Frequently Asked Questions
What is Ancestral Lineage Repair?
"Ancestral Lineage Healing is a ritual practice of cultivating conscious, vibrant connection with your ancestors to heal intergenerational trauma, and reclaim and embody centuries of lost ancestral wisdom and guidance. "
~Jamari Michael White~
This work is a step by step process to help you connect with your well and vibrant ancestors on each of your primary lineages (your grandparents) and partner with them to heal any intergenerational trauma still untended in those lines. People often feel a kind of resource in their lives from doing this work, like coming home to a larger sense of family and belonging that is new. For some there is a greater awareness of life purpose that becomes more clear through the connection with these ancestors. The ethical foundation for this work is animist, which means I strive to live as if the entire world is alive, sovereign and intelligent, sentient and connected. This includes all those who came before us and those who are yet to come after we are gone.
What Does a Session Look Like?
Each session is a conscious process where I will guide you in connecting with your own guides and allies. For some this is a comfortable concept and for other's it is totally foreign. It is the ancestors who direct the work. I hold a strong, safe container with my own ancestors to guide you step by step through the process. I take notes during each session about anything you share with me which I will send to you at the end of each session. This allows you to fully be in the experience without needing to remember everything that happens. You can think of it as a kind of imaginal work, utilizing the part of our brain/body that intuitively taps into expanded states of consciousness. For many people this is an unfamiliar experience. If this process is new for you, we will begin wherever you are situated. There is no need to know how to do this beforehand. I will guide you through the process.
Do I Need to Know Who My Ancestors Are?
Though it is helpful to have a starting place, there is no need to know who your people are or where they came from in order to do this work. Of course if you do know at least the general area on the planet your lines come from, that is helpful, but not necessary. People who know little or nothing about their lineages, such as those who are adopted, or have had their family history erased through forced enslavement, war or genocide, can and do meet well ancestors! Sometimes we are surprised by what shows up when we look towards them. They are never far away because we are connected to them through our blood and bones and DNA.
Why Would I Want to Contact My Ancestors?
We all come from people who had earth honoring relationships with the land and had rituals and ceremonies that sustained us in the cycles of life, from birth to death. For many of us, these connections to deep community and ancestral wisdom have been cut off at the roots due to historical events like enslavement, genocide, war, famine, colonization, industrialization and religious persecution. Reconnecting with our own ancient ancestors can bring a sense of belonging, support, love and kindness back into our world.
In addition, many of us have experienced the effect of our families' influence from our childhoods on our self-esteem and sense of belonging in the world. Just like in the world around us, not everyone we meet is equally well, including living family members. Well, similarly, not every person who dies is equally well in spirit. Some of our ancestors went through tremendous hardships, war, famine, enslavement, and experienced many forms of oppression, or oppressed others. They survived those experiences due to amazing forms of resilience.
As their descendants, we have inherited both the blessings they may or may not have realized and some of the burdens they carried and were not able to metabolize in their lifetime. In doing this lineage repair process, we gain a fuller understanding of those histories and more importantly a felt sense of vibrancy in our own bodies once the path gets cleared of those burdens. It is a process where you get to participate in cultural healing around oppressions in a way that can be mutually nourishing for you and your ancestors!
How Is This Work Different from Other Types of Inner Work?
This work is complete unto itself and is separate from my work as a Soul Mentor. When we schedule a session for this work, that is all we will do during the session. If you would like to spend time on integrating the work we do together in these sessions with the rest of your life, that would be part of a Soul Mentoring session.
Is Ancestral Lineage Repair Work a Good Fit For Me?
If you have done some personal inner work before, either through meditation, dreamwork, psychotherapy or Soul Mentoring and still feel there is more to deepen into and perhaps even a feeling of being called by your ancestors to do this work, then yes, it may be a good fit for you.
How Did You Learn to do This Repair Process?
I am a practitioner of Ancestral Lineage Healing created by Dr. Daniel Foor.
You can find more information about this work and the training at the Ancestral Medicine Network.
I abide by the Animist Code of Ethics that you can read about here.
What Are The Steps of the Process of Ancestral Lineage Repair?
Preparation for the Steps:
development of intuitive knowing
connection with an trusted guide or ally
Step 1: Intake and Assessment
In this session we talk about what you know about your 4 main blood lineages of your grandparents if they are known.
This is followed by an assessment of the general wellness of each of these four lines in order to pick the first line we will open.
Step 2: Meeting an Ancestral Guide
After choosing a line to begin with, we meet one of your ancestral guides on that line and they place a container around the unhealed dead to begin the process of helping them heal into ancestors.
Step 3: Welcoming the Older Ones
Once the healing is complete for any in the container, they are welcomed by the ancestors and leave the container.
Step 4: Welcoming the more Recent Dead
Once the healing is complete for all left in the container, they are also welcomed by the ancient ones into the family lineage and integrated into the well and healed ancestors of that line
Step 5: Blessing of the bones
Now that all the blockages from trauma and troubles have been healed, blessings and gifts from this family line are now accessible to the living. This session focuses on sending these blessings all the way down the line to you and your family and the lands where you and they have lived.
Step 6: Harmonization
Once you have more than one line completely healed, it can then be harmonized with the other lines and the blessings are then working in tandem together for the greater support of your life and the life of your family members.
Continued work:
For ritual safety, it is best to complete a line once you begun to work with it. For this reason I will check in about your level of commitment to see the process through before we begin with one line. This can be either with myself or another practitioner or on your own with Daniel Foor's book, Ancestral Medicine or through taking one of his online Ancestral Lineage Healing courses.
Should you choose to continue the work and complete all 4 lines of your primary lineages, we can then work with the next layer of ancestors or we can explore the other-than-ancestor relationships you have, begin working with the spirits of the land, learn about themes and histories of your people and co-create rituals to tend and nurture the relationships with them in an ongoing way. The possibility is endless and the relationships deeply nourishing.
"Ancestral Lineage Healing is a ritual practice of cultivating conscious, vibrant connection with your ancestors to heal intergenerational trauma, and reclaim and embody centuries of lost ancestral wisdom and guidance. "
~Jamari Michael White~
This work is a step by step process to help you connect with your well and vibrant ancestors on each of your primary lineages (your grandparents) and partner with them to heal any intergenerational trauma still untended in those lines. People often feel a kind of resource in their lives from doing this work, like coming home to a larger sense of family and belonging that is new. For some there is a greater awareness of life purpose that becomes more clear through the connection with these ancestors. The ethical foundation for this work is animist, which means I strive to live as if the entire world is alive, sovereign and intelligent, sentient and connected. This includes all those who came before us and those who are yet to come after we are gone.
What Does a Session Look Like?
Each session is a conscious process where I will guide you in connecting with your own guides and allies. For some this is a comfortable concept and for other's it is totally foreign. It is the ancestors who direct the work. I hold a strong, safe container with my own ancestors to guide you step by step through the process. I take notes during each session about anything you share with me which I will send to you at the end of each session. This allows you to fully be in the experience without needing to remember everything that happens. You can think of it as a kind of imaginal work, utilizing the part of our brain/body that intuitively taps into expanded states of consciousness. For many people this is an unfamiliar experience. If this process is new for you, we will begin wherever you are situated. There is no need to know how to do this beforehand. I will guide you through the process.
Do I Need to Know Who My Ancestors Are?
Though it is helpful to have a starting place, there is no need to know who your people are or where they came from in order to do this work. Of course if you do know at least the general area on the planet your lines come from, that is helpful, but not necessary. People who know little or nothing about their lineages, such as those who are adopted, or have had their family history erased through forced enslavement, war or genocide, can and do meet well ancestors! Sometimes we are surprised by what shows up when we look towards them. They are never far away because we are connected to them through our blood and bones and DNA.
Why Would I Want to Contact My Ancestors?
We all come from people who had earth honoring relationships with the land and had rituals and ceremonies that sustained us in the cycles of life, from birth to death. For many of us, these connections to deep community and ancestral wisdom have been cut off at the roots due to historical events like enslavement, genocide, war, famine, colonization, industrialization and religious persecution. Reconnecting with our own ancient ancestors can bring a sense of belonging, support, love and kindness back into our world.
In addition, many of us have experienced the effect of our families' influence from our childhoods on our self-esteem and sense of belonging in the world. Just like in the world around us, not everyone we meet is equally well, including living family members. Well, similarly, not every person who dies is equally well in spirit. Some of our ancestors went through tremendous hardships, war, famine, enslavement, and experienced many forms of oppression, or oppressed others. They survived those experiences due to amazing forms of resilience.
As their descendants, we have inherited both the blessings they may or may not have realized and some of the burdens they carried and were not able to metabolize in their lifetime. In doing this lineage repair process, we gain a fuller understanding of those histories and more importantly a felt sense of vibrancy in our own bodies once the path gets cleared of those burdens. It is a process where you get to participate in cultural healing around oppressions in a way that can be mutually nourishing for you and your ancestors!
How Is This Work Different from Other Types of Inner Work?
This work is complete unto itself and is separate from my work as a Soul Mentor. When we schedule a session for this work, that is all we will do during the session. If you would like to spend time on integrating the work we do together in these sessions with the rest of your life, that would be part of a Soul Mentoring session.
Is Ancestral Lineage Repair Work a Good Fit For Me?
If you have done some personal inner work before, either through meditation, dreamwork, psychotherapy or Soul Mentoring and still feel there is more to deepen into and perhaps even a feeling of being called by your ancestors to do this work, then yes, it may be a good fit for you.
How Did You Learn to do This Repair Process?
I am a practitioner of Ancestral Lineage Healing created by Dr. Daniel Foor.
You can find more information about this work and the training at the Ancestral Medicine Network.
I abide by the Animist Code of Ethics that you can read about here.
What Are The Steps of the Process of Ancestral Lineage Repair?
Preparation for the Steps:
development of intuitive knowing
connection with an trusted guide or ally
Step 1: Intake and Assessment
In this session we talk about what you know about your 4 main blood lineages of your grandparents if they are known.
This is followed by an assessment of the general wellness of each of these four lines in order to pick the first line we will open.
Step 2: Meeting an Ancestral Guide
After choosing a line to begin with, we meet one of your ancestral guides on that line and they place a container around the unhealed dead to begin the process of helping them heal into ancestors.
Step 3: Welcoming the Older Ones
Once the healing is complete for any in the container, they are welcomed by the ancestors and leave the container.
Step 4: Welcoming the more Recent Dead
Once the healing is complete for all left in the container, they are also welcomed by the ancient ones into the family lineage and integrated into the well and healed ancestors of that line
Step 5: Blessing of the bones
Now that all the blockages from trauma and troubles have been healed, blessings and gifts from this family line are now accessible to the living. This session focuses on sending these blessings all the way down the line to you and your family and the lands where you and they have lived.
Step 6: Harmonization
Once you have more than one line completely healed, it can then be harmonized with the other lines and the blessings are then working in tandem together for the greater support of your life and the life of your family members.
Continued work:
For ritual safety, it is best to complete a line once you begun to work with it. For this reason I will check in about your level of commitment to see the process through before we begin with one line. This can be either with myself or another practitioner or on your own with Daniel Foor's book, Ancestral Medicine or through taking one of his online Ancestral Lineage Healing courses.
Should you choose to continue the work and complete all 4 lines of your primary lineages, we can then work with the next layer of ancestors or we can explore the other-than-ancestor relationships you have, begin working with the spirits of the land, learn about themes and histories of your people and co-create rituals to tend and nurture the relationships with them in an ongoing way. The possibility is endless and the relationships deeply nourishing.
