Ancestors Welcome Here: Samhain 2026 Ancestral Lineage Healing in the Woods

With Ream and Sevan Mercy

October 30 - November 1, 2026

Date and Time Details: Friday, and Saturday we gather from 10 AM-6 PM, and Sunday from 10AM-4 PM

Location: Nelson Lodge

Address: 3501 Valley View Drive, Bangor, PA, USA

All retreats are sliding scale with scholarships available.
  • Camping – $315.00
  • Nelson Lodge Shared Room – $525.00
Click here to apply
Click here to apply

Please apply by August 15th. Applications will be received by facilitators. Confirmed participants will receive a separate email with a Kirkridge registration form and payment link.

What We Are Offering:
Ancestral Healing is the practice of connecting with and tending to your ancestors of lineage to bring balance, insight, and healing across generations. We come to this with the understanding that our ancestors are not only part of our past but also present today, influencing the well-being, beliefs, and patterns in our personal lives, families, and culture. This work invites us to recognize and honor the gifts of our ancestors as well as the challenges, and repair wounds or disruptions that may have been inherited and passed down over time so we may more fully embody the blessings.

What We Practice:
Reconnection to our ancestral lineages through making direct contact in a ritual space with ancestral guides.
Receiving the blessings of our wise and loving ancestors, who have been calling to us for generations- we need only to answer the call.
Transformative justice- that the dead can and do change, and in doing so they can support us in our efforts to change the world.
Healing and repair, to strengthen and invite the supportive, vibrant energy of our lineage elders.

The Process Includes:
Grounding, boundaries, and protective practices in ritual space.
Inviting connection with the Earth and elements through tending our relationship to land and spirit.
Directly engaging with ancestors of blood and bone lineage.
Working with unhealed patterns to then relate more wisely and compassionately to ourselves and our people.
Receiving, at the level of the body and soul, the blessings of our ancestors.
 
For the Sake of What:
Indigenous Sovereignty/Land Back
Reparations/Black Power
Earth Reverence/Land Beyond Borders
Everything for Everyone/Mutual Aid
Queer/Trans Feminism/Bodily Self Determination
Decolonial Futures/Just Transition
Shifting Our Personal & Collective Stories
Safety, Dignity, & Liberation for All
 
Our Values:
Liberation & Justice
Anti-supremacy, anti-racism, abolitionist, decolonial values. Committed to collective freedom, dismantling oppressive systems, and co-creating just, free, joyful futures for all beings.
Inclusion & Embodiment
LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, body-diverse, sex-, kink-, poly- positive. Trauma-engaged, mentally and emotionally attuned, and devoted to loving the infinite diversity of life in all its forms.
Animist Spirituality
Guided by ritual, animism, ancestor reverence, interspecies kinship, and right relationship with the seen and unseen. A spirituality grounded in Earth-honoring relationality that holds the idea that humans are just one group of many bodies of beings in existence.
Community & Care
Centering caregiving, collaboration, community, mutual aid. Striving for collective thriving.
Autonomy, Curiosity, & Sacred Responsibility
Honoring personal soul-sovereignty, deep inner knowing, spiritual responsibility, and meeting the challenges on the sacred path of healing with curiosity- for self, ancestors, community, and the world.

About the Leaders

Ream

Ream (they/them) Instagram @ream.somatics Ream is a queer labor organizer and somatics practitioner of European ancestry (Germany, Sweden, UK, Ireland) living on unceded Ohlone Land in Oakland, California. Ream organizes with the domestic workers union to build power for economic and racial justice.  Ream began practice with generative somatics in 2011, and are a community teacher at […]

Learn more about Ream

Sevan Mercy

Sevan Mercy (they/them) (aka Sevan Arabajian-Ries) https://www.sevanmercy.com/ Second-generation queer parent, social worker, community organizer, conflict mediator, full-spectrum doula, and devoted initiate of mystical traditions. Sevan's work involves somatics, animism, depth psychology, relational skills, mystery traditions, and sound meditation to support the healing of personal, ancestral, and cultural wounds. Outside of their work, Sevan loves playing music, nature walks […]

Learn more about Sevan Mercy

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