Individual Sessions & Ceremonial Services

If you're interested in sessions or some kind of ceremony, give this a read over and just be in touch.

Individual Mentorship Sessions

Some traditional cultures make a fairly clear distinction between ceremonialists, priests, and shamans and all the other people. Other cultures encourage folks to learn as much about healing and spiritual medicine as they can responsibly manage. I am personally more aligned with the latter perspective, especially considering the global crisis of awareness we're all scrambling to address.  Many cultures also tend to recognize different types of sacred roles one can inhabit depending on what your particular gifts are from Spirit (e.g. dreamer, plant medicine person, storyteller, teacher, parent, artist).  In a nutshell, mentorship revolves around identifying your particular gifts and blessings from Spirit and learning to express those gifts in ways that are helpful to the extended community and deeply satisyfing on a soul level. The aim is to become a happy, useful, and fully expressed human being.

At my current level of personal development I am confident mentoring others in the foundations of earth-honoring ceremonial ways. Most of the foundational skills tend to transfer should you have the good fortune to apprentice directly with a wise old traditional elder. In meantime, while waiting for the perfect teacher to come along, there is plenty of work with the foundations that can be done. From my perspective, some of the foundations include: getting your everyday life and relationships in some semblance of balance, learning to relate well your guides and allies including your own ancestors, engaging safely and respectfully with the spirits of nature and elemental energies, learning to work with dreams and the symbolic level of reality, possibly learning shamanic healing practices, and basically just working through your own burdens enough to pray with confidence and an open heart for yourself, others, and the world. Beyond that, what our path looks like is largely a function of our personal medicine or unique destiny. All tools and techniques are in service to remembering our purpose here and living it with passion and joy for the wellbeing of the world.

When I do work with someone in a mentorship capacity I typically meet with them anywhere from every other week to once a month or occasionally even less often.  Participation in community ceremonies or trainings is typically part of the learning, as community is a really critical aspect of earth-honoring ways of life.  If you're looking for support in learning ceremonial ways or shamanic practice or whatever this stuff is called now, I recommend that you come to a drop-in ceremony so we can meet and you can see if you feel any resonance.  Otherwise, just be in contact and we can discuss what you have in mind. 

Individual Healing Sessions

By the time one is suffering physically or psychologically there is generally some type of imbalance also occuring on a "spiritual" or subtle energy level. Shamanic healing seeks to restore balance on these more subtle levels, and, if all goes well, this leads to greater emotional and physical wellness. Also, shamanic healing is relational by nature and especially helpful in addressing feelings of disconnect, isolation, and disempowerment. So, shamanic healing can both address the underlying psycho-spiritual root of physical illness and, at times, it can address both the root and the outer symptoms depending on what's happening. In the curious terminology of shamanic healing some ways I work (in addition to just talking story and listening to the guides) include:

Ally retrieval:  consciously connecting with and learning to draw on the support of beneficial spirit guides and allies. We all have guides and allies in spirit who provide critical assistance in our lives. Part of the healing process can be learning who those guides are for you and getting comfortable calling on them for support.

Soul retrieval: calling back aspects of self/soul that have become fragmented, lost, or otherwise separated from one's personal vitality. Life is hard sometimes and it's possible, especially but not only through traumatic events, to loose touch with parts of ourselves over time.  Soul retrieval work aims to restore wholeness and soul-level vitality in the present so we can do what we're here to do with a lot of passion and shine. 

Extraction: removal of intrusive, harmful manifestations of subtle energy. Especially if we're not in a whole and balanced place our subtle body can take on various kinds of energetic heaviness and funk.  Taking care of that can lead to greater health and happiness and prevent it from becoming a full-blown physical or psychological condition.  This can also support some physical conditions in shifting in a good way.

Depossession: getting non-physical beings that aren't you and aren't helpful out of your immediate space and keeping them out. This usually isn't quite as dramatic as it sounds, but having unhelpful ghosts or other problematic types of beings in your personal space or home is not so terribly uncommon and definitely worth clearing up if it's happening.  If you have the sense this kind of thing is going on and that there is some other being or thing in your psychic/personal space, sure you could be imagining stuff, but it might be that you're seeing it clearly and it just needs taken care of.  Addiction can also be usefully worked with as a somewhat more complex form of semi-conscious possession.

Psychopomp or soul guidance work: helping the unsettled human dead to become settled ancestors.  In the context of shamanic healing, this usually comes up in the context of depossession (unsettled dead hanging around) but the less happy dead (a.k.a. ghosts) can also be connected to place or to other people and just need some compassionate rounding up and escorting to ancestor boot camp.

Energetic and elemental balancing: tuning up one's personal energy body and tending to elemental balance.  Sometimes we haven't had any big soul loss and there aren't any strange old spirits snacking on our energy body but we're just a bit out of balance and need some TLC and energy work.  This may also include calling in the good medicine of one or another elemental power for balance.

Ancestral repair: helping especially one's lineage relatives to become settled ancestors. Although this kind of lineage repair can be undertaken for a variety of reasons, it's totally legit to hire someone to help out your ancestors solely for your own benefit and to have relief from their wacky energies.  Why not?  It helps them and it helps you.  One can also learn that repair process, but in a pinch it's fine to have someone else get in there and clean house and rewire things a bit.

Dreamwork: working with dreams as a pathway for transformation and healing. For those who take the time to remember and work with their dreams, they are a profound treasure and reliable pathway to Spirit. Occasionally, someone wants to approach their personal healing through dreamwork which is a super rich way to go.

Cost, Location, and Other Info on Individual Mentorship and Healing Sessions:  My rates for individual sessions are $80/hr and I usually do sessions for 1.5 hours, making the standard rate per session $120.  I have yet to turn anyone away due to an inability to pay so just talk with me if you need flexibility.  Sessions are currently held in Mountain View, and in some cases I am willing to do phone/distance sessions.

Healing sessions may be relevant for individuals, couples, families, or groups. I'm also open to working with younger people if the parent/legal guardian is on board and supportive. 

Please note that although I'm also a licensed therapist and have a Ph.D. in psychology this kind of healing work is not psychotherapy.  I'm not only saying that for liability purposes; the work actually is somewhat different, and I do occasionally refer potential mentorship or healing clients to a psychotherapist or make doing shamanic healing work contigent upon a person being in therapy and letting me dialogue with their therapist. I've been in my own therapy before (which was really helpful) and I don't have a judgment about being in therapy, so if I make that kind of request I'm sincere about being willing to work with the person under those conditions, and it's nothing personal. In any regard, if we're working together, I'm always happy to consult (with your permission of course) with your psychotherapist, M.D., priest, or whatever other kind of healer folk you might be working with if that would be supportive to you.

Ceremonial Services

Ancestral Repair

We all have a relationship with our ancestors of blood (whether we are adopted or not and whether we like our family or not). The main choice as I see it is whether we choose to have a conscious or unconscious relationship with them.  If you are fortunate and have really happy and well-adjusted ancestors it may actually work OK to have an relatively unconscious relationship with them as they'll just support you regardless; however, if your recent people were a mess in their lifetimes or just regular unhappy or unconscious people then it's not ideal to try to totally ignore the topic of ancestors.  Having said that, in the broadest sense living a really ethical, loving, and inspired life tends to take care of most things and seems to generally help out the ancestors too. 

There are lots of practices and different types of ceremonies for getting in a good way with the ancestors, most of which work just fine if approached with sincerity and gusto; the main thing is to do something (or at least have someone else in your family do something).  When I say I'm available for ancestral repair, it's the same kind of stuff that we do in the weekend ancestors training or the monthly ancestors circle, just in an individual session context.  This involves helping the troubled dead to become more settled, the supportive dead to get their messages conveyed, and the living person to have a sense for his or her blessings and burdens inherited from the ancestors.  Especially if you have a bad attitude toward family or no real context for relating with the dead, this kind of work can be nice to have support with.  Also, it's a really nice gift to give the family (past, present, and future) to get relationships with the family ancestors in good shape.

Weddings

I've only had the chance to officiate one wedding so far, and it was a blast.  I'd love the chance to do more.  Of course if I were asked to do this again and I got the green light from the spirits to officiate your wedding, I'd just work with you to have it be how you want it as I don't have some kind of formal, inflexible format or something.  Love and beauty be the guides.

Home Blessings and Space Clearings

For maximum domestic happiness and health it's important to not be living with ghosts, to have the space reflect your intentions for your life, and to be in good relationship with the spirits of the land where you're at.  This kind of work is really satisfying, makes for a warm home, and can prevent a boatload of complications later.  Typically one ceremony takes care of these kinds of concerns and includes identifying maintenance practices to keep things in a good way.

Death Rites of Passage, Funeral Services, and Soul Guidance Ceremony

Recently, I had the honor of being asked to officiate at the death of a family friend.  This was a really beautiful and powerful experience and an opportunity I would welcome again. If asked, I would work with the ones requesting the services to craft a simple or more elaborate ceremony that both serves the needs of the one transitioning and the family on this side.  This type of service can be appropriate for the one on the verge of passing (death rites of passage), the one who has recently passed and their loved ones (funeral services), and/or the one who passed a while ago, like anything more than a few weeks, but didn't seem to quite make it into the land of the ancestors (soul guidance ceremony).

Ceremonies for New Arrivals

I have yet to be asked to offer ceremony for newborns and returning ones; however, I would warmly welcome the opportunity.  There are various types of ceremonies that could be helpful and beautiful prior to, during, and in the days and weeks after birth.  Mostly this kind of ceremony and prayer centers on helping the new arrival to feel really welcomed and celebrated by both the living and the ancestors and helpful spirits.  At this point, it would just be a delight to work in collaboration with the parent/s to offer ceremony to welcome a young one (or two) to this Earth walk.

Daniel Foor   (650) 248-8917   danielfoor@yahoo.com