This year-long commitment is meant to serve as a practical and well-held container within which to consciously re-weave your life within the context of your ancestral lineages and traditions.

We are not here floating isolated in a moment of time and space, rather we are positioned between ancestors of the past and ancestors yet to come. Reclaiming our awareness of the long story of which we are just one chapter, we can uncover our place and sense of belonging in this world and thus root more fully in to our time here. Through learning about our lineage history, traditions and affinities, we can become re-aligned with our specific people’s gifts and relationships and become better positioned to heal ourselves, form a deep connective relationship with our ancient and recent ancestors, and express the fullness of ourselves in the world in a healthy way. This year-long endeavor is an invitation to gently and lovingly come into a more trusting and conscious awareness of the fabric of your humanness in relationship to those of the past and those of the future, enabling you to live more fully and self-realized in the present. It is an opportunity to do this with a great deal of support from myself and my ancestral guides, as well as with comradery and kinship in group, so that your journey can be lovingly witnessed, reflected on and supported by people in the living world. Whenever we get to share aspects of our spiritual journey with others in the living world, our psyche can more fully embrace and lean into what our hearts know is true, thus enabling us to experience our relationships with our ancestors in humble, everyday conversations and small daily rituals, as well as big once in a lifetime moments too. The reclamation of this connection is typically life-changing for people.

This program is equal parts ancestral lineage healing circle, held per my training with Dr. Daniel Foor, and ritual and integration techniques I’ve developed through my exploration around plant spirit medicine, European shamanism, and herbalism. The course is organized seasonally, so that we move through the material with the wheel of the year. Participants must complete one or two initial ancestral lineage healing sessions before registering for the program such that they have chosen a lineage of focus and have met with a guide on that lineage before we begin. This will enable everyone to benefit equally from the group sessions. Each participant will be working with one (or possibly but more rarely two) lineage(s) towards generational healing, repair and integration. You will be building relationship with your people and your traditions in 1:1 session time with me and my ancestors for guidance, in group sessions alongside your peers, and in your solo time as you feel called. This generational healing and repair work will be held alongside exploration of the foods, crafts, history, language, songs, medicine, plant allies, nature spirit allies and affinities of your lineage(s). You will be invited to apprentice yourself to your lineage traditions as a way to embrace and pick up the threads of what may have been lost in the last hundreds or thousands of years of displacement/conflict/struggle/oppression. Together we will be deepening in with ancestral relationship at the same time as learning and integrating practices, skills, histories and healing.

This program is structured by three components. We will meet together in person at my classroom in Hope, Maine for 10 days across 12 months – this time will involve guided meditations, resourcing and work-shopping around tension points, doing some really fun group ancestor connection and ritual, personal sharing about your process and experience as we go, and sharing the food/songs/medicine/crafts of our people with each other as we are learning. We will also meet online via zoom for a 2.5 hour gathering once a month for 12 months – this will be a space to drop in with your people, to support the lineage healing practice and to check in about the process. The third component, you will have 6 scheduled 1:1 hour long sessions with me to focus more specifically on sticky points, the lineage healing process, working with additional themes of healing, or to garner direction and insight for research, resourcing and overall integration. To summarize, that’s 10 in-person group days, 12 zoom call group evenings, and 6 individual sessions. This circle is designed for full commitment and participation in the components (as much as possible). I do not offer any kind of certificate at the end as the real meaning of the program lies in your life-long relationship with your ancestors, and beyond. We will partake in a closing ritual of claiming and honoring the progress we’ve made and all we’ve learned from them and each other.

For clarity, there is no need to currently feel connected, or even good about, your ancestors or associated histories. Sometimes the histories are really fraught and messy. There is no need to know where your people come from or who they are, no need for names or dates or handed-down stories. There is no need to do a ton of research ahead of time. You have the capacity to directly connect with your people no matter what the situation. You do not need to take on the healing of lineage harms, burdens or individuals by yourself or even in a burdensome way. The only thing you need for this program is a desire to participate in supporting the healing of your people by way of connecting with and working with the ancient ones or the guides on your lineage who have the capability. You only really need to care about the work in order to do it, and be willing to show up. It might be challenging, there might be grief, there might be struggle, there might be frustration, but when there is struggle with this work there is also support in incredible and unforeseen ways.

If you have any questions at all about the lineage healing process or components, I would suggest that you read my website page on ancestral healing sessions and consider picking up Daniel Foor’s book: Ancestral Medicine. You are also welcome to reach out to me.

Together, we will explore ancestral plant relationships, healing modalities and folk medicine, songs and singing, care practices, grief practices, movement and body care, foods and food relationships, history of wellness and struggle, forgiveness and healing, craft work and relationship with land, affinity spirits, and how to allow and invite our people and our traditions more fully into our lives in a safe and loving way.

We will meet in-person at my classroom in Hope, Maine on the following dates from 10am-4pm:
November 12th & December 10th, 2023
January 14th, February 11th, March 10th, April 7th, May 19th, August 11th, September 8th, October 20th, 2024

Potential make-up dates in case of snow or dangerous travel conditions: January 28th, February 25th, March 16th, April 20th, May 4th, June 2nd, November 3rd

We will meet by zoom on the following evenings from 6:00-8:30pm: (full moon-ish times)
November 27th, December 28th, 2023
January 25th, February 23rd, March 25th, April 23rd, May 23rd, June 21st, July 22nd, August 19th, September 18th, October 16th

1:1 sessions will be scheduled according to our matched availability (you will have a special link to do this through my acuity online scheduler) but please note that I am only available to hold sessions during the week as I teach a lot on weekends. I am able to do evenings as needed.

Total cost: $1,850
A $200 non-refundable deposit holds your space in this circle (limited to 10 participants)
You are welcome to pay up front in full. Payment plans are available whereby at least $800 must be paid before the first class, and then $210/month until paid in full.

Scholarships are available, dependent on the number of participants. BIPOC, Queer & Trans folks are prioritized to receive these first but after that I consider anyone and everyone who may need it. Reach out to apply.

Email me at jilliantwisla@gmail.com with any questions or to register. There is a simple registration form that must be completed to apply.