Reflections Parallel: Joy - Your most potent medicine 
Description
Are we living through random chaos, or could this be a meaningful journey toward some radical transformation?
Four 90-minute live webinars
Tuesdays & Thursdays, April 15-24 • 1 pm ET / 10 am PT
Overview of “God in Disguise”
The Greek word apocalypse means to uncover, to reveal something that was previously hidden. And so, perhaps the cascade of crises we are experiencing in the world today is the uncovering of a new face of God. The divine intelligence of our planet may in fact be revealing its concern for us in the form of urgent messages, alerting us to intercept the deadly beliefs that have led us to endless cycles of suffering. Might we instead finally learn to uncover our own inborn wisdom, compassion, and healing powers?
Join Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone and Caroline Myss for an exciting experiential dive into the archetypal forces and ancestral belief systems at play in our rapidly changing world, and in the ecosystem of our bodies, hearts, and minds. Each of the four modules will be a study of our family inheritances and the world’s plights through the lens of one of our planet’s four elements. For example, we will explore fire as the uncontained heat and inflammation growing in the world— environmentally, socially, ancestrally, and in our own bodies—fanned by human grasping and the false belief that the world (and we) are inexhaustible. And we will find the medicine—in the case of fire, the slow tending of the hearth and careful cooking in the alchemical vessel of our lives, in order to produce the magic we are here to bring.
The course will illuminate your awareness, help clear out harmful beliefs, and energize you to meet the powerful forces of our era.
God in Disguise
Lesson Plan
Lesson 1:
Tuesday April 15
1 pm ET / 10 am PT
Welcome to a Feverish World
Tending the Fires Within and Beyond
How do we temper the heart(h) fires so we can burn brightly, and not burn out?
In our first gathering, we fortify our alchemical vessel and put in place grounding practices to prepare ourselves for the powerful journey ahead. Every archetype has two faces, and our study, rituals, and guided meditations bring us face to face with both the perils and possibilities of each element. Today we encounter the dangers of fire, as well as its potency for quantum spiritual healing. We explore the rising levels of inflammation in our bodies, the frenetic pace and grasping of our society, and the raging fires that devastate entire swathes of our earth. Our journey into the imaginal realm takes us into a cool alchemical laboratory where we connect with the perennial wisdom that helps us restore our connection to the brilliant eternal fire within.
- Experience grounding practices to help you open and close your psychic centers
- Learn to work with the fire element in your own nervous system and understand how it behaves in a variety of ecosystems
- Gain insight into the ancestral legacies you received pertaining to the archetype of fire in both its positive and negative aspects
- Be guided into the imaginal realm where you will enter the alchemical chambers to receive instruction about the right use of fire in your current life.
Lesson 2:
Thursday April 17
1 pm ET / 10 am PT
Pour Out Your Heart Like Water
Dissolving the Pain-Body as an Act of Love
How many centuries will it take to mourn the grief and feel the love?
There is only one way to cool the flames that rage: with the waters of the heart. But in our day, we might well drown in despair over the cascade of crises that engulf us. So we turn instead to the quiet medicine of our tears, the song of the heart, and the sacred technology known to the ancients as mikveh or baptism. In Module II we will study and then imaginally immerse in the living waters that heal the body and cleanse the soul of a grief so old that it has calcified into war, and given our ancestors’ “pain-body” a suit of armor. We learn the deep mystical meaning of Peace Shalom as the perfect equation of fire and water. Please bring a bowl of water and a stone, crystal, or shell to class, as well as a photograph of a beloved ancestor.
- Learn the power of grief to heal and prevent violence from taking root
- Understand the meaning of the pain-body and how it travels through generations
- Gain insight into your own family legacies regarding death, grief, and loss.
- Learn the ancient mystical secret of peace and how to work with it in your body
- Be guided in an ancient ritual that has the power to heal and transform your energy and transmute your family’s pain-body.
Lesson 3:
Tuesday April 22
1 pm ET / 10 am PT
Air, Space, Clarity
Remembering Our Face Before We Were Born
How do we decolonize the sacred space once occupied by emptiness?
We pause now for a satisfying breath, relishing the gift of air, an updraft in our lungs and spirits, the clarity of fresh skies after a good downpour. Our culture suffers from horror vacui, a fear of empty spaces that compels us to buy and fill up with “stuff” rather than allow the empty silence to pulsate and turn nothingness into creativity, joy, and connection to spirit. Air is the home of inner knowing, the clear wisdom of prophet and priestess, where the Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh, reigns. In Module III we enter the ancestral dimension to be lovingly shown our own vast, clear, and uncluttered mind, and into its spaciousness, receive guidance about our life, death, and sacred purpose.
- Explore the power of your breath energy with an ancient exercise that clears both hemispheres of your brain.
- Explore your ancestral legacies about silence, emptiness, death and fear of the I-don’t-know spaces
- Learn how chant and silence can give way to Ruach HaKodesh, the holy spirit
- Contrast horror vacui, the fear of empty spaces with the Kabbalistic axiom about the divine feminine presence
- Be guided into the ancestral realm where you are lovingly shown your own clear and “decolonized” mind and experience your own deep prophetic knowing.
Lesson 4:
Thursday April 24
1 pm ET / 10 am PT
Earth Pangs/ Birth Pangs
The Messiness of Human Life Now
Can we find comfort in animal nature amidst the tempests of today?
In our final module, we explore our connection to our animal nature and our own somatic wisdom, even as our home, Mother Earth roils with the imbalances and damage humans have wrought. Working with a self-regulation technique for calming the nervous system, we explore our family’s attitudes and inheritances regarding bodily life, sexuality, shame and shutdown, and work with ways to transmute these with compassion. Now that we have studied all four elements, we can make a group inquiry into our moment in history, employing the divination wisdom of the Tarot deck, whose four suits are built on the elements and their mystical wisdom. We close our course with a guided ritual into the imaginal realm to experience direct wisdom from the more-than-human world to guide us on our way.
- Learn a technique to quiet your central nervous system even amidst turmoil
- Explore your family legacies regarding embodiment in earthly form and enact your agency to decline or accept these legacies.
- Learn how the Tarot deck is built on the four elements and experience a divinatory reading for our moment.
- Be surprised by receiving personal wisdom from the more-than-human world perfectly attuned to your moment in life
About Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, is an author, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in the international Jewish Renewal Movement, and a renowned Jewish scholar and teacher. Widely known for her groundbreaking work on Kabbalah, depth psychology, and the re-integration of the feminine wisdom tradition within Judaism, Rabbi Tirzah lectures and teaches nationally about spiritual and ancient wisdom practices that are honed to assist us at this critical time in world history. Her latest work, Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma (Monkfish, 2019) is the recipient of the 2020 Nautilus Book Award Gold in Psychology and the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology 2020 book award. New paperback edition with Reader’s Guide and Forward by Dr. Gabor Matè on bookshelves October, 2022.
Rabbi Firestone has been teaching ancestral healing practices in communities around the country, from San Quentin to our nation’s capital. She lives with her husband David in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. www.tirzahfirestone.com | @tirzahfire
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