This program provides an opportunity to consciously explore how the shadows of the past remain undigested in our personal and collective lives. To what degree are we aware of their impact on our present day experiences? How does our behavior reflect some trauma or dysfunction from the past? What resilience and wisdom have we inherited through our lineage?
The stories of our ancestors are part of who we are today, but much of their influence remains unconscious. Through immersion in wild nature, supported by ritual and safe community, we can begin a process of healing. When we explore and bring awareness to what is unintegrated in our ancestral line, we create more presence and more vitality in our life that helps with the challenges we face. The journey is both a deeply personal exploration as well as an inquiry into our collective trauma.
Historical events, such as war, the Holocaust, slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, and the Depression, intersect with the traumas in our lineage and are carried across generations. Through awareness and the courage to face the past, we can bring light to the shame, fear, mistrust, numbness, grief, and other feelings that perhaps lie dormant from “looking away.”
The format of the 7-day program is spacious, to allow for delicate insights to emerge. We will meet daily in sharing councils, with teachings followed by experiential reflection walks on the land, and then further councils in the evenings. The framework of the Four Shields will support and help us map out our exploration of ancestral wounding. Other rituals and practices will enhance our time together. On day 5, participants will undertake a 24-hour solo with optional fasting. Upon return participants will share their stories and have them mirrored by the guides.
