In this module, you’ll begin by exploring historical, psychological, and conceptual frameworks from which to understand relationships with the others. You’ll also:

• Affirm an ethic of humility and friendship for the work ahead
• Distinguish between animism, shamanism, and Indigenous traditions
• Start to bridge psychological wisdom with animist teachings
• Practice speaking directly with our other-than-human kin
• Enjoy resources from important voices in animist scholarship

In this module, you’ll consider how to understand and honor our kin whose bodies we eat, whether you’re vegan, you love steak, or anything in between. You’ll also:

• Explore psychological implications of plants and animals as people
• Bring attention to the intimate killing that sustains our lives
• Connect with the spirit of at least one tasty food (plant or animal)
• Learn a ritual of gratitude to weave into daily consumption of family
• Expand knowledge of ancestral rituals for honoring food as life

In this module, you’ll explore in a personal way the ties between animist teachings and relationship with your blood ancestors. You’ll also:

• Understand the human dead as part of the sacred ecology of place
• Reflect on impacts of colonialism on your diverse ancestors
• Invite connection with an ancestral guide from your lineages
• Learn to respectfully greet ancestors of place near your home
• Explore diverse animist perspectives on ancestors and place

In this module, you’ll discover how the dynamics of relating with human people can be similar to (and enhanced by) your relationships with other-than-humans. You’ll also:

• Examine cultural conditioning that minimizes others’ existence
• Practice clear boundaries and saying ‘no,’ including with the spirits
• Explore role of permission and consent in our ecological crisis
• Ritually test your ability to give and receive a ‘no’ during ritual
• Learn protocols for establishing and honoring sacred space

In this module, you’ll explore how our fellow animals are brilliant teachers about the tremendous diversity of forms and expressions of the sacred. You’ll also:

• Deconstruct limited views of animals due to cultural conditioning
• Expand your vocabulary for the sacred by reflecting on our animal kin
• Reflect on ancestral and local-to-your-home animal affinities
• Humbly seek connection with an animal teacher for your life
• Consider older wisdoms on other-than-human kin known as animals

In this module, you’ll be introduced to skills to feel the big troubles in the world in cracked-open, yet resourced ways for grieving and responding constructively. You’ll also:

• Explore ritual skills for working with grief, loss, and heartache
• Contextualize your devotions amidst the current extinction crisis
• Learn ways to respectfully approach the waters near to your home
• Craft personal grief ritual to offer near a local body of water
• Engage traditional perspectives on spirits of and near the waters

In this module, you’ll explore the uniqueness of your own destiny. You’ll also:

• Consider how power dynamics and differentials inform ritual etiquette
• Greet local stones/mountains as one source of wisdom and perspective
• Ritually appeal to the larger web for greater self-understanding
• Further deconstruct false splits between humans and nature
• Engage traditional teachings on destiny and unique soul-level gifts

In this module, you’ll be invited to go deep with one particular place in the natural world — and as always, this includes you if you have accessibility challenges. You’ll also:

• Apply ritual etiquette and intuition to locate a ‘sit spot’ near your home
• Start to reclaim dynamic relationships with previously overlooked Earth kin
• Practice heart-aware listening for the sacred qualities of a place
• Bring vulnerability and receptivity without dominating the relationship
• Consider themes common to intentional outdoor solitude practices

In this module, you’ll commune with the plant people to reclaim a spirit of friendship. You’ll also:

• Release hang-ups about not being a plant person (whatever that means)
• Learn to prioritize love and friendship before botanical or herbalist training
• Practice letting in the kindness and generosity of the green-bloods
• Make connection with a plant near your sit spot for healing and guidance
• Engage resources on plants as sources of love, wisdom, and companionship

In this module, you’ll relate with our planet as an elder worthy of honor. You’ll also:

• Withdraw projection of personal pain and gender norms on the Earth
• Consider implications for healing trauma and early attachment conditioning
• Expand into diverse ritual applications of the practice of making offerings
• Offer ritual at your personal sit spot to feed the divinity of this Earth
• Explore themes in cross-cultural teachings on Earth as an elder deity

In this module, you’ll deepen into different kinds of mysteries around grief, the erotic, blood, intuition, and other themes often in the domain of the waters. You’ll also:

• Consider your sit spot in light of the local watershed and water cycle
• Explore water ritual themes (grief, the erotic, ancestors, food, healing)
• Reflect on personal strong and weak areas with respect to elemental water
• Craft ritual using skills from previous modules to honor local water spirits
• Engage cross-cultural sources on how to honor water spirits and deities

In this module, you’ll increase your ability to discern the unique, specific magics, medicines, and wisdoms of places. You’ll also:

• Learn ways to think about the deeper qualities or sacred medicines of places
• Ask nicely to understand deeper layers of magic at your specific place
• Offer ritual to reflect back the specific qualities you perceive at this place
• Share about your specific magical place with others in the course
• Enjoy resources on place-focused rituals from diverse cultures

In this module, you’ll explore the intersections between our diverse kin and how they also take form as the big personalities we think of as deities or gods. You’ll also:

• Learn inclusive ways to think about deities, archetypes, and weird old gods
• Distinguish between deities of ancestry, place, and chosen tradition
• Consider ritual and cultural etiquette for approaching different deities
• Humbly offer ritual to convey respect to an elder power at your sit spot
• Explore resources on place-specific deities with active priesthoods

In this module, you’ll consider the larger implications of living animist values and working for the systemic changes that our world so desperately needs. You’ll also:

• Assess for congruence between core values and what you show others
• Reflect on your past and current vocations through an animist lens
• Learn ways to harmonize ritual skills with cultural and political advocacy
• Take one tangible action to advocate for the local Earth and peoples
• Enjoy contemporary animist voices in law, science, politics, and the arts

The Practical Animism Bonus Collection

In addition to Daniel’s 14-week virtual course, you’ll receive these powerful training sessions with leading visionaries, teachers, and practitioners. These bonus sessions complement the course and promise to take your practice to an even deeper level.

Revisioning Relationships With Our Plant Kin
Video Conversation With Daniel Foor and Rachel Weitz

What comprises the human-plant relationship, and what are our reciprocal roles? Are humans important to plants? What about native and non-native plants? Tune into this lively interview for answers, where Daniel talks with psychologist and shamanic practitioner Rachel Weitz about relating with plants through the lens of animist sensibility and ancestral connection.

Rachel Weitz has an MA in counseling psychology, and apprenticed for over a decade with Earth-centered ritualists from diverse traditions throughout North and South America. She has trained in spiritual and shamanic healing, plant spirit medicine, and ancestral repair work. Her work includes teaching animist ways of relating with the seen and unseen and supporting people in remembering their true nature. Her people are from Ireland and the Jewish diaspora, most recently Eastern Europe, and she lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on traditional lands of the Ute and Arapaho people.

Healing Attachment Wounds With Ancestral Reconnection
Video Interview With Daniel Foor and Saskia Ison

Ancestors can be kind, steady, and healing allies in metabolizing ongoing pain from miserable childhoods and other kinds of human loneliness and suffering. In this conversation, marriage and family therapist Saskia Ison talks with Daniel about the intersections of ancestral healing and psychotherapy in a practical, helpful way — without being overly technical.

Saskia Ison, LMFT, received her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her background includes working in a multitude of settings with people from across all ages of the lifespan, as well as a very wide variety of presenting issues. She’s worked at a hospital doing guided imagery and expressive arts therapy with palliative care patients, at a mental health clinic with a sliding scale fee in service of the community and accessibility to mental health, and with homeless mothers and children. She’s also worked in the school system providing therapy to young children and teenagers with their families.

Microanimism: Celebrating Our Relationships With the Smalls
Video Conversation With Daniel Foor and Siobhan Watkins

Can we meaningfully relate with the millions of microorganisms that support our lives? If so, how? In this intriguing interview, environmental microbiologist Siobhan Watkins and Daniel discuss aspects of being in relationship with the communities of beings that comprise the microbial world — within an animist framework. Discover how you can have functional reciprocal relationships with the smalls such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

Siobhan Watkins is an environmental microbiologist specializing in examining the activities of microorganisms in found in soils, freshwater, and wastewater. Since 2003 she has worked in industry, commercial applications and academic research and faculty positions. Since 2016, Siv has been a student of West African Ifa/Orìsa tradition, ancestor reverence, and practical animism. Her living family hail from the British Isles, with Scottish and Welsh ancestry. She is the founder of microanimism.com and offers support to people who wish to relate to microorganisms from an animist perspective.

Ancestral Lineage Healing for Personal, Family, and Cultural Transformation
Video Dialogue with Daniel Foor

Join Daniel as he focuses on ancestral repair work on blood lineages. This framework encourages not only personal and family healing, but also cultural repair around issues such as intergenerational trauma, unresolved lineage debts, ancestral shame, and reclamation of previously undervalued lineage gifts.

During this fascinating session, you’ll discover:

• A framework that can hold both the horror and the beauty that dwells in our diverse ancestries
• Effective ritual technologies for assisting the troubled dead to become well-seated ancestors who are able to serve as potent allies in cultural and family healing
• Ways in which the troubled dead are implicated in cultural troubles like racism, sexism, and colonialism, and learn how this influence can shift to support just and healing futures