoric ancestors and others in the genus Homo

Topic of the live call in week seven: Welcoming Strong Emotion

Sign Up
Lesson 7: Grieving and Forgiveness
Eight

Lesson 8: Assisting the Recent Dead

  • Learn important differences when assisting more recent generations
  • Invite the guides to intervene on behalf of recent generations in need
  • Reinforce safety protocols in cases of serious lineage disturbance
  • Reflect on tales of trouble and healing from this stage of the process
  • Enjoy resources on LGBTQ+ ancestors and diverse types of families

Topic of the live call in week eight: Inviting Big Shifts and Healing

Sign Up
Lesson 8: Assisting the Recent Dead
Nine

Lesson 9: Tending the Bones

  • Learn a framework and additional protocols for worst-case scenarios
  • Explore ways to support lineage ancestors to shift from well to vibrant
  • Consider the ongoing relationship of the ancestors to this dimension
  • Practice caring for remains, ancestral objects, and inheritances
  • Enjoy resources on Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism

Topic of the live call in week nine: Caring for the Body and Physical

Sign Up
Lesson 9: Tending the Bones
Ten

Lesson 10: Embodying Ancestral Blessings

  • Consider the impacts of ancestral wounding and healing on living relatives
  • Invite the guides to bring healing and goodness to your extended family
  • Request physical healing and optimizing of your blood, bones, and DNA
  • Embody lineage blessings and pray with the ancestors for your relations
  • Enjoy resources on decolonization and select Indigenous traditions

Topic of the live call in week ten: Becoming the Face of Your Ancestors

Sign Up
Lesson 10: Embodying Ancestral Blessings
Eleven

Lesson 11: Harmonizing the Lineages

  • Learn new ways to celebrate well and healed ancestral lineages
  • Reflect on personal shifts with respect to family, identity, and purpose
  • Consider a ritual dedication to care for family ancestral wellness
  • Practice the harmonization of multiple well lineages if possible
  • Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions of Europe and North Africa

Topic of the live call in week eleven: Embracing Complexity and Nuance

Sign Up
Lesson 11: Harmonizing the Lineages
Twelve

Lesson 12: Pathways for Deepening

  • Learn ways to safely engage other-than-blood family ancestors
  • Consider blood ancestors in conversation with ancestors of place
  • Review pathways for cultural healing and tangible acts of repair
  • Practice engaging ancestors of vocation or other shared identities
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in popular culture

Topic of the live call in week twelve: Grounding Changes in Daily Life

Sign Up
Lesson 12: Pathways for Deepening
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Lesson 1: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence

  • Explore the animist and cross-cultural basis of ancestor reverence
  • Learn the origins and framework for this approach to lineage healing
  • Address ritual safety and differences between ancestors and ghosts
  • Consider family inquiry, DNA ancestry tests, and historical research
  • Enjoy resources on animism, ancestor reverence, and family research

Topic of the live call in week one: Intuitive and Historical Honesty

Sign Up
Lesson 1: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence

Lesson 2: Assessment of Four Blood Lineages

  • Assess the current condition of four of your ancestral lineages
  • Establish any necessary boundaries for you and your family
  • Explore ways to trust your intuition and reclaim direct knowing
  • Determine the focus of your ancestral repair work
  • Enjoy resources on epigenetics, psychology, and epistemology

Topic of the live call in week two: Boundaries and Ritual Safety

Sign Up
Lesson 2: Assessment of Four Blood Lineages

Lesson 3: Contacting Ancestral Guides

  • Learn a framework for sustained connection with older ancestors
  • Safely seek direct connection with wise and kind ancestral guides
  • Invite blessings and support for your life from these ancestral elders
  • Explore ways to nurture and expand into new ancestral connections
  • Enjoy resources on West and Central African ancestral traditions

Topic of the live call in week three: Trusting Intuition and Direct Knowing

Sign Up
Lesson 3: Contacting Ancestral Guides

Lesson 4: Deepening with Lineage Elders

  • Learn about offering practices and ways to tend an ancestral altar
  • Expand into spirit-guided historical inquiry and cultural recovery
  • Practice attuning, listening, and following the lead of the lineage elders
  • Ask the guides to surround the generations between in healing prayer
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Celtic cultures and Ireland

Topic of the live call in week four: Altar Tending and Feeding Relationships

Sign Up
Lesson 4: Deepening with Lineage Elders

Lesson 5: Ancestral Blessings and Burdens

  • Learn to conceptualize, identify, and transform ancestral legacies
  • Consider six major types of cultural trouble and their antidotes
  • Seek understanding from the ancestors on lineage gifts and burdens
  • Embody blessings and transform burdens with ancestral support
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Mayan and Nahua cultures

Topic of the live call in week five: Aligning with What is Healing

Sign Up
Lesson 5: Ancestral Blessings and Burdens

Lesson 6: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors

  • Explore causes of ancestral wounding and pathways for healing
  • Support as needed in the ancestralization of older lineage ancestors
  • Practice allowing the guides to oversee and enact the healing
  • Reinforce previous steps and focus on stoking what feeds life
  • Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions in China, Mongolia, and Korea

Topic of the live call in week six: Deepening Trust in the Sacred

Sign Up
Lesson 6: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors

Lesson 7: Grieving and Forgiveness

  • Consider the importance and benefits of grieving for and with the dead
  • Practice regulating the intensity of collective ancestrally infused states
  • Seek to balance emotional courage, cultural awareness, and ritual safety
  • Partner with the ancestors for potent grieving and forgiveness practices
  • Enjoy resources on prehistoric ancestors and others in the genus Homo

Topic of the live call in week seven: Welcoming Strong Emotion

Sign Up
Lesson 7: Grieving and Forgiveness

Lesson 8: Assisting the Recent Dead

  • Learn important differences when assisting more recent generations
  • Invite the guides to intervene on behalf of recent generations in need
  • Reinforce safety protocols in cases of serious lineage disturbance
  • Reflect on tales of trouble and healing from this stage of the process
  • Enjoy resources on LGBTQ+ ancestors and diverse types of families

Topic of the live call in week eight: Inviting Big Shifts and Healing

Sign Up
Lesson 8: Assisting the Recent Dead

Lesson 9: Tending the Bones

  • Learn a framework and additional protocols for worst-case scenarios
  • Explore ways to support lineage ancestors to shift from well to vibrant
  • Consider the ongoing relationship of the ancestors to this dimension
  • Practice caring for remains, ancestral objects, and inheritances
  • Enjoy resources on Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormomism

Topic of the live call in week nine: Caring for the Body and Physical

Sign Up
Lesson 9: Tending the Bones

Lesson 10: Embodying Ancestral Blessings

  • Consider the impacts of ancestral wounding and healing on living relatives
  • Invite the guides to bring healing and goodness to your extended family
  • Request physical healing and optimizing of your blood, bones, and DNA
  • Embody lineage blessings and pray with the ancestors for your relations
  • Enjoy resources on decolonization and select Indigenous traditions

Topic of the live call in week ten: Becoming the Face of Your Ancestors

Sign Up
Lesson 10: Embodying Ancestral Blessings

Lesson 11: Harmonizing the Lineages

  • Learn new ways to celebrate well and healed ancestral lineages
  • Reflect on personal shifts with respect to family, identity, and purpose
  • Consider a ritual dedication to care for family ancestral wellness
  • Practice the harmonization of multiple well lineages if possible
  • Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions of Europe and North Africa

Topic of the live call in week eleven: Embracing Complexity and Nuance

Sign Up
Lesson 11: Harmonizing the Lineages

Lesson 12: Pathways for Deepening

  • Learn ways to safely engage other-than-blood family ancestors
  • Consider blood ancestors in conversation with ancestors of place
  • Review pathways for cultural healing and tangible acts of repair
  • Practice engaging ancestors of vocation or other shared identities
  • Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in popular culture

Topic of the live call in week twelve: Grounding Changes in Daily Life

Sign Up
Lesson 12: Pathways for Deepening

Price

Accessibility is a core value at Ancestral Medicine. We offer several pricing tiers, and we leave it to you to select the most appropriate tier. The ranges in pricing aims to take into consideration global economic disparities, historical injustices, and personal circumstances. The system is designed for those with more to register in ways that support those with less.

EARLY REGISTRATION
$ 375
USD
  •  
Standard Rate
$ 550
USD
  • Our standard rate allows us to sustain our work. This applies if you’re employed in the Global North, you come from generational land ownership, and/or you’re able to provide for your needs in a consistent way.
Supporter
$ 625
USD
  • This rate helps us to make our work accessible to those with modest means. This rate applies if you have investments, a retirement plan, and/or access to economic abundance or generational wealth.

Other Pricing Options

Community
$ 475
USD
  • This rate applies if you’re relatively less economically advantaged in the ways listed under “standard rate” or that cost is simply out of reach for you financially.
Economic Hardship
$ 400
USD
  • This rate applies if other options are not within reach. Ideally for historically marginalized populations, and anyone who may experience economic hardship. *Spaces limited
Scholarship
  • If none of these rates are accessible to you and you’re called to this work, we offer a limited number of scholarships. Click below to apply for approval. Applications will close on May 10. Replies may take time due to high volume, but all replies will be sent by May 13.

Money-back guarantee

If you’re not satisfied with the course after having engaged at least one lesson, we will grant you a full refund within 30 days of the start of the course.

Apply for a Scholarship

If none of these rates are accessible to you and you’re called to this work, we also offer a limited number of scholarships.
Click here to apply for scholarship approval.
Applications will close on January 21, 2024, and responses will be sent approximately a week later.

The application for our Reserve Scholarship has closed. The scholarship-supported price listed above is available without an application and is in limited supply.
Contact info@ancestralmedicine.org if you have any questions.

What’s Included

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About the Instructors

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Amber McZeal

Writer, vocalist, & sacred scholar Amber McZeal utilizes sound therapy and guided somatic imagery to engage the knowledge of the body within an interactive and liberatory arts practice. Amber weaves somatic praxis with social justice and spirituality, in an approach that centers the psyche as foundational in movements to end oppression and create more humane social & cultural relationships. She holds an M.A. in Somatic Depth psychology and a Ph.D. in Depth psychology with a specialization in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Ecological psychologies. Her ancestors are from Louisiana, with roots in Haiti, Cameroon, Congo, Nigeria, Benin, France, Spain, and Indigenous North America. Amber lives on the Indigenous lands of the Ohlone people in Oakland, CA. Learn More.

Chi Young Kim

Chi Young Kim is dedicated to helping people reclaim relationship with their ancestors, to one’s self, and to the larger community of the living Earth for a deeper sense of purpose and belonging. All her recent ancestors are from Korea and as a Korean American woman, she has learned to bridge multiple cultural realities and identities. Her offerings of ancestral healing and grief support are grounded, embodied and culturally mindful. Born in Seoul, Korea, raised in New York City, land of the Lenape, she currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina the ancestral lands of the Cherokee (Tsalagi) peoples. Learn More

Erica Nunnally

Erica Nunnally, MA is an animist, ritualist, teacher of yogic traditions, Reiki master teacher, and a steward of Earth’s medicines. She was raised in a Christian and military family with a fluid sense of home and shallow connection to roots, and after decades of personal study and reclamation, found home with her ancestors. Erica specializes in supporting folks with limited knowledge of their family and cultural origins but who are called to deep healing and reconnection. Her ancestors are primarily Choctaw, Nansemond, West African, and Irish. Learn More

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Shannon Willis

Shannon is a dedicated ritualist working at the intersection of dream midwifery, psychopomping, ancestral reverence and oracularship. She founded the Centre for Ritual and Reverence, where she devotes her passion to helping others navigate the complexities of being in service in the seen and unseen realms. She is a student and devotee as an initiate of Ọbàtálá, and Ọ̀ṣun, in the lineage of Olúwo Fálolú Adésànyà Awoyadé, and of Nepali shamanism under the tutelage of Bhola Nath Banstola. As a certified practitioner and teacher of Ancestral Lineage Healing, she also is the Ritual Director for the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network. Learn more

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Daniel Foor

Daniel is a doctor of psychology, experienced ritualist, 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 lives with his wife and two daughters near Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions

Live teaching calls: each Wednesday for 12 weeks, beginning May 15.

Practice & Ritual Support calls: we offer supplementary calls for additional practice, connection, and Q&A. These are held each Monday for 11 weeks, beginning May 20.

Pre-recorded lessons are released each Saturday beginning May 11, 2024 and can be found in your course dashboard.

All calls are recorded and can be viewed the following day.

Main Teaching Calls | 90min | Wednesdays at 3:00pm New York / 12:00pm Vancouver / 21:00 Berlin

  1. Wednesday, May 15
  2. Wednesday, May 22
  3. Wednesday, May 29
  4. Wednesday, June 5 
  5. Wednesday, June 12
  6. Wednesday, June 19
  7. Wednesday, June 26
  8. Wednesday, July 3
  9. Wednesday, July 10
  10. Wednesday, July 17
  11. Wednesday, July 24
  12. Wednesday, July 31

Practice & Ritual Support Calls | 60min | Mondays at 5:00pm New York / 2:00pm Los Angeles / 22:00 Scotland

  1. Monday, May 20
  2. Monday, May 27
  3. Monday, June 3
  4. Monday, June 10
  5. Monday, June 17
  6. Monday, June 24
  7. Monday, July 1
  8. Monday, July 8
  9. Monday, July 15
  10. Monday, July 22
  11. Monday, July 29

All live teaching calls will be recorded. And all recordings will be made available within the course portal to watch and listen to at your leisure, with access in perpetuity.

These calls focus on the core content of the course and will generally reference the most recent lessons released. The Practice and Ritual Support calls guided by Shannon Willis offer time for specific questions and support and will also be recorded. 

This is a 12-week course. Each pre-recorded lesson requires approximately 90 minutes per week and live weekly teaching calls are an additional 60-90 minutes. We also offer additional optional practice and ritual skills calls for one hour. Lessons are sequenced in an intentional way, so it’s recommended to create time for yourself to follow the lessons in order.

That said, the emphasis of this course is ritual skill building to support your daily life and practice well beyond these 12 weeks. So don’t let the feeling of “falling behind” keep you from joining the calls or enjoying the community, course material, and resources. There aren’t goals to hit within this course, and there’s no test; the lineage repair process simply needs space and time to unfold.

You’ll have access to course materials indefinitely, and all live calls will be recorded and placed into your course dashboard in the days following each call. So every moment of every teaching, including practice calls, can be returned to later.

In early 2023 we made significant updates to the structure of Ancestral Lineage Healing. If you took Ancestral Lineage Healing before, we think you’ll enjoy the updated focus on skill-building. The heart of the material is the same, but the outcomes and learning objectives are more clear. Some of the changes enabled us to offer this course at a lower cost, which makes it more accessible overall, which is a core value.

Additionally, as of early 2024, three other experienced teachers will co-anchor some of the main teaching calls.

Support for these four groups include private discussion forums and 30-minute small group breakout spaces after the main teaching calls each week. Experienced course supporters who are familiar with the curriculum of Ancestral Lineage Healing and also identify with that affinity group will anchor these spaces. Details on affinity spaces, their intentions, and criteria for participation can be found here.

We ask folks to mindfully self-select for participation in these spaces, as best meets your identities and the communities within which you wish to be supported during this course. You’re welcome to participate as often or as little as you wish. There’s also no pressure to opt in.

We recognize there are many other affinity space interests. We encourage participants to self-organize through the private course connection space if interested in forming groups beyond the four available. In the event that there is not sufficient interest or we are missing a course supporter, it’s possible for some calls that only 2-3 of these spaces will be available (e.g., the BIPOC and Black-only spaces may at times be consolidated in the BIPOC space).

While the course and the lineage repair process are designed with ritual safety and self-paced practice in mind, this tender journey with your ancestors can bring up challenging emotions. If at any point in this course you feel overwhelmed, consider starting with participation in the Practice and Ritual Skills call.

Please also consider reaching out to someone in the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network for one-on-one support and guidance. Most are available for private individualized sessions, and many offer low-cost sessions to support financial accessibility.

Returning participants to the Ancestral Lineage Healing course will receive an email with a special discount. If you do not receive this email by July 1, please email info@ancestralmedicine.org to request the link to register at this discounted price.

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.

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