An event every week that begins at 12:00 pm on Tuesday, repeating until March 25, 2025
Now more than ever, we need the guidance of our ancestors, and creative expression provides a wonderful path for connection.
In Jewish tradition, there are many ways to honor both the living and those who have departed. Delve into, celebrate, and awaken the spirits of the teachers, mentors, friends, and loved ones who have impacted your life through the written and visual arts.
Join poet and painter Cathleen Cohen along with Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer from Ritualwell, an essayist and memoirist for a series of creative exercises and prompts designed to help you express your love and gratitude for those who have profoundly shaped your journey and to summon their wisdom into your own life.
Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A painter and teacher, she founded the We the Poets program at ArtWell, an arts education non-profit in Philadelphia. Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, Cagibi, East Coast Ink, 6ix, North of Oxford, One Art, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Rockvale Review and Rogue Agent. Camera Obscura (chapbook, Moonstone Press), appeared in 2017 and Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press) in 2021. She received the Interfaith Relations Award from the Montgomery County PA Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Award from National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her paintings are on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery (ceruleanarts.com).
Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer is Ritualwell’s Director of Virtual Content and Programs. She is an author and educator whose work focuses on spirituality, creativity and disability. Her personal essays have been featured in Tablet, Shondaland, NBCThink, Wisdom Daily, WHYY and many other publications and she has published several nonfiction books as well as plays for children. Gabrielle is currently working on a memoir about the power of intuition and ongoing conversations with her ancestors. She writes a Substack newsletter called “Journey With The Seasons,” a weekly practice of meditative reading with creative self-expression prompts.
Gabrielle holds a BFA in theater and creative writing from Emerson College and an MA in Jewish Studies from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
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