'Dia de los Muertes" Celebration Tuesday, October 18

Dia de los Muertos
“Day of the Dead”

Come join Rev. Joni Carron to experience this Mexican tradition of honoring our deceased ancestors. We will discuss the different ingredients and beliefs that make up this colorful, flavorful, and important day in Mexican culture. While experiencing Dia de los Muertos as a group, we will be invited to explore our own beliefs about death and the ways in which we do or do not honor our ancestors.

Please bring a picture of a loved one who has passed over who you would like to honor.  All of the photos will be placed on "la ofrenda," our altar. In keeping with the custom of this ritual, we ask that you prepare the favorite food of your loved one to be shared at our potluck dinner. In preparation for “Day of the Dead” bring stories, anecdotes, a favorite song, poem or prayer of your loved one to share with the group.

BIO:  Reverend Joni Carron is an Interfaith Minister, ordained in 2009 through One Spirit Interfaith Seminary.Her studies over the past ten years have focused on death/dying, end of life care, spiritual pain/ diagnosing spiritual pain, grief/bereavement, and the history and skills of an Anamcara (soul friend) caring for the dying. She is currently pursuing her life’s calling as a hospice chaplain. As a hospice volunteer Joni has assisted many of her friends and family through the transition of death. She has previously worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for nine years, and currently performs weddings, funerals and various spiritual ceremonies as part of her ministry.

"Feeding Body, Mind and Soul" for those in need

September 15, 2011
In keeping with our theme this year, "Feeding Body, Mind and Soul," tonight our Women's Interfaith group raised $130. to send to Mercy Corp to help feed people on the Horn of Africa.

The Horn of Africa is withered by drought – and the people who live there are perilously hungry. More than 12 million people are at risk of starvation. The United Nations has called Somalia the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”

People in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya are desperate for food and water. Mercy Corp is on the ground helping more than 860,000 people weather the crisis.

Here is the link to learn how to help:

Mercy Corp 

It is our intention at Women's Interfaith to raise money each month to help nurture those in need both locally and abroad. Simply passing the basket and adding your $5. makes a tremendous difference!  Thank you all.

Thursday, September 15 


Feeding Body Mind and Soul:

"The High Holy Days~
Cleansing the Soul as a Path Toward Peace"

                             

The Jewish calendar reflects not only the physical passage of the seasons but also the journey of the soul through each year. In this program we will discover the Jewish practice of Cheshbon Hanefesh- to take an accounting of the soul.

Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman will guide us through a meditation as a way of connecting to a deeper sense of self and beginning the process of inner cleansing. This practice serves as preparation for entering the High Holy Days- a period of inner cleansing and outer repairing of relationships. As we begin a new year, may we be renewed on our paths towards wholeness and peace.

Bio:

Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman,MSW  is one of the founders and leaders of The Berkshire Minyan- a traditional/egalitarian prayer group that meets every Shabbat morning at Hevreh of S. Berkshire. She volunteers as chaplain at Fairview Hospital and is an experienced Jewish Educator. She has taught a variety of classes in Judaic Studies and Hebrew at Sinai Academy of the Berkshires, Congregation K'nesset Israel  Synagogue, Hevreh of S. Berkshire, Simon's Rock College and Isabella Freedman Center. Formerly a social worker and Feng Shui consultant,  Kaya is currently working on a book entitled, "Between Heaven and Earth- Re-envisioning Synagogue Space."

Come join us for this women's monthly potluck  program and bring a friend. $5-10 Suggested donation FREE FOR MEMBERS* Please bring a labeled dish to share. Optional: You may wish to include traditional Rosh Hashana foods in your recipes such as apples, honey, pomegranates, beets or leeks. Where: Church on the Hill Chapel 55 Main Street Lenox, MA (The brown building is down the street from the main church, and across the street from Nejaime's Wine Cellar. Please use entrance on right side of building.) When: 5:45 - 8:45pm 5:45 Gathering with food 6:00 Welcome circle 6:15 Potluck supper 7:15 Program 8:45 Closure and clean up Interesting link about the Days of Awe: Debra Darvick

Interfaith Chant for Peace

Note from Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman:

Dear Friends,

After the tragic and horrific events in Norway this summer, I have felt ever more provoked to do something to express our spiritual connectedness and unity as one humanity with many diverse and beautiful spiritual voices.

I envision an interfaith group, meeting monthly to share chants and prayers for peace from all traditions.

I have spoken to several local spiritual leaders from different faith traditions and they have enthusiastically agreed to join in this vision. Thus far, Rev. Natalie Shiras from The Church on the Hill, Rev. Yaqin Aubert from the Abode of the Message,  Native American Healer Mikka Barkman, the Quaker community and others will be joining me in our first monthly gathering.

Interfaith Chant for Peace 

Wednesday, August 31st,  5-6 PM 

at The Quaker Meeting House in Great Barrington

 280 State Road-Rt. 23.

Please join us as we share the sounds of Peace from all faith traditions.

Everyone is welcome.

B'shalom,

Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

The Women's Interfaith  

                Institute presents . . .

"Journey to the Birthplace of Women's Rights "

The Women's Interfaith Institute in the Berkshires invites you to take part in a journey to Seneca Falls, New York where the first Women's Rights Convention took place in July 1848.   Every year this memorable event is celebrated as part of "Convention Days" at the Women's Rights National Historic Park.

In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and several other women gathered for tea at a mutual friend's home in the small upstate New York village of Seneca Falls.  Elizabeth and Lucretia had met several years before at an anti-slavery convention.  At this meeting they determined to bring the disenfranchisement of women to public attention.  Within 5 days, and without phones, faxes, twitter or facebook, the group called a convention that drew 300 people!  Resolutions were formulated that outlined the rights of women, including the right to vote, and were passed.  This year's commemoration is special because the site of the original convention will be re-dedicated.  

           

Ani Nadler Grosser, Board Member of Women's Interfaith, is organizing this trip.  She is excited to bring a group of Berkshire women to Seneca Falls.  "We stand on the shoulders of these courageous women, many of whom went to jail and sacrificed so that we have rights, including the right to vote" says Grosser.  She adds "this is a trip that will ground us in history and be a source of inspiration for today's challenges.  It is also a wonderful opportunity to share with daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends.  An added bonus is that Seneca Falls, along the Erie Canal, is in the scenic wine country of the Finger Lakes."

            Highlights of the trip include:

• Attending the re-enactment of a famous lecture with contemporary themes by Anna Howard Shaw, suffragist, clergywoman and physician.

• Walk in the Annual Parade from Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home to Women's Rights National Park and witness the ceremony to re-dedicate Convention Hall.

• Saturday lunch with Allison Stokes, founder of Women's Interfaith in the Berkshires and Finger Lakes, and historian of women's rights.

• Tour of Women's Hall of Fame, Women's Rights National Historic Park, and Seneca Falls Museum

Logistics: We'll leave Lenox at 10 am on Friday, July 15, sharing cars or a van.  We have reserved a limited number of non-smoking double rooms at a nearby Holiday Inn.  Cost for a shared room is $95. per person.  Costs for gas, tolls, and meals are additional.  We will return at 8 pm on Saturday evening.

For more information, please contact Ani Grosser at

413-637-2868 or anigrosser@earthlink.net

Link to Susan B. Anthony and other biographies:

 women warriors

June 14, 2011

June 14, 2011

Partnership in Life and Music: If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On

The Women’s Interfaith Institute in the Berkshires will host songwriters and WBCR-lp radio hosts Graham and Barbara Dean perform some of the songs they have written together, and talk about how the process of writing, arranging and singing songs together has its complement in their marriage and life partnership.  We will learn about the elements of collaboration and synergy, which Barbara describes as “the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.”

Graham and Barbara Dean have been married for 34 years and have raised 4 children. They met in Sherborne, England in 1975 during a 10-month course in spiritual development, based on the teachings of George Gurdjieff, a Russian mystic. One of the things that attracted Barbara to Graham was his guitar-playing and singing. Barbara started singing with him in the 80's and then started playing the electric bass about 10 years ago. Attending songwriting/music camps together for the past 11 years has stimulated and supported their ability to make music together. 

Their CD "Tom Paine's Blues" debuted in 2004 and they host a political/folk music radio show on WBCR-lp on Wednesday nights from 8 to 10 pm.

http://www.commonsensesongs.com/

May 12, 2011

"An Embodied History of Women"  

          

In this multimedia presentation on Thursday, May 12th, Sylvia Smetana of EnlightenNext will present the evolution of women's consciousness to better understand where we are today.

In the past fifty years, women's range of life choices has changed dramatically. We are now free to create lives that our foremothers could barely have dreamed of. Yet as we try to realize our potential, too often we find ourselves living out of the motivations and patterns of the past.

We don't realize that the past-not just our personal history, but all of the history of women-lives within us. 

Sylvia Smetana was born in Austria and studied business administration in Vienna. She met spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen in 1994. Inspired by the integrity, humanity and purposefulness of his teachings, she moved to Germany in 1997 to join the movement. In 2001 she joined EnlightenNext's world center in Lenox, MA as their Finance Director.

For several years she has been working closely with Dr. Elizabeth Debold and other senior teachers to develop a new, spiritual liberation teaching for women with Andrew Cohen, based on Evolutionary Enlightenment..www.andrewcohen.org     www.enlightennext.org  www.evolvewoman.org