Supporting Your Healing with the Well Ancestors with Jane Spielman, PhD & Madison Steadwell

Through the Dark Woods of Grief

So many of us long for the feeling of village, for tradition, for connection, for guidance from elders - especially in times of deep personal grief and/or collective societal upheaval.

Yet where do we turn in the wake of a culture so broken?
Sankofa is a Twi word from the Akan tribe in Ghana which means “go back and get it”. The symbol is a mythical bird looking backwards, feet facing forward, head easily turned backwards to reach for an egg in its mouth.

We can, like this mythical bird, reach back through intuitive writing to uncover a connection with our Well Ancestors to ask for their help in navigating the rough waters of our lives.

For many of us, our ancestral lineages are tied to an array of mixed emotions. There may be feelings of love, connection, warmth, and support. There may also be feelings of disconnection, rejection, abandonment, grief and trauma. We may not know the stories behind these feelings, but the latent memory inhabits our bodies.

This is why building a somatic relationship with our Well Ancestors is so powerful.

When we begin to develop a relationship with our Well Ancestors, we come to recognize that we are not alone.

We welcome a layer of support into our lives, one that has been there, unseen, all along.

“So why bother writing? Some of us will write compulsively because that’s just who we are. Others of us will worry at the edge of writing, thumbing the keyboard, scratching with a pencil from time to time. For many of us written words will feel foreign, like strange bugs crawling over us while we hide from the world. Though it’s counterintuitive, writing can be a lifeline.”

~ Timothy Flynn, author of Wilder Grief
While writing will be our instrument, this is not a course for writers only.

Writing is a way to access the subconscious and unseen worlds within - to find safety for the parts of ourselves who have been silenced, forgotten or forbidden.

It is a way for us to begin to feel again, and to apply salve to the places that are wounded.

In the ruins of culture lay stories lost and untold, the bones of people forgotten, but once we find the well of connection, we see it can still flow.

We can practice together to begin to remember what has been lost.

This course is designed to facilitate healing through writing.

You will be guided through gentle yet powerful somatic practices and writing prompts with opportunities to share and support each other as a community.

We hold immense gratitude to the depth of unfathomable resilience of our Ghanian relatives that bring us the wisdom of the traditional stories from Ghana.

Also, for Tanya Taylor Rubenstein, founder of Somatic Writing, and all the seen and unseen forces guiding us. We aim to decolonize our legacies. We were born for these times.

To learn more and register for the free intro session, go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/writing-with-well-ancestors/

To learn more about our work at Dark Woods of Grief in general, go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com