TRANSFORMATION

Dancing Among The Rocks Of AgesA Journey toward RenewalBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer

With this issue, we are delighted to be

inaugurating our new jointly written and

conceived column, one that explores and

integrates our shared passion for a spirituality

that is at once earthy and soaring, affirming of

the truths within us and socially engaged. We

draw on our shared love for our Jewish identity

and our celebration of the many rich spiritual

traditions upon which we humbly and joyously

also draw. And we draw on our panoply of

experiences as spiritual leaders – Parashakti in

her mission of exploring the essence of Spirit

through Ritual and Dance ceremonies and Rabbi

Miriyam as teacher, translator, retreat leader,

writer.

I have always been regretting that I was not as

wise as the day I was born.

­Henry David Thoreau, Walden

So many of the world’s spiritual traditions intricately, profoundly, engage the experience of being born

and seek, in such a vast variety of ways, to probe its meaning. At the heart of Christianity, for example,

is the belief that to embrace Jesus as one’s personal savior is to be “born again,” and just as we float

suspended in water in the womb, so the Christian marks that rebirth experience through baptism in

water. For the “mother­faith,” Judaism, Israel itself came into being through an experience of collective

birth: the people were leaving the “narrow place” (Mitzrayim); the “waters parted,” and the people

came through the channel into their new world. To this day, participating in mikveh, the prayerful

dipping into the “living waters” of the ritual bath, is important to many Jews for its power to evoke

profound spiritual renewal, spiritual rebirth.

For Native Americans, the possibility of spiritual rebirth is expressed through the powerful ceremony of

the Inipi, or sweat lodge, designed to purify one’s body, mind and soul and to renew the very core of one’s

being. The Inipi takes place within a dome­shaped structure built out of willow saplings, for in the Seneca

tradition the willow is the Tree of Love. Every element of the structure is rich with meaning.

At its center is a circular pit. The fact that it is circular is important: it symbolizes the circle of life, the

medicine wheel, home of the stones. And how powerful a symbol stone can be! Just as the psalmist of the

Jewish tradition evokes the divine creator of the universe as an everlasting “Rock,” so in Native American

spiritual tradition the stones at the heart of the sweat lodge serve as vivid, silent witnesses to the vastness

of time, the tumultuous changes on the planet earth and in the universe as a whole. To enter the lodge is to

enter the womb of the Earth Mother, to take one’s place around the “universal center,” the Great Mystery

at the heart of life.

Recently, Parashakti had the honor of co­leading an Inipi ceremony at Menla Retreat Center for

participants who had just spent a weekend practicing Jivamukti Yoga with Sharon Gannon, David Life and

Dechen Thurman. To guide their entrance into the lodge, into the body of the Earth Mother, we saged the

participants and sang songs of welcome, songs that honored our ancestors, our family, our friends, all

living beings and the earth itself. Sitting in the darkness, we prayed and chanted four rounds. As water was

poured on the hot stones, creating steam and intensely heating the lodge, each of our rounds, for each of

the directions, was focused on an intention for healing an aspect of the soul.

In Native American tradition, the stones are the record­keepers of the earth embodying ancient lessons.

During the ceremony, Parashakti, personally, experienced the hot stones as symbols of eternity, symbols

of the vastness of the universe – the geological layers of time, the comets that flash through our solar

system, the great stony galaxies, planets and moons coursing through our universe. And so we believe

they truly are: take a stone in your care, and you possess a vast and ancient history of the universe and the

planet earth, its periods of heat and its periods of cold, the complex minerals that, dance together to

become one, secrets of the earth’s movements.

If stones are like eternity, water, the other essential ingredient of the sweat lodge ceremony, is a symbol of

the origins of life itself. We float, after all, in amniotic fluid – salt water — before we are born into this

world (we even announce a birth­to­be very often by saying “her water broke!”). Water is changeable,

ever­moving, ever­flowing, just like the energy of life itself. Most of who we are is water – in the same

proportion, magnificently, as the planet on which we live.

With Parashakti’s guidance, each of the participants was of course having a uniquely individual

experience, awakening to a unique set of associations, for those stones and water and steam. For us, the

images of stone and water together awaken powerful associations with the city of Yerushalayim,

Jerusalem, where Parashakti was born and Rabbi Miriyam lived. The city itself is all built of the stone that

is mined from its hills. But while the actual city today — what is called Yerushalayim shel ma’tah —

mundane Jerusalem — might be driven with conflict, Yerushalayim shel ma’alah — spiritual Jerusalem —

is powerfully evocative in ways that, for us, are reminiscent of the sweat lodge. It too exists both as

physical reality and as spiritual symbol. And just as entering the domed sweat lodge re­enacts entering the

womb of the earth, so Jewish mystical tradition believes, at the very center of the center of spiritual

Jerusalem is the beating heart of the whole world, and it is there that the “Stone of the Foundation” seals

off the waters of the hidden sea, the Primal Abyss that existed before creation itself. If the stone is

dislodged, say the mystics, the whole world would cease to be. Water and stone, stone and water:

powerful opposites that create a new reality together....

In Native American tradition, the heated rocks in the fire outside the Inipi are the “Grandfathers,” and in

the process of mapping the Soul, the door of the Inipi opened to invite the Grandfathers in. The door to

the lodge once again closed and the pouring of water on the stones continued to create steam, intensifying

our prayers in the absolute darkness of the lodge. Slowly, along with the outer darkness, came the

brilliance of inner illumination, a sense of awakening, of freedom, as participants overcome their fears and

let go of self­limiting inner issues. The energy built as we prayed together for peace, transformation,

renewal and service, and discovered the truth that, in praying for others, you are also praying for

yourself.

The energy built as the whole group entered the last round, to evoke a sense of responsibility and of

wisdom; each participant was asked to identify a commitment they are taking upon themselves as they

leave the sweat lodge. Parashakti guided the participants in a time of Silence, freeing each one to enter

into their own souls and discover the nature of their own visual quest. At the same time, because we are

the carriers, and thus the source of life, for the dreams of our ancestors, the silence created a pathway to

silently hear and feel our ancestors celebrating their presence among us.

In her Spirit, Parashakti found herself dancing around the fire with them; time seemed to stand still,

crystallized into the essential, simple elements of being and of nature – water, stone, fire – and she felt

herself suffused with feelings of unconditional love and healing.

How free her rejoicing spirit felt! And so, with grace, intensity, and love, those who shared the Inipi that

day, served as one another’s witnesses. With a gentle sense of spiritual humility, they crawled out of the

sweat lodge renewed, feeling within the vivid, vibrant, energy of creation. And it was with that feeling that

Parashakti returned home, and shared with Rabbi Miriyam, as together we share with all of you, that

blessed process that fuses stone and water, and that moves from individual silence to a shared sense of

community, from the inner dance of a single spirit to the potential of a transformative Dance of Life

together.

PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox

and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on

healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs

heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org

RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Department of Literature,

Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF

THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING

(a new translation and commentary).

ISSUE 156

Art by Samantha Hahn

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!

reading | resources | advertising | about us

READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US

TRANSFORMATION

Dancing Among The Rocks Of AgesA Journey toward RenewalBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer

With this issue, we are delighted to be

inaugurating our new jointly written and

conceived column, one that explores and

integrates our shared passion for a spirituality

that is at once earthy and soaring, affirming of

the truths within us and socially engaged. We

draw on our shared love for our Jewish identity

and our celebration of the many rich spiritual

traditions upon which we humbly and joyously

also draw. And we draw on our panoply of

experiences as spiritual leaders – Parashakti in

her mission of exploring the essence of Spirit

through Ritual and Dance ceremonies and Rabbi

Miriyam as teacher, translator, retreat leader,

writer.

I have always been regretting that I was not as

wise as the day I was born.

­Henry David Thoreau, Walden

So many of the world’s spiritual traditions intricately, profoundly, engage the experience of being born

and seek, in such a vast variety of ways, to probe its meaning. At the heart of Christianity, for example,

is the belief that to embrace Jesus as one’s personal savior is to be “born again,” and just as we float

suspended in water in the womb, so the Christian marks that rebirth experience through baptism in

water. For the “mother­faith,” Judaism, Israel itself came into being through an experience of collective

birth: the people were leaving the “narrow place” (Mitzrayim); the “waters parted,” and the people

came through the channel into their new world. To this day, participating in mikveh, the prayerful

dipping into the “living waters” of the ritual bath, is important to many Jews for its power to evoke

profound spiritual renewal, spiritual rebirth.

For Native Americans, the possibility of spiritual rebirth is expressed through the powerful ceremony of

the Inipi, or sweat lodge, designed to purify one’s body, mind and soul and to renew the very core of one’s

being. The Inipi takes place within a dome­shaped structure built out of willow saplings, for in the Seneca

tradition the willow is the Tree of Love. Every element of the structure is rich with meaning.

At its center is a circular pit. The fact that it is circular is important: it symbolizes the circle of life, the

medicine wheel, home of the stones. And how powerful a symbol stone can be! Just as the psalmist of the

Jewish tradition evokes the divine creator of the universe as an everlasting “Rock,” so in Native American

spiritual tradition the stones at the heart of the sweat lodge serve as vivid, silent witnesses to the vastness

of time, the tumultuous changes on the planet earth and in the universe as a whole. To enter the lodge is to

enter the womb of the Earth Mother, to take one’s place around the “universal center,” the Great Mystery

at the heart of life.

Recently, Parashakti had the honor of co­leading an Inipi ceremony at Menla Retreat Center for

participants who had just spent a weekend practicing Jivamukti Yoga with Sharon Gannon, David Life and

Dechen Thurman. To guide their entrance into the lodge, into the body of the Earth Mother, we saged the

participants and sang songs of welcome, songs that honored our ancestors, our family, our friends, all

living beings and the earth itself. Sitting in the darkness, we prayed and chanted four rounds. As water was

poured on the hot stones, creating steam and intensely heating the lodge, each of our rounds, for each of

the directions, was focused on an intention for healing an aspect of the soul.

In Native American tradition, the stones are the record­keepers of the earth embodying ancient lessons.

During the ceremony, Parashakti, personally, experienced the hot stones as symbols of eternity, symbols

of the vastness of the universe – the geological layers of time, the comets that flash through our solar

system, the great stony galaxies, planets and moons coursing through our universe. And so we believe

they truly are: take a stone in your care, and you possess a vast and ancient history of the universe and the

planet earth, its periods of heat and its periods of cold, the complex minerals that, dance together to

become one, secrets of the earth’s movements.

If stones are like eternity, water, the other essential ingredient of the sweat lodge ceremony, is a symbol of

the origins of life itself. We float, after all, in amniotic fluid – salt water — before we are born into this

world (we even announce a birth­to­be very often by saying “her water broke!”). Water is changeable,

ever­moving, ever­flowing, just like the energy of life itself. Most of who we are is water – in the same

proportion, magnificently, as the planet on which we live.

With Parashakti’s guidance, each of the participants was of course having a uniquely individual

experience, awakening to a unique set of associations, for those stones and water and steam. For us, the

images of stone and water together awaken powerful associations with the city of Yerushalayim,

Jerusalem, where Parashakti was born and Rabbi Miriyam lived. The city itself is all built of the stone that

is mined from its hills. But while the actual city today — what is called Yerushalayim shel ma’tah —

mundane Jerusalem — might be driven with conflict, Yerushalayim shel ma’alah — spiritual Jerusalem —

is powerfully evocative in ways that, for us, are reminiscent of the sweat lodge. It too exists both as

physical reality and as spiritual symbol. And just as entering the domed sweat lodge re­enacts entering the

womb of the earth, so Jewish mystical tradition believes, at the very center of the center of spiritual

Jerusalem is the beating heart of the whole world, and it is there that the “Stone of the Foundation” seals

off the waters of the hidden sea, the Primal Abyss that existed before creation itself. If the stone is

dislodged, say the mystics, the whole world would cease to be. Water and stone, stone and water:

powerful opposites that create a new reality together....

In Native American tradition, the heated rocks in the fire outside the Inipi are the “Grandfathers,” and in

the process of mapping the Soul, the door of the Inipi opened to invite the Grandfathers in. The door to

the lodge once again closed and the pouring of water on the stones continued to create steam, intensifying

our prayers in the absolute darkness of the lodge. Slowly, along with the outer darkness, came the

brilliance of inner illumination, a sense of awakening, of freedom, as participants overcome their fears and

let go of self­limiting inner issues. The energy built as we prayed together for peace, transformation,

renewal and service, and discovered the truth that, in praying for others, you are also praying for

yourself.

The energy built as the whole group entered the last round, to evoke a sense of responsibility and of

wisdom; each participant was asked to identify a commitment they are taking upon themselves as they

leave the sweat lodge. Parashakti guided the participants in a time of Silence, freeing each one to enter

into their own souls and discover the nature of their own visual quest. At the same time, because we are

the carriers, and thus the source of life, for the dreams of our ancestors, the silence created a pathway to

silently hear and feel our ancestors celebrating their presence among us.

In her Spirit, Parashakti found herself dancing around the fire with them; time seemed to stand still,

crystallized into the essential, simple elements of being and of nature – water, stone, fire – and she felt

herself suffused with feelings of unconditional love and healing.

How free her rejoicing spirit felt! And so, with grace, intensity, and love, those who shared the Inipi that

day, served as one another’s witnesses. With a gentle sense of spiritual humility, they crawled out of the

sweat lodge renewed, feeling within the vivid, vibrant, energy of creation. And it was with that feeling that

Parashakti returned home, and shared with Rabbi Miriyam, as together we share with all of you, that

blessed process that fuses stone and water, and that moves from individual silence to a shared sense of

community, from the inner dance of a single spirit to the potential of a transformative Dance of Life

together.

PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox

and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on

healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs

heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org

RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Department of Literature,

Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF

THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING

(a new translation and commentary).

ISSUE 156

Art by Samantha Hahn

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!

reading | resources | advertising | about us

READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US

TRANSFORMATION

Dancing Among The Rocks Of AgesA Journey toward RenewalBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer

With this issue, we are delighted to be

inaugurating our new jointly written and

conceived column, one that explores and

integrates our shared passion for a spirituality

that is at once earthy and soaring, affirming of

the truths within us and socially engaged. We

draw on our shared love for our Jewish identity

and our celebration of the many rich spiritual

traditions upon which we humbly and joyously

also draw. And we draw on our panoply of

experiences as spiritual leaders – Parashakti in

her mission of exploring the essence of Spirit

through Ritual and Dance ceremonies and Rabbi

Miriyam as teacher, translator, retreat leader,

writer.

I have always been regretting that I was not as

wise as the day I was born.

­Henry David Thoreau, Walden

So many of the world’s spiritual traditions intricately, profoundly, engage the experience of being born

and seek, in such a vast variety of ways, to probe its meaning. At the heart of Christianity, for example,

is the belief that to embrace Jesus as one’s personal savior is to be “born again,” and just as we float

suspended in water in the womb, so the Christian marks that rebirth experience through baptism in

water. For the “mother­faith,” Judaism, Israel itself came into being through an experience of collective

birth: the people were leaving the “narrow place” (Mitzrayim); the “waters parted,” and the people

came through the channel into their new world. To this day, participating in mikveh, the prayerful

dipping into the “living waters” of the ritual bath, is important to many Jews for its power to evoke

profound spiritual renewal, spiritual rebirth.

For Native Americans, the possibility of spiritual rebirth is expressed through the powerful ceremony of

the Inipi, or sweat lodge, designed to purify one’s body, mind and soul and to renew the very core of one’s

being. The Inipi takes place within a dome­shaped structure built out of willow saplings, for in the Seneca

tradition the willow is the Tree of Love. Every element of the structure is rich with meaning.

At its center is a circular pit. The fact that it is circular is important: it symbolizes the circle of life, the

medicine wheel, home of the stones. And how powerful a symbol stone can be! Just as the psalmist of the

Jewish tradition evokes the divine creator of the universe as an everlasting “Rock,” so in Native American

spiritual tradition the stones at the heart of the sweat lodge serve as vivid, silent witnesses to the vastness

of time, the tumultuous changes on the planet earth and in the universe as a whole. To enter the lodge is to

enter the womb of the Earth Mother, to take one’s place around the “universal center,” the Great Mystery

at the heart of life.

Recently, Parashakti had the honor of co­leading an Inipi ceremony at Menla Retreat Center for

participants who had just spent a weekend practicing Jivamukti Yoga with Sharon Gannon, David Life and

Dechen Thurman. To guide their entrance into the lodge, into the body of the Earth Mother, we saged the

participants and sang songs of welcome, songs that honored our ancestors, our family, our friends, all

living beings and the earth itself. Sitting in the darkness, we prayed and chanted four rounds. As water was

poured on the hot stones, creating steam and intensely heating the lodge, each of our rounds, for each of

the directions, was focused on an intention for healing an aspect of the soul.

In Native American tradition, the stones are the record­keepers of the earth embodying ancient lessons.

During the ceremony, Parashakti, personally, experienced the hot stones as symbols of eternity, symbols

of the vastness of the universe – the geological layers of time, the comets that flash through our solar

system, the great stony galaxies, planets and moons coursing through our universe. And so we believe

they truly are: take a stone in your care, and you possess a vast and ancient history of the universe and the

planet earth, its periods of heat and its periods of cold, the complex minerals that, dance together to

become one, secrets of the earth’s movements.

If stones are like eternity, water, the other essential ingredient of the sweat lodge ceremony, is a symbol of

the origins of life itself. We float, after all, in amniotic fluid – salt water — before we are born into this

world (we even announce a birth­to­be very often by saying “her water broke!”). Water is changeable,

ever­moving, ever­flowing, just like the energy of life itself. Most of who we are is water – in the same

proportion, magnificently, as the planet on which we live.

With Parashakti’s guidance, each of the participants was of course having a uniquely individual

experience, awakening to a unique set of associations, for those stones and water and steam. For us, the

images of stone and water together awaken powerful associations with the city of Yerushalayim,

Jerusalem, where Parashakti was born and Rabbi Miriyam lived. The city itself is all built of the stone that

is mined from its hills. But while the actual city today — what is called Yerushalayim shel ma’tah —

mundane Jerusalem — might be driven with conflict, Yerushalayim shel ma’alah — spiritual Jerusalem —

is powerfully evocative in ways that, for us, are reminiscent of the sweat lodge. It too exists both as

physical reality and as spiritual symbol. And just as entering the domed sweat lodge re­enacts entering the

womb of the earth, so Jewish mystical tradition believes, at the very center of the center of spiritual

Jerusalem is the beating heart of the whole world, and it is there that the “Stone of the Foundation” seals

off the waters of the hidden sea, the Primal Abyss that existed before creation itself. If the stone is

dislodged, say the mystics, the whole world would cease to be. Water and stone, stone and water:

powerful opposites that create a new reality together....

In Native American tradition, the heated rocks in the fire outside the Inipi are the “Grandfathers,” and in

the process of mapping the Soul, the door of the Inipi opened to invite the Grandfathers in. The door to

the lodge once again closed and the pouring of water on the stones continued to create steam, intensifying

our prayers in the absolute darkness of the lodge. Slowly, along with the outer darkness, came the

brilliance of inner illumination, a sense of awakening, of freedom, as participants overcome their fears and

let go of self­limiting inner issues. The energy built as we prayed together for peace, transformation,

renewal and service, and discovered the truth that, in praying for others, you are also praying for

yourself.

The energy built as the whole group entered the last round, to evoke a sense of responsibility and of

wisdom; each participant was asked to identify a commitment they are taking upon themselves as they

leave the sweat lodge. Parashakti guided the participants in a time of Silence, freeing each one to enter

into their own souls and discover the nature of their own visual quest. At the same time, because we are

the carriers, and thus the source of life, for the dreams of our ancestors, the silence created a pathway to

silently hear and feel our ancestors celebrating their presence among us.

In her Spirit, Parashakti found herself dancing around the fire with them; time seemed to stand still,

crystallized into the essential, simple elements of being and of nature – water, stone, fire – and she felt

herself suffused with feelings of unconditional love and healing.

How free her rejoicing spirit felt! And so, with grace, intensity, and love, those who shared the Inipi that

day, served as one another’s witnesses. With a gentle sense of spiritual humility, they crawled out of the

sweat lodge renewed, feeling within the vivid, vibrant, energy of creation. And it was with that feeling that

Parashakti returned home, and shared with Rabbi Miriyam, as together we share with all of you, that

blessed process that fuses stone and water, and that moves from individual silence to a shared sense of

community, from the inner dance of a single spirit to the potential of a transformative Dance of Life

together.

PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox

and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on

healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs

heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org

RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Department of Literature,

Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF

THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING

(a new translation and commentary).

ISSUE 156

Art by Samantha Hahn

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!

reading | resources | advertising | about us

READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US