FOLK HEALING
About Folk Healing
Folk healing describes Richael’s shamanic practice rooted in the Black U.S. southern tradition of conjure. Richael, as a practitioner, is most notable for their ancestral mediumship, ritual creation, spiritual care, and unique form of energy healing. They known as a “healer’s healer,” whose healer’s vibe is very gentle and light-hearted.
They hold special skills with:
Life purpose work
Majik/spiritual gift doulaship
Death/transition arts
Discernment and timelines
Listen to learn more about Richael’s initiation and practice:
Living As Universe: In Conversation with Richael Faithful, Loam Listen Podcast (2021).
Shamanic Practice and Healing Justice with Richael Faithful, Queer Spirit Podcast (2021).
“Meet Richael Faithful: a Queer, Black Street Shaman,” Colorlines (2015).
Folk Healing Accompaniment
Richael maintains a very small 1-1 practice in Washington DC. Please email rf@richaelfaithful.com to ask about availability. Richael’s practice does not have a standard cost; it is donation and barter based.
Richael’s practice is collective as well. They often hold public workshops, teach classes, lead rituals, deliver sermons/remarks, which they announce on Instagram and Substack.
For support with performing death rites/officiate funerals, please contact them by email.
FOLK HEALING PORTFOLIO
Healing Certifications
Certificate of Completion, 60-hour Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate Program (2023).
Certificate of Completion, Going with Grace End of Life Training for Death Doulaship and End of Life Planning (2021).
Certificate of Shamanic Studies, completion of apprenticeship program with The Polarity Center and Shamanic Studies (2014).
Select Keynotes, Features, and Sermons
Remember When We Took Flight? at All Souls Unitarian Church (2023).
“No Harm Protection Spell” invocation at All Souls Unitarian Church (2022).
Somatic Abolitionism at upEND Movement conference (2022).
Shenandoah Herbal Gathering,Reweaving the Web: Human Ecology of Racism (2018).
Select Healer Residencies
Workshop Facilitator, Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) at Care, Racial Capitalism, and Social Reproduction Symposium (2024).
Teacher-in-Residence, Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom (2022 - 2023).
Spiritual Advisor & Facilitator, Nuns and Nones Stewardship Council (2022).
Shaman-in-Residence, Freed Bodyworks (2015 - 2017).
Healer-in-Residence & Facilitator, Black Youth Project 100 National Convening (2017).
Healer-in-Residence, Duke University, Policing Color: Black, Brown, and Blue (April 2017).
Healer-in-Residence, Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance, Warmth of Other Suns Conference (2016).
Select Healing-Related Presentations & Panels
Poetics of the Quantum World, Wild Ginger Herbal Center (2024).
Gender Expansive People and Pleasure, Sexology Summit (2023).
Creativity in Service to Movement with thickpress publishing practice (2021).
Healing the Roots of Racism In Ourselves with Farm-Based Education Network (FBEN) (2021).
Naming Our Own Gods, SpeakFire Panel Series with Free State Justice (2019).
Healing Uses of Plant Technology Allied Media Conference (2018).
Multigeneration Healing Blueprint, National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference (2018).
What the Land Tells Us: Liberatory Racial Justice Experience with Wild Ginger Farm (2017).
Ancestral Nature Walk To End Rape Culture and Sexual Violence with FORCE’s Hike for Healing initiative (2017).
African American Shamanic Death Rituals: Collective Grief-Holding and Transformation, Chrysalis Institute (2017).
Select Healing-Related Media Features
Living As Universe: In Conversation with Richael Faithful, Loam Listen Podcast (2021).
Shamanic Practice and Healing Justice with Richael Faithful, Queer Spirit Podcast (2021).
Thoughts on Healing with Magic with Folk Healing Artist Richael Faithful, Beautiful Life: Self Care with Gracy Obuchowicz (2021).
Interview with The Confident Healer Podcast with Sharmila Mali (2020).
Interview with Dharma Teacher and Artist, Ayesha Ali, “What We Gonna Do?”, Transformharm.org (2017).
“Healers of Color on Why Self-Care Is Not Self-Indulgence,” Colorlines (2016).
“Local Healing Circle Provides Outlet for Community Members,” Tagg Magazine (2016).
Healing-Related Published Writing & Podcasts
“Ancestral Healing for Liberation,” Body Autonomy: Decolonizing Sex Work & Drug Use, Synergetic Press (2022; reissue in 2024).
Interview acknowledgement credit, Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care and Safety by Cara Page and Erica Woodland (2023).
Together At the Edge of the World, author, curator, and editor, thickpress publishing practice (2020).
“My Black Soul Absorbs Every Shade of Being,” “Hair Mojos,” “Binding Anointment,” Black Trans Prayer Book (2020) [Lambda Literary Award Winner].
“On Grief, Land, and Ritual,” with Griot Collective / Acres of Ancestry Initiative (2020).
“What My Body Knows,” RaceBaitR (October 2018).
“We Need More Than Self-Care; We Need Healing, Too,” The Root (2017).
“4 Ways To Stay Grounded After The Election,” Everyday Feminism (2016).
“The Hourglass of White Paralysis,” HuffPost (2016).
“My Name Is Dirt,” Outside the XY: Queer, Black and Brown Masculinity (2016).
“(Re)Embodied,” Girls From The South: An Anthology of Southern Queer Womyn’s Voices and Their Allies (2013).
Select Healing-Related Service
Board of Directors and Teaching Faculty with the Braxton Institute for Resilency, Sustainability, and Joy (2017 - Present).