Ancestors Welcome Here
Three Days of Ancestral Lineage Healing in the Woods of Pennsylvania
Small Group Intensive
w/ Sevan and Ream
Register HERE
When: Friday, October 30th to Sunday, November 1st, 2026
Where:
Kirkridge Retreat & Study Center
Delaware Water Gap/Bangor, PA/Lenape Land
75 minutes by bus from NYC
All Are Welcome
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. We repair wounds or disruptions that may have been inherited and passed down over time so we may more fully embody the blessings.
In doing so, we are given more capacity to steward goodness and liberation in our relational spheres and the wider world
Logistics and Cost:
Friday and Saturday we gather from 10 AM-6 PM
Sunday from 10AM-4 PM
***This is a residential retreat***
The total cost for this program is on a sliding scale, including 7 meals
and accomodation for Friday and Saturday night.
$315 for those interested in camping on the grounds, and
$525 for shared-room lodging at the retreat center.
Thursday night accommodation is available upon request.
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.
Who We Are:
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 the East Bay Meditation Center. They co-lead the "Pathways to Power" multiracial somatics practice community with B Stepp.
Sevan Mercy (they/them) (aka Sevan Arabajian-Ries) https://www.sevanmercy.com/
Sevan is a second generation queer Mama, social worker, community organizer, conflict mediator, full-spectrum doula, and devoted initiate of mystical traditions. Their work integrates somatics, depth psychology, relational skills, animism, and sound meditation to support people in untangling personal, ancestral, and cultural wounds. Through attuned, unshaming presence, they support individuals and communities in cultivating embodied wholeness, connection, and collective care. Outside of their work, Sevan loves playing music, nature walks with their kiddo, Dungeons & Dragons with friends. Their people are predominantly from Armenia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mexico, and Greece and they live in Milwaukee, WI, the ancestral and current lands of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee nations.
with support from
Chantelle Williams. https://healingwithchantelle.com/
Rebekah Souder-Russo
Kirkridge Land Acknowledgement from https://www.kirkridge.org/
We recognize the Lenape people as the indigenous people of this land and the perennial spiritual stewards of their homelands. We commit ourselves to actively making repair for the harm done to our Lenape relatives, to being in right relationship with them, to walking well and carefully on this land, and to doing whatever we can to contribute to the thriving and sovereignty of both the Lenape people and this vibrant ecosystem.
Learn more about the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania here.
Sound Bath & Labyrinth Walk Summer Series
This series will occur one Thursday every month starring May through September. The dates are:
May 28, 2026 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
June 18, 2026 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
July 30, 2026 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
August 20, 2026 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
September 17th, 2026 - 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Fee: $30/$25 Members
Registration: To register online click here.
This summer we embark on our eighth season of Sound Bath & Labyrinth Walks at Lynden. An outgrowth of artist-in-residence Jenna Knapp’s project, Labyrinth Society of Lynden Sculpture Garden, the sound baths developed in collaboration with Sevan Arabajian-Ries. Now that Jenna has moved on to other projects, Sevan will host the 2026 sound baths on their own (with you).
Full Moon in Capricorn Sound Bath & Candle-Lit Labyrinth Walk
Full Moon in Sagittarius Sound Bath & Candle-Lit Labyrinth Walk
June 12, 2025 - 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Fee: $30/$25 members
Registration: Advance registration required. To register click here.
Join artist-in-residence Jenna Knapp and collaborator Sevan Sevan Arabajian-Ries for June’s Full Moon in Sagittarius. This full moon honors curiosity, truth-seeking, and expansion and invites us to release limitations, follow wonder, and reconnect with our inner compass. Under the light of the full moon, take some time out of your week to pause and take notice of all that you’re currently outgrowing, questioning, and longing to explore. Relax into a healing sound bath and sunset candle-lit labyrinth walk.
Sound baths are an ancient form of healing and deep meditation; they include various ambient sounds and frequencies playing in a space where you can hear and experience their vibrations moving through you. Everyone’s experience will be different; unique as you are, and according to what is needed most at the time. Your sound facilitator for the evening will be Milwaukee’s own Sevan Arabajian-Ries, musician, ritualist, spiritual guide, and relational counselor.
The outdoor sound bath lasts approximately 45-60 minutes. We recommend arriving 15 minutes ahead of time to give yourself time to set up and prepare. Please bring something to rest on and to cover yourself with (if you think you’ll want that) for the duration, and dress appropriately for the weather. The labyrinth walk takes place on a hill so please consider comfortable footwear as well. A little insect repellent may be in order, too. Candles are provided and you are invited to bring your own. If it is too cold or raining, we will move the sound bath indoors.
Full Moon in Sagittarius Sound Bath & Candle-Lit Labyrinth Walk
Full Moon in Sagittarius Sound Bath & Candle-Lit Labyrinth Walk
June 12, 2025 - 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Fee: $30/$25 members
Registration: Advance registration required. To register click here.
Join artist-in-residence Jenna Knapp and collaborator Sevan Sevan Arabajian-Ries for June’s Full Moon in Sagittarius. This full moon honors curiosity, truth-seeking, and expansion and invites us to release limitations, follow wonder, and reconnect with our inner compass. Under the light of the full moon, take some time out of your week to pause and take notice of all that you’re currently outgrowing, questioning, and longing to explore. Relax into a healing sound bath and sunset candle-lit labyrinth walk.
Sound baths are an ancient form of healing and deep meditation; they include various ambient sounds and frequencies playing in a space where you can hear and experience their vibrations moving through you. Everyone’s experience will be different; unique as you are, and according to what is needed most at the time. Your sound facilitator for the evening will be Milwaukee’s own Sevan Arabajian-Ries, musician, ritualist, spiritual guide, and relational counselor.
The outdoor sound bath lasts approximately 45-60 minutes. We recommend arriving 15 minutes ahead of time to give yourself time to set up and prepare. Please bring something to rest on and to cover yourself with (if you think you’ll want that) for the duration, and dress appropriately for the weather. The labyrinth walk takes place on a hill so please consider comfortable footwear as well. A little insect repellent may be in order, too. Candles are provided and you are invited to bring your own. If it is too cold or raining, we will move the sound bath indoors.
FREE COMMUNITY GRIEF RITUAL
Communal grieving creates a healing power we cannot access in isolation. In community, we are witnessed, validated, and reminded that our grief is not only natural- it is powerful.
As we face ongoing personal and collective losses, worry, fear, rupture, disconnect- we need spaces to process and release together. Hanging on to old pain and lacking avenues of
processing new pain can weigh down our spirit, diminish our joy, stifle our creativity, and reduce our capacity for connection. In some cases, the inability to grieve fully can diminish us entirely.
When we grieve fully, our pain transforms: it becomes fertile ground for healing- for ourselves, our ancestors, and the future we are creating together.
In the spirit of Sobonfu Some, renowned teacher, mentor, and voice on African Spirituality, we offer this 3-Day Ritual to the community, free of charge. Born into the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso, Sobonfu was tasked by her elders to bring their rituals to the West. She traveled the world for decades, leading others with deep wisdom, compassion, humor, and great heart.
Grief is a universal human experience, and so this event is open to all humans.
This event will be guided by skilled and experienced facilitators and students of Sobonfu at Villa Arco, a community-minded event venue in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Square.