Ancestor Celebration

Ancestor Celebration with Wisdom Dances

As the growing season draws to a close and the darkest part of the year begins, gather in community with music and dance to honor the vast web of ancestors.

This dance celebration will help you:

  • Mark the change of season

  • Savor the quiet and beauty of the woods

  • Connect meaningfully with others

  • Remember loved ones

  • Balance your body and mind with movement that is restorative and joyful

Traditional women’s dances have a powerful ability to hold all life experience weaving sorrow and joy in the same breath. The dances create a way to bear the inarticulable or unbearable, all while soothing the body with a powerful sense of wholeness and aliveness.

This Ancestor Celebration honors both the vast web of ancestors and the process of becoming an ancestor, which includes you!

Through setting intention while dancing, and with the help of oracle cards, this celebration will help you honor:

  • The love, guidance and support we receive from our ancestors and lineages

  • Your process of becoming the living link between ancestors and the present, especially as you age or develop your mastery.

  • The unique signature of your contribution to your lineages, families, and communities.

  • Your dreams for the future generations.

Give yourself a pause in nature to remember all the love and lineages that are the ground nourishing your unique purpose and contribution.

Can you hear the ancestors rejoicing? You are the one they have been waiting for.

Group of people standing outdoors in sunlight, participating in a gathering called 'Ancestor Celebration' with a subtitle 'With Wisdom Dances'.

Sunday, November 2, 3 – 7 PM
Camp Sacajawea Retreat Center, Apple Valley, MN

Led by Emily Jarrett Hughes
Music by Greg Herriges
Program will be both inside and outside as weather permits.

The Flow of the Celebration

3:00 - Preparation

We will create an ancestor altar, share stories, set intention, and purify ourselves by a healing fire.

4:00 - Dance celebration of ancestors and ancestors-to-be (us!) with live music

All dances taught first, no experience necessary.
Dances will be interspersed with reflection and breaks.

6:00 - Potluck feast

Please bring food to share

More about the Ancestor Celebration

Who are “the ancestors?”

“The ancestors” are a rich, diverse system. Connecting with ancestral energy can mean connecting with your family lineage, your culture(s), the lineage of your work, or any dear person, animal, tree - any kind of being – who has moved on from this world. The focus of this celebration is to connect only with those ancestral energies that benefit and support us – which are often much deeper and wider than we imagine.

Welcome!

Welcome, especially if you are new to dancing. No experience is necessary to participate in these simple circle dances from the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor. Everything will be taught first and the group together helps the dances dance themselves. The dances are very gentle and many people report their aches and pains feel better after dancing. The movement does require the ability to walk at a moderately swift pace. Often we have some in our midst who have a health challenge requiring them to sit for some of the dances and this is still a rich experience for both those sitting and those dancing. All genders welcome.

A group of people standing outdoors in a circle, holding hands, in a wooded area. They appear to be engaged in a group activity or prayer.
A memorial altar with framed photographs, candles, and decorative items on a table covered with a patterned cloth, outside on a porch or patio.
Group of people performing traditional music and dance in a wooden-paneled room, with some holding percussion instruments and others dancing.
A group of children and an adult holding hands in a circle outdoors in a wooded area during daylight.
People gathered around a fire pit near a lake at sunset, with trees and a pavilion in the background.
A group of women gathered outdoors during evening, holding hands in a circle around lit candles on the ground, trees and a house in the background.
A floral arrangement with orange and yellow roses, baby's breath, and greenery surrounding a lit candle on a lace tablecloth.
Group of women outdoors preparing and handling woven natural fiber bundles, possibly for a craft or ritual, around a picnic table with sticks and plant materials, in a park during autumn.
event potluck.jpg
Emily Jarrett Hughes with rose, crab abbple, basil, and st. john's wort worked into a crown on her head.

About Emily Jarrett Hughes

Emily Jarrett Hughes is a mother, dancer, healer and wisdom teacher. She completed a two-year intensive training in women’s ritual dances with Laura Shannon. The weekly dance circle and seasonal celebrations she leads through Wisdom Dances are dedicated to joy, community, and connection to nature. She gets tremendous satisfaction witnessing how the dancing helps women cultivate their inner authority, a grounded sense of purpose, and ease amidst change.

Emily is also a qigong healer and loves to teach qigong to help others activate their own healing power. She is a Spring Forest Qigong Certified Instructor.

A man wearing sunglasses, a black beanie, and a black jacket with gold embroidery playing a guitar and trumpet outdoors near a body of water.

About Greg Herriges

Guitarist, bouzoukist, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Greg Herriges creates an eclectic mix of original and traditional "whirled music," with a unique approach honed by his studies of Asian and other international styles. A virtuoso performer and award-winning composer, his music and writing have found international recognition. Greg Herriges is: a recipient of composer/performing artist fellowships and grants; a soundtrack artist; and author of seven (and counting) internationally published music books. He is a long time Wisdom Dances collaborator.

Sunday, November 2, 2025

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