The Hidden Light of Hanukkah: Preparing for the Holiday with Meditation and Poetry

 

In preparation for Hanukkah, join us for a three-part series engaging in mindfulness meditation, poetry and generative writing practices to explore themes related to the holiday, including hidden light, miracles, resilience and gratitude. This special collaboration between the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Ritualwell brings you two expert instructors, Rabbi Dan Liben and poet and sound artist Elana Bell, as your guides. As we approach the darkest time of the year, find inspiration within community and create content for your own Hanukkah kavannah (intention), poem or prayer.

 

 

 

Elana Bell is a poet, sound practitioner and creative guide. She facilitates artistic rituals and processes that support individuals and groups in accessing their authentic voice and alchemizing raw experience and emotion into artistic expression. Elana is the author of Mother Country (BOA Editions 2020), poems about fertility, motherhood, and mental illness. Elana’s debut collection of poetry, Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012), was selected by Fanny Howe as the winner of the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and brings her complex heritage as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors to consider the difficult question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to leading her own embodied Creative Fire workshops, Elana teaches poetry to actors at the Juilliard School and sings with the Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women activists and musicians committed to bringing joy and song to the resistance movement. She is also the founder of the Mother Artist Salon, a community dedicated to supporting mothers in their artistic practice. www.elanabell.com