Intensives

Registration is open for the 2022 Embodied Ancestry intensive. Register by following the link options below the description & payment policy:

EMBODIED ANCESTRY: REVISIONING INTERGENERATIONAL PATTERNS WITH ASTROLOGY, SOMATICS & THE IMAGINAL REALM

“The gift is always close to the wound.” Michael Meade

“Your body is an ancestor. You are the on-goingness of the dead. The alembic where they are given breath again.” Sophie Strand

“Trauma decontextualized in a person over time can look like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family over time can look like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in a people over time can look like culture.” Resmaa Menakem

In this intensive online container, learn to understand your family patterns through astrology and work with somatic, ceremonial & visionary tools to care for your bloodline & form creative responses to it in your present life. Create ceremonies that empower you to respond to your metagenealogy.

In a time when many of us are called to reckon with the complex legacies of our ancestors, but social science and medicine don’t often go deep enough into the soul lessons we’re here to learn, it’s important to find tools to understand the forces that drove our ancestors, recognize fate patterns flowing through them & us, and recognize efficacious means to catalyze healing in the bloodline. In addition to what’s reflected in medical tests, there’s also the ‘DNA’ that comes to life through you and your ancestors as revealed through your astrological charts. Families don’t only have medical and biographical stories to tell, but also mythical ones: your ancestors are the stuff myths and fairy tales are made of. This course will be an opportunity to explore the joy, grief, and mythic energy patterns acted out in your family line as revealed through experiential exercises, creative experiments & the study of you & your family’s astrological charts. We will work with both biological family and chosen family to explore what the mythic powers  are calling your soul to do now through its relationship to these families.

As the great astrologer Montgomery Taylor once said, “We have free will, but our free will is only as effective as our awareness. Astrology gives us a key to both.” This awareness includes an awareness of the ancestral patterns embedded deep within our cellular memory that actually link us to much more profound, mythic patterns. For this level of recognition & co-creation, we need to develop what Laurence Hillman calls the ‘archetypal eye’: a detective’s eye that sees the deeper, mythological stories underneath the surface-level stories of our families. Many clues are to be found not only in our own astrological charts, but in the charts of our parents, grandparents & beyond, and the historical periods in which they lived. This ancestral intensive is an opportunity to recognize recurrent symbolic images in your biological & chosen families as portals that catalyze transformation, compassion & freedom within you.

This work might be for you if: 

*You want to form a deeper connection to your ancestors in a nurturing community container, and to find out the mythic patterns acted out within your family line, gaining a deeper understanding of the gifts & wounds within your bloodline.

*You want to learn how your voice, body and imagination are tools to respond to the challenges & gifts of your ancestry. 

*You want to learn how to access the wild ancestral creativity that lives in your voice, body & imagination, and how understanding your ancestors supports this journey.  

*You want to transform your relationship to the ancestral patterns that may be perceived as limiting, and in transforming your relationship with them, liberating yourself to create more of what you want. 

*You want to gain tools to connect different historical periods of your family history to your present moment, and to understand how this is all part of a larger story. 

*You want to recognize the deeper myths behind the social roles acted out by problematic or controversial family members.

*You want to write new information into your ancestral line that helps both your ancestors and you. 

*You want to understand what the planets & the zodiac have to do with your family, finding the mythic genealogy behind the biological. 

*You want to learn to develop your archetypal eye: the eye that like a detective, sees the deeper story underneath the surface-level story. 

*You want a transformative opportunity to enter into an awareness of the relationship between your body, your deep imagination and your family, and how to create more of what you want with that awareness.

and/or

*You’re an astrologer, counselor or practitioner of a sacred art seeking tools to combine the astrological language with intuitive, creative techniques, visionary work, voice & sound healing, and therapeutic storytelling to work with your clients on their family patterns. 

*You want a form of developing your professional offerings in a way that incorporates a deep connection to your roots (and that helps others do the same).

The dates of this container will be Aug 18th, Aug 25th, Sept 1st, Sept 8th, Sept 15th, Sept 22nd, Sept 29th, Oct 6th, Oct 13, Oct 20. 7:00PM-9:00PM EST

PRICING

I’ve rooted my pricing in two sliding scales. I recognize that as a white-bodied facilitator of a container involving ancestral work, there are ancestors in my lineage who have caused harm to bodies that are Black, Indigenous, and bodies of culture/persons of color, and that I have held unearned advantages within the current systems of dominance in our society. The sliding scales are meant to recognize how our intergenerational patterns are also wrapped up in these systems of power, and my pricing represents an effort to assist in balancing out the privileges that white, cisgendered, non-disabled persons have received for many generations.

The base tuition is $800.

If you can afford to pay more, then your contribution will go toward helping support those entering the container who cannot afford the base tuition.

If paying the base tuition presents a challenge for you right now, please choose the amount you are able to pay and know that others in the container are helping to support you.

Sliding Scales

The following sliding scales are my attempt to make my offerings from a place of integrity and give people choice, and I’ll name that I feel it’s imperfect. It’s messy. The language around identity is imprecise and ever-changing, so I encourage you to make your choice based on how you most personally identify and what makes sense for you. I’ll also name that I feel uncomfortable about separating people into groups in this way. However, despite this discomfort, it feels necessary to me to have a pricing structure that makes an effort to push back against current systems of dominance, especially when I’m holding a container that rigorously dives into ancestral patterns. So this is my attempt to do what’s best, and I’m still learning.

If you live in a body that is Black & Indigenous OR a body of culture/person of color OR trans OR disabled OR facing financial hardship:

sliding scale $500-1000

If you live in a body that is white AND cisgender AND non-disabled:

sliding scale $700-$1000

PayPal, Venmo or Zelle accepted.

Do you have questions? That’s understandable! Let’s talk.

TESTIMONIALS:

“I would recommend the Ancestral Patterns course because I have found it invaluable to put my own astrological journey in the contexts of the familial & generational relationships that have helped shaped who I am. I think it’s so important that critical self-reflection is anchored in relationships & communities, which helps, perhaps paradoxically, to de-center the “I” or the ego at times. Through participating in the Ancestral Patterns course, I have also found great value in hearing other people’s family stories & how they react & respond to the patterns that have emerged in their & their family’s lives because it helps build empathy and an appreciation for the diverse journeys we are all on.”

-Lauri, Ancestral Patterns course participant

“The Astro-Erotics course was fascinating as we learned, through our natal charts and Nate’s passionate and deep knowledge of astrology and mythology, about our tendencies and desires in everything from love affairs, partnerships and the unspoken underworld. I specifically solidified the fact that having emotional connections with lovers, casual to serious, is beneficial to me and I was delighted to discover how much wildness and transformation I can experience with lovers. I also learned the archetype Virgo, that is in service to society, is the typical person I end up in partnerships with and that has held true and continues to! It’s also fun to observe Nate reading other people’s charts in the class and learning about all the signs and symbols, patterns and nuances of beautiful natal charts. Lastly it’s a lovely group to be a part of every week.”

-Thea, Astro-Erotics course participant

“ The Astro-Erotics course did what religious texts & psychoanalysis & therapy could not: it gave me a language to talk about my experience, rich in metaphor & symbolism, but still grounded in real world experiences. I found that my devotion to Aphrodite grew deeper, as did my understanding of my relationships. The course gives a résumée of major astrological themes, and explains their relevant application to an erotic way of life, which is understood as appreciation of, and participation in, the desire of the world.”

-Jonathan, writer, Astro-Erotics course participant

“In the Ancestral Patterns course, the biggest reveal to me was learning that both my parents were “rebels” and trying to escape their constrained families of origin. That gave me a whole new window into their dance – it highlighted how their choosing to marry actually put them back into “norms” that then constrained them again. I also learned that there were very strong patterns at least on one side of the family that repressed the female,  my mother recognized on some level, but she did not have the strength or the courage or the capacity to support or champion her own daughter. The insights gained in the Ancestral Patterns course open up to patterns among humans & learning about chances to understand more deeply & give oxygen to oneself, and sometimes a demilitarized zone in a family system- that choice of words may be specific to my family because so many people were in the actual military, but also the power war between genders. It can be very freeing to have a holding space for issues with no resolution.” 

–Cassandra, Ancestral Patterns course participant

“I went into the Astro-Erotics class not knowing what to expect and I was still surprised! The homework was simple but required me to really dig deep. There was no way to half ass this. This class asked for me to be vulnerable in a way I didn’t expect, and it kind of scared me, but the other participants were so warm & vulnerable that I felt safe to open up a little more than I would have otherwise. It was also evident that these were your “people,” there was already a familiarity & rapport, so even though I didn’t know anyone else, I felt a sense of belonging right away.”

-Al, artist & teacher, Astro-Erotics course participant