ONLINE COURSE
Being the Earth:
Practical Animism and Skills for Relationship
with Dr. Daniel Foor
Begins September 28
If you’re seeking a more profound and embodied relationship with the Earth and the rest of life, consider this substantive 12-lesson course and accompanying series of six live calls.
Participants will learn a lasting framework for animist or Earth-honoring ethics and ritual arts in ways that are culturally mindful, psychologically grounded, and rooted in cross-cultural wisdom teachings and practices.
Practical Animism and the accompanying live call series, Being the Earth, is one of the two most foundational offerings at Ancestral Medicine (the other being Ancestral Lineage Healing) and includes 40 hours of teachings in support of homecoming, reconnection, and Earth-honoring ways of life.
Audio
In this course, you will
- Experience cross-cultural teachings on interdependence, ritual arts, myth and story, and honoring the personhood and sentience of all life.
- Explore layers of culture, history, colonialism, philosophy, and religion as they inform our personal experience of ourselves and the Earth.
- Receive support for recognizing the Earth-honoring animist values and practices within your own ancestral and cultural lineages.
- Learn how to apply these fundamental relational skills to both your human and other-than-human relationships.
- Engage this framework within an intentional online community, where you’ll enjoy support from experienced ritualists and affinity group spaces.
Investment
Accessibility is a core value of our organization, and all price levels also include monthly payment options.
Price
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This is the standard cost that allows us to offer this program and sustain our work.
Other Pricing Options
Supporter
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This rate invites folks with comfortable means to contribute more. Your generosity allows us to offer reduced rates.
Community
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This rate invites folks with more modest means to enjoy our programs at a reduced cost. *Limited availability.
Scholarship
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Scholarships are for those experiencing hardship or from economically under-resourced areas. *Limited availability.
What’s Included
- A 12-lesson self-paced course (Practical Animism) with over 18-hours of high-quality recordings for you to explore the full depth of this series.
- A complementary six-week series of live teaching calls with Daniel, each 60-90 minutes, to integrate and enhance the course material. These calls are also recorded.
- Lifetime access to all course materials and recordings!
- Generous collection of course resources, guided reflections, and experiential practices, focused on bringing the course material into your daily life.
- Access to our private Community Forum, where you can interact with Ancestral Medicine staff, course supporters, and fellow learners.
- Small-group breakout sessions during the teaching calls, facilitated by experienced ritualists. This includes optional breakouts for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks.
Focus of the Six Live Calls
Each weekly theme emphasizes skills for developing meaningful relationships and connections with both human and other-than-human kin. These six live calls (the “Being the Earth” call series) seek to complement without repeating the material of the pre-recorded lessons (the 12-lesson Practical Animism course). Each of the six live gatherings includes time for Q&A, live practice, and small-group sharing.
- Week one: Reparenting and Deep Healing
- Week two: Embodying Cultural Authenticity
- Week three: Becoming a Home for the Sacred
- Week four: Accepting Greater Responsibility
- Week five: When Two Worlds Become One
- Week six: Deepening Commitment to Self and Others
Practical Animism Curriculum
“Practical Animism” refers to the 12-lesson pre-recorded course that is included with registration. Each lesson is roughly 90 minutes of teaching by Dr. Daniel Foor and includes a guided practice, additional resources and transcriptions. The content of each of the twelve lessons is highlighted below.
One
Lesson 1: Kinship, Intimacy, and Animist Lifeways
• Affirm a participant ethic of humility, heart, and self-responsibility
• Contextualize learning amidst injustice and ecological catastrophe
• Consider impacts of colonialism and ancestral wounding
• Invite new pathways of direct connection with other-than-human kin
• Enjoy resources from “new animists” in a wider cultural context
Two
Lesson 2: Eating, Killing, and Giving Thanks
• Explore ethical implications of food plants and animals as people
• Bring kind attention to the intimate killing that sustains our lives
• Ask the powers for ways to weave authentic gratitude into eating
• Dialogue with the spirit of at least one personal food plant or animal
• Enjoy resources on domestication and rituals of food and harvest
Three
Lesson 3: Boundaries, Traditions, and the Dead
• Explore the importance of boundaries, consent, and limitation
• Learn ways to establish sacred space and encourage ritual safety
• Consider different types of ancestors, lineages, and living traditions
• Invite connection with wise and kind ancestral support from your lineages
• Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence and spirited eco-activism
Four
Lesson 4: Celebrating Diverse Bodies and Wisdoms
• Engage with older, more generous views of other-than-human kin
• Expand your vocabulary for sacred diversity and difference
• Foreground friendship as foundational to deeper modes of relating
• Seek to connect with a local wild plant, fungus, or animal relation
• Enjoy resources on the wisdom and complexity of our Earth kin
Five
Lesson 5: Sorrow, Extinction, and Honoring the Waters
• Explore water-related themes like grieving, cleansing, and healing
• Learn ritual skills for embracing potent sorrow, loss, and heartache
• Engage traditional teachings and lore on relating with the spirits of water
• Invite direct engagement with the specific waters near to your home
• Enjoy resources on grief rituals and ritual work with watery kin
Six
Lesson 6: Living the Blessings and Burdens of Place
• Consider complex human histories of places in light of belonging
• Learn ways to think about and be invited into the qualities of places
• Explore outdoor solitude practices and relevant adaptations
• Apply etiquette and intuition to locate a ‘sit spot’ near to your home
• Enjoy resources on place-focused teachings and ritual traditions
Seven
Lesson 7: Stone, Memory, and Earth as Deity
• Identify projection of personal pain and gender norms on the Earth
• Learn foundational practices of making offerings and tending an altar
• Invite help from the stones for remembering destiny and purpose
• Ritually greet, thank, and feed the divinity who is this Earth
• Enjoy resources on ways of relating with the Earth as an elder deity
Eight
Lesson 8: Fire, Plasma, and Bridging the Worlds
• Explore diverse approaches to the elements in theory and practice
• Deepen with elemental fire as magma, flame, lightning, and stars
• Uproot problematic human/nature and nature/culture dichotomies
• Invite direct communion with helpful expressions of elemental fire
• Enjoy resources on elemental ritual and deities of fire and transformation
Nine
Lesson 9: Climate, Cosmos, and the Empty Center
• Extend animist perspectives to wind, weather, and celestial bodies
• Further interrupt extreme individualism and inner/outer binaries
• Reflect on Earth as an open system and our place in wider context
• Invite direct perspective from the elders powers on climate change
• Enjoy resources on wind, weather, astronomy, and great sci-fi
Ten
Lesson 10: Microorganisms, Agency, and Cultural Healing
• Consider the personhood and potent influence of microorganisms
• Explore agency, causation, and who tells the stories we’re made of
• Reflect on language and culture as sentient and more-than-human
• Greet and thank the trillions of others in, on, and around your body
• Enjoy resources on animist storytelling and microanimism
Eleven
Lesson 11: Spirits, Deities, and Incarnation
• Expand animist and ecological frames to include the gods and the unseen
• Reflect on what we’re doing here and why on Earth we keep coming back
• Learn practical etiquette for relating with deities, spirits, and elder forces
• Consider ways the land and the others already shape and guide our lives
• Enjoy resources on spirit possession and the curious state of incarnation
Twelve
Lesson 12: Animist Ethics and the Life of Objects
• Extend animist sensibilities to objects, things, and those forgotten
• Ground coursework in animist ethics, science, law, and education
• Assess for congruence of personal values with identity and choices
• Invite integration of teachings with personal practice and path
• Enjoy resources on animist trends and policies in diverse disciplines
Lesson 1: Kinship, Intimacy, and Animist Lifeways
• Affirm a participant ethic of humility, heart, and self-responsibility
• Contextualize learning amidst injustice and ecological catastrophe
• Consider impacts of colonialism and ancestral wounding
• Invite new pathways of direct connection with other-than-human kin
• Enjoy resources from “new animists” in a wider cultural context
Lesson 2: Eating, Killing, and Giving Thanks
• Explore ethical implications of food plants and animals as people
• Bring kind attention to the intimate killing that sustains our lives
• Ask the powers for ways to weave authentic gratitude into eating
• Dialogue with the spirit of at least one personal food plant or animal
• Enjoy resources on domestication and rituals of food and harvest
Lesson 3: Boundaries, Traditions, and the Dead
• Explore the importance of boundaries, consent, and limitation
• Learn ways to establish sacred space and encourage ritual safety
• Consider different types of ancestors, lineages, and living traditions
• Invite connection with wise and kind ancestral support from your lineages
• Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence and spirited eco-activism
Lesson 4: Celebrating Diverse Bodies and Wisdoms
• Engage with older, more generous views of other-than-human kin
• Expand your vocabulary for sacred diversity and difference
• Foreground friendship as foundational to deeper modes of relating
• Seek to connect with a local wild plant, fungus, or animal relation
• Enjoy resources on the wisdom and complexity of our Earth kin
Lesson 5: Sorrow, Extinction, and Honoring the Waters
• Explore water-related themes like grieving, cleansing, and healing
• Learn ritual skills for embracing potent sorrow, loss, and heartache
• Engage traditional teachings and lore on relating with the spirits of water
• Invite direct engagement with the specific waters near to your home
• Enjoy resources on grief rituals and ritual work with watery kin
Lesson 6: Living the Blessings and Burdens of Place
• Consider complex human histories of places in light of belonging
• Learn ways to think about and be invited into the qualities of places
• Explore outdoor solitude practices and relevant adaptations
• Apply etiquette and intuition to locate a ‘sit spot’ near to your home
• Enjoy resources on place-focused teachings and ritual traditions
Lesson 7: Stone, Memory, and Earth as Deity
• Identify projection of personal pain and gender norms on the Earth
• Learn foundational practices of making offerings and tending an altar
• Invite help from the stones for remembering destiny and purpose
• Ritually greet, thank, and feed the divinity who is this Earth
• Enjoy resources on ways of relating with the Earth as an elder deity
Lesson 8: Fire, Plasma, and Bridging the Worlds
• Explore diverse approaches to the elements in theory and practice
• Deepen with elemental fire as magma, flame, lightning, and stars
• Uproot problematic human/nature and nature/culture dichotomies
• Invite direct communion with helpful expressions of elemental fire
• Enjoy resources on elemental ritual and deities of fire and transformation
Lesson 9: Climate, Cosmos, and the Empty Center
• Extend animist perspectives to wind, weather, and celestial bodies
• Further interrupt extreme individualism and inner/outer binaries
• Reflect on Earth as an open system and our place in wider context
• Invite direct perspective from the elders powers on climate change
• Enjoy resources on wind, weather, astronomy, and great sci-fi
Lesson 10: Microorganisms, Agency, and Cultural Healing
• Consider the personhood and potent influence of microorganisms
• Explore agency, causation, and who tells the stories we’re made of
• Reflect on language and culture as sentient and more-than-human
• Greet and thank the trillions of others in, on, and around your body
• Enjoy resources on animist storytelling and microanimism
Lesson 11: Spirits, Deities, and Incarnation
• Expand animist and ecological frames to include the gods and the unseen
• Reflect on what we’re doing here and why on Earth we keep coming back
• Learn practical etiquette for relating with deities, spirits, and elder forces
• Consider ways the land and the others already shape and guide our lives
• Enjoy resources on spirit possession and the curious state of incarnation
Lesson 12: Animist Ethics and the Life of Objects
• Extend animist sensibilities to objects, things, and those forgotten
• Ground coursework in animist ethics, science, law, and education
• Assess for congruence of personal values with identity and choices
• Invite integration of teachings with personal practice and path
• Enjoy resources on animist trends and policies in diverse disciplines
About the Instructor
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
The entire course of 12 pre-recorded lessons will be made available for participants immediately when they register, to explore at their own pace. Note this is different from our typical live courses, which are released week by week.
Live teaching calls with Daniel followed by practitioner-led breakouts will be held at 3:30pm US Eastern (check your local time here) on the following dates:
- Thursday, September 28 – Week One
- Thursday, October 5 – Week Two
- Thursday, October 12 – Week Three
- Thursday, October 19 – Week Four
- Thursday, October 26 – Week Five
- Thursday, November 2 – Week Six
All live teaching calls with Daniel will be recorded and made available within 24 hours.
This six-week series of live teachings supports a self-paced course that contains a total of 12 lessons.
We recommend about 90 minutes or so to engage with the pre-recorded lesson materials, plus an additional 60-90 minutes for the live teaching call with Daniel. That’s approximately three hours each week.
Each live call will cross-reference various aspects of the 12 lessons, and the specific lessons being discussed that week will be noted. However, you do not need to review the lesson in order to join the live call that week. These notes are for your self-paced exploration later on. Please don’t let the feeling of “falling behind” keep you from joining any of the live calls or engaging in the discussion forum.
In 2023 we made significant updates to the structure of this offering. Our self-paced, 12-lesson foundational course – Practical Animism – is now being supported with the addition of two six-week live teaching series’ with Daniel.
In April we offered the first six-week live call series titled Loving the Earth, and the second live call series, Being the Earth, begins in late September 2023. There is no need to have joined in April to engage in September.
Participants in the live calls are invited to engage with the pre-recorded lessons ahead of live calls or to simply join for the six live calls and enjoy the self-paced course at their own rhythm.
The self-paced Practical Animism course utilized in both series is the same; the subjects and themes that Daniel will teach to during each call series will be different. The intention with this structure is to offer a guided way of more fully integrating the course material into everyday life.
Please note that if you joined us in April, you will also be able to sign up for the new call series in September at a steeply discounted price as you already have course access (look for an email on that or just inquire directly).
Past participants of our Practical Animism course will receive an email with a special discount. If you do not receive this email by August 10, 2023, please email info@ancestralmedicine.org to request the link to register at this discounted price.
Participants joining us in April for Loving the Earth will also receive a special invitation to join us in September for the next six-week call series, Being the Earth, at a discounted rate.
Details for joining the 30-minute affinity-based breakouts and online discussion spaces are provided after registration. Experienced course supporters who also identify with that affinity group will anchor these spaces. We ask folks to mindfully self-select for participation, as best meets your identities and how you wish to be supported.
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 those available. Details on affinity spaces, their intentions, and criteria for participation can be found here.
For this course, we offer full refunds if requested before the course begins and partial refunds if requested up to the day before the second lesson. See our Terms & Conditions.
Each lesson video has automatic closed captioning and additional downloadable audio-only versions. If you have needs not met here, please feel free to reach out to us with suggestions at info@ancestralmedicine.org.
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.
