Old Ways for Modern Families Course

For parents, caregivers & loved ones who want to nurture a magical relationship with their spirited child(ren) through creating family traditions & daily rituals rooted in earth-honoring, life-affirming magic.

This course is offered twice a year, once in the fall and again in the spring.

It is a self-guided course.

If you become an Old Ways for Modern Days Patreon member, at the Hearth Keeper level, you will get a 50% discount on the course, and all other courses (plus lots of other goodies!)

If you’re reading this, you’re probably an old soul who longs to weave some old-world magic into the mundane aspects of your life. Maybe like me, you’ve spent years trying to un-learn the unsustainable conditioning of the over-culture that values rapid change, exploitation & blind consumerism.

Do you ever wake up in the morning to wonder how did humans become so unaligned with ourselves & our fundamental needs? Perhaps you crave a life more aligned with your integrity & values. So, you feel frustrated at times as you plod through the endless list of daily tasks.

You might wonder what kind of a world are we leaving for our kids? You know you want something different for them, but feel overwhelmed with where to start. Even if you’re actively raising your kids to be compassionate & earth-honoring souls you might wonder where to find the time to teach them the skills, rituals & traditions you want them to know.

Welcome home. You are not alone. The Old Ways can support us!

An intimate group is gathering at the hearth.  Join together with others who understand that we can live more satisfying lives & serve the next generations when we re-claim the earth-centric traditions of our Ancestors.

Old Ways for Modern Families is a 3- month journey that helps you tend the flame of your Ancestors.

We’ll weave old-world traditions, skills & magic seamlessly into your modern daily life so you can support your children’s innate wisdom, which nurtures their connection to the enchanted world around them.

If you’re concerned about how the world is going, supporting & nurturing our children’s diverse mindsets will play an essential role in making transformative changes in the world.

In Old Ways for Modern Families, we’ll tap into the wisdom of our Ancestors to do this & so much more.

I grew up with a deep-seated discontentment with what I saw in the world around me- the injustices & fallacies we ignore to maintain an uneasy comfort with the systems & structures that mold our lives.

The veneer of “civilized” life always seemed thin to me.

This uneasiness led me to activism in the 1990s. Starting with environmental & social justice issues led me to work with Indigenous communities. A long-term stay as an invited guest on the Diné (Navajo) reservation was life-changing. Living with Elders while spending time in an intact indigenous community created a longing in me to learn about the people I come from. I was often told by the Elders I met there that learning about the ancient cultures of my Ancestors would help me come into right relationship with the Land, its spirits & my own sense of self.

There is strength in roots.

What made our Ancestors fundamentally different?

I always knew I wanted to have a family. I remember, when I was in my 20s, lamenting to my mom that I could never do both – change the world, fight injustice, while showing up whole for my own family. Her words changed the way I saw everything forever.

She said, “raise your kids with the values that you want to see in the world; that is the greatest form of activism there is.

I used my education & research skills an anthropologist, to look at modern western culture in the role of the observer. My goal was to understand how our society became so disconnected from ourselves, the world around us & the legacies of our Ancestors. I deeply wanted to play a part in bringing us back to the Old Ways. My dream is to revitalize our relationships with each other & the world around us.

Since that time, I’ve been deeply involved in ritual & genealogy to unearth the wise teachings of my ancient Ancestors– Neolithic farmers, healers, ritualists, rebels, traders, freedom fighters, sacred grove tenders, immigrants, naturalists, matriarchs & blue-collar workers to understand how we thrived.

Do you see rich, intact, grounded traditions present in other cultures & feel deep regret that your own got so lost? Maybe like me, you search for answers in the past, in archane rituals, immersed in folklore & fairy tales. Do you wistfully wish your life to be full of the magic, mystery & meaning the old stories hold?

I poured through myths, fairy tales, history & legends for nuggets of traditional knowledge. These stories are not mere fancy. They showed me how our Ancestors lived & thought about the world around them.

Why Animism?

When I finally became a mother my concern for the destination of this fast-tracked world only grew.

What kind of a world do I want for my children?

The common thread many of the indigenous people I worked with seemed to have was a strong sense of belonging – to a people, a land, a heritage. It helped them feel more grounded in this frenetic world. How could I possibly equip my children with this sense of belonging?

As a busy mom, I felt frustrated because I needed these lofty ambitions to underscore everything I do, to fit seamlessly into our lives.

Don’t laugh. Although it seems like a tall order, all it took was a shift in perspective.

I realized the answer lies in having an aligned worldview because how we see the world molds our lives in its image. It informs our values & ultimately helps us make important decisions & take action.

When I pulled together all the things that I love: folklore, traditions, old-world skills, language, cultural heritage, earth-honoring practices I realized they held the remedy to demolishing the hierarchies & paradigms that keep us from recognizing our interdependence with all of life.

One word stood out: animism – the belief that everything is alive, sentient & lives with its own agency.

Children can show us another way

The final piece of the puzzle was unexpected, but obvious. I discovered my greatest teacher, my daughter. Neurodivergent, she came out of the womb railing against the status quo, making us question everything we thought we knew.

Over the last eight years, helping her navigate her inner & outer worlds, I realized that in another time, when we lived in communities & recognized differences as gifts, people would have seen her variants & channeled them into helping the community.

So, without the support of an intact, traditional community, how could I fill that role? How could we work together to excavate challenging behaviors & traits to work in her favor? Well, we would just have to turn them from straw to gold.

I started by honoring her most intense traits as Ancestral gifts lovingly honed over millennia to guide her to success in life. I trusted the process & unfolding lessons. Eventually I saw that Ancestral wisdom is not something we learn, it lives inside each of our cells.

Supporting, honoring & nurturing our children’s diverse mindsets will play an essential role in making transformative change in the world. The kids who don’t jive with modern structures & confines, the ones who struggle to conform are our greatest teachers for how we can live differently.

What if we reframed our approach to parenting during the period of childhood?

Could we focus on supporting our children & their natural tendencies instead of fighting them? We can when we understand they don’t come into this world as a blank slates.

But, they are looking to us to help them navigate the modern world with their intuition intact, for they also came here with important work to do. Let’s work off the idea that their innate behaviors are necessary skills to fulfill their soul contract. We just need to help them hone & direct their expertise.

We can do this resourced through the support & aid of the Old Powers & Unseen ones—which manifest in our own intuition. We can resource ourselves in this sacred duty by trusting our gut & the traditional wisdom of our Ancestors.

We are magic.

The wisdom of every one of your Ancestors who ever walked the Earth has been finely tuned across space and time & you embody it. Our bodies – flesh, blood, & bone house the love, wisdom & magic of our Ancestors.

We embody our Ancestor’s dreams.

We are the ones who can help build a better world, starting with creating a more aligned life for ourselves & our families. When we are aligned we are more empowered & have the resources to serve our families & communities.

Old Ways for Modern Families will help you unlock the skills, traditions & knowledge passed down from our Ancestors that are already woven into your DNA.

This sacred knowledge will help you enchant your modern life to live the life of magic & connectedness that you seek. You’ll begin to see that the simple daily acts & rituals you perform are the keys to creating the world you want to live in– what we do, small or big, ripples out to change the world around us.

This course will prove once & for all that the life of fantasy you long for is not escapism. Sometimes fairy tales, stories & art illustrate a lifestyle that is aligned with the world we want to live in, the life we need to create.

Old Ways for Modern Families is perfect for you if:

  • You are a parent, would-be parent, caregiver, or have children in your life that you adore
  • You want to reclaim the earth-centric & animistic traditions of our Ancestors & pass that knowledge on to the next generations
  • You’re spiritually-minded & want to weave magic into your family’s everyday activities
  • You want your kids to feel empowered by their innate gifts & want to support them in the work they came here to do
  • You’re ready to shed paradigms & systems keeping you from connecting more deeply with your family & the world around you
  • You believe you can help build a better world through caring for loved ones
  • You hope to connect & build community with other parents on the same path

In Old Ways for Modern Families You Will:

  • Unlock the Ancestral Wisdom already woven in your DNA by using 4 Keys: Food, Land, Tradition & Magic
  • Connect the keys to 3 major wisdom centers in the body to nurture & support your intuition as the major guiding light of your life
  • Receive easy practices to support your kids’ innate wisdom, curiosity & imagination
  • Use the stories your family loves to envision the world you want to live in & how to work towards it
  • Help your kids forge their own unique relationships with the Old Powers: Ancestors, Gods & other Spirits
  • Learn to use Sacred Curiosity to tap into simple joys & create meaningful family traditions with an animistic worldview
  • Learn how to use ancestral & folk traditions as a roadmap back to a place of belonging in the web of life we are a part of for ourselves & our children.
  • Model for your children that following our hearts & trusting our intuition is how we reach success & personal goals.

Old Ways for Modern Families begins June 17, 2022

Here’s What You’ll Find inside Old Ways for Modern Families

  • 4 pre-recorded Modules, released every 3 weeks, beginning June 17, 2022.
  • A Foundation Story to set the stage for the module (written and read by me).
  • Each module includes slides and a transcript.
  • Each module comes with downloadable materials, which include:
  • A workbook
  • Resource Materials & Suggested Readings such as stories, myths, movies & songs to share/discuss with your children
  • Journal prompts to help you dive deeper into the work & how to incorporate it into your life
  • A combination of practical work along with rituals/meditations/recipes to lean into & utilize the material.
  • A private forum to ask questions, but most importantly, build a vibrant community with other caregivers on the same path.

Why You’ll Love it

  • There is an overwhelming amount of information, ideas & strategies to connect to the Old Ways
    We’ll use 4 simple keys: food, land, tradition & magic to easily shift perspective & unlock the ancient wisdom that lives inside you.
  • You’ll receive practices to revive the multi-dimensional, cyclical, seasonal, mythic & Earth-centric mindset of our Ancestors.
  • We focus on traditions, practices & activities that sustained our Ancestors over millennia rather than what the dominant culture dictates is important this minute.
  • Inspiration for all caregivers to embody the truth that when we care for children & Elders, we tend Ancestors & Gods.
  • Down-to-Earth devotions that become seamless parts of our everyday life to ground us in our modern lives— steadfast in our love for Mother Earth, connected to each other & our non-human kin through respectful & reciprocal relationships & tuned into our intuition to receive the love, blessings & messages the Old Powers & Ancestors have for us.
  • Access all lessons, forum & resources in one place
  • No social media platforms
  • Go at your own pace- access lessons whenever, wherever
  • Connect with me & other parents on the forum – let’s build community together!

The Curriculum

PRE-MODULE: The Old Ways, The Four Keys & Animism – Released when you sign up!

  • You receive this pre-module/ course inroduction when you sign up
  • Introduction to the terms “Old Ways” & “Animism” & how I use them for the purpose of this course
  • Why the Old Ways are important in the Modern World
  • The Importance of Myths & Fables
  • Modeling an animist worldview for the next generations
  • Background on how I developed the 4 Keys: Food, Land, Tradition & Magic (+ how to use them to unlock your own unique Ancestral wisdom)

MODULE 1: Food – The First Key – Released June 17, 2022

  • Traditional Foodways Cure Diet Culture
  • The Inherent Magic of Food
  • Food & Cooking Rituals
  • Eating Intimately & the Omnivore/Vegetarian Paradigm
  • Conscious & Mindful Eating
  • Feeding the Ancestors of Blood & Place

MODULE 2: Land- The Second Key – Released July 8, 2022

  • Belonging: Being with the Soil is Being with the Ancestors
  • Food & Land are Inseperable
  • Lessons from the Land: You are Never Alone
  • Non-Verbal Communication
  • Trees as Knowledge Keepers
  • Wights & Land Spirits

MODULE 3: Tradition – The Third Key – Released July 29, 2022

  • Traditions: The Roadmap to Wholeness

  • Passions: Finely Tuned Gifts from the Ancestors
  • Language: How our Ancestors Thought & How it Helps Us Today
  • How to Create Ancestral Legacy

MODULE 4 : Magic – Live Your Myth – Released August 19, 2022

  • Integrating Food, Land, Tradition & Magic
  • What is Magic?
  • Working Towards an Intentional Life
  • The Mythic Mind
  • Receiving Guidance & Trusting Instincts
  • Signs & Synchronicity
  • Using Myths & Fables to Change the World

MODULE 5: Sharing Final Project – September 10, 2022

A live call to share our personal projects that symbolize how we put all the lessons together to embody animism.

What you will get

When you sign up for Old Ways for Modern Families, you’re getting more than information. You’re investing in a whole new way to relate to your children & the animate world, honoring their individual spirits + spiraling back to your innate wisdom at the same time.

Here’s everything you get when you sign up for Old Ways for Modern Families4 Pre-recorded Modules, released every 3 weeks starting June 17th

Each module comes with downloadable materials, which include:

  • A workbook
  • Resource Materials & Suggested Readings such as stories, myths & movies to share/discuss with your children
  • Journal prompts to help you dive deeper into the work & how to incorporate it into your life
  • Practical work, rituals & recipes to embody & utilize the material

Private forum to ask questions, but most importantly, build community with other caregivers on the same path.

 

Here’s what people have to say about Old Ways for Modern Families

There are so many courses on spirituality for women, but children are so often an aside. I appreciate the acknowledgment that many of us are care givers to youngsters, and that there are particular issues that go with that. I would recommend this course to another mother because it’s simply helpful for mothering folks who want to include children on their animist journey, and then it’s also profoundly helpful. The modules are springboards to deeper practices with our children, but each also stands on its own as a guide anyone benefit from, even if you are short on time or resources.

-Adriana Hoyle

I love your passion for these topics and the authenticity with which you deliver the content.
If they are interested in these topics I don’t think there’s anyone I’ve come across better than you to weave together these themes with family life/children, and bring them into daily life.

-Charlie Rigg

You provide concrete ways to approach topics that can feel nebulous and unapproachable. It’s hard to know where to start on this journey of providing a spiritual foundation for our kids that doesn’t follow the current cultural norms, but you provide incredibly helpful guideposts. Down-to-Earth. I appreciate that you invite us into your own journey of discovering this path and don’t present yourself as a guru who has unlocked the one and only way of doing things.

-Adrienne McDonnell

Some concrete benefits that past participants experienced as a result of taking Old Ways for Modern Families.

  • “I’m thinking a lot more about what form our responsibility and stewardship should take. Instead of asking my daughter what a plant is, I ask her who it is.”
  • “I have taken the first baby steps to connecting to my ancestors in a way that feels good to me.”
  • “More confidence with what I’m already doing and to incorporate some new bits into our family life.”
  • “Feeling less confused about how to include my children on my path when it feels so eclectic and exploratory.”
  • “I feel more equipped with a vocabulary and a template after taking this course.”

I’m Jenn Campus. Author, anthropologist & mythologist. I’m also a busy mom of two young kids who I want to raise with the animistic worldview of my Ancestors.

As a Mythologist and Scribe of The Old Ones, I translate the unspoken words of the unseen world into stories that captivate our imagination & stir us to come into right relationship with the world & all its inhabitants.

As an Anthropologist, I distill those esoteric experiences down to their essence to create various practical frameworks to inspire you to create your own simple daily rituals & traditions that you can apply today to become re-enchanted with the world around you. These traditions can then be left as a legacy to the ones who come after us.

I’m a two-time best-selling author. I have a degree in Anthropology & Indigenous/Native American Studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. As a Third Road Initiate & through self-study of the esoteric arts, I have decades worth of experience creating rituals & family traditions.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am new to animism. Is this course too advanced for me?

I’m all about meeting you where you are, which is why I explain concepts, illustrate them with stories & examples, give ideas /suggestions & ask you open-ended questions. Then you use the frameworks I’ve provided to dig deep into your own work, which can be as simple or advanced as you are. When we reframe the mundane actions, we do each day and discover their inherent sacredness, it changes the entire perspective of our lives. Something as simple as baking fresh, homemade bread or brewing a cup of tea becomes potent magic. When we love and care for our children, families, and other loved ones, we tend to the Ancestors and the Gods themselves.

I’m a well-seasoned ritualist. Is this class too introductory for me?

See above

But why should we go back to the Old Ways of thinking? Isn’t that just going backward?

Many of us are drawn to participate in traditions to preserve the past in the face of modernization & globalization, values & ethics that don’t align with what our intuition tells us about how we should live upon the Earth. So, we look back to practices that our Ancestors, those who were living in relationship with the land, created to help us find our way.

When we choose to bring the Old Ways into our modern days, we honor the past wisdom of our elders and make it a part of our future. We build a stronger foundation for ourselves to navigate changing and uncertain times and offer a brighter, more solid future for those who come after us.

Aren’t traditions exclusionary & stagnant?

The way I explain them traditions are about serving, revitalizing & nourishing us & our community – our relationships with all the others. The nature of the sacredness of traditions & the beauty of their power is in sharing them— with passion, love & joy.

How much time will I need to devote to the course each week?

Each pre-recorded lesson is about 30 minutes. Then depending on how much you want to dive into the other resources, it could be between 2-4 extra hours per week.

What if I miss a session?

Since all the lessons are pre-recorded, you can never miss a session! Yay!

When will it be offered again?

It will be offered again in 2023.