neySHEV

from sitting to singing to movement

neySHEV means "let's sit."

neySHEV was founded by artist and educator Aviva Chernick as an intentional community that gathers for weekly meditations and intensive retreats. Together we practice mindfulness in guided and silent meditation, movement and song.

neySHEV is guided by the heart-based wisdom of Torah. Practice involves nurturing awareness of what is unfolding in the present moment. We turn to what arises — thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and explore how we feel them in our bodies. We do this with the essential companions of gentleness, compassion, curiosity, and lovingkindness.

intention

To create a space where all feel welcome.

To cultivate tools with which to turn compassionately to whatever is arising in the present moment.

To nurture spaciousness and agility in being with the ever-changing nature of our experience.

To bring these tools into our lives, transforming the ways we respond in interactions with all beings to ways of compassion, listening, learning and connecting.

With diligence in practice, we commit to being a part of the antidote to ignorance, hatred and reactivity, a response to all forms of violence.

To bring joy.

Practicing with the words Bilvavi mishkan evneh — In my heart I will build an indwelling place.
Softening the heart, noticing what is arising, and turning towards it lovingly.
16 minutes

Guided blessing practice: cultivating the attributes of safety, kindness, and peace.
25 minutes

neySHEV meets...

Monday evenings 8-8:30pm EST on Zoom.
Friday mornings 7:45-8:45am EST on Zoom.

Please reach out if you are interested in joining:

neySHEV is paid for by donation.

Pay What You Can:
Pay What You Can supports those who are unemployed and underemployed to be able to continue to join practice with ease. Everyone pays as they are able. Ability to pay should not be a barrier to participation.

Monday classes $10 minimum recommended as you are able
Friday classes $20 minimum recommended as you are able

Canadians pay by e-transfer here.

Those outside of Canada pay by Paypal here:

PAYPAL

GUIDELINES

Cultivating practice space online.

Choose a regular spot to which you can return, as much as is possible.

If you can find a quiet place in which you will not be disturbed, great. This will not be feasible in everyone’s living spaces. Set things up as best as you can within the reality of being at home.

If you are accustomed to sitting on a meditation cushion, please do so.

If you do not have a cushion or prefer a chair, this is fine too.

Choose a chair in which you can sit comfortably with your knees at a 90 degree angle. If you cannot lower the seat to bring your legs into this angle, try to find something upon which you can rest your feet that will raise them slightly higher.

Notice if you can sit in such a way that allows your pelvis to settle into the seat. This foundational posture encourages freedom in the spine, inviting it to rise, dance and float upwards.

It can feel challenging not to be together physically in the same space. For this reason, it is even more important that we maintain a commitment to presence.

Please turn on your video as you are able. Seeing each other helps to reinforce a feeling of togetherness. This will also support fellow participants and the facilitator.
You might want to turn off your view of yourself if you find this distracting. Go to the upper right corner of the box where you are visible. There are three dots, click there. Choose turn off ‘self view’ from the drop down menu.
Choose ‘gallery view’ in the upper right corner of the zoom box in order to see yourself together with the whole circle of people gathered to practice.
Once you settle into your posture for the meditation, you are encouraged to maintain physical stillness as we would when together in person. As some of us are sharing home space with others or are practicing where there may be unforeseeable interruptions, please move and attend to whatever arises as is necessary. Otherwise, please explore remaining in the chosen posture for each particular sit just as you would in person. Notice the desire to shift, to move, to stretch and to get up in the middle of the meditation. Check in with yourself as to whether this is necessary or a distraction from whatever is the meditative task at hand.

Everything that arises is an opportunity for practice.

Things may go awry with the technology. Internet is choppy at times and there may be hearing issues for a variety of reasons.

When you notice something is different, either you can't hear for a moment or the facilitator’s picture breaks, see if you can:

pause before unmuting
take a breath.

It is quite possible the internet will have steadied by the time the breath is over. If not, repeat.

If the moment feels urgent, please wave (with your real hand) for the facilitator’s attention and they will call on you. This way, together, we can help keep a sense of practice throughout whatever occurs.

We are maintaining our attention not just for ourselves but to steady the container for those with whom we are sitting. Every facilitator will do a sound check before beginning the session. Please come early if you have had any sound issues and would like to do a sound check individually.

neySHEV was founded in 2016 by Aviva Chernick.

Aviva is a queer Jewish artist, a white settler living in Tkaronto (Toronto).

Aviva brings the artistry of voice, story and movement to each and every offering.

For the past fifteen years, alongside an active performing and touring career, Aviva has led and taught about the voice in prayer and contemplative practice across North America and beyond.

She has cultivated her teaching skills with participation in three teacher training programs; 2009-present as apprentice with voice teacher Fides Krucker, 2004-2010 Yoga Teacher Training through the Esther Myers Yoga Studio and 2016-2017 Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In each context, Aviva studied pedagogy and continues to train in the art of facilitation and holding space for others to be in their learning process.

In her teaching career, Aviva has taught groups and individuals yoga, yoga and the voice, prayer song, Torah chanting, Judeo-Spanish folk music, vocal improvisation and meditation.

Aviva was a member of the first Rising Song Fellowship cohort (2017/2018) and taught as core faculty for the Hadar Rising Song Singing Intensive (2019).

Presently, Aviva teaches an online course for the Institute of Jewish Spirituality on niggun (wordless melody) as prayer and is the founder of the Toronto based sitting and singing community called neySHEV (since 2016). Aviva is the inaugural Artist in Residence with Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto (2019 – present).

In individual sessions, Aviva offers spiritual care and guidance for creative process. In group sessions, she facilitates freeing the voice and practices of mindfulness in song and silence.

For more on Aviva’s artistic endeavours, please visit Aviva's Music page.

The month of Elul, leading up to the High Holydays, is a time for inner awakening, spiritual accounting and turning toward our deepest individual and collective calls for justice.

a morning
Jewish Mindfulness Retreat
to begin the month of Elul
August 23rd, 2020
8:30 am – 1 pm ET

Join Aviva Chernick (neySHEV) and Rabbi Miriam Margles (Danforth Jewish Circle) in this morning of turning — turning inward, turning outward, turning with open hearts, compassion and courage.

For the morning’s inspiration and insights, we will turn to traditional and contemporary Jewish sources from Chassidut, Jewish prayer and poetry as well as our own lived experience. Inspired and supported by this wisdom, we will engage in mindfulness practice through sitting, moving and walking meditations, and, singing.

קווי אל ה חזקי ותאמצי לבך

Turn your heart toward the present moment —
Let your heart be strengthened and courageous
(from Psalm 27)

All are welcome. No previous experience with meditation or Hebrew necessary. All sung text will be transliterated.

Aviva Chernick

Rabbi Miriam Margles

Tickets

Payment is by sliding scale $45 – $150 (plus HST).
If the lower end of the sliding scale is not feasible for you at this time, please reach out to Miriam or Aviva.

Hosted by neySHEV in partnership with the Danforth Jewish Circle, Makom and Romemu Yeshiva.

Tickets & More Info

RSVP on Facebook

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