Do you feel like you live in a void of spiritual or cultural identity?
White Christian descendants often leave behind their family’s religious roots and reach for yoga, Buddhism, community organizing or rich cultural traditions like Día de los Muertos to fill this void, and to distance ourselves from the violence of our own lineage.
But this can leave us feeling rootless. These are life-affirming lineages, practices and rituals that honor ancestors, honor the body, and make meaning of the world around us. But they are not of our people, and they don’t account for the legacy of harm.
We need to find our way together with others who share this lineage. With Weaving New Ritual, we are here to co-create liberatory practice to support the collective in these questions.
a year long community of practice for White people with Christian lineage to reclaim ritual fluency using the wheel of the year as our guide.
WHO
This offering is for White people who have Christian ancestry and/or currently identify as Christian who:
are curious about how their religious lineage has shaped them
desire more ritual and spiritual practice in their life - and have curiosity about sourcing that practice from their Christian lineage and through connection to land and their more-than-human kin
have a political analysis that affirms the harms and violence of colonialism & acknowledges the ways our spiritual ancestors contributed to these systems of harm
want more integration between their spiritual life and their political commitment
want to experiment, play, co-create new ritual practice in a collective - and are willing to wonder and fail together
desire to practice being in and with your body more, to integrate embodiment practice with ritual/spiritual practice
WHAT
Christianity has long been complicit in the propagation and violence of colonialism and White-supremacy. To uphold these oppressive structures, the descendants of White settler colonial Christians have become more disembodied in ritual and spiritual practice, ruptured their relationship to the earth, and severed ancestral relationships.
This project gathers people who want to pursue a more rigorous relationship with their Christian lineage, to discern the blessings and burdens of it, and to cultivate repair from these historical and present day harms.
For one year we will study and practice together at these intersections, in person and virtually. Using the wheel of the year as our guide, we will explore embodiment, Christian and land-based ritual, the impact of Christianity on a colonized land, and how we tell stories (including scripture & theology). We will learn more about how colonialism and capitalism have shaped our spiritual lineage. We will study through collective praxis as we weave new ritual: learning, experimenting, praying and failing together, for the sake of standing in deeper solidarity with the communities most impacted by colonialism.
WHY
How are we preparing ourselves to independently and collectively experience change?
We live in a time of polycrisis: climate change, growing fascism, late-stage capitalism, pandemics, increasing militarism and threat of global war.
The pace of these crises is increasing, in part, because Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism are feeding them. It feels ever more vital to be with our lineage more as the descendants of White Christian people.
To study this lineage and compost the parts that need composting.
To practice and pray together as we bring forward the resiliency of our people and our ancestral spiritual traditions for the sake of our collective liberation.
The blessings of our lines are right here, waiting for us to greet them.
modules of practice
Note: These modules will populate live content once we begin the cohort.
What is Ritual?
Learn about ritual as medicine and about Christian & land-based practices as they relate to Christianity and empire throughout history.
Who are our people?
Study our own ancestors and the process of ancestral healing as it relates to how Chrisitanity has shaped us culturally and personally.
Body & embodiment
Recover the body as sacred and study ritual as fundamentally somatic. Learn how our lineage has a deeply embodied practice/theology and how our rituals have become disembodied in service of colonialism & White-supremacy.
Impact of our lineage
Study the blessings and burdens of our Christian lineage. This includes both grief work and recovery of practices from our spiritual lineage that support us to struggle for the world we envision.
Old / New Story
Study the stories of Christianity as they have been told and ask: what are the stories we need to tell?
New Practice
Discern: What do we need to be practicing together? How do we weave new ritual practices that divest from capitalism, White-supremacy, & colonialism?
When
A year-long community of practice from December 2024 - November 2025
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December 5 - 8, 2024
Location: Kirkridge Retreat Center in Bangor, PA
Arrive by December 5th at 11am
Depart after December 8th at 4pm
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January - October 2025
Study Circle - 2 hours
Second Thursdays
11:30a-1:30p ET / 10:30a - 12:30p CT / 8:30 - 10:30a PT
Ritual Circle - 2 hours
Last Thursdays
7:00-9:00 p ET / 6:00 - 8:00p CT / 4:00 - 6:00p PT
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November 13 -16, 2025
Location: Kirkridge Retreat Center in Bangor, PA
Arrive by Nov 13th at 10am
Depart after Nov 16 at 4pm
pricing & policies
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The EARLY BIRD cost for this offering is $2100 if you register on or before Nov. 1 2024.
After Nov. 1, the cost is $2200.
That includes all materials and facilitation for the year, and housing and food for the two in-person retreats (transportation costs not included).
Our reduced-rate and pay-what-you-can spots are filled at this time.
If you are able to pay a higher sustainer rate of up to $3500 to support making this offering more accessible, please consider doing so.
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You can pay via Venmo or Check - please indicate your preference on your registration form.
We will offer two options to pay on a monthly payment plan or in one lump sum. If you select a monthly payment plan we will set up regular reminders for you to make a monthly payment.
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We will refund 50% of your deposit before Nov 21, 2024 (90% if there’s a waitlist)
After Nov 21, 2024 there is no refund on your deposit.
After the cohort begins, if you choose to discontinue your participation we ask that you fulfill your financial commitment through the duration of the offering (whether you paid in lump sum or are on a monthly payment plan).
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We know that life happens! While we hope you can make all of our time together a priority that may not happen. Sometimes you may have to miss a session. We will record our Study Circles, but will not be recording our Ritual Circles.
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We ask that everyone test prior to coming and mask if using public transit to come (train/plane)
Please do not come if you feel sick.
We will also ask that everyone test every day while on site.
We will adjust based on current COVID rates and will respond to requests as we are able.
NEW extended deadline to register: November 21, 2024 with a deposit of $250.
*Please note that after Nov 1st the early bird rate ends.
meet your facilitators
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meet your facilitators ✳
NICOLE (they/them)
Lucy & Nicole are so excited to step into this year of community practice with you! Lucy has been dreaming of this offering long before it had a name or shape, and along the way shared it with Nicole who is folding in to hold what is emerging! We bring experience in facilitation, faith-based community organizing, coaching, embodied practice and ritual.
Read more about them at their bios (linked on pics)
LUCY (she/her)
FAQ’s
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This vessel is for anyone who identifies as Christian now, has grown up Christian, or has family or ancestors who practiced Christianity. Our lineages shape who we become, both the resilient and the wounded parts of us. Having Christian lineage shapes us just like being White or Black in the United States shapes us, like being queer shapes us, like being male shapes us. It is something to be reckoned with. This community of practice is for those who are interested in the reckoning.
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So many people of Christian descent make the move to sever ties with their lineage. There are many ways this has been life saving, life affirming and liberating. AND – it feels like a move we make as a colonial people – to sever our ties, break our lines of lineage and leave them behind for the sake of protecting ourselves, our own. It’s risky to even say out loud given how much harm there is at the hands of Church – but the question that arises for us when we sit with this move we make is: What do we lose when we do this? What is the impact?
We live in a time where facism is growing because Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism are feeding it, and so it feels vital to be with our lineage more: to study it, compost it, and allow the gifts of the resiliency of our people and our ancestral spiritual traditions to move through us for the sake of collective liberation.
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Ritual can mean many things to many people. For this offering we hold the following as guideposts for practice:
ritual is an embodied process that calls our full presence and creativity as humans forward
through ritual we connect with each other, the earth, and Spirit for healing, transformation, and support
ritual is a vital technology that we have lost fluency with due to colonialism
ritual is both for tending what is moving in our life every day, and for particular moments of transition, seasonal shifts, celebrations and griefs
ritual happens in a context, a particular time and place
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Each month we will collectively have a community ritual and we will share in ritual at our in-person gatherings as well. Individuals will also be invited to be in discernment and practice in their personal lives and home places, separate from this community. So each person’s ritual practice will take on its own unique form, even as we may share some practices across time and space.
We will co-create rituals together as we each bring our own influences and imaginations to this practice. We will be in some embodied practice along the way, and draw from old and new Christian and earth-based/Pagan practices. This is “new” in the sense that it is spiral work; we are not just returning to/recovering the old, we are weaving what is true now, listening for what is needed now, as we work to shed and recover from colonialism and capitalism.
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Lilla Watson said: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
When we use the phrase collective liberation we trust that our freedom is interdependent -- we cannot be free unless our neighbor is free. This means that our liberation, even as White Christian descendants, from these cultures of domination is connected to the liberation of those most harmed.
Still got more questions? Ask us here.