Daniel Foor - Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing

Dedicated to all those working to protect and creatively renew ancient ways of life that respect the Earth and the many beings. May the ancestors guide us well through the ordeals that lie ahead.

ANCESTRAL MEDICINE

Ancestor reverence is one of the pillars of Yoruba traditional religion, and it is my pleasure to recommend this book on ancestral healing by my student (m awo), Daniel Foor (Ifbwl). Through numerous visits to our home in Nigeria, I have overseen his initiations to If, Ori , and the ancestral medium society (Egungun), and I know him to be a person of good character. I urge everyone to benefit from his guidance on ancestral reconnection. Remain blessed.

OLWO FLOL ADSNY AWOYAD, D RM, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Daniel Foor invites us on a journey to meet our ancestors, those we know about, those we have never imagined, and those who might like to talk with us. He draws not only on personal experience but also on the shared and tested relational practices of indigenous communities in Africa, North America, and elsewhere. This powerful book arises from years of work with groups and individuals so that as we read it we can benefit not only from the teaching but also from practical exercises. Ancestral Medicine offers a host of possibilities for our further reflection and practice.

GRAHAM HARVEY, PRFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY, UK, AND AUTHOR OF ANIMISM: RESPECTING THE LIVING WORLD

In traditional societies, ancestors are venerated and considered sources of wisdom even after they have left their physical bodies. In contemporary times, few children are conversant with their cultural and ethnic heritage, much less the lives, occupations, and even the names of those family members who passed on only a few decades earlier. In his remarkable book, Daniel Foor provides an antidote for this regrettable situation. Foors text and exercises provide numerous ways to make ones progenitors a living presenceone that is inspirational, instructive, and, for many readers, transformative for themselves and their families.

STANLEY KRIPPNER, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT SAYBROOK UNIVERSITY AND COAUTHOR OF PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY

As a priest of the Yorb indigenous system known as Ori (or, at times, If in the form of its sacred oral literature), honoring and remembering ones ancestors is both essential and transformative. Daniel Foor offers a multicultural perspective and practice that helps diverse individuals on their journey of spirit to grasp the liberating and empowering foundations of ancestral work.

NATHAN LUGO (CHIEF KLL IWNDR), R PRIEST

The illusion of isolation and its associated fear, fury, and shame of abandonment is the core wound in the heart of humanity. The cure is in turning our love and attention to the stream we rode here on. We are boats of flesh on a river of blood born to heal the ancestors, to be healed by them, and to know, reveal, and grow our souls... thus elevating the stream. This river is the salve of the soul, and Daniel Foor clearly knows this. His book Ancestral Medicine is soul medicine for all. The world needs it. Life applauds it. Read, enjoy, heal, and become!

ORION FOXWOOD, AUTHOR OF THE CANDLE AND THE CROSSROADS

Daniel Foor illuminates a field that has too long been neglected in mainstream American culture: acknowledgment of the role our ancestors play in the lives of all of us. Blending his many years of study with a variety of spiritual teachers with meaningful practices he has developed for contemporary people, Foor offers a compendium for recognizing, working with, and honoring connections with our human ancestorsand in the process healing relationships with our family and ourselves. This book is profound, important, and deeply engrossing.

TREBBE JOHNSON, AUTHOR OF THE WORLD IS A WAITING LOVER

This book is a real treasure and, the gods be praised, is highly practical. Crafted in thoroughness, wisdom, and deep sensitivity, Ancestral Medicine gives us keys to appreciating, coming to terms with, and even healing our ancestral wounds. More than all this, Daniel Foor calls us to carry the best of our past into the present and future, and to fully live in place and time in Earth-honoring and heart-open ways.

C. MICHAEL SMITH, PH.D., AUTHOR OF JUNG AND SHAMANISM IN DIALOGUE

Daniel combines extensive practical experience with intellectual rigor in his ancestral work, providing one of the best approaches out there today. I recommend his work to anyone interested in truly knowing themselves and gaining solid ground on their own spiritual path.

GRANT H. POTTS, PH.D., LODGE MASTER OF SCARLET WOMAN LODGE, ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS

The authors culturally inclusive approach adds much to this work, and his passion, clarity, and compassion make Ancestral Medicine invaluable to anyone interested in exploring personal healing, ancestor connections, remediation of family relationships, or healing and reclamation of ones culture of origin.

BEKKI SHINING BEARHEART, LMT, COFOUNDER OF THE CHURCH OF EARTH HEALING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F rom the ancient tribal ways of northern and western Europe, through centuries of intense cultural change, to our recent arrival as colonists to North America in the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, I thank my family ancestors for their tenacity, levity, and character. I praise my parents, my siblings and their families, and my extended kin for their support of my genealogy research and my deep dive into the mysteries of the ancestors.

Thanks to the spirits of the land in northern and southeast Ohio, those near to Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area, and the wild kin of the North Carolina Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains, all of whom have nourished and continue to sustain my body, consciousness, and dreaming. The places Ive known and loved as home are a critical foundation for this offering.

Praise to my human teachers who helped me remember and activate my capacity for ritual and for relating with the ancestors. To mention a few: Ryan Bambao; Bryan Allen and the crew; Bekki and Crow of the Church of Earth Healing; Grant Potts, Clay Fouts, Amanda Sledz, and other members of the magickal tribe; Sarangerel Odigan; Jennifer Marchesani-Keyvan; Paul Rubio, Linda Held, Marco and Christine, David and Cheryl, the Native American Church, and relatives walking the Red Road; the Pacific Zen Institute, Joan Halifax, and other helpful dharma teachers; Martn Prechtel; Malidoma Som; Ginny Anderson; Meg Beeler; Graham Harvey; Luisah Teish, Il runmil un , Awo Falokun, and other American teachers of Yorb ways; and Oluwo Flolu Adsny, y Ifbnmi, and the good people of the Adsny lineage of Ode Rm, Nigeria.

Thanks to participants in ancestor rituals, trainings, and sessions from 2005 to the present: your dedication to healing and empowerment helped bring this book to its current form. Thanks to the staff at Inner Traditions for your trust, to my agent Anne Depue for the same, to Elaine Gast, Seyta Selter, and Julia Bernard for invaluable editorial support, and to all others who helped with edits. I had no idea writing a book was such a group undertaking, and I have no doubt that the final product is far better for it.