This training is for ritual healing practitioners who would like to grow their skills in the areas of ritual containment, psychopomp work, soul retrieval, energy body clearing, pattern unravelling, and compassionate depossession. These methods comprise a core set of skills that support personal sovereignty, freedom, healing, and creative resourcing.
Participants will be introduced to these practices in a progressive series developing technique, relationships with the healing spirits who facilitate the work, relational cosmologies, and confidence while working within the cohort. Each technique will be introduced in a three-day core training followed by a variable number of intervening practicums.
Module 1: Ritual Container Development and Self-Care
The External Container – A practitioner’s ritual container includes ritual boundaries, relationship with protective spirits, energetic resources, as well as functional elements that enable the work to happen with more ease and efficiency. The strength of your ritual container determines your capacity as a practitioner. In this module participants will work with refining and expanding their ritual healing containers in preparation for the work ahead.
The Internal Container – Ritual healing is a path of spiritual initiation – for clients as well as practitioners. Who we are has direct bearing on what we can do. Over the course of this training we will explore how the practitioner’s relationship with the work, personal cosmology, and state of consciousness influences what happens in the ritual healing context. Participants will be introduced to ways to increase core strength, clarity of perception, and personal and ancestral alignment.
Self Care – For a practice to be healthy and sustainable practitioners need to maintain boundaries with the work and have a regimen of self-care. This training will offer perspectives and methods for practical boundaries and self-care including tending patterns of overextension and dynamics derived from common archetypes expressed in the healing professions like the Rescuer and Martyr.
Module 2: Psychopomp Facilitation
The term “psychpomp” is a Greek term meaning a “conductor of souls”. The term is used more broadly in ritual healing practices to refer to any situation in which a spirit transitions to another place or dimension of consciousness by crossing a threshold. This applies to deceased humans or other formerly corporeal beings who have not crossed the threshold of death, as well as non-corporeal spirits who need assistance relocating to their home dimension or location. Psychopomp work is the foundation of compassionate depossession and a common element of curse unravelling and soul retrieval. Practitioners will form relationships with the spirits who specialize in the psychopomp role and will be inducted into the practice of facilitating this sacred threshold work.
Module 3: Soul Retrieval and Energy Body Clearing
Sometimes in the course of life we can become dissociated from aspects of ourselves often due to factors such as trauma, family of origin issues, accidents, and drug and alcohol use. This state is called soul loss as those aspects of ourselves, in this context called soul parts, are experienced as missing from present life. Symptoms of soul loss include lack of vitality, creativity, and sense of self. Soul loss can also contribute to patterns of addiction and some illness. The soul retrieval process helps re-associate the client with these aspects of self, making the qualities of the soul parts available for reintegration. Practitioners will learn how to return a client’s essential energy to them and clear non-self energy from the physical and energetic bodies.
Module 4: Pattern Unravelling: Curses, Contracts, Thought-forms, and Ancestral Themes
Curses are broadly defined as energy constructs that generate repeating patterns that have negative impacts on our lives. When applied to our mental fields, these repeating patterns are called thought-forms. Curses and thought-forms are common factors contributing to limiting conditions in life such as bad luck, illnesses, dysfunctional and recurring family patterns, and lack of personal power. Past life or ancestral vows and ancestral patterns can also be factors that limit personal freedom, well-being, and abundance. Participants will learn a process for unravelling such patterns.
Module 5: Compassionate Depossession
Possession, or overshadowing, is a state in which a person’s experience is influenced by another conscious being who is sharing their physical and energetic space. Possession can be intentional or unintentional and can be the result of trauma, soul loss, soul history karma, and insufficient boundaries with our ancestral dead. Possession is a natural, if often undesirable, occurrence that can lead to or be a factor in a number of issues including some chronic illnesses and physical pain, addictions, obsessions, depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies. Depossession, when indicated, can be the most effective component of a treatment, helping to resolve long-standing issues that are resistant to other forms of healing work. Participants will learn the method of compassionate depossession developed by Betsy Bergstrom. This method is a humane therapy that benefits both the clients and possessing spirits, working in harmony with the structure and principles of natural order.
Applicants should be in alignment with the following prerequisites and approach:
This is an advanced training. To participate you should already have some form of ritual healing practice and an ethos of tending to your personal healing and self-development. At least two years of experience in practice is recommended.
Ancestral Lineage Healing – Participants will be required to have completed the healing of at least two (and ideally all four primary lineages) of their own ancestral lineages in the Ancestral Lineage Healing process developed by Daniel Foor. As this work can take some time to complete, it is recommended that applicants start this process a few months in advance of applying. Maris facilitates these sessions and there are online classes and other practitioner options available through www.ancestralmedicine.org. We will be working with the ancestors periodically as part of this training.
This work can take mettle. Practitioners should be in stable and reasonably good mental health. Check with your helping spirits and ancestors as to whether this training is in alignment with your highest good at this time.
Practitioners must be able to do drum/rattle journeys. Have a rattle to use for journeying in your space. A sound that is not too harsh or too soft is recommended. Drums are optional but we will be using rattles for energy clearing, soul retrieval, and for the pattern unravelling module.
This training is initiatory and not just about following procedures. Attendance is required at core trainings and practicums and participants will be expected to prioritize and commit to the training. Illnesses or big life events that result in absences during a core training may result in an inability to complete the program. How to proceed will be considered on a case by case basis.
Practitioners must be willing to receive the work themselves, as cohort members will practice on each other as part of the training. Having personal healing experiences in these domains will also deepen the practitioners’ relationships with the work.
We will be not be working within the archetype of the rescuer or heroic healer. This work is about about aligning with and getting movement within natural processes, it is not combative or heroic. The warrior element in this work is channeled into the ability of practitioners to stay centered and steadfast in alignment with intention.
As practitioners we will cultivate neutral and compassionate views in order to see bigger picture perspectives. We work only with the most wise and compassionate spirits to facilitate healing for the benefit of all beings.
Practitioners will be developing relationships with compassionate helping spirits both within and outside their ancestral cosmologies. In psychopomp and depossession work in particular, knowing psychopomp spirits from different places in the world increases the range of beings who can be assisted and is an important aspect of this work.
This course is designed to be taken in full and in the order presented. If you already have a background in any one of these areas it is always possible to go deeper with the work. As space is limited, if you register it is with a good faith intention to prioritize and complete the entire training.
Schedule:
All three-day core training intensives are from 9:00am – 4:00pm Pacific Time. All practicum are from 1:00pm – 4:30pm/5:00pm Pacific Time. End times will need to be somewhat flexible as the time it takes to do practice sessions can vary.
Module 1: Ritual Containment and Self-Care
Core Training: January 6-8
Module 2: Psychopomp Training
Core Training: February 3-5
Practicums:
February 17
March 3
March 17
Module 3: Soul Retrieval and Energy Body Clearing
Core Training: March 31 – April 3
Practicums:
April 14
April 28
May 12
Module 4: Pattern Unravelling: Curses, Contracts, Thought-forms, and Ancestral Themes
Core Training: July 14 – 16
Practicums:
July 28
August 11
August 25
Module 5: Compassionate Depossession
Core Training: September 8 – 10
Practicums:
September 22
September 29
October 6
October 13
October 27
November 3
November 17
Closing Weekend
December 2 – 3
Payment Schedule:
$675 USD to register. This deposit covers payment for Module 1 and the closing weekend.
Subsequent payments in USD:
February 1st: $500
March 29th: $500
July 12th: $500
September 6th: $400
November 1st: $400
There is a limited number of sliding scale positions available for those in countries with unfavorable exchange rates (if the full rate is financially prohibitive), who come from disenfranchised demographics, who have economic hardship, and who are on fixed and limited incomes. Contact Maris with a rate proposal in USD.
Class Limit: About 15 participants