Sefer Yetzirah: Meditation, Magic, and the Cosmic Architecture with Rav Kohenet Jill Hammer

October 19 through December 21, 2017

Sefer Yetzirah is an ancient and foundational work of Jewish mysticism.  This brief and cryptic book imagines letters as the building blocks of the universe, and focuses our attention on the components of space, time, and soul and the elements of air, fire, and water.  Its goal is to allow adepts to contemplate, and even partake in, the Divine creative process.  We will be reading sections from the book closely in order to understand the meaning of Sefer Yetzirah and its potential role in an earth-based, feminist, contemporary Jewish belief and contemplative practice.   We will also be using the book to meditate and reflect on our own spiritual experience.  The class will be taught via Zoom and can also be accessed via phone.  The class will be available via web recording as well. Thursdays, Oct. 19, Nov. 2, Nov. 9, Nov. 23, Dec. 7, Dec. 2112 pm-1:15 pm ESTCost: $250. The course comes with a text booklet; you must also purchase the Sefer Yetzirah translation by Aryeh Kaplan.  All sessions will be recorded and posted on-line; you can take the class even if the time block does not work for you.

Jewish Ancestral Healing with Rav Kohenet Taya Mâ

November 1 - December 21, 2017

Every lineage includes loving and wise ancestors.  Ancestral support amplifies personal vitality and enhances communal well-being.  Cultivating connection with these bright and benevolent ancestors can create additional ease with living family members and helps clarify one's life-path, relationships and purpose.  This connection can be a great support toward healing trauma as well as anchoring ancestral blessing and gifts.
The Jewish Ancestral Healing Virtual Immersion begins with an introductory group class by video and includes 3 personal Ancestral Healing sessions and a completion class. In the core class, we will review core aspects of Jewish Ancestral reverence practices and also of the Ancestral Lineage Healing model - developed by Dr. Daniel Foor - and set clear intentions for the work.  Personal sessions with Taya Mâ begin with an assessment of the four primary bloodlines and continue toward connecting with an ancestral guide to anchor blessing from and healing through one of the lines. Participants are assigned a class partner to check in with bi-weekly and asked to engage altar and offering practice in accordance with what emerges in their ancestral connections. Registration is $325.

Faces of Shekhinah:
Meeting the Divine Feminine in Jewish Texts
with Rabbi / Rav Kohenet Jill Hammer

Next Offered in Spring 2018

Faces of Shekhinah: Meeting the Divine Feminine in Jewish Texts explores biblical, talmudic, and mystical texts related to faces of the Divine Feminine across Jewish history, and invites participants to experience these faces of the Divine through guided meditation. The course includes weekly lectures, textual sources, online discussion in the class forum, and guided meditations. 

Cost is $250. Register via paypal to [email protected] and place "Faces of Shekhinah" in subject line.

Session 1: The Divine Glory: Shekhinah in Exodus and the Talmud

Session 2: Lady Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs

Session 3: Shekhinah as Exiled Woman: The Midrash

SEssion 4: Shekhinah as Divine Daughter

Session 5: The Cosmic Mother: Divine Feminine as Womb

SEssion 6: Shekhinah as Lover: The Sabbath Bride

SEssion 7: Shekhinah as Warrior and/or Monster

SEssion 8: Shekhinah as World: Divine Feminine as All That Is

Embodied Presence: A Virtual Practicum
With Rav Kohenet Taya SherE

Next Offered in Fall 2017

This 8-week virtual practicum invites and supports us to cultivate a being-ness that is aligned with our essential self and gifts and with Source.  Explore right pace, inhabit space, be guided by gratitude and become fluent in state transmission. The Embodied Presence Virtual Practicum engages simple and potent exercises and inquires to activate awareness, to strengthen and supply our senseory selves and to empower our embodied presence.  Concentrated content becomes available in the course forum each Monday in a both audio and print form and is supplemented by an online discussion forum and two integration calls.  Practicing and exploring together, we become additionally, exceptionally here and whole.

Cost is $200.  Register via Paypal to [email protected] or be in touch for details on sending a check.

Session 1: Presencing Pace

Session 2: Presencing Grace & Gratitude

SEssion 3: Presencing Space

SEssion 4: Presencing Place & Elementals

SEssion 5: Presencing Soma

Session 6: Presencing State

SEssion 7: Presencing Form & Flow

Session 8: Presencing Completion

THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR: A HEBREW PRIESTESS EXPLORATION
With Ravot Kohanot Jiill Hammer & Taya SherE

Next offered January - December 2018

This monthly Virtual Temple class presents an earth-based view of the Jewish calendar, including ancient practices and modern customs, and explores Kohenet-resonant ways to create meaningful holiday ritual.  This ten-month class includes readings, recorded lectures, an on-line discussion forum, audio guides for embodied practice and ritual and liturgy for each festival season.  This class serves as a holiday community where studentspost about their holiday experiences and practices, and share their questions and ideas. Required texts are The Jewish Book of Days by Jill Hammer and Seasons of Our Joy by Arthur Waskow, and additional material is also posted and assigned.

Register via paypal to [email protected] and place "Wheel of the Year" in subject line.  Cost is $320 for the year.

January 2018: Introduction

February 2018: Feast of the Tree of Life / Tu Bishvat

March 2018: Purim, Festival of the Sacred Fool

April 2018: Pesach, Full Moon of Liberation

May 2018: The Journey of the Omer

June 2018: Shavuot, Sinai and Sacred Loaves

July 2018: Tisha b'Av and Tu b'Av: From Weeping to Dancing

August 2018: No Class / Break

September 2018: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

October 2018:Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah

November 2018: Rosh Hodesh / The New Moon

December 2018: Hanukah

Sex & The Sephirot:  A Pleasure Journey
through the Omer
with Rav Kohenet Taya Mâ Shere

Next offered in Spring 2018

The seven weeks between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot - known as the period of counting the Omer - invite us on an intentional journey from constriction to pleasure, union & revelation. The Omer offers a focused opportunity to bring attention to patterns we desire to transform.

In Sex and the Sephirot, we’ll engage the Omer toward experiencing greater erotic presence, deepening our commitment to sex that is nourishing and healthful for us, and embracing ritual practices of self-pleasure - or pleasure with partners - amidst the support and container of sex-positive community and joyfull accountability.  We’ll work with the sephirot through an embodied pelvic mapping of the kabbalistic tree of life created specifically for this course.

This offering is for you if: You have a pattern around self-pleasure or sex with partners that you want to transform. You feel excited - and perhaps a little nervous - about being held in a lovingly tended group container to additionally integrate the sacred into your erotic life. You desire to claim pleasure as prayer. 

This seven week journey includes weekly audio messages, four video calls (Thursdays April 13, April 27, May 11 & 25 from 5 - 6 pm PT / 8 - 9 pm ET) weekly chevrutah / paired check-ins and generous accountability support by e-mail or text from Taya Mâ. 

While we'll do some female genital mapping, and the course is open to and designed for people of all gender expressions. Our frame is Jewishly rooted, and this course is open across faith practices - no background in Judaism necessary. The course requires a clearly stated commitment to confidentiality, in support of the depth and vulnerability of our work.

Course registration is $180. To begin preparations before our first session, please register by April 6 and, along with your paypal registration, email [email protected] with 1-2 paragraphs about what you most desire from this course. If you are new to working with Taya Mâ, an additional paragraph about you and your path.