Initiations:
A Life of Ritual
Skills for Making Medicine from Life's Hardship
12 Mondays
Beginning October 5
About the Course
You’ve done the work. And yet something developmental hasn’t quite landed. Perhaps you still feel adolescent in certain rooms, unmoored at midlife, unprepared for elderhood.
For many of us who have done significant personal healing, there may be a remaining grief, a stuckness, a hunger; one that may not come from ancestral pain or trauma per se, but from thresholds that were simply never crossed, witnessed, or metabolized. This course doesn’t ask you to revisit your damage. It asks you to honor life cycles and to practice completion.
About the Course
You’ve done the work. And yet something developmental hasn’t quite landed. Perhaps you still feel adolescent in certain rooms, unmoored at midlife, unprepared for elderhood.
For many of us who have done significant personal healing, there may be a remaining grief, a stuckness, a hunger; one that may not come from ancestral pain or trauma per se, but from thresholds that were simply never crossed, witnessed, or metabolized. This course doesn’t ask you to revisit your damage. It asks you to honor life cycles and to practice completion.
This course won’t give you the rites of passage you were denied—that would take a community, a lineage, a lifetime. But, through live teachings, pre-recorded lessons, guided ritual practice, and peer connection, this course does offer a way to start to metabolize life’s challenges into greater strength, compassion, and wisdom.
Our character is forged through a lifetime of moments that call for sacred containers, dedicated practice, and space for reflection.
— Daniel Foor
More About the Course
We cannot, in 12 sessions, simulate what a strong-rooted traditional village ritual would have given you. But we can offer you the opportunity to move back through the terrain of your own life, from pre-birth to death and beyond, to find the beneficial medicine inside what you lived, including and maybe especially what hurt you most.
Each of the 12 lessons in this course pairs a life stage with a ritual skill. Childhood with safety and boundaries. Early adulthood with devotion and clarifying destiny. Midlife with warriorship and reckoning. Elderhood with awakening and legacy. Dying with the long view of what you’re becoming. Every stage you lived without adequate witnessing becomes an entry point, not for re-wounding, but for finally metabolizing what’s still undigested.
This isn’t a course about ancestral healing or trauma work, though you may experience movement in both arenas. It’s about learning to treat your whole life as an initiatory path, and building the ritual capacity to keep walking it.
Quietly countercultural in Ancestral Medicine’s distinct style, this course goes where most healing work doesn’t: all the way to death, and through it. This is a rare offering that treats the full arc of a life as serious initiatory territory.
Metabolize the initiatory experiences that went unwitnessed: the thresholds you crossed without elders, without ritual, without anyone to help you make meaning.
Build the ritual capacity to keep moving through what life brings so no threshold catches you without a container again.
Reclaim the rites of passage you longed for, whose absence you've been shaped by, without ever having a name for what was missing.
12 live teaching calls with Dr. Amber McZeal
12 pre-recorded lessons by Daniel Foor
24+ opportunities for guided practice
24+ carefully curated resources
Lifetime access to all course materials
Access to a dedicated community discussion space
Course Curriculum
Lesson One: Infancy, Voice, and Invocation
- Explore sacred aspects of conception, birth, and early childhood
- Consider the role of language and culture in early development
- Focus on the ritual skills of prayer, song, appeal, and invocation
- Learn tangible ways to utilize and strengthen invocation practices
- Enjoy resources on stages of consciousness and early childhood
Topic of the live call: Explore ways to dissolve blocks to authentic expression
Lesson Two: Childhood, Boundaries, and Safety
- Explore key developmental milestones and challenges of childhood
- Gently reflect on your early life in light of your personal boundaries today
- Affirm connections between physical, psychological, and spiritual safety
- Learn effective practices for establishing ritual safety and boundaries
- Enjoy resources on animism, childhood, and ritual for young people
Topic of the live call: Expanding into spiritual sources of felt safety in your life
Lesson Three: Embodiment, Pleasure, and Being Whole
- Explore the mysteries of incarnation and embodiment over a lifespan
- Affirm body, sex, and pleasure positivity in support of embodiment
- Reflect on remedies for the fragmentation of soul, power, and psyche
- Engage in practices to welcome back and celebrate aspects of self
- Enjoy resources on non-duality, embodiment, and cultivating presence
Topic of the live call: Practice extending gratitude to undervalued aspects of self
Lesson Four: Adolescence, Courage, and Calling
- Consider youth rites of passage connected to the ability to call in new life
- Explore connections between accountability and accessing guidance
- Reflect on experiences with authority and connection to authentic power
- Practice ways to directly access reliable spiritual guidance and support
- Enjoy resources on youth rites of passage and ethical development
Topic of the live call: Learn to ritually clarify and call on your council of support
Lesson Five: Early Adulthood, Devotion, and Feeding Life
- Explore love and devotion as foundational to spiritual development
- Learn ways to intentionally cultivate heart courage and tenderness
- Reflect on the healing power of relationships, human and otherwise
- Enact love and devotion by learning tangible, ritual offering practices
- Enjoy poetry, art, and other resources on devotion and the sacred
Topic of the live call: Revisit and amplify personal experiences of devotional love
Lesson Six: Limitation, Sorrow, and Choosing Love
- Consider how little we control and the sacred functions of pain and limitation
- Explore impacts of personal loss and tragedy on soul-level development
- Reflect on the courage required to choose compassion over resentment
- Practice ritual skills to receive, regulate, and metabolize grief and sorrow
- Enjoy resources on lament, heartache, and love in response to suffering
Topic of the live call: Invite spirit-level support for transforming pain into tenderness
Lesson Seven: Midlife, Destiny, and Cleaning House
- Explore pragmatic frameworks for awakening and adult development
- Reflect on the process of clarifying, accepting, and living personal destiny
- Learn ways to identify and resolve blocks to more authentic expression
- Practice safely communing with and incorporating benevolent forces
- Enjoy resources on physical embodiment and communion with the powers
Topic of the live call: Practice further clarifying the prescriptions for your specific destiny
Lesson Eight: Early Elderhood, Warriorship, and Legacy
- Consider the myriad of challenges that follow from embracing destiny
- Learn about hazards, ritual protection, and the need to guard legacy
- Assess your current level of risk and willingness to address concerns
- Practice partnering with supportive powers to increase ritual protection
- Enjoy resources on evil, malice, self-defense, and sacred warriorship
Topic of the live call: Explore realistic views on leadership and staying in your power
Lesson Nine: Power, Reckoning, and Making Amends
- Reflect on meanings and right uses of both worldly and spiritual power
- Consider the benefits of courageously facing any unresolved wounding
- Learn ways to honestly assess your life and make any needed repairs
- Practice calling back personal power from past mistakes and traumas
- Enjoy resources on power, imperfection, and responsible leadership
Topic of the live call: Make space for honoring fears around holding greater responsibility
Lesson Ten: Elderhood, Humility, and Mending the World
- Consider elder rites of passage and pathways for ongoing cultivation
- Affirm the power and importance of joy, levity, play, and irreverence
- Learn to anchor identity to more stable ancestral and ecological sources
- Ritually turn toward and recommit to alleviating the suffering of the world
- Enjoy resources on elderhood rites of passage and responsibilities
Topic of the live call: Ritually explore your relationship with healthy elders and elderhood
Lesson Eleven: Eclipse, Dying, and Becoming Ancestor
- Explore death of the body as a rite of passage to becoming ancestor
- Learn ways to further support ego death before physical death
- Continue to soften unhelpful binaries and to access unitive states
- Practice steady communion with elder forces for more effective service
- Enjoy resources on the ancestralization process and post-death journey
Topic of the live call: Gently invite wisdom from the realities beyond your personal death
Lesson Twelve: Awakening, Wisdom, and Becoming What Is
- Explore teachings on consciousness after dying and becoming an ancestor
- Learn pragmatic ways to prioritize soul cultivation over the lifespan
- Reflect on your life through the long view of increasing love and wisdom
- Practice experiencing personal center as opening to the ground of being
- Enjoy resources on the far reaches of human development and potential
Topic of the live call: Practice resting in the present, both in stillness and in motion
Waitlist for Initiations: A Life of Ritual
Register for Initiations: A Life of Ritual
3 and 6 month payment plans available at checkout at 0% interest.
Supporter
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This rate helps us make our work accessible to those with modest means and applies if you have investments, a retirement plan, and/or access to economic abundance.
Standard
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Our standard rate allows us to sustain our work. This typically applies if you’re employed in the Global North, and you’re able to provide for your needs in a consistent way.
Reduced
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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.
If none of these rates are accessible to you and you’re called to this work, we offer a limited number of partial scholarships. Applications will close on Wednesday, May 28. Replies will be sent by Friday, May 30.
Course Schedule
Main Teaching Calls
- Guided by Dr. Amber McZeal
- 12 Mondays for 90 min each, October 5 – December 21
- 5:30pm San Francisco | 8:30pm New York | 11:30am Sydney (the next day)
- 60 min live teachings with 30 min in small breakout groups guided by trained supporters
PRE-RECORDED LESSONS
- 12 pre-recorded lessons of approximately 90 min each will be released in batches of four throughout the course.
- We recommend that you watch the lessons before the live calls. Live calls are supportive to the lessons, and the content is not duplicative. If you can’t keep pace, no worries. Just keep coming.
All live calls will be recorded and will be available alongside the pre-recorded lessons indefinitely.
About the Instructors
Amber McZeal
Lead Teacher & Main Call Anchor
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.
Daniel Foor
Lead Teacher & Pre-Recorded Lessons
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pre-recorded lessons are released in three batches:
- Lessons 1-4 will be released one week before the course begins, on September 28.
- Lessons 5-8 will be available after Main Call #4.
- Lessons 9-12 will be available after Main Call #8.
Main Teaching Calls | 90 min | Mondays
- 12 Mondays for 90 min each, October 5 – December 21
- 5:30pm San Francisco | 8:30pm New York | 11:30am Sydney (the next day)
Call structure
- 60 min teachings with time for guided practice and Q&A
- Followed by 30 min of small breakout groups
- No break
Call 1: October 5
Call 2: October 12
Call 3: October 19
Call 4: October 26
Call 5: November 2
Call 6: November 9
Call 7: November 16
Call 8: November 23
Call 9: November 30
Call 10: December 7
Call 11: December 14
Call 12: December 21
Thanks to our international community of learners for your understanding around the challenges of time-zone inclusivity. The timing of the main calls for this course will favor participants in Europe, Africa, and the Americas; however, all who register get lifetime access to recordings, and you’re welcome to send in questions for our teaching team to answer during live calls or in written form.
All live teaching calls will be recorded and made available 24-48 hours later in the course portal to watch and listen to at your leisure, with indefinite access.
To the very best of our ability, yes. All Ancestral Medicine offerings seek to embody an anti-racist, feminist, LGBTQ-celebrating, decolonizing, and Earth-honoring ethic. They are also class-aware and internationally conscious. We offer a heartfelt, non-dogmatic approach that seeks to honor each participant’s unique life experiences and ancestral storylines. Resources included with each lesson favor ancestrally and geographically diverse voices, and the online Community Forum includes BIPOC, LGBTQ-only discussion spaces. Additionally, the course will include ancestrally and culturally diverse break-out group supporters with the option of being in a BIPOC or LGBTQ small breakout group.
Returning participants to the full (4-season) Initiations: A Life of Ritual online course will receive an email with a special discount. If you do not receive this email by September 15, please email info@ancestralmedicine.org to request the link to register at this discounted price.
This course directly names and creates a welcoming space for exploration of vulnerable topics related to family and lineage, cultural loss and recovery, and different forms of violence and harm in the world. The material may stir complicated emotions for some participants. In addition to the weekly live call, additional support may be important as the course is not a replacement for personal therapy or spiritual care.
Enrollment includes access to our Connection Space – an online discussion platform for students, supportive practitioners from Ancestral Medicine’s Practitioner Network, and Ancestral Medicine staff. Sharing experiences, reflecting on practices, and making connections in this private online community can provide one form of support.
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 are willing to provide low-cost sessions to support financial accessibility needs.
All of our lesson videos have automatic closed captioning, as well 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.
Should you wish to withdraw from an online course or shift your registration to a future iteration, please contact us at info@ancestralmedicine.org to request a full refund within the refund window of that specific course. For our 12-week courses, you can request a refund up to 2 weeks after the course start date.
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