Season Two - In the Works
We’re thrilled to dive into our second season with you. The world we face is daunting, and we believe deeply in the works we are creating: ceremonies, salons, books, albums and projects which make space for prayerful experiences of contemplation, creativity and community to nourish our souls, so that we can nurture our friends and family to thrive alongside us.
We’ll continue with an array of teachings, salons, and insta-live interviews throughout the year. We plan to host Shabbat once a month on-line, once a month in NYC, and once a month upstate. Our major works are described below:
You Are Safe (draft)
The Tarot of Birth
Zivar Amrami (artistic director), Yiska Obadia (doula), and Johanna DeBiase (artist) are creating a 78-card oracle and tarot deck rooted in the inspirations and wisdoms whispered from doula to mother, as she brings a baby into the world. Rooted in the feminine symbolism of plants, planets, hands, bodies, darkness and sensuality, the deck is a collection of visual and written teachings to help anyone who is in the process of birthing a creation to the world.
The Temenos team is assisting in research, image collection, and production. We are thrilled to partner in the creation of the Tarot of Birth, as the project embodies the vision of our organization, to create products and experiences of artistic excellence, deeply rooted in spiritual traditions, accessible to anyone.
Truth (draft)
Water (draft)
Air (draft)
Epichorus Album Featuring Yacouba Sissoko
Over the past year the Epichorus welcomed master Kora player Yacouba Sissoko for a series of performances, services, and little concerts. The meeting of musical influences and sounds has been auspicious, joyful, profound. Without rehearsal, the musicians arrived at the deep of music, as if they have played beside one another for generations, like rivers meeting.
Yacouba Sissoko, born in Mali, is the 78th generation of master musicians in his lineage of djeli, historians, myth keepers, and Kora prodigies. After touring internationally with Ensemble Koteba of Abidjan, Yacouba moved to New York in 1998. He has performed and recorded with Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Baaba Maal, and Regina Carter, among many others.
Together, Yacouba and the Epichorus will record new pieces composed by Zach Fredman rooted in the guitar and blues traditions of North Africa. Some of the prayer poems on the album will include: Modeh Ani, Psalm 92, and ancient prayers for Mourning and Healing.
Not Our Image
Torah Coloring Pages
The Torah Coloring Pages of our Hebrew School days could use a redesign. They are an incredible tool for introducing children to the stories and wisdom of the Torah, engrossed in color and image, these designs form a child’s first encounter with the stories and teachings from our sacred tradition. Temenos is creating a new book of coloring pages for all of the portions of the torah (54). Drawing on archetypal images and mystical commentaries, we will create a book of coloring pages that will be fun for kids, and profound for adults. The front side will include the coloring page, the name of the Torah portion, and one Hebrew verse. The back side will include commentaries and teachings for adults to explore on their own.
Catalog of Prayer
We will spend this year with prayer and communion as our centerpiece, cataloging prayers from Jewish and mystical sources, other spiritual traditions, and modern expressions which open experiences of gratitude, humility, reverence and awe, to secular community.
We will interview and co-create prayers with friends and teachers from an array of devotions: doctors, healers, astrologists, sky-divers, grave-diggers, coders, anthropologists, naturalists, doulas and more.
At the root of our ethnography is the desire to study prayer in our time, to better understand how communities can meet and overcome the boundaries of language, theology and symbol — which words open the heart?
We will create a book of words and images that holds our favorite meditations, prayers and teachings of prayer.