Reflections Parallel: Ancestral Healing

Lesson 1:

What is Kabbalah and how can it help me heal?

The ancient mystic tradition of Kabbalah, a psycho-spiritual system that is universal in nature, gives us mystical maps that can illuminate our souls’ journey and recover our innate knowing. In our first module, we look at the critical importance of ancestral healing in our era, and how ancient wisdom traditions, such as the Kabbalah, can help us to restore our inborn clarity, wisdom, and healing power. We explore the journey of the soul as seen through the eyes of the ancients and reconnect to the sacred purpose or tikkun we each took on before incarnating in our present lives. In Lesson One you will:

• Learn the meaning of the term Kabbalah and how it speaks to the harmony of masculine and feminine energies and the various soul levels within each of us.                                            
• Understand the urgency of ancestral healing today and how the Kabbalistic perspective can help you to remember your soul’s innate balance and tikkun, sacred purpose.                                                 
• Learn a mystic story about your soul’s journey before birth and the power of forgetting and remembering
• Be guided into the imaginal realm and open the gates to the ancestral realm to perceive the unseen dimension and the medicine it holds for you.

Lesson 2:

Why Is this World So Broken?

In Lesson Two we travel to the 16^th century to learn how the Kabbalists reinvented their lives after catastrophe, and study the mystical tale of the Shattered Vessels through the lens of depth psychology for its relevance today. We will look at how trauma has shaped our lives, with cycles of Rupture and Repair influencing us, our families, and the world at large. In this module we embark upon our own repair work, and study how our wounds may have roots in our ancestral bloodlines and the larger world. In this lesson you will:

• Learn how to interpret the Kabbalistic myth of the Shattered Vessels psycho-spiritually, so it can shed light on your own life journey
• Understand the terms Tikkun Halev (repair of the heart) and Tikkun Olam (repair of the world), and discover how the challenging collective issues in today’s world are integrally connected to your own personal healing.
• Be guided in a visualization to help you identify the broken shards in your familial line.
• Open channels to the wise and well elder ancestors in your lineage and enlist their help for your journey.

Lesson 3:

What is Sacred Fire and how can I ignite it for healing not harming?

In Lesson Three, we take up the sacred Mother Letters from the most ancient Kabbalistic manuscript (Sefer Yetzirah, Book of Formation). These three letters are elemental powers, used by the Divine powers in the formation of the world, and are available as instruments of healing. We take up our first letter:  Shin, the sacred element of fire, which points us to the Nephesh soul that is our embodied self, our appetite for life, our pleasure and pain bodies. We will ask and discover: Where is my sacred fire burning (or burnt out)? What are my ancestors’ legacies to me surrounding passionate commitment, anger, ardor, pleasure and pain?  In Lesson Three you will

• Be introduced to the three Mother Letters from the most ancient Kabbalistic text, The Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah) and learn how these elemental powers can realign and heal you, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.   
• Meet the SHIN the Elemental of fire (through a guided meditation) who will teach you about the state of your physical health, passions, and appetites for life.
• Understand what the pain body is, how it has come down to you from previous generations, and how awareness and self-compassion can diminish and heal it.
• Be guided into the ancestral dimensions where you will meet and learn from your wise and well ancestors about the pearls and perils of SHIN and what your task is in healing the family line.

Lesson 4:

What are Living Waters and where have the waters of my life stopped flowing?

In Lesson Four we introduce the second Mother Letter Mem: the Elemental energy of Water, which points us to our Ruach soul, where our tears of joy and grief, music, poetry, and yearning for love are currents of our heart are sourced. We will ask: Where has the deferred historical trauma and grief of my family become frozen? How has my ancestral history stopped in me and become a personal stuck pattern in my life? What is the all too familiar heart pain I have been living with and how can I heal it? In this module, we begin to study the death practices of the Kabbalists and the importance of letting go, grieving, and preparing for a “good death.”  We examine our ancestral wisdom that can help us “build a ship of death,” a death that is conscious, peaceful, and wise. In Lesson Four, you will

• Learn about the effects of deferred grief and unmetabolized trauma and how harsh ancestral histories can become frozen in time, translating into personal stuck patterns in your own life.
• Meet MEM, the Elemental of water who will connect you to your soul’s deepest longings, joys, and heartache.
• In a guided journey into the ancestral realm, you will visit the connection of familiar emotional pain patterns and ancestral histories.
• Begin a study of Kabbalistic death practices, the importance of a “good death,” and how to prepare for it.

Lesson 5:

How do my Ancestors bless or limit my sacred potential?

In Lesson Five you will be introduced to Aleph: the Elemental energy of Air or Prana. Here we study the paradoxical life of the mystic: one that is both embodied and connected to the dimension that Kabbalists call: the Or Ein Sof, endless light and limitless potential. We explore how ancestral wisdom and ancestral trauma and fear patterns have come down to us that shape our approach to That Which is Greater than us, and discover the vital importance of love, community, and ritual that can assist us in becoming translucent: turning into light, the goal of the “good death.” In Lesson Five you will

• Meet the Aleph, the quixotic Elemental energy of air, breath, prana, and learn how to channel it through your body and mind.
• Learn the concept of Ein Sof, limitless space, pure potentiality, and Or Ein Sof, limitless light, and experience tastes of your soul’s birthright through a guided ritual.
• Discover how cultural and ancestral wisdom, traumas, and fears have come down to you that shape your relationship to spirituality, your sacred purpose, and death.
• Learn an approach to death that is understood as your soul’s “graduation,” and the concept of “hillula” the great wedding feast, when we are united with the divine Feminine, also known as the Shechinah.

Lesson 6:

Solstice Ritual: What is the look of my soul’s true face? Welcoming the Light back—in ourselves and in the world

In Lesson Six, we conclude our study of ars moriendi, the art of dying, and consider Malidome Some’s encouragement to become an “Ancestor in Training,” to prepare now for the next dimension, where we can be of maximal service to our living relatives and the earth plane.At the end of Module 6 we will partake in a joyous Solstice Ritual, in which we will stand at the cusp of the new year, greet the returning light, and lay down the psychic tracks to our greater potential as ancestral healers, global citizens, conduits for Or Ein Sof, the limitless divine light, and bringers of healing to the embodied earth plane. In Lesson Six you will

• Discover what it means to become a “wise and well ancestor,” and what it takes to prepare for the next dimension of our existence where we are in service to the divine will, called by Kabbalists, the Tzorach Gavoha.
• Understand the perils of not detaching from our physical or emotional cravings, and learn about disembodied entities (e.g. dybbuks) and why they attach to us.
• Learn an ancient mystical Hebrew mantra to balance and empower you in trying times
• Journey into the unseen dimensions in a guided ritual to celebrate the return of the light, experience a graduation, and behold the face of your soul’s fruition.