Ancestral Wisdom in Troubled Times


How are you navigating these troubled times? Our post-Helene recovery, our divisive and chaotic politics, the challenges to our spirits and our nervous systems – all can benefit from a sturdy connection with our wise and well ancestors. If at least one of your primary blood lineages is vibrantly well, you are warmly invited to join an upcoming 8-week in- person Ancestral Circle at St. James Episcopal Church.


Beginning on Tuesday, May 6, we will meet two Tuesdays per month from 9:30am – 11:00am to draw upon the wisdom and support of the ancestors. We’ll learn and cultivate tools for deeper engagement with our blood ancestors, and with the land here where we live.


To register for this Ancestral Circle, click the link below, contact the church office at 828-669-2754, or reach out directly to Banta Whitner, Ancestral Lineage Healing Practitioner at bantawhitner@gmail.com. Registration is for all 8 sessions of the circle and regular attendance is highly recommended. The suggested donation is $20 per session, or a total of $160, payable to St. James. However, whatever donation you can manage is welcome. The Ancestral Circle is limited to 10 participants. Register now to reserve your seat.


Looking forward to gathering with you soon!


Dates for the Summer Ancestral Circle are:

May 6 & 20, June 10 & 24, July 8 & 29, August 12 & 26

9:30am – 11:00am in the Spiritual Direction room at St. James Episcopal Church.



CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

BOOK LAUNCH: Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred stories of contact, healing, and care

After two years of collaboration and deep tending by a group of practitioners in the Ancestral Medicine network, the anthology Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred stories of contact, healing, and care is now available! As St. James’ Ancestral Partner, I was honored to serve on the Editorial team, and to share my own story in the book.


Each of the contributing authors has a powerful story to tell. We come to this work from diverse backgrounds and four continents. We are people of the Global Majority, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Europeans, and white people descended from settler colonialists to the U.S. and Canada. We are healers, therapists, adoptees, educators, artists, immigrants, cis and queer, and from various faith traditions. What we have in common is the commitment to share our journey with the ancestors, and to invite you to walk alongside us in the telling of these stories.


SAVE THE DATE:  Thursday, June 5 from 12:00pm-1:15pm NY EDT for a virtual Book Launch event to celebrate the birth of our book. Hosted by Banta Whitner, Velma Love, and Daphne Fatter, this event will be free and open to the public, so you're welcome to attend! CLICK HERE for the Zoom link. 


An important note about the choice to house our book with Pressbooks, an open source book management system: Perhaps the most important reason is that our wise and well ancestors, who entrusted us with this project, nudged us to do so. The book is distributed online at no cost to the reader. This format promotes public engagement and broad visibility, and affords a level of access that is in service to the larger community, rather than to profit or commercialism. It is our collective hope that this collaboration with Pressbooks will support increased opportunities for these sacred stories to be widely read and shared with a diverse global audience. Our ancestors asked that these stories be an offering to spread their messages of relational belonging, Earth reconnection, and cultural repair.


The digital book is available here: https://pressbooks.pub/ancestralwisdom1/

Please feel welcome to share the link with your circles and networks if you wish!

If you’d prefer to read the PDF downloadable book, just contact Banta directly at bantawhitner@gmail.com for that link.


Deep gratitude to Pressbooks and the Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center for bringing this book home, to the team at Ancestral Medicine for their creative and technical support, to Daniel Foor for his steady mentorship, to Lauren Leonardi for her cover design, and to all the ancestors who called it into being. 


Banta Whitner with Daniel Foor, Ph.D., author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing