IWM Community Dharma Stewards (formerly known as Practice Leaders) and Facilitators
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Suzanne Artemieff (Community Dharma Steward; Kalyana Mitta Facilitator)
Suzanne has been practicing Vipassana meditation for over 20 years, including numerous retreats at Insight Meditation Society and other centers. She was trained to teach MBSR, which she incorporated into her clinical social work, specializing in mind/body and other trauma therapies. Suzanne is deeply grateful for the practice and has a strong desire to support IWM and the broader community. Suzanne joined the Board in February 2023. |
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Holly Bishop (Community Dharma Steward; Kalyana Mitta Facilitator)
Holly is a Community Dharma Steward and a co-facilitator of a Kalyana Mitta (Spiritual Friends) group. She has been practicing Vipassana meditation since the early '80s, and has participated in several long retreats. She recently completed the two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program taught by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and others. She is committed to building sangha and working to make our meditation spaces and organizations more inclusive, and understanding how the "ideology of whiteness" has influenced these. Holly is a retired clinical social worker and trauma therapist. She finds that the practice is crucial to staying sane in troubled times, and loves sharing it with others. Holly joined IWM's Board in March of 2022. |
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Jennifer Cannon (White & Awakening in the Dharma Facilitator)
Jen (she/her) is a scholar and practitioner of liberatory mindfulness. Her research falls within Critical Mindfulness Studies and integrates models for healing justice and decolonizing mindfulness. Jen has been teaching in the field of social justice education for 30 years and currently works as a DEI consultant. As a certified mindfulness instructor, Jen is committed to integrating antiracism education with liberatory contemplative practices. Jen has been practicing within the Theravada lineage since 2007 and is currently participating in the Dharmapala two-year training program with Sacred Mountain Sangha. Jen is a proud mother, stepmother, grandmother and auntie, and is forever grateful for the path of the dharma. |
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Jennifer Delozier (Community Dharma Steward; Kalyana Mitta Facilitator)
Jennifer has been practicing Insight Meditation for about 15 years. Before that, she practiced in the Soto Zen tradition for about 20 years; the first five years of that time were spent at a Zen Monastery Retreat Center where she lived, worked, and practiced. She has participated in numerous classes and retreats through IWM and spent one weekend a few years ago on retreat at IMS. Jennifer brings 12 years of experience as a Community Dharma Steward. Before that, she was the Volunteer Coordinator of hosts and greeters for Teacher Dharma talks. |
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Lore Detenber (Kalyana Mitta Facilitator; White & Awakening in the Dharma Facilitator)
Lore’s involvement with IWM has included membership in the Beloved Community Builders committee and other working subcommittees of the board and co-facilitating Kalyana Mitta (Spiritual Friends) groups. She also co-facilitates White and Awakening in the Dharma and is on a journey with others to better understand how to free ourselves individually and as a Sangha from the conditioning of white supremacy culture and other forms of oppression. Introduced to the Dhamma in 1995, the path was immediately recognized as a gift and way of life. Primary teachers have been in the Ajahn Chah/ Thai Forest Tradition and more recently the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. The mutual support and guidance of friends on the path are treasured sustenance in daily life. |
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Hal Fales (Community Dharma Steward; Kalyana Mitta Facilitator)
Hal was first introduced to meditation by a Zen teacher in graduate school in 1975. He began a committed practice in the Vipassana tradition in 2008 and has attended numerous retreats at IMS including a six-week retreat in 2018. He recently (July 2023) completed a 16-month program jointly offered by IMS and BCBS on the foundational teachings in the Pali canon. He enjoys trying to create a wholesome space for meditation and learning from the experience of other sangha members. Hal is a Community Dharma Steward and Kalyana Mitta Facilitator and has been a member of the Board since 2013. |
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Ruth Folchman (Community Dharma Steward; Kalyana Mitta Facilitator)
Ruth Folchman is a psychologist, and certified teacher of MBSR and MBCT for Depression. She’s been a seeker and practitioner of mindfulness for 25 years, and endlessly grateful for how dharma supports her work and life as a partner, parent, human being, and guest in this beautiful and complicated world. |
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Jaya Karlson (Community Dharma Steward)
Jaya has approximately 40 years of meditation practice in the raja yoga tradition and vipassana. She began formal yoga practice in the early 1970s and subsequently became an ordained nun in the Shankaracharya monastic order for four years. She has served in several centers including as director of the Vancouver (BC) Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center and later as kitchen manager of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Since leaving BCBS in 1996, Jaya has continued teaching – yoga, tai chi (qigong), and meditation. She's been a student of Larry Rosenberg, Joseph Goldstein, and for most of her practicing years her main teacher has been, and is, Ajahn Sucitto, a Theravada Monk. |
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Bernadine Mellis (White & Awakening in the Dharma Facilitator; IWM Senior Staff; Teacher-in-Training)
Bernadine recently completed the True North Insight Community Meditation Teacher Mentorship Program and is now participating in another long term Buddhist training, the Dharmapala program through Sacred Mountain Sangha. She is also a part-time student in the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. She co-facilitates White & Awakening in the Dharma and leads The Sure Heart; (a group for children and families) at Insight Western Mass, where she has also been involved as a Board Member and a member of the Beloved Community Builders Committee. Alongside her path in the Theravadin Insight lineage, Bernadine has been engaged in Pagan earth-based spiritual practices, working closely with her mentor on that path for many years. She is a filmmaker and a mother. |
Melissa Tefft (Kalyana Mitta Facilitator; former Practice Leader)