Soul Spa Wellness Weekend for BIPOC Leaders
With Rev. Dr. Salome Raheim, Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee, Ben Brown and Rev. Therese Bimka, LCSW
July 18 - 20, 2025
Belonging: To Ourselves and the World
A DHARMAKAYA CENTER STILL PROGRAM
Let’s face it: Implicit and explicit racism is draining. Soul depleting. And in some cases, life threatening.
At this juncture in history, the time for change is more than ripe. We need to find creative and meaningful ways to support the leaders who bring this critical work forward.
Our response: The Soul Spa Weekend, led by two fabulous BIPOC presenters.
Join us as we sponsor 12 BIPOC Leaders who must not only navigate their own racialized trauma, but who also hold, support and offer inspiration to the communities they serve. We want to support you in strengthening your resiliency so you can stay the course and show up for the bold and compassionate work ahead. The program focuses on:
- Identifying stress factors that impact healing, activism and service work using the lens of systemic constellations, ancestral healing work and nature-based practices, expressive arts, and ritual as healing
- Cultivating mental, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing
- Developing sustainable self-care strategies
“Brilliant, moving, creative, and healing. The best workshop I have experienced in my life—and I am almost 70!”
“Absolutely incredible!…Amazing and eye opening…Deep Blessing…Can this go on forever? Breathtaking experience…It’s rare that I feel so welcomed in retreat spaces… radical permission to return home…. “
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The weekend offers a diverse range of opportunities. Main program sessions will be punctuated by contemplation, healing arts, time in nature, meditation and yoga.
Fostering Belonging through Family Constellations as Ritual with Rev. Salome Raheim
Our sense of belonging to ourselves and within the spaces we inhabit is influenced by many factors, including the unhealed traumas of past generations. These traumas manifest in our experiences and bodies—literally in our DNA—and can hinder our abilities to navigate the challenges of our micro and macro environments.
Salome will facilitate family constellations as ritual to create space for a deeper sense of belonging, as we tap into the bountiful field of ancestral wisdom and resilience.
At the 2017 North American Systemic Constellations Conference, Salome co-led a powerful constellation process to promote trans-generational healing from the trauma of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Here she will lead participants in exploring systemic constellations as ritual; it is a stunning process of discovery, bearing witness, and generating authentic integration and healing.
Circles of Belonging: Healing and “Wholing” the “I” and the “We” with Sushmita Mukherjee
Using the imagery of Chakras from Eastern spiritual traditions, and the modalities of guided meditation, expressive arts and ritual, we will deepen our sense of Belonging. We will be invited into a felt experience of arriving home in our own bodies using the Chakras as a map of wholeness, as each of the chakras offer psycho-spiritual invitations for wisdom and guidance. Simultaneously, we will invoke experiences of healed and whole relationships – with our intimate others, with our community and with the earth herself. We will end with a Blessing Ceremony: The Circle within the Circle.
Sound Bath, given by Ben Brown
The experience of sound encourages more space, rest, and resilience in the body and nervous system. Sound also provides an opportunity to experience ourselves more deeply, to connect to our higher consciousness, to create a sanctuary within ourselves, and to provide a path to the present moment. Sound practitioner Ben Brown will facilitate this experience through singing bowls and various other sound instruments.
Widening our Circles of Belonging: Earth as Oracle, led by Rev. Sushmita Mukherjee and Rev. Salome Raheim
APPLICATION
This program is free of charge, but requires an application, which you can access here. Please note: We are only able to accept one applicant from any single organization.
SCHEDULE
(subject to change)
Friday, July 18
| 3:00 PM | Check in begins |
| 6:00-7:00 PM | Dinner |
| 7:15-7:30 PM | Welcome and Introduction |
| 7:30-9:45 PM | Belonging: Arrive, Connect, and Settle |
| Introductions | |
Casting Sacred Space
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| Setting Sacred Intentions & Community Agreements | |
| End with Blessing on the Dreams | |
| 9:45 PM | Gather around the fire for informal connection |
Saturday, July 19
| 7:00-8:00 AM | Morning Salutations and Meditation, optional |
| 8:00-9:00 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:15 AM-12:15 PM | Expanding into Belonging, led by Rev. Salome Raheim |
| 12:15-1:15 PM | Lunch |
| 1:15-3:15 | Unstructured time: Nap, walk our trails, debrief with facilitators |
| 3:30-6:00 PM | Circles of Belonging with Rev. Sushmita Mukherjee |
| 6:15 -7:15 PM | Dinner |
| 7:30-9:45 PM | Sound Bath, given by Ben Brown |
| 9:45 PM | Gather around the fire for informal connection |
Sunday, July 20
| 7:00-8:00 AM | Morning Salutations and Meditation, optional |
| 8:00-9:00 AM | Breakfast | 9:15 AM-1:00 PM | Widening our Circles of Belonging: Earth as Oracle, led by Rev. Sushmita Mukherjee and Rev. Salome Raheim |
| 1:00 PM-2:00 PM | Lunch, Evaluations |
| 2:00 PM | Checkout and Departure |
Teachers
Rev. Dr. Salome Raheim, also known as Iyagba Ojewumni Fasina, is an initiated Egun (Ancestor) Priest in the Ifa Orisha tradition, an Interfaith Interspiritual Minister, and a 1st Year Dean at One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. She identifies as African American, given her predominant West African ancestral lineage and being the 4th generation in her family to be born free in the United States. Her pronouns are she/her. Rev. Salome also serves as a spiritual coach, organizational consultant, trainer, and retreat facilitator. She is passionate about more fully awakening to her own divinity and supporting her fellow travelers in doing the…
Learn more about Rev. Dr. Salome Raheim
Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee’s life and career straddle cutting-edge biomedical research technology and a spirituality that is not easily categorized. In both scientific and spiritual realms, her work lives at the interface of image, imagination and creativity. As a scientist, Sushmita works as an Associate Professor of Research, and a Co-Director of the Microscopy and Image Analysis Core Facility, at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Her spiritual home is at the One Spirit Learning Alliance, where she is an Academic Dean of the Interfaith/Interspiritual Seminary Program. Sushmita is an ordained interspiritual minister and a trained spiritual companion/counselor.…
Learn more about Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee
As a sound practitioner, visual artist, and bodyworker. Ben Brown seeks the intersection of mediums that provide a haven from social-emotional isolation, and support our adaptive capabilities to self-soothe and heal. Much of his work comes from the impulse to create more space in the nervous system and body through vibrational frequencies that connect us to our ancestral wisdom and being. Ben facilitates live and virtual sound experiences. He is the co-creator of HOME and E L I X I R, two monthly sound practices; LUSH, a hands-on bodywork and sound experience; and Beauty Medicine, an interdisciplinary sound art project…
Learn more about Ben Brown
Therese is a spiritual director and a psychotherapist in private practice in the Hudson Valley and the former director of The Interspiritual Counseling Program at One Spirit Interfaith Alliance (2011-2021). She is a seasoned leader of retreats and workshops on a wide range of psycho-spiritual and creative themes. She has advanced training in various trauma-based teachings, guided visualizations for health, mindfulness meditation, Buddhism and Psychology, Expressive Arts, Jungian Sandplay Therapy, Soulcollage, Restorative Justice, and Collective Trauma, among others. Therese has led workshops and retreats for organizations, training institutes, educational institutions, government facilities, congregations, and community based nonprofits, in addition to…
Learn more about Rev. Therese Bimka, LCSW
