Somatics & Poetry for Connecting with a Healthy Ancestor
An experiential workshop.
Facilitated by Brooke McNamara & Rachel Blackman
Recorded: December 2025
What it is
You’re invited to join Rachel Blackman and Brooke McNamara for a 2-hour workshop as we gently invite connection with resources beyond our individual selves. What if there is profound and powerful support available to us right here always, if we just knew how to receive it? What if ancestral wisdom lives in a timeless space all around and within us, carrying seeds of great love, guidance, and protection, simply waiting for us to offer our attention? What if we, their progeny, are their greatest treasures, and it would be a gift to our healthy ancestors for us to simply receive?
Through gentle guided somatic practices and visualizations, nourishing community connection, and the potent emotional and imaginal medicine of poetry, we will all tune to the incredible resource of one of our own healthy ancestors.
This is one of our 2-3 yearly public workshops offered out of our animist writing membership, KIN: Writing From Connection With the Wider Web of Life. If you are part of our membership, you will automatically be granted access to this workshop as part of your package. If you'd like to simply sign up to this as a stand alone workshop, you can do that too. More info on that further down.
In this workshop, you are welcome to bring a beginner’s mind if you’ve never explored connecting with ancestors before… what we offer will be safe and easeful, held in ritual clarity with nervous system awareness. Nothing is expected of you; just see what arrives when you gently engage the somatic, imagination, and writing practices we offer. And, you are also welcome to bring any and all experience you might have in this realm ~ a pre-existing, cultivated connection or relationship with a healthy, vibrant ancestor of a matrilineal, patrilineal, or spiritual lineage. This intentional, sacred space may support deepening there, or the emergence of a new connection and a world of support with a healthy ancestor you didn’t see coming.
However it unfolds, may we walk away with loving hands at our backs and wise guidance at our sides, nourished by the blessings of each other's expression!
Through gentle guided somatic practices and visualizations, nourishing community connection, and the potent emotional and imaginal medicine of poetry, we will all tune to the incredible resource of one of our own healthy ancestors.
This is one of our 2-3 yearly public workshops offered out of our animist writing membership, KIN: Writing From Connection With the Wider Web of Life. If you are part of our membership, you will automatically be granted access to this workshop as part of your package. If you'd like to simply sign up to this as a stand alone workshop, you can do that too. More info on that further down.
In this workshop, you are welcome to bring a beginner’s mind if you’ve never explored connecting with ancestors before… what we offer will be safe and easeful, held in ritual clarity with nervous system awareness. Nothing is expected of you; just see what arrives when you gently engage the somatic, imagination, and writing practices we offer. And, you are also welcome to bring any and all experience you might have in this realm ~ a pre-existing, cultivated connection or relationship with a healthy, vibrant ancestor of a matrilineal, patrilineal, or spiritual lineage. This intentional, sacred space may support deepening there, or the emergence of a new connection and a world of support with a healthy ancestor you didn’t see coming.
However it unfolds, may we walk away with loving hands at our backs and wise guidance at our sides, nourished by the blessings of each other's expression!
'Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction.'
~ Zen Master Shitou
Why this work?
We are living through weird and de-stabilising times. Change seems to be accelerating, and what is happening every day in the world is so very hard to make sense of. Game changing, yet highly distracting technologies tug on, gnaw at, and fray our attention until it can be hard to remember what trustable support we have, and what to follow.
In this workshop we will begin by remembering our connection to the innumerable beings, causes, conditions, and forces that have come before us and supported us to receive this miracle of life as this unique creature in this wild time. We will remember and receive the life force, care, and intelligence all the way back to our great original ancestor, the Earth. And we will invite one specific healthy ancestor in our human line to come toward us, to meet us, to say hello. And then we will invite a speaking to and from this ancestor, to see what distinct messages want to be gifted back and forth. We will create poetic expressions that flow through from this connection quite naturally.
Let's try a little bit of it now as you read these words. Let's do a little bit less for a moment and tune in...
Can you feel any kind of longing for contact from a wise elder/ healthy ancestor that is “blood of your blood”? What does this longing feel like, specifically, and what happens when you let yourself really feel it? Is there a call back in deep time for someone who loves you with the force of real kinship, who longs in turn to support and guide you? What happens when you let yourself linger in this longing, this call, this availability to hear a response? And what words arise? If you come to the page or speak aloud, what would you say from or to this longing?
In this workshop we will begin by remembering our connection to the innumerable beings, causes, conditions, and forces that have come before us and supported us to receive this miracle of life as this unique creature in this wild time. We will remember and receive the life force, care, and intelligence all the way back to our great original ancestor, the Earth. And we will invite one specific healthy ancestor in our human line to come toward us, to meet us, to say hello. And then we will invite a speaking to and from this ancestor, to see what distinct messages want to be gifted back and forth. We will create poetic expressions that flow through from this connection quite naturally.
Let's try a little bit of it now as you read these words. Let's do a little bit less for a moment and tune in...
Can you feel any kind of longing for contact from a wise elder/ healthy ancestor that is “blood of your blood”? What does this longing feel like, specifically, and what happens when you let yourself really feel it? Is there a call back in deep time for someone who loves you with the force of real kinship, who longs in turn to support and guide you? What happens when you let yourself linger in this longing, this call, this availability to hear a response? And what words arise? If you come to the page or speak aloud, what would you say from or to this longing?
Courage, then —
pay attention to what you pray to!
Bow down, and every once in awhile,
give up. We are held by stronger things,
I promise. We are held — if you are willing
to turn backward toward your own soul,
and take one surrendered breath
and one intentional step, you will find
without a doubt that someone is there
for you, something untouchable
is always here,
never not holding you.
~ excerpt from Sawa, by Brooke McNamara
Who is it For?
This workshop is suitable for anyone who is curious. Everyone with a body and an imagination is most warmly welcome. No experience is necessary other than being a human.
This way of working might be for you if:
- you are someone who is curious about how embodiment and creative practice can assist you with coming more fully into contact with your wise soul guides, deep kin, and ancestral support.
- You long for more of a sense of being rooted in healthy relationship, both seen and unseen, during this time of intense cultural flux and instability. - You are someone who wants to breathe more life into your relationship with the what’s come before and enabled this life ~ for both a sense of reverence and of support.
- You love to be held as you explore expression through writing and sharing your writing.
- Or you are someone who is curious about how you might write from places in and around you other than your head.
This workshop might not be so relevant for you if you prefer to work cognitively rather than imaginatively. Or are not interested in writing as a creative form of expression.
To participate in the workshop, please bring a notebook, a pen, comfortable clothes you can move in, your own wild heart and your curious feet! Please note that you dont need to have any experience of somatics or poetry to be able to be nourished by this work.
This way of working might be for you if:
- you are someone who is curious about how embodiment and creative practice can assist you with coming more fully into contact with your wise soul guides, deep kin, and ancestral support.
- You long for more of a sense of being rooted in healthy relationship, both seen and unseen, during this time of intense cultural flux and instability. - You are someone who wants to breathe more life into your relationship with the what’s come before and enabled this life ~ for both a sense of reverence and of support.
- You love to be held as you explore expression through writing and sharing your writing.
- Or you are someone who is curious about how you might write from places in and around you other than your head.
This workshop might not be so relevant for you if you prefer to work cognitively rather than imaginatively. Or are not interested in writing as a creative form of expression.
To participate in the workshop, please bring a notebook, a pen, comfortable clothes you can move in, your own wild heart and your curious feet! Please note that you dont need to have any experience of somatics or poetry to be able to be nourished by this work.
'It is a world of elemental attention,
of all things working together,
listening to what speaks in the blood.
Whichever road I follow,
I walk in the land of many gods,
and they love and eat one another.
Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me.
Be still, they say. Watch and listen.
You are the result of the love of thousands.'
~ Linda Hogan
Flow of the Workshop
Opening Prayer & Intention setting
Arriving in the body & an initial poetry prompt - Brooke & Rachel
Somatic drop in - Rachel
Sharing Circle
Poetic expression - Brooke
Sharing Circle
Onward Pathways & Worldly Actions
Closing
Pricing Options
There are two ways to pay for this workshop. For the same price you can either sign up to the workshop only, or gain access to the workshop as well as our KIN writing membership space ongoing (cancel anytime). Please read the below items carefully to make your choice.
More About Rachel Blackman
Rachel Blackman is a Somatic Coach, Trainer and Educator, Mentor, Theatre Maker and Feldenkrais Practitioner.
She trains coaches to work with embodied intelligence at The Somatic School. Themes that really bring her alive include creativity and the generative principle, biological intelligence and supporting change at the level of neuroplasticity.
She is an Animist and and loves to hold spaces that weave together connections between the sacred, the embodied and our biosphere.
Rachel works with people 1:1 and in groups, coaching and teaching embodied intelligence, Earth honouring ritual and creative practice. She is one half of The Aliveness Lab with Kate Daisy Grant, whose aim is making embodied practices that are normally only available in 1:1 contexts, more accessible. She is also the mama of an online space and art project called The Museum of Tiny Failures, which is all about taking the shame out of our non-award winning moments.
In her life as an artist, you are most likely to have seen her as Charra in Matrix Revolutions. She is also an award winning theatre maker and has created 5 full length original plays.
Rachel is down-lineage of - way back - European, Scandinavian, Scottish and English ancestry and more recently, a mixed bag of convicts and settler colonists to Australia, where her family now live mostly on the unceeded territory of the Bungalung and Yugambeh Nations. She is now based in Brighton UK where she lives with her husband Shad and bonus son Akash by the big wild Mama sea.
This photo is by Shad.
www.rachelablackman.com
She trains coaches to work with embodied intelligence at The Somatic School. Themes that really bring her alive include creativity and the generative principle, biological intelligence and supporting change at the level of neuroplasticity.
She is an Animist and and loves to hold spaces that weave together connections between the sacred, the embodied and our biosphere.
Rachel works with people 1:1 and in groups, coaching and teaching embodied intelligence, Earth honouring ritual and creative practice. She is one half of The Aliveness Lab with Kate Daisy Grant, whose aim is making embodied practices that are normally only available in 1:1 contexts, more accessible. She is also the mama of an online space and art project called The Museum of Tiny Failures, which is all about taking the shame out of our non-award winning moments.
In her life as an artist, you are most likely to have seen her as Charra in Matrix Revolutions. She is also an award winning theatre maker and has created 5 full length original plays.
Rachel is down-lineage of - way back - European, Scandinavian, Scottish and English ancestry and more recently, a mixed bag of convicts and settler colonists to Australia, where her family now live mostly on the unceeded territory of the Bungalung and Yugambeh Nations. She is now based in Brighton UK where she lives with her husband Shad and bonus son Akash by the big wild Mama sea.
This photo is by Shad.
www.rachelablackman.com
More About Brooke McNamara
Brooke McNamara, MFA, is a poet, creativity coach, meditation instructor, and transmitted Zen teacher and lineage holder.
She has published two books of poems: Bury the Seed and Feed Your Vow. She loves to create poems from 3 main ingredients: the raw material of everyday life, wholehearted and visceral listening, and the mind of meditation. For her poetry, Brooke is the recipient of the Charles B. Palmer prize from the Academy of American Poets.
A dancer and writer since childhood, movement, meditation, and poetry have always been her way of sensing meaning in this wild world. From Tinkerbell to Clara in the Nutcracker to some mind-boggling, experimental contemporary performances, Brooke loves engaging mind, body, soul, and spirit to seek and ignite connection on many levels. From 2003-2018, she danced professionally with Malashock & Dancers (San Diego), LEVYdance (San Francisco), Sweet Edge Dance (Denver), and in extensive collaboration making dance-theater duets with Lauren Beale (Boulder).
Brooke has taught at Naropa University in Yoga Studies and at the University of Colorado, Boulder in Dance. She is president and a founding teacher at Dragon Lake Zen, and teaches in-person and online courses and retreats to facilitate the awakening of innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play. She continues to study and deepen with her Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi.
Originally from San Diego, Brooke now lives in Boulder, CO on the unceded territories of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe people, with her husband, Rob, their two sons, Lundin and Orion. They continuously teach her every day how to live in love.
www.BrookeMcNamara.com
www.DragonLakeZen.org
She has published two books of poems: Bury the Seed and Feed Your Vow. She loves to create poems from 3 main ingredients: the raw material of everyday life, wholehearted and visceral listening, and the mind of meditation. For her poetry, Brooke is the recipient of the Charles B. Palmer prize from the Academy of American Poets.
A dancer and writer since childhood, movement, meditation, and poetry have always been her way of sensing meaning in this wild world. From Tinkerbell to Clara in the Nutcracker to some mind-boggling, experimental contemporary performances, Brooke loves engaging mind, body, soul, and spirit to seek and ignite connection on many levels. From 2003-2018, she danced professionally with Malashock & Dancers (San Diego), LEVYdance (San Francisco), Sweet Edge Dance (Denver), and in extensive collaboration making dance-theater duets with Lauren Beale (Boulder).
Brooke has taught at Naropa University in Yoga Studies and at the University of Colorado, Boulder in Dance. She is president and a founding teacher at Dragon Lake Zen, and teaches in-person and online courses and retreats to facilitate the awakening of innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play. She continues to study and deepen with her Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi.
Originally from San Diego, Brooke now lives in Boulder, CO on the unceded territories of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe people, with her husband, Rob, their two sons, Lundin and Orion. They continuously teach her every day how to live in love.
www.BrookeMcNamara.com
www.DragonLakeZen.org
