6-Week Online Experience led by
Lydia Violet and Leah Song of Rising Appalachia
Singing The Bones
Find Healing and Meaning Through Ancestral Reconnection
Gather at the…
Wellsprings of Story and Song!
During this experience, Lydia & Leah will take you through an immersive curriculum of cultural self-discovery. You’ll participate in lectures, group discussions, vocal workshops, storytelling, and Q&A sessions. We invite you to come as you are, either participating live or catching our recordings.
We will support you with resources for researching cultural histories, harvesting both lessons from shortcomings and wisdom from life-enhancing traditions.
Lydia will teach on the nature of mythic truth, cosmology, and psyche, those things that can be hard to put into words, but are so satisfying when understood. You will dive into learning about the instruments and music styles singing in your blood, and see the connections and differentiations across cultures.
Most importantly, you will practice reconnection within the diaspora, defining what a relationship with your ancestors means for you.
Your lineage holds potent medicine
To be diasporic means to be a member of any group of people who have been dispersed outside their traditional homeland. Many of the world’s population, including most North American residents, exist within a diaspora. At the same time, there is also a phenomenon of ancestral cultural separation, rootlessness, and amnesia that many of us inherit.
With this separation can come disorientation from land, language, and tradition and assimilation into modern cultures based on capitalism and materialism.
But we do not need to resign ourselves to this assimilation. We can study the past to inform our way forward. Humans have always stored their lessons and medicines in stories and songs, and every culture has a thread in this tapestry. What is yours?
Learning about the cultures of our ancestors can give us powerful tools for healing toxic patterns, nurturing relationships, and creating a greater sense of meaning in our lives.
Because the medicine for the adversities our ancestors faced is often in their very culture. All humans gathered around imagination and creativity, confessing their life stories, wonderings, and prayers. Their humanity often came forward through these outlets, creating medicine for the hardships of life.
Through studying the stories of these cultures, we have an opportunity to connect to the psychic, spiritual, and material landscapes of our ancestors. These stories tell us the flora and fauna they were surrounded by, the fundamental patterns of daily life they engaged in, the foods they shared, and the celebrations they marked.
In addition to these more literal truths, stories connect us with the psyches of our ancestors, the mythic worlds that engaged their thoughts and prayers. Learning their cosmologies allows us to reconnect with the cosmos they painted around themselves while inspiring us to reflect on who we truly are and what we are made of. This type of cultural learning is a pivotal step in connecting to our authentic selves and spiritual depth.
Singing The Bones is…
For you if:
You LOVE learning about mythology, land-based ways of living, soul, and song.
You’d love to learn more about your ancestral culture and traditions. (in a supportive, immersive environment)
It excites you to gain knowledge in a healing container with guides dedicated to education and healing. (through practices that engage somatically, intellectually, creatively, and spiritually)
You’d love to build meaningful connections with others and create a greater sense of belonging.
You seek to improve your well-being through the healing power of cultural reconnection
You’re curious about harvesting wisdom and finding meaning by exploring your cultural heritage.
You’re curious about discovering the ancestral instruments and music styles singing in your blood.
You want to contribute well to your beloved world and community.
The Curriculum:
Session 1
A Cosmological Home:
Introduction to exploring the cosmologies and cultures held within the connections in your lineage.
What is an archetype? Psyche? Soul?
De-orphaning the parts of us that have been disconnected.
The nature of mythic truth- how myths & stories may convey a different kind of truth than we are accustomed to.
Session 2
Myth & Folklore I
The mythic and literal truths we find in these stories
The role of archetypes: who they are, and how we use them. Working with archetypes we are drawn to.
Common themes/stories across cultures.
Who were the storytellers? What was their cultural role?
Session 3
Myth & Folklore II
Myth and tradition connections from all over the world
Q & A with Lydia and Leah
Folkloric Culture and it’s future.
Session 4
Healing the Split Through Song
Incorporating folk music traditions in our research.
Warming up the voice: healing the split through song
Vocal Exploration with Leah Song
Language: learning the sounds in our blood.
Understanding the nuances of cultural inspiration, resonance, exchange, and appropriation.
Session 5
Folk Music II + Singing The Bones Celebration
Continuing our folk music studies
Beginning our Singing the Bones Celebration, and kaleidoscope sharing of cultural artifacts from around the world.
Session 6
Singing the Bones Celebration
We invite you (optionally) to share and celebrate on artifact from your cultural findings. This can be an image, story, mythic figure, instrument, or small song snippets that you were drawn to learn more about. No perfection needed, we are all learning how to do this together. You are welcome to either listen or share, and enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Testimonials
“Sending you BIG, BIG, love, gratitude, and appreciation. What you are doing with Singing the Bones is remarkable. I have long sensed that our people are always near to us and show themselves in a plethora of ways. In this class I have been able to foster that idea and begin to see a path towards sharing it. It has been so uplifting to see your work in action and connect with kindred spirits.”
— Beth Hutchinson
“This class felt like the opening ceremony for the rest of my life…”
— Hollyn Bermonde
“Participating in this course has brought more love, meaning, and vitality into my heart. This journey felt as if I was falling in love for the first time, staying up late researching wanting more, more, more!”
I feel somatically altered from the experience as the intelligence and wisdom of my Lithuanian pagan ancestors has been awakened within my bones…”
— Jamie Oksas
Your Groovy Facilitators
Lydia Violet Harutoonian
(she/her)
Lydia Violet brings with her a robust scholarship in cosmology, archetypal psychology, and group work facilitation aimed at individual and community repair. Through compassionate and grounded facilitation, Lydia’ is able to move her groups through both intellectual study, somatic tending, and emotional mending in a way that balances mind, spirit, and heart.
Leah Song
Leah Song brings with her 15+ years as the frontwoman of internationally-renowned folk group Rising Appalachia, born from her own lifetime immersion in a variety of folk music traditions. Leah is also passionate about somatic healing, offering groups her own unique synthesis of yoga, dance, meditation, and vocal exploration.