Spiritual Emergence at CIIS |
upcoming events |
Spiritual Emergence and Other Extraordinary Experiences at CIIS |
OUR EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Holding the Shadow: Experiences of Spiritual Emergency Performance open dress rehearsal/preview
1-2pm and/or 4-5pm in Namaste Hall, 3rd floor, CIIS
Thursday April 7, 2016
1-2pm and/or 4-5pm in Namaste Hall, 3rd floor, CIIS
Thursday April 7, 2016
Join us on Facebook for more updates: http://www.facebook.com/SpiritualEmergenceCIIS
recent events...
An Aesthetic Response on Neurodiversity: interacting with the third floor corridor exhibit at CIIS
Friday, December 4, 7.30-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 304, 1453 Mission St
Come take part in a neurodiversity-focused, intermodal expressive arts journey! This will be a collective exploration of the community, power and privilege involved in experiences and identities of neurodivergence and neurotypicality. Dress comfortably, as there will be opportunities for movement and visual art-making. If you'd like to make music, bring an instrument. "Neurodiversity is the diversity of human brains and minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.... The classification of neurodivergence (e.g., autism, ADHD, dyslexia, bipolarity) as medical/psychiatric pathology has no valid scientific basis, and instead reflects cultural prejudice and oppresses those labeled as such." -Nick Walker
Cassidy Barnes is a caregiver for elders with dementia, a CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy student, improv theatre dabbler, and bad ass witch.
Beatriz Chavez is a visual artist, poet, and CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy student.
Moving Towards Wholeness:Exploring and Integrating Spiritual Emergencies & Extraordinary Experiences
Presented by: Kyle Buller
Where: CIIS, room 550, 1453 mission st
Time: Wednesday, November 18, 7:00PM - 9:30PM
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Kyle’s life changed when he was sixteen years old. He suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident that lead to a near-death experience and a spiritual emergency. Come explore a night of storytelling with Kyle as he shares his story about integrating this powerful experience. From near-death experiences to breathwork, Kyle will explore the vast range of human experiences and non-ordinary states of consciousness, and how he has integrated these experiences back into everyday life.
Kyle received his B.A. in Integral Psychology from Burlington College in Burlington, Vermont. During his undergraduate years, Kyle spent much of his studies researching indigenous plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the potential benefit of non-ordinary states of consciousness. Kyle has spent the past few years working in the mental health field. He currently works with at-risk teenagers at a hospital diversion program, and supports/helps individuals to move through extreme states/psychosis at Soteria Vermont. Kyle also offers breathwork workshops in Burlington, Vermont.
Friday October 9, 8-10pm at CIIS
Mad Dance: A mental health film trilogy, with filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal
I look forward to introducing the screening of my Mad Dance Mental Health Film Trilogy with a reading of my essay, 'From Demonizing to Dancing With My Shadow'. See you on Friday, October 9 at 8pm in Room 550 at CIIS. Bring friends!
Mad Love, Ken
www.maddancementalhealthfilmtrilogy.com
FREE and open to the public
Friday October 9, 8-10pm
CIIS, 1453 Mission St, Room 550, SF 94103
Mad Dance is a trilogy of provocative and beautiful short films that re-envision the way we think, speak and feel about mental distress and wellness in today’s chaotic world. These transformative films offer new maps for navigating madness with insight, healing and hope.
“At once extremely personal and yet exquisitely accessible, Ken Paul Rosenthal’s Mad Dance Mental Health Film Trilogy is that rare cinematic feat that combines ineffably compelling artistry, poetics, and visual beauty with compassion, daring, and a heartfelt sense of purpose — all in the service of shining light upon deep (and dark) psychological truths.”
Alan Berliner, Filmmaker, The Family Album and First Cousin Once Removed
Join us for a screening of the films, and a discussion with filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal.
SEPTEMBER 2015
Light and Shadows Storytelling Circle
September 23, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 560, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Spiritual Emergence and spiritual emergency are personal, internal, transformative, deep psyche processes, often driven by a collective wisdom inside. They can lead to external change from the empowering effects on the individual and the deeper understanding of oneself and the collective. These processes often gets diagnosed by the mainstream medical model as psychosis- bipolar disorder or schizophrenia- and hence shut down and left unsupported. Join us in telling stories of the “light” and “shadow” aspects of spiritual emergence and emergency, whether it be mystic or creative states or buried personal and collective trauma and oppression, we want to hear your voice, and hold a circle of compassion while doing so.
People who experience spiritual emergency are the holders of the growing pains of expanding consciousness- I've met spiritual death. I've experienced the divine in every molecule. I'm a holder of trauma of many generations that needs to be unraveled and to be spoken. I touch the muse and move into spaces of collective-wisdom creativity- Come share, and come listen. We are important and our message is revolutionary yet old. Join us in the spirit of support, solidarity, and sharing.
RECENT PAST EVENTS...
JUNE 2015
Musical Empowerment Workshop, with Tasya Herskovits & Shireen Amini
June 9, 7-9pm
CIIS, Namaste Hall, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Spiritual Emergence and Other Extraordinary Experiences has been gifted a wonderful opportunity by two sound healers to create music around our group's theme and empower our group.
Songs that Belong to Us: Self–produced medicine from an authentic place of human experience
We are offering music and voice-based workshops for groups with a common purpose or challenge who could use a little song medicine to revitalize their community. This 1-2 hour session is immersive and experiential, no previous music experience is required, and culminates in the creation of a simple, powerful song that everyone can take home with them, to remind them of the purpose, integrity, and resonant fullness of the group and the individual voices within it. We invite participants to enjoy this creative bonding experience where the music both comes from them and is for them.
About the facilitators:
Tasya Herskovits and Shireen Amini are currently completing their certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Shireen is a singer-songwriter/producer and multi-instrumentalist who has spent the last 8 years in Central Oregon serving as a community music facilitator. She carries with her a Bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and years of studying the songwriting craft, from the mystical to technical aspects. Currently, Shireen is the lead singer/guitarist in the Bend, Oregon-based Latin band project, Chiringa. She has developed two innovative youth music programs based on principles of musical empowerment, a choir called the Peace Chords and a drumming program called Roots Rhythm.
Tasya is a sound, voice and health practitioner, singer-songwriter and community organizer. She has initiated and facilitated vocal and musical improvisation gatherings and group sound healings sessions for families and communities in the Bay Area and her previous home of Joshua Tree, California. The backbone of her current work is the re-claiming of deep rooted ritual technologies to nurture the connection between communities, individuals, and environment.
The CIIS certificate program has re-energized Shireen and Tasya's belief in the power of music to bring healing, strength, and joy, which they plan to continue to facilitate in evermore fresh and profound ways.
MAY 2015
Storytelling and Social
May 5, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 216, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
An evening of personal sharing around spiritual emergence/emergency with community.
APRIL 2015
Cultural Interpretations and Anomalous Experience, with Dr. Natalie Tobert
April 9, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 607, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Many people claim their extreme or "anomalous" experiences are spiritual phenomena, and not indicative of mental ill health.
In the West people are demanding a new paradigm in psychiatry, but in India some physicians are quietly embodying the change
that the west would like to see.
In my new book on "Spiritual Psychiatries", I open the discussion about global mental health, and set out my journeys through
South India, meeting psychiatrists, philosophers, and priests who support human well being from a spiritual perspective. I present
those who have spiritual explanatory models for their experiences. I explore different paradigms of understanding, and invite
participants to discuss assumptions concerning eastern and western models of knowledge, human existence, and the nature of reality.
This session will be part presentation and part discussion, exploring how we might bring about positive change. Participants are invited
to explore whether Indian cultural frameworks for understanding existential phenomena and treating extreme experiences might
benefit people in the west.
Natalie Tobert is a British medical anthropologist, who has done research in India, Sudan and UK. Her book Spiritual Psychiatries,
based at Sri Aurobindo's ashram in India, brings fresh perspectives to the dialogue about mental health and extreme experiences.
She runs participatory seminars in UK hospitals, universities, and medical schools, which create a bridge between mainstream and
new paradigm thinking. She is member of the Bay Area Mandala Project Advisory Board.
https://www.facebook.com/SpiritualPsychiatries
Acculturating “psychosis” Across Diagnostic Categories: The Special Messages Project!, with Tim Dreby
April 16, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 607, 1453 Mission St, SF
Teaching Message Receivers to work with each other to promote solutions
Tim Dreby has twenty years of experience in paid mental health experience, and eleven years tenure at Alameda Health System’s Highland Hospital Outpatient Psychiatric Unit. Inspired by reading about the Hearing Voices Network in Europe via internet, seven years ago he began to run Special Messages groups at Highland and has developed a paradigm for working with people in Special Messages Crisis that seeks to unite Special Message Receivers via establishing universal components of “psychosis” or Special Messages Crisis. Tim currently collaborates with PEERS in Alameda County to use an Alameda County Innovations Grant to help train, teach and revise this paradigm to peer counselors who specialize in outreaching to isolated individuals in the community. Tim has a memoir coming out in the end of March with Hidden Thoughts Press entitled, Fighting for Freedom in America which documents a two year period (mid-career) when he was in Special Messages Crisis.
MARCH 2015
Out of Bounds : Spiritual Emergence and Awakening From Extreme Trauma, with Asherah Eden, MA
March 26, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 306, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
We are divine in human form. Learn how trauma, particularly extreme trauma, can be a gift to "wake up" and embody this
tremendous truth. Our own shadow, when fully met, is but a beacon for emerging to our light. Come join us for a discussion
of how the body, psychology, and the higher/whole/sacred self can be used together for full resolution of trauma and
profound spiritual awakening. You will get grounded, more calm, and more in your body. Be prepared to trust yourself more,
hear your own voice, and reclaim parts of your personal power. Find more creativity and self-expression. Finally, you will be
invited to remember your wholeness and divinity- beyond labels or stories. Asherah Eden (MA Somatics, 2012 , as Jessica Abelson),
is an intuitive channel, life coach, and speaker based out of Oakland, CA. She has twenty years experience studying, practicing, and
applying somatic and spiritual healing techniques . In her free time she can be found in handstands, making paintings, and
worshipping her small dog, Muppet. Professionally, Asherah offers depth transformation programs to select clients and groups
around self trust, intuition, the divine feminine, whole-life organization, and personal power. Asherah can be contacted at
http://www.asheraheden.com.
Phenomenology of the Spiritual Emergence Ordeal: Challenges of Integration, with Dr. Howard Whitehouse, PhD
March 31, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 311, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Join in opening up a circle of dialogue on: spiritual emergence versus emergency, the sacred versus profane contexts in
spiritual emergence, and the challenges of integrating sacred experience in a profane culture. Dr. Whitehouse's dissertation
revealed a phenomenological map of the structure and process of the shamanic medicine experience, with a particular focus
on the the challenges individuals encounter when they attempt to return and integrate these extraordinary experiences into
the context of their ordinary lives. He is currently the Alumni Advisor to ERIE at CIIS, served as adjunct faculty at the Institute
of Noetic Sciences (IONS), and worked as a Research Associate at UCMed Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic.
recent events...
An Aesthetic Response on Neurodiversity: interacting with the third floor corridor exhibit at CIIS
Friday, December 4, 7.30-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 304, 1453 Mission St
Come take part in a neurodiversity-focused, intermodal expressive arts journey! This will be a collective exploration of the community, power and privilege involved in experiences and identities of neurodivergence and neurotypicality. Dress comfortably, as there will be opportunities for movement and visual art-making. If you'd like to make music, bring an instrument. "Neurodiversity is the diversity of human brains and minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.... The classification of neurodivergence (e.g., autism, ADHD, dyslexia, bipolarity) as medical/psychiatric pathology has no valid scientific basis, and instead reflects cultural prejudice and oppresses those labeled as such." -Nick Walker
Cassidy Barnes is a caregiver for elders with dementia, a CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy student, improv theatre dabbler, and bad ass witch.
Beatriz Chavez is a visual artist, poet, and CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy student.
Moving Towards Wholeness:Exploring and Integrating Spiritual Emergencies & Extraordinary Experiences
Presented by: Kyle Buller
Where: CIIS, room 550, 1453 mission st
Time: Wednesday, November 18, 7:00PM - 9:30PM
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Kyle’s life changed when he was sixteen years old. He suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident that lead to a near-death experience and a spiritual emergency. Come explore a night of storytelling with Kyle as he shares his story about integrating this powerful experience. From near-death experiences to breathwork, Kyle will explore the vast range of human experiences and non-ordinary states of consciousness, and how he has integrated these experiences back into everyday life.
Kyle received his B.A. in Integral Psychology from Burlington College in Burlington, Vermont. During his undergraduate years, Kyle spent much of his studies researching indigenous plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the potential benefit of non-ordinary states of consciousness. Kyle has spent the past few years working in the mental health field. He currently works with at-risk teenagers at a hospital diversion program, and supports/helps individuals to move through extreme states/psychosis at Soteria Vermont. Kyle also offers breathwork workshops in Burlington, Vermont.
Friday October 9, 8-10pm at CIIS
Mad Dance: A mental health film trilogy, with filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal
I look forward to introducing the screening of my Mad Dance Mental Health Film Trilogy with a reading of my essay, 'From Demonizing to Dancing With My Shadow'. See you on Friday, October 9 at 8pm in Room 550 at CIIS. Bring friends!
Mad Love, Ken
www.maddancementalhealthfilmtrilogy.com
FREE and open to the public
Friday October 9, 8-10pm
CIIS, 1453 Mission St, Room 550, SF 94103
Mad Dance is a trilogy of provocative and beautiful short films that re-envision the way we think, speak and feel about mental distress and wellness in today’s chaotic world. These transformative films offer new maps for navigating madness with insight, healing and hope.
“At once extremely personal and yet exquisitely accessible, Ken Paul Rosenthal’s Mad Dance Mental Health Film Trilogy is that rare cinematic feat that combines ineffably compelling artistry, poetics, and visual beauty with compassion, daring, and a heartfelt sense of purpose — all in the service of shining light upon deep (and dark) psychological truths.”
Alan Berliner, Filmmaker, The Family Album and First Cousin Once Removed
Join us for a screening of the films, and a discussion with filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal.
SEPTEMBER 2015
Light and Shadows Storytelling Circle
September 23, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 560, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Spiritual Emergence and spiritual emergency are personal, internal, transformative, deep psyche processes, often driven by a collective wisdom inside. They can lead to external change from the empowering effects on the individual and the deeper understanding of oneself and the collective. These processes often gets diagnosed by the mainstream medical model as psychosis- bipolar disorder or schizophrenia- and hence shut down and left unsupported. Join us in telling stories of the “light” and “shadow” aspects of spiritual emergence and emergency, whether it be mystic or creative states or buried personal and collective trauma and oppression, we want to hear your voice, and hold a circle of compassion while doing so.
People who experience spiritual emergency are the holders of the growing pains of expanding consciousness- I've met spiritual death. I've experienced the divine in every molecule. I'm a holder of trauma of many generations that needs to be unraveled and to be spoken. I touch the muse and move into spaces of collective-wisdom creativity- Come share, and come listen. We are important and our message is revolutionary yet old. Join us in the spirit of support, solidarity, and sharing.
RECENT PAST EVENTS...
JUNE 2015
Musical Empowerment Workshop, with Tasya Herskovits & Shireen Amini
June 9, 7-9pm
CIIS, Namaste Hall, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Spiritual Emergence and Other Extraordinary Experiences has been gifted a wonderful opportunity by two sound healers to create music around our group's theme and empower our group.
Songs that Belong to Us: Self–produced medicine from an authentic place of human experience
We are offering music and voice-based workshops for groups with a common purpose or challenge who could use a little song medicine to revitalize their community. This 1-2 hour session is immersive and experiential, no previous music experience is required, and culminates in the creation of a simple, powerful song that everyone can take home with them, to remind them of the purpose, integrity, and resonant fullness of the group and the individual voices within it. We invite participants to enjoy this creative bonding experience where the music both comes from them and is for them.
About the facilitators:
Tasya Herskovits and Shireen Amini are currently completing their certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Shireen is a singer-songwriter/producer and multi-instrumentalist who has spent the last 8 years in Central Oregon serving as a community music facilitator. She carries with her a Bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and years of studying the songwriting craft, from the mystical to technical aspects. Currently, Shireen is the lead singer/guitarist in the Bend, Oregon-based Latin band project, Chiringa. She has developed two innovative youth music programs based on principles of musical empowerment, a choir called the Peace Chords and a drumming program called Roots Rhythm.
Tasya is a sound, voice and health practitioner, singer-songwriter and community organizer. She has initiated and facilitated vocal and musical improvisation gatherings and group sound healings sessions for families and communities in the Bay Area and her previous home of Joshua Tree, California. The backbone of her current work is the re-claiming of deep rooted ritual technologies to nurture the connection between communities, individuals, and environment.
The CIIS certificate program has re-energized Shireen and Tasya's belief in the power of music to bring healing, strength, and joy, which they plan to continue to facilitate in evermore fresh and profound ways.
MAY 2015
Storytelling and Social
May 5, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 216, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
An evening of personal sharing around spiritual emergence/emergency with community.
APRIL 2015
Cultural Interpretations and Anomalous Experience, with Dr. Natalie Tobert
April 9, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 607, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Many people claim their extreme or "anomalous" experiences are spiritual phenomena, and not indicative of mental ill health.
In the West people are demanding a new paradigm in psychiatry, but in India some physicians are quietly embodying the change
that the west would like to see.
In my new book on "Spiritual Psychiatries", I open the discussion about global mental health, and set out my journeys through
South India, meeting psychiatrists, philosophers, and priests who support human well being from a spiritual perspective. I present
those who have spiritual explanatory models for their experiences. I explore different paradigms of understanding, and invite
participants to discuss assumptions concerning eastern and western models of knowledge, human existence, and the nature of reality.
This session will be part presentation and part discussion, exploring how we might bring about positive change. Participants are invited
to explore whether Indian cultural frameworks for understanding existential phenomena and treating extreme experiences might
benefit people in the west.
Natalie Tobert is a British medical anthropologist, who has done research in India, Sudan and UK. Her book Spiritual Psychiatries,
based at Sri Aurobindo's ashram in India, brings fresh perspectives to the dialogue about mental health and extreme experiences.
She runs participatory seminars in UK hospitals, universities, and medical schools, which create a bridge between mainstream and
new paradigm thinking. She is member of the Bay Area Mandala Project Advisory Board.
https://www.facebook.com/SpiritualPsychiatries
Acculturating “psychosis” Across Diagnostic Categories: The Special Messages Project!, with Tim Dreby
April 16, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 607, 1453 Mission St, SF
Teaching Message Receivers to work with each other to promote solutions
Tim Dreby has twenty years of experience in paid mental health experience, and eleven years tenure at Alameda Health System’s Highland Hospital Outpatient Psychiatric Unit. Inspired by reading about the Hearing Voices Network in Europe via internet, seven years ago he began to run Special Messages groups at Highland and has developed a paradigm for working with people in Special Messages Crisis that seeks to unite Special Message Receivers via establishing universal components of “psychosis” or Special Messages Crisis. Tim currently collaborates with PEERS in Alameda County to use an Alameda County Innovations Grant to help train, teach and revise this paradigm to peer counselors who specialize in outreaching to isolated individuals in the community. Tim has a memoir coming out in the end of March with Hidden Thoughts Press entitled, Fighting for Freedom in America which documents a two year period (mid-career) when he was in Special Messages Crisis.
MARCH 2015
Out of Bounds : Spiritual Emergence and Awakening From Extreme Trauma, with Asherah Eden, MA
March 26, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 306, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
We are divine in human form. Learn how trauma, particularly extreme trauma, can be a gift to "wake up" and embody this
tremendous truth. Our own shadow, when fully met, is but a beacon for emerging to our light. Come join us for a discussion
of how the body, psychology, and the higher/whole/sacred self can be used together for full resolution of trauma and
profound spiritual awakening. You will get grounded, more calm, and more in your body. Be prepared to trust yourself more,
hear your own voice, and reclaim parts of your personal power. Find more creativity and self-expression. Finally, you will be
invited to remember your wholeness and divinity- beyond labels or stories. Asherah Eden (MA Somatics, 2012 , as Jessica Abelson),
is an intuitive channel, life coach, and speaker based out of Oakland, CA. She has twenty years experience studying, practicing, and
applying somatic and spiritual healing techniques . In her free time she can be found in handstands, making paintings, and
worshipping her small dog, Muppet. Professionally, Asherah offers depth transformation programs to select clients and groups
around self trust, intuition, the divine feminine, whole-life organization, and personal power. Asherah can be contacted at
http://www.asheraheden.com.
Phenomenology of the Spiritual Emergence Ordeal: Challenges of Integration, with Dr. Howard Whitehouse, PhD
March 31, 7-9.30pm
CIIS, Room 311, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Join in opening up a circle of dialogue on: spiritual emergence versus emergency, the sacred versus profane contexts in
spiritual emergence, and the challenges of integrating sacred experience in a profane culture. Dr. Whitehouse's dissertation
revealed a phenomenological map of the structure and process of the shamanic medicine experience, with a particular focus
on the the challenges individuals encounter when they attempt to return and integrate these extraordinary experiences into
the context of their ordinary lives. He is currently the Alumni Advisor to ERIE at CIIS, served as adjunct faculty at the Institute
of Noetic Sciences (IONS), and worked as a Research Associate at UCMed Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic.