by Morgan Curtis, Ancestors & Money Coach

Reparations as a spiritual practice

As many of you know, I’ve been on part-time maternity leave, adjusting to life as mama to my now one-year-old Sabine (it really does go so fast). So it’s been a while since I put out a newsletter! I wanted to start with sharing with you this essay I wrote last year for Duke Divinity School’s Faith & Leadership magazine. I was grateful for the invitation I received to explore reparations as a spiritual practice, something my friend and teacher Dr. David Ragland of the Grassroots Reparations Campaign is in the process of writing a book about. My intention with this essay was to share what it can look like to slow down, grieve, feel and breathe when we learn about the harms of our ancestors.

Sometimes, when I encounter the brutal truths of the harms my ancestors caused, I forget to breathe. Air catches in my throat. I become lightheaded. Then comes the instinct to do anything else but sit with the truth: Isn’t the laundry almost done? Wasn’t I about to get a snack? What was that crucial email I have to respond to? How can I return my heart rate, my breathing, my life, to normal?

Applications Open for Ancestors & Money Cohort Five

Rich white men are gutting the United States government for the benefit of their own companies, families and agendas. This political moment is asking all of us to show up, but it can be hard to know how. What’s been feeling most important to me is to remember the “political moment” I am responding to is the 400 year history of white wealth and power on this continent, not just this 4 year (hopefully…) presidential term.

For those of who have financially benefited from this history, it feels more important than ever to come together in community and courageously discern what is each of ours to do towards repair. Justine Epstein and I are grateful to be able to again offer a space for this work: the Ancestors & Money Cohort is a transformative community learning journey for our fellow wealth inheritors who are called to take reparative action. This fifth cohort will run from November 2025 to May 2026.

This journey integrates:

• Anti-racist genealogy

• Wealth redistribution & divestment planning

• Ancestral connection & grief work

• Black & Indigenous guest teachers inviting us into the material and spiritual work of reparations and land return

• Coaching support to move through internal and external blocks towards tangible, healing action 

• Deep community building - all previous cohorts are still meeting to some extent, years later

The cohort is also its own redistribution mechanism, with 50% of net income redistributed to Black- and Indigenous-led organizing, healing and land projects. Applications are now open, with the early-bird deadline coming up in a couple days on May 1st. We will continue to accept applications until the cohort is full, or June 1st, whichever comes sooner.

Over the course of these last 6 months, I have felt accompanied in this cohort through continual cycles of decomposition, shedding, transformation and renewal. I have felt supported to grow by being able to bring my whole self to this work, without the need to filter or compartmentalize my identity. This cohort has pushed me to decolonize so many of my inherited notions about wealth and grounded me in the understanding that this sacred work of reparations must be done in community.

— Sofia Smith Hale, Cohort Two

Where I’m currently supporting money to flow towards

I’m grateful to be contributing to the following efforts of Black and Indigenous communities to steward their own land in service of their visions for healing and repair. Each of these efforts touches my heart deeply. I am redistributing my own wealth to these projects and would love to connect you with them if you are moved to join me. This is where I’m finding my hope in these times — people continuing to move forward with the work that is needed at the community level, no matter what.