Featured Trainings
S.F. Bay Area Ancestor Trainings and Events
We are the expression of many generations of both suffering and bright blessings. Relating consciously with our personal ancestors encourages healing and empowerment for our lineages, families, and lives in the present moment.Ancestors Weekend Intensives. These foundational trainings guide participants in greeting their recent and older ancestors, and learning to relate safely and beneficially with family ancestors of all sorts. For more info see the Ancestor Work … [Read More...]
North Carolina Ancestor and Earth-honoring Rituals
I'm happy to be heading to North Carolina (Asheville, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem) in mid-July 2013 for a series of ancestor and earth-honoring rituals. For the summary of offerings see the flyer here. Everything is open to all by donation, except the weekend intensive which requires pre-registration (spaces limited).Intro talk on ways to relate with your blood ancestors for family and personal healing. All welcome, by donation. Tues, July 16th, 6:30-8pm. Asheville, … [Read More...]
Intro to Plant Spirit Medicine (S.F. Bay Area)
Plants are completely essential for our survival as a source of food, oxygen, and ecological stability, and they're also a major source of physical and spiritual medicine for people of all cultures, both modern/Western and indigenous. They're are also potentially our friends. This day of inclusive, heart-centered ritual is especially great for people who instinctively love plants or just want to get to know them better as peers and teachers, but who aren't necessarily … [Read More...]
Northern Ohio Plant Spirit and Dream Trainings
I'm happy to be offering an intro talk, individual sessions, and two day-long trainings in Northern Ohio this October 3-6th, 2013. There will be an open, drop-in talk on Thursday, October 3rd, a Plant Spirit Medicine teaching from 10-4:30pm on Sat, Oct 5th and a Foundations of Dream Work teaching from 10-4:30pm on Sun, Oct 6th. I'm also available for individual sessions in this window of time, and I'm looking forward to offering these events in my childhood home! For … [Read More...]
Learning Resources
Spiritual Healing and Clinical Mental Health
As a licensed marriage and family therapist and a doctor of psychology, I am sensitive to both the alignment and areas of tension between clinical mental health and traditional approaches to healing that tend to more overtly include the ancestors, the natural world, and the unseen. For people who are drawn to this topic, I have included the link for my dissertation that focuses on the use of shamanic healing methods in a clinical mental health setting. I also have a chapter … [Read More...]
Five Ways to Honor Your Ancestors
This essay outlines five ways in which anyone can safely and effectively strengthen their relationships with the spirits of their loving and supportive ancestors. For more information on ancestor-focused trainings, talks, and personal sessions, please see: www.ancestralmedicine.org/ancestors. We all have ancestors, both of blood and of spirit, and each of our lives rests firmly on the foundation of their sacrifice. They are as near to us as our breath and bones, and when … [Read More...]
Who Are the Ancestors and Why Do They Matter?
One of the recurrent challenges of supporting others in the foundations of ancestor work is that most of us who were raised in the United States or other Western, industrialized nations totally lack a framework for relating with dead. I was not raised with an awareness of my blood ancestors or anything more than a passing awareness of ghosts, and I spent over five years actively involved with diverse European pagan, shamanic, and magical traditions, before greeting my own … [Read More...]
A Year in the Guadalupe Watershed: Earth Medicine 2009
In early January 2009, a dozen or so practitioners of diverse earth-spirit paths initiated a year of earth healing ceremonies focused in the Guadalupe Watershed. At the far southern end of San Francisco Bay, the 170-square-mile drainage of the Guadalupe River includes the site of the most productive mercury mine in United States history, a sacred mountain (Mt. Umunhum) whose summit is currently off limits to the public due to lead and asbestos toxicity, numerous dams on all creeks … [Read More...]
Despacho Ceremony at Black Diamond Mines, March 2011
On March 27th, 2011, some 20 people gathered at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, in the Somersville townsite, for an earth-honoring ritual offered by the Earth Medicine Alliance. Executive director Daniel Foor shared about the Alliance, the intent for the day’s ritual, and the history of the Black Diamond Mines area. At the time of contact the land was inhabited by Bay Miwok-speaking peoples, specifically the Chupcan, Ompin, and Volvon. The land was ranched by Spanish … [Read More...]
Personal Story
My Journey with Buryat shaman Sarangerel (1963-2006)
Sarangerel and I met in the spring of 1999 in Athens, Ohio over a cold beer. She was in town to lead a weekend intensive hosted by my first teachers in earth spirituality, Bekki and Crow of the Church of Earth Healing. Of mixed Mongolian and European ancestry, Sarangerel was in the United States after spending most of the previous decade living in Russia and Mongolia training in the traditional ways of her Buryat Mongol ancestors. Her workshop provided my first experience with a shaman steeped … [Read More...]
