Workshop 8: The Dance of Death and Rebirth: Discernment & Death

In this session, we step into the sacred dance of death and rebirth, exploring how to navigate life's inevitable endings with grace, discernment, and fierce compassion. We will learn how to inhabit the bardo—the unmapped hallway between an old identity that has dissolved and a new form that has not yet materialized—and discover how surrendering our resistance transforms our deepest pain into the very soil of spiritual renewal. The Kiva Stone & The Bardo: We explore the unmapped transitional spaces that Tibetan Buddhism calls the bardo. Holding our Kiva stones, we practice the physical rehearsal of kenosis, entrusting our dead expectations, cracked belief systems, and ended chapters into the silence so a new story can be born. Phase I: The Fallen Leaves (Surrender): Guided by mind-body healing pioneer Stephen Levine, we examine how our greatest suffering stems not from loss itself, but from our frantic resistance to it. Drawing from end-of-life memorial work in Tenderloin SRO hotels, we practice letting the leaf fall—surrendering our demand to "fix" grief and converting loss into a dignified sanctuary of presence. Phase II: The Barren Ground (Presence): Drawing from Ram Dass’s core message to Be Here Now, we learn the quiet discipline of standing alert in the empty hallway of transition without rushing to force a solution. When our external titles, health crises, and performance addictions are stripped away, we discover that the indestructible observer—the soul—remains on the fertile soil of the resurrected self. Phase III: The Tended Sprout (Compassion): Guided by Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, we learn to "welcome the unwelcome" and lean into the sharp points of our lives. Through reflection on HIV stigma and street-level rituals of empathy, we explore how our wounds and unpolished truths cease to be curses and become the exact portals of compassion that allow us to serve as wounded healers. Kenosis, Theosis & Fine Art Liturgy: We synthesize these three movements through the radical self-emptying of kenosis that leads to theosis (divinization of consciousness). Moving beyond rigid institutional doctrines, we explore how discernment, somatic liturgy, and present-moment devotion allow us to step through newly open doors and embody Love as a Way of Being. Come as you are. Bring your grief, your ended stories, your unpolished truths, and your willingness to let the leaf fall so that new life can take root. #UrbanMystic #DeathAndRebirth #Bardo #StephenLevine #RamDass #PemaChodron #Kenosis #WoundedHealer #MinistryOfPresence #SanFranciscoSpiritual #SoulGarden #Discernment