an eight session course
Writing with
the Dead
with Daniel Foor and Rachel Jamison Webster
About the Course
By affirming that our ancestors can be active participants in our lives and creations, we open ourselves to channel the poems, essays, and stories that we most need to write—both to understand the past and to live fully in the present. In this eight week course, you’ll develop lasting ancestral connections and build a foundation for spirit-infused writing practices that endure beyond the time of the course.
Our life is a continuation and extension of all that has come before, a new and resounding word in a story still being told.
Develop lasting ancestral relationships
Build a foundation for ancestral writing
Learn to speak with and for your people
Course Overview
This course aims to help students to develop writing practices that also support lasting relationships with their blood lineages. Each week, through guided ritual and writing prompts, we’ll safely connect with wise and kind ancestors and invite their words and inspiration. In a supportive and practice-oriented space, participants will seek to bring their ancestral stories to life.
Through our time, we’ll establish healthy boundaries with the troubled dead in our lineages and appeal to loving and wise elder guides for personal, family, and cultural healing. Course co-leads will integrate intellect and intuition, theory and practice, and will center time for writing and direct practices of ancestral connection and communion. The course is structured to be useful to seasoned ritualists who are newly called to writing, experienced writers who are new to ancestral contact, and folks comfortable in both worlds.
Participants can expect a kind, responsive, internationally oriented, culturally mindful approach that honors diverse approaches to writing and ancestor reverence. Weekly small group breakouts and an additional weekly call led by experienced ritualists will offer support for ancestral connection practices and writing refinement.
THURSDAYS
BEGINNING JANUARY 16
10am Vancouver | 1pm New York | 19:00 Madrid
12 live teaching calls led by Rachel Webster and Daniel Foor
12 additional live support calls with Erica Nunnally
Small breakout groups anchored by trained ritualists
More than 24 substantive guided experiential practices
50+ carefully curated resources to accompany lessons
Access to a dedicated community discussion space
Course Curriculum
Lesson One: Foundations of Writing with the Ancestors
- Acknowledge and attune to your connection with ancestral guides
- Review a framework for safe, direct relationships with blood ancestors
- Enjoy freewriting time and the start of a ritual writing practice
- Discern between writing as the self and writing as an ancestral channel
- Practice improvisation at the crossroads of intellect and intuition
Lesson Two: Balancing Range, Honesty, & Ritual Safety
- Learn to distinguish our opinions of the dead from their present state
- Name the recent dead and extend to them a healing process and container
- Learn to collaborate with the dead in writing while honoring your boundaries
- Explore ways to enact effective protection from the troubled dead
- Develop writing techniques for tending boundaries with unhealed ancestors
Lesson Three: Understanding Lineage Blessings and Burdens
- Enjoy guided practice to deepen with wise and loving older ancestors
- Write into distinct blessings and burdens in your ancestral line
- Optionally enjoy group time with Rachel focused on ancestral writing
- Alternatively spend focused Daniel time refining spirit contact skills
- Explore writing before, during and after ancestral connection practices
Lesson Four: Working with Specific Lineage Stories
- Engage how you see your people as entry points for new, direct learning
- Explore, also in writing, the terrain of imagination and ancestral memory
- Practice writing as listening (clairaudience) and as seeing (clairvoyance)
- Continue to gently tend to those on the lineage still receiving healing
- Welcome any changes or healing shifts in your perception of the lineage
Lesson Five: Writing into Forgiveness and Emotional Healing
- Learn about the benefits of ancestral storytelling and a “coherent narrative”
- Expand through writing into the energy of non-judgment and compassion
- Attend gently to old stories that your lineage may be ready to release
- Address warriorship aspects of writing and the courage to name the difficult
- Practice writing as a form of active invocation, healing, and prayer
Lesson Six: Living the Gifts, Writing as Courage and Vow
- Discuss impacts of individualism on writing and ancestral reconnection
- Write as a way to connect past and present, personal and collective
- Explore ways to tangibly embody ancestral gifts in your daily life
- Continue to tend to those on the lineage still in need of healing
- Practice softening individualism to support good writing, living, and dying
Lesson Seven: Conscious Communion, Writing as Intimacy
- Explore intersections of channeling and ancestral co-writing
- Write about yourself as an embodiment of these specific ancestors
- Optionally enjoy group time with Daniel refining ritual skills
- Alternatively spend focused with Rachel on ancestral writing
- Practice conscious co-writing with your well and wise ancestors
Lesson Eight: Embracing Relationship, Writing for and with the Dead
- Discuss integration, next steps, and ways to deepen with course material
- Savor a handful of heartfelt writing shares from course participants
- Tend to the dead still mending and honor any recently healed ancestors
- Learn tangible ways to nurture and continue your writing projects
- Practice dwelling with your ancestors in the energy of celebration
Prerequisite & Preparation
This course arises at the intersection of two well established domains of teaching and practice: creative writing and ancestor-honoring ritual. To maximize your experience as a participant and to be able to explore deeper layers of writing with and about the dead, we kindly ask that you tend to one prerequisite and a few basic preparations.
Participants should have already established a connection with an ancestral guide from one of their lineages, following the Ancestral Lineage Healing framework. Paths to this outcome need not be expensive or time-consuming and could be from individual sessions with a practitioner, participation in the online course (Ancestral Lineage Healing), self-study with the book, or participation in an in-person intensive. This can often be achieved during one to two personal sessions and doesn’t need to be a long process. If pursuing the sessions route, this can often be achieved during one to two sessions. If cost is a barrier, please note this additional Collective Action resource.
We ask that you acquaint yourself with the Ancestral Lineage Healing method. If you’re new to this approach you can explore the resources here and listen to this free introductory talk any time before our first class on January 16, 2025.
Warm up: Any time before January 16, please take the time to generate at least two pages of creative writing. It doesn’t need to be refined or focus on any particular topic. You won’t be asked to share it. The intent is simply to ignite the spark and arrive ready to write.
Arriving with these basics in place will allow us to make the most of our shared time.
Waitlist
Register for Writing with the Dead
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 Cost
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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 scholarships.
Applications will close on Thursday January 2. Replies may take time due to high volume, but all replies will be sent by Friday January 3.
Course Schedule
MAIN TEACHING CALLS WITH RACHEL & DANIEL
8 Thursdays beginning January 16 through March 13
Call time: 10am Vancouver | 1pm New York | 19:00 Madrid
WRITING & RITUAL SUPPORT CALLS WITH Erica Nunnally
8 Mondays beginning January 20 through March 10
Call time: 5pm Vancouver | 8pm New York | 9:00 Singapore (Tuesday)
CLASS STRUCTURE
80-85 minutes in the main room with Rachel and Daniel
5-10 minute break
30 minutes for small groups
All 16 calls, minus breakout sessions, will be recorded and available to you in perpetuity.
About the Instructors
Daniel Foor
Co-Teacher
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.
Rachel Jamison Webster
Co-Teacher
Rachel is a professor of Creative Writing at Northwestern University and the author of Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, which tells the stories of her ancestors to explore race, identity, genius, and justice in American history. She has also published four books of poetry, including Mary is a River. Rachel’s ancestors hail from the American Midwest, Ireland, England, France, Senegal, and Guinea. Rachel is devoted to diversity, inclusion, literary ethics, and creating safe and transformative spaces for people to share their personal and ancestral stories.
Erica Nunnally
Writing and Ritual Support Calls
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Main Teaching Calls | 2 hours | Thursdays
8 Thursdays beginning January 16 through March 13
10am Vancouver | 1pm New York | 19:00 Madrid
- 80-85 minutes in the main room with Rachel and Daniel
- 5-10 minute break
- 30 minutes for small groups
Call 1: January 16
Call 2: January 23
Call 3: January 30
Call 4: February 6
Call 5: February 13
Break Week: February 20
Call 6: February 27
Call 7: March 6
Call 8: March 13
Writing & Ritual Support Calls | 60min | Mondays
8 Mondays beginning January 20 through March 10
5pm Vancouver | 8pm New York | 9:00 Singapore (Tuesday)
All 8 calls will be anchored by Erica Nunnally
Call 1: January 20
Call 2: January 27
Call 3: February 3
Call 4: February 10
Call 5: February 17
Call 6: February 24
Call 7: March 3
Call 8: March 10
The timing of the main calls favor participants in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Writing and Ritual Support calls favor the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. Thanks to our international community of learners for your understanding around the challenges of time-zone inclusivity. 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.
This is the second iteration of Writing with the Dead.
We look forward to meeting new participants who have made contact with ancestral guidance and established suitable boundaries with the dead, and we are excited to welcome back returning practitioners who joined us for Writing with the Dead in early 2024.
We will continue to offer support for a ritual writing practice, and will introduce new writing prompts and an additional weekly support call to facilitate relational writing with and about the ancestors.
Participants will be able to choose whether they keep their writing private or share some of their writing in safe and supportive breakout rooms.
We hope you enjoy the improvements.
Yes, indeed. We’re pleased to offer you a past participant rate of $235 which is more than 50% off the standard price. You’ll receive access to a new module in your course portal with new prompts and other resources, access to all 12 live main calls with Daniel and Rachel, and access to 12 live additional Writing and Ritual Support Calls. You should have received a coupon code via email to take advantage of this offer. If not, please email info@ancestralmedicine.org and explain that you took the course last year, and would like to request a past participant discount code to re-enroll.
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, SWANA, and LGBTQ-only discussion spaces. Additionally, the course will include ancestrally and culturally diverse call anchors and break-out group supporters with the option of being in a BIPOC, LGBTQ, or SWANA small breakout group.
This course directly names and creates a welcoming space for exploration of vulnerable topics related to family and lineage violence and harm in the world. The material may stir complicated emotions for some participants. In addition to the weekly Writing and Ritual Support Call, additional support may be important as the course is not a replacement for personal therapy or spiritual care.
Enrollment includes access to our Community Forum – an online discussion group of students past and present, including supportive members 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.
No. But there will be opportunities to do so if you wish.
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 8-week courses, you can request a refund up to 7 days after the course start date.
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