בס׳׳ד
In a red clay cave, a circle of women sitting, each with a radiant orb of light emanating from her heart and encompassing her and her place. The circles of light are exactly proximal to each other but do not touch or overlap. no woman there depends on the light of any other. Each has abundant light of her own and everyone enjoys the beauty of each others’ light.
This vision came to me years ago, and Rahmana is the expression of this vision in my life. Rahmana allows me to access this Edenic world, where we inhabit our fullness while visible to each other, and in relationship with each other.

Rahmana has been an experience for me of meriting to bring agency to vision. To feel yearning and clarity of desire and to honor that clarity with finding shape for it, and collaborators for it, in the world.

This is some of what Rahmana means to me spiritually.

I also want to say a word of what this move to Jerusalem means for me spiritually.

I have the image of moving a plant to full sunlight.

There is a part of me that really desires to live in a context that is a high percentage devotional. I also see this move as taking a deeper responsibility for my hope for what is possible for the Jewish People and a Jewish homeland. Part of this is opening to unknown. God willing, we will find that we opened to blessing. I imagine that this growth and blessing will channel into Rahmana here in Colorado, both through my support of the guiding team here and through opportunities to teach and run retreats in the Colorado community.

The guiding team, whom I’ll introduce in a moment, have such remarkable presence, hearts, minds, and capacity – we are in good hands. Before I move to the guiding team, though, I want to reflect on the community, and how deeply I have experienced this initiative as one of shared creation. The longing that moved in me to start Rahmana was for robust feminine spiritual community and a community of spiritual practice – for the opportunity to experience groundedness and elevation that only comes in a communal context. For depth that is simply not possible alone.

I want to share a set of images from Rabbi Shefa Gold, who teaches about multiple capacities of spiritual leadership, and how these are all necessary in communal spiritual experience, and all can be brought from formal leaders and from participants. I have a hope for you to feel how you are a contributor to what happens and to what is possible in this spiritual community. I will share just four of Shefa’s eight capacities for spiritual leadership – this is not exhaustive but these are all things I have felt from you all throughout our experiences of song, learning, prayer, and otherwise.

The Exalter: raises up the spark of the Divine by seeing and celebrating it; lifts the group through joyful presence. Raising the vibration of the group, grateful in advance for what is emerging. Adding light and sparkle, joy.

The Foundation: Creates solidity; brings grounding; lays one’s consciousness beneath what is happening as a dance floor that supports the group’s energies.

The Secret Heart: surrendering to the depths on behalf of the group and thus connecting the group to those depths. Brings depth and profundity to our spiritual work.

The Bridge: Makes connections through interdisciplinary awareness; enlarges the meaning and the context for the group; bridges different states of consciousness and levels of meaning. Allows their mind to be blown on behalf of the group.

Thank you for allowing your depth to permeate the group, allowing your mind to be blown on behalf of all of us, for exalting the divine, for making your consciousness a dance floor that supports our energies. You all bring such gifts, contribute so essentially to what is possible here.
Thank God, through Rahmana, I feel I have had the chance to incarnate more of my soul into my being, and to watch this process in others.

As my teacher Thomas Hubl said in a retreat this week, “When I create, my soul shapes matter.” I am exquisitely honored to sense that we have created together, allowed our souls to shape matter in this world together. Thank you for being cocreators, for sharing vulnerably, for lending insight and inspiration, allowing together the realness of what moves in each of us.

Over these years, I have had the incredible privilege of working with Rahmana’s guiding team, who elevate every potential in Rahmana – contributing when we vision forward about content and form, and reflecting together on each experience to help develop my own capacities and the vessel that Rahmana is. I am deeply honored for the shared hope, longing, trust in possibility, and attitude of experiment that I have felt and received from this group. We are so fortunate to continue to have funding from the Rose Community Foundation that will support ongoing development of Rahmana this year, and some of the work of this team. I imagine most of you know some or all of this team. I want to offer a small window into each of them, to introduce them in this capacity.

Sari – has been my teacher and my weekly chevrutah for over 15 years. The Torah – on the page and in processing life – that I have learned is largely through our learning together, and I know from her deep knowledge from many years of study, including a Masters in Divinity, how she is deeply grounded in Torah, and how she opens Torah and is opened by it. Your students are fortunate.

Patricia – has been my dear mentor in clarifying and deepening what we are building and how to deeply embody the message of the work, building a coherence from which our learning and practice flows. Patricia’s attentive listening and capacity to truly see will no doubt be a brilliant gift in her facilitation, also served by her professional experience as a professor and leadership coach.

RP – literally a teacher of embodiment, lending their capacity to experience the material we encounter and the emotional body of the group in the nervous system. RP is a therapist, university teaching faculty, and passionate about and experienced in strategic operations. I know your sensing, vision, and gifts with language will support your educational and strategic roles here.

Mom, Deanne – Over the years, I witnessed your genuine joy and meaning in gathering Jewish women through the Jewish Women’s Resource Center and otherwise. You know and model the importance of the question, “what do we want?”. My first teacher that following desire is a path to building spiritual community. A life coach, a true listener, a gracious witness, and a bank of wisdom.

To the team: May you be blessed with insight, with warmth toward yourself and those you steward, and to feel the blessing of being part of a team with capacity well beyond what you could do alone. May you stand in your strength and honor your divine-given potential by living your fullness.

To the community: may you be blessed to more fully inhabit your own light, to feel that light inspiring those around you to more fully inhabit their light. May you merit to grow in clarity of your purpose in this world, and be nourished with interconnectedness with others and grace from the divine as you move toward living that purpose. May Torah light your way. May Rahmana be a place of expressing some element of your purpose, and may you feel your gifts contributing to this space.