Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Mondays, April 6, 13, 20, 27 & May 4, 11 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $180 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
This class will explore the profound and often haunting question of where we come from — when bloodlines are known, when they are severed, and when they remain shrouded in mystery. Drawing from comparative mythology, archetypal psychology, ritual studies, and embodied practice, this course examines the many layers of ancestry: biological, mythic, adoptive, communal, and place-based.
The instructor was adopted at birth, and brings a deep understanding of what it means to carry a lineage that is both present and unknowable — a story held in the body without the continuity of family memory. This experience shapes the heart of the course’s inquiry: How do we reach for the ancestors when the trail is obscured? How do we cultivate belonging when our history is fragmented, hidden, or incomplete? What does it mean to inherit wounds, gifts, and memories we cannot name?
Over six weeks we will engage with mythic narratives, case studies, and cross-cultural ancestral traditions to illuminate the diverse ways humans understand lineage and kinship. Through conversation, somatic explorations, reflective writing prompts, and simple yet potent ritual practices, students will gain insight to identify their own ancestral layers—blood, chosen, cultural, spiritual, and land-based; learn methods for cultivating relationship with unknown or mysterious ancestors; examine the psychological and mythic dimensions of inherited memory, shadow, and identity; and explore how ritual and embodied practice create continuity where biography falters.
Students will leave the course with a multi-layered understanding of ancestry — including biological, mythic, adoptive, cultural, communal, and land-based lineages —as well as an arsenal of methods for engaging unknown, obscured, or severed ancestral lines. Students will also gain tools for somatic and intuitive ancestral work, learning how the body carries memory, inheritance, and the “felt sense” of lineage. They will also acquire simple ritual frameworks for building or deepening one’s own ancestral practice at home, alongside insight into the psychology of the ancestral shadow, including inherited wounds, ghosts of memory, and patterns that echo across generations.
Selena Madden, PhD is a dedicated mythologist, archetypal educator, and somatic muse. Her profound passion lies in the exploration and integration of diverse archetypes and mythic narratives, unraveling the mysteries of the human psyche. Her PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology, earned from Pacifica Graduate Institute, provides her with a rich and nuanced understanding of the archetypal landscape, empowering her to bring forth profound insights and guide others on their own mythic odysseys.
Images: The Park by Auguste Leveque, ca. 1900; Louis Ducis, The Invention of Painting, ca. 1808.
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Mondays, April 6, 13, 20, 27 & May 4, 11 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $180 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
This class will explore the profound and often haunting question of where we come from — when bloodlines are known, when they are severed, and when they remain shrouded in mystery. Drawing from comparative mythology, archetypal psychology, ritual studies, and embodied practice, this course examines the many layers of ancestry: biological, mythic, adoptive, communal, and place-based.
The instructor was adopted at birth, and brings a deep understanding of what it means to carry a lineage that is both present and unknowable — a story held in the body without the continuity of family memory. This experience shapes the heart of the course’s inquiry: How do we reach for the ancestors when the trail is obscured? How do we cultivate belonging when our history is fragmented, hidden, or incomplete? What does it mean to inherit wounds, gifts, and memories we cannot name?
Over six weeks we will engage with mythic narratives, case studies, and cross-cultural ancestral traditions to illuminate the diverse ways humans understand lineage and kinship. Through conversation, somatic explorations, reflective writing prompts, and simple yet potent ritual practices, students will gain insight to identify their own ancestral layers—blood, chosen, cultural, spiritual, and land-based; learn methods for cultivating relationship with unknown or mysterious ancestors; examine the psychological and mythic dimensions of inherited memory, shadow, and identity; and explore how ritual and embodied practice create continuity where biography falters.
Students will leave the course with a multi-layered understanding of ancestry — including biological, mythic, adoptive, cultural, communal, and land-based lineages —as well as an arsenal of methods for engaging unknown, obscured, or severed ancestral lines. Students will also gain tools for somatic and intuitive ancestral work, learning how the body carries memory, inheritance, and the “felt sense” of lineage. They will also acquire simple ritual frameworks for building or deepening one’s own ancestral practice at home, alongside insight into the psychology of the ancestral shadow, including inherited wounds, ghosts of memory, and patterns that echo across generations.
Selena Madden, PhD is a dedicated mythologist, archetypal educator, and somatic muse. Her profound passion lies in the exploration and integration of diverse archetypes and mythic narratives, unraveling the mysteries of the human psyche. Her PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology, earned from Pacifica Graduate Institute, provides her with a rich and nuanced understanding of the archetypal landscape, empowering her to bring forth profound insights and guide others on their own mythic odysseys.
Images: The Park by Auguste Leveque, ca. 1900; Louis Ducis, The Invention of Painting, ca. 1808.
