In this opening session, you’ll start to explore alchemy and how depth psychology explains it as a metaphor for a healing process that leads to full integration and self-realization.

You’ll look at symbols and images known as archetypes — which reside in humanity’s shared universal psyche — and learn to understand the collective unconscious… universal patterns harbored in all of nature, animals, and the universe itself.

Rabbi Tirzah will begin to guide you through the cross-cultural, gender-expansive archetypal patterns of the personality, all of which are facets of the Philosopher’s Stone, which symbolizes the ultimate goal of the mystic path — likened to enlightenment, unity, and bringing heaven to earth. These archetypes will be central to your alchemical process.

You’ll start to recognize important archetypes within your own personality, such as Persona, your social mask… Ego, the hero within you seeking its place in the world… and Complex, the place of your original wounding — when you experienced a trauma that became one of your organizing principles.

You’ll also learn how the Prima Materia is akin to the mystical Hebrew letter Aleph, a magical essence that carries the power to unify opposites that create discord in the world and ill health in your body.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn about the history of alchemy as an art, esoteric science, and philosophy
• Begin to think about the Prima Materia at the root of your soul and how it’s been molding your destiny
• Look at the meaning of the Philosopher’s Stone as the desired goal of the transformational path
• Explore the universal power of the collective unconscious
• Start to understand the workings of your own psyche as you learn various important archetypes within your own personality
• Experience a process in which Rabbi Tirzah guides you into the ancestral chambers, where you’ll call upon your wise and well ancestors and contact your lineage guardians — to receive their symbol of your Prima Materia… and their blessing

The basic tenets of alchemy will be explained, as Rabbi Tirzah provides vivid images that represent the discovering and living out of the true self. She’ll illustrate why this process of self-discovery is inexorably linked to tikkun olam — your contribution to redeeming the world.

You’ll learn the alchemical terms and images for the dark night of the soul — Nigredo, Mortificatio, and Putrificatio (black stage, death, and decay) — the first stage of alchemical transformation. Although this stage can be challenging, it’s necessary to experience in order to do the work of alchemical healing and transformation… and birth new life.

Rabbi Tirzah will introduce you to the alchemical vessel — the key alchemical instrument, which must be sealed for the magic of transformation to work. You’ll learn how it relates to Ego, health, boundaries, and relationship structure.

You’ll study alchemical images of the peacock, born of the death process… and the Phoenix, born of ashes. This is the blackening stage in the alchemical process, which rises and glows in beautiful hues of flame.

With the goal of bringing Prima Materia into actuality, you’ll examine the “core complex” of your being and that of your family — and understand it as a reflection of a rupture that occurred and is carried in your lineage.

You will explore the archetypes at play within you and the world around you — Death and Rebirth, the vessel of the Ego (in both its ruptured and whole shapes), the Inner Partner, and the Wise Old Woman or Man within you.

You’ll discover the realized self (or Tzaddik) within you and how it can guide you to the ultimate goal of the Self — the synthesis of your potential as the integration of all sub-personalities and parts that lead you to experience the Philosopher’s Stone.

In this module, you’ll:

• Understand the alchemical terms for the dark night of the soul in terms of Jung’s psychological process of death before rebirth… and how this psycho-spiritual stage paves the way for renewal
• Explore the “core complex” of your being and that of your family
• Grasp how the dark night of the soul is the flip side of revelation and a new dawn emerging
• Learn what the sealed vessel represents in your own development and how ego containment and boundaries may or may not have been allowed in your family of origin
• Be guided through a meditation to experience Jung’s powerful teaching of the inner partner, called the Anima and Animus — the feminine and masculine energies within you
• Experience a ritual practice to enter the Ancestral Halls and seek help from the ancestors who know your family’s darkness — both wise and well and those who’ve been paralyzed, wounded, and stuck in their soul’s evolution

You’ll investigate the myth of Serach, daughter of Asher, a young girl from the Hebrew lineage who’s gifted with prophetic powers. She’s called upon to find the bones of Joseph — hidden at the bottom of the Nile River — before the exodus of her people.

Rabbi Tirzah will guide you to find yourself in the story to understand the call of the ancient elder Joseph, who could see ahead that his descendants would lose their way, become enslaved, and one day be redeemed. Joseph entreats his children to carry his bones out of Egypt into the promised land — and so must you.

When you enter the alchemical laboratory, you’re invited to bring with you an actual object that serves as a symbol of your core wound or complex or that of your family. You’ll be asked to have your altar prepared with all the elements on it as well as ancestral photos.

In this process, you’ll use each of the elements to activate your symbolic representation. With the music of Serach, you’ll travel deep into the chambers of the ancestral halls and ask for the wounded and paralysed to make themselves known. There we perform an alchemical ritual to raise the bones and carry them forward through time.

In this ritual lab module, you’ll:

• Bring the old family bones — the wounded and unfinished lives of your ancestors — to the surface of your consciousness for the sake of your highest good and healing… and that of your family
• Encounter the pain-body that you and your family carry — the onus of your bloodline’s history
• Understand the trauma residue and painful programming that you and your family carry from a socio-historical context
• Realize that deep healing requires distance from the heat and inflammation of the trauma and wounding

As you continue exploring the story of carrying the ancestral bones to the promised land, you’ll begin your study of the Philosopher’s Stone — the goal of alchemy and elixir of life.

You’ll explore the first three of the four stages of alchemy and their corresponding archetypes.

You’ll review the alchemical stage of Nigredo (or blackening) from Module 2, which represents the experience of psychological death when things fall apart in our lives. In the language of alchemists, this is the “lead” that must be charred and burnt into black ash.

This stage paves the way for renewal, found in the alchemical stage known as Albedo (or whitening) — the purification that happens when we marry or unite with our inner opposite. For male-identified people, it’s the feminine energies of the psyche, or Anima — and for female-identified people, it’s the internal masculine energies, or Animus.

This inner marriage leads to the alchemical stage known as Citrinitas (or yellow brightening) — the stage of psychological development when you tap into your wise and well ancestors and cultivate relationships with them. This in turn signals a deepening of your soul and access to your own inner wells of wisdom.

In this module, you’ll:

• Study the first 3 of the 4 stages of alchemy and the facets of your personality that correspond to them… as a metaphor for the healing journey you’re on
• Be guided through a meditation to uncover and experience Jung’s powerful teachings about the archetype of the Wise Old Woman or Man — the realized self (or Tzaddik) within you
• Understand the archetype of the Self — the synthesis of your potential that comes with the integration of all your sub-personalities and parts
• Understand the alchemist term “mystical marriage,” and the state of hermaphrodite — inclusively male and female, integrating both
• Be able to apply this wisdom to the current broadening of sexual orientations and gender identities
• Experience a practice, with all your allies and guardians present, to call on the wounded souls in your lineage and begin the work of healing — transmuting the pain-body and laying down the burden of the family onus, preparing to bury it

The great alchemists believed that we can’t materially turn lead into light (gold) if our being isn’t aligned with the process. No change can happen in the laboratory if it doesn’t happen within the alchemists themselves.

You’ll work with the next principle of alchemical healing — healing our human tendency to fear, blame, and dehumanize the other. Rabbi Tirzah will guide you in reclaiming your shadow projections.

You’ll explore the final alchemical stage known as Rubito (or reddening), in which you find the warm ruby red of the Philosopher’s Stone — your magical, whole, and healing self.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover that reclaiming your projections (or shadows) from others is critical to ancestral trauma healing
• Learn why the practice of “othering” weakens the seal on your alchemical vessel
• Explore the ways you unconsciously “other” people — and even yourself — casting your own self out of your heart
• Journey into the alchemical laboratory of old Prague to visit the ancient circle of alchemists
• Be introduced to the wisdom and twinkling brilliance of your own ancient and ever-new self
• Work with Ego — the self axis — and discover that when the axis is strong and open it can be a strong channel to the higher self
• Tap into the inner wells of your soul’s wisdom, which will help you continue your designated healing work
• Experience a guided journey into the ancient laboratories of the alchemical wizards and mystics — where you’ll be in the presence of your ancestral lineage — and encounter your own internal wizard: your potential

Rabbi Tirzah will begin this practicum as a journey, guiding you through cleansing breath practices to flush out your right and left orbital hemispheres. You’ll then recite together an ancient chant, Tehom el Tehom (From the Deep I Call to You) to invoke your ancestors as you enter a ritual ceremony in the Ancestral Realm…

… where you’ll deliver gifts to honor your paternal and maternal lineages… and gather the gratitude and acknowledgement of raising and carrying the bones of the ancestors to peace.

During this process, you’ll be invited to sense the different characters and tricksters of each lineage — those who might want to trip you up or put roadblocks in your way — all the while remaining present and grounded.

Rabbi Tirzah will then lead you in a visualization to a sacred spot in nature where you’ll be able to observe how you’ve been carrying the onus of your ancestors. You’ll complete the journey in the presence of the wounded ancestors — where you’ll bury your family’s pain-body.

This is the profound work of facing the wounded in your family lineage, honoring them, listening to them, and hearing their cries.

You’ll be asked to bring with you a bone, stone, or other relic, to imbue it with the pain of your family or lineage wound.

In this practicum, you’ll:

• Experience a cleansing breathing technique to clear your mind and body as you flush out your right and left orbital hemispheres
• Participate in a 3,000-year-old chant to invoke your ancestors
• Deliver gifts to honor both your paternal and maternal lineages — customized to their unique qualities — and feel yourself being seen and honored by your ancestors
• Be guided in a visualization to a sacred spot in nature, where you’ll observe how you have been carrying the onus of your ancestors
• Elevate the essence of your wounded ancestors as you bury your family’s pain-body
• Learn a powerful maxim to transform the wounded into your spiritual allies

What are you left with now that you’ve buried your family’s pain-body?

Having released the bones to Mother Earth, you need to shed the old story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are.

It’s time to enter new territory — what the myth calls the Promised Land.

You’ll examine the stumbling blocks set in your way by both your inner saboteur and wetiko — the dark forces that trick us on our path to wholeness and tempt us to creep back into the smallest version of ourselves. These forces coax us to dig up and embrace the bones of our old self, so we can feel “safe” and familiar again.

So how do you occupy your voluminous self and embrace the idea that you’re no longer wounded? You’ll discuss your renewed ancient self and your return to the grand vista you had when you came into this life.

Rabbi Tirzah will also guide you in an alchemical practice to transmute the world’s heavy energies of suffering and pain.

In this module, you’ll:

• Become wise to the snares of your inner saboteur who tries to lure you back from your spiritual gains
• Examine wetiko — the dark forces that attempt to impede your progress
• Discover within yourself an expanded consciousness, or big-mind
• Come to understand the pitfalls and nuances of the superiority/inferiority complex and how you can get stuck in our “specialness”
• Practice Tonglen, first for those who are ailing today — and then for those in your lineage who died in agitation, trauma, fear, or confusion

As a whole and robust soul who’s accomplished the alchemical stages of self-transformation, you’ll now practice Ars Moriendi — the sacred art of rehearsing for a conscious and beautiful passing from this life when that time comes.

A guided journaling exercise will help you explore your personal fears and the negative ancestral beliefs we’ve absorbed about death.

Rabbi Tirzah will then guide you in meditation to the threshold of this life to harvest its lessons from a state of expanded consciousness. You’ll practice being seen and lovingly received as you assume your light-body. Ample time will be provided for gentle integration.

In this module, you’ll:

• Start to cleanse the fears you associate with your death and release the cultural, religious, and familial baggage you’ve accrued from the traumatic deaths of people close to you
• Observe your life from an expanded viewpoint and experience a profound appreciation for all that you are and all you’ve achieved
• Identify areas in yourself and in your relationships that haven’t been in your sphere of awareness
• Experience the deep love that surrounds you in other dimensions
• Learn a protective prayer and invocation for the practice of journeying across the threshold of this world
• Attain a sense of what it may feel like to be a body of light