ASHA VAHISHTA INITIATIVE (AVI) CONFERENCE: October 14:
Making Spiritual Re-Imagining Actionable (Part 2):
Transformative Education Requires Transformed Leadership!
Join us for the 2nd part of the AVI Conference theme dealing with how spiritual re-imagining requires transformed and active leadership!
Our first guest is Ariana Vafadari, the extremely talented mezzosoprano, who recently re-imagined the Gathas and prayer in song….performing to acclaim across the globe.
https://www.arianavafadari.com/ andhttps://www.facebook.com/arianavafadari.mezzo/
We will ask how she thought of this, what made it possible, and what was the response and its consequences.
(Please note, that for the sake of providing comfort and ease to our guest, the conversation may occur in part/whole in French—in which case, translation to English will be provided. )
Dr. Foltz will then converse about notions of identity and belonging, in his capacity as a scholar of Iranian and Zoroastrian studies.
This will be followed by a conversation with Rabbi Shekel who will illuminate her experiences and that of Reform Judasim in Brampton, and as a movement that undertook important re-imagining in diaspora to re-claim and strengthen fellowship.
Finally, we will hear from Dr. Louchakova-Schwartz, in her capacity as a scholar of how spirituality can inform secular understandings of emotional and mental wellbeing (eg. care, grief/bereavement, recovery).
Session 1 (9:00am-10:00am): Vafadari
Re-Imagining the Gathas, Re-Claiming Daena in Diaspora: How Aesthetic and Emotional Improvisation, Inspire Creativity and Celebration.
(Legitimizing syncretic and evolving understandings as legitimate/authentic)
Session 2 (11:00am-12:00pm): Foltz
Notions of Identity and Belonging: How Persians, Zoroastrians, and Iranians, identified themselves.
(Adaptive and cosmopolitan, not reclusive and introverted)
Session 3 (12:30pm-1:30pm): Shekel
Insights from Reform Judaism: A Social Justice Informed Progressive Spiritual Tradition
(A case study of how a diasporic community resolved faith paralysis).
Session 4 (2:00pm-3:00pm): Louchakova-Schwartz
Spiritually Informed and Relevant: A Psychosocial Pastoral Model to Decipher the Contemporary.
(Death, Grieving, Coping, Meaning-Making, requires a modality through which faith rationalizes the secular-contemporary).
