And you shall make its lamps seven, and he shall kindle its lamps [so that they] shed light toward its face – Exodus 25:37
In the Torah, The Mishkan was the portable worship space for the Israelites as they traveled through the wilderness. Collectively built, it was beautifully adorned for Shechina, the Indwelling Presence to hear their prayers.
Bones and Breath is a Mishkan for collective transformation where our bodies are as sacred as the ground upon which we tend. We embody liberation through song, movement, food and the gifts of the earth in community. And as we tend to our sacred vessels, we tend to the fabric we weave together calling forth the Indwelling Presence as She pours out her infinite wisdom guiding us towards the loving path of liberation and radical love in action.
My Story
Wren Ganin-Pinto ( they/them pronouns) is an ordained Chaplain and Oreget Adamah, Earth Weaver. White, Queer, Non-Binary Jewish Animist.
Raised in the suburbs of New York City, their mama’s roots crossed by land and water from Eastern Europe fleeing the Russian pogroms in the early 1900’s and landing on Ellis Island to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Their father’s roots go back likely to Spain when the Moors and Jews were exiled in 1492 and my ancestors re-homed in Morocco until 1948 when they made their way to the nation state of Israel/Palestine. Both sides journey of assimilation into whiteness and American culture lead them to an endless discovery of truth, reconciliation and understanding of my Ashkenazi/Separdi/Mizrahi mixed lineage of body and place.
Wren serves as a spiritual companion, musical prayer leader, anti-oppression facilitator and somatic movement educator. They have worked in hospital settings, on care-lines and in the streets. As an anti-oppression facilitator, they have work with other white folks and in multi-racial spaces to train minds, hearts bodies, and spirits to be anti-racist and to think about new paradigms and approaches to systemic and institutional change-making. Their threshold work has woven through B’nai Mitzvah mentorship and Shabbat musical service leading where they currently serve on the team at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland. They have sung with the Threshold Choir and have collaborated on music albums and bring their spirit-filled voice to ceremonial spaces.
Wren holds a steady commitment to move towards living in right relationship with the land, plants, creatures, and people. They currently live on the unceded territory of the Awas-was speaking Ohlone peoples currently known as Aptos, CA in an intentional community with their wife Sarah Grey Cunningham and new puppy Mendel.
The Shapers of my Story
Ancestors of Blood, Path, Land …
Call to Chaplaincy/Spiritual Care
My call to Chaplaincy and threshold tending arose out of the death of a beloved friend taken too soon to cancer. I witnessed her dive deeply into her own healing journey and was part of a communal tending process that opened a call in me to spiritual accompaniment and death work. Death comes as a teacher and our society both thrives on violence and death and yet inevitably fears it. I am here to serve as a compassionate presence to behold the beauty and balance of a life that is in service to death. And, where we are not beholden to the grip of white supremacy, patriarchy, imperial, colonial, capitalist structures that take away our dignity and life force. I am here to serve the collective healing journey that is possible when we come together to grieve, pray, play and dream.
What is Chaplaincy?
Chaplaincy is a field that brings trained clergy to non-religious settings to offer spiritual care to folks from all religious and faith backgrounds as well as those who are spiritual but not religious (SBNR), agnostic or atheist. Traditional settings range from hospitals and hospice care, prisons, and the military. Chaplains have been reaching beyond these spaces and may be found in corporate organizations, at natural disaster sites, or on the streets during protests and actions for social change (see Faith Matters Network and Movement Chaplaincy).
From end of life concerns, existential and spiritual questions to holding sacred space in the emotional struggles of the daily mundane to the greater Mystery unfolding in our time, I am asking:
HOW CAN WE CHAPLAIN THIS MOVEMENT MOMENT?