Silence seeps into the air as a group of people sit together, meditating—then, chants begin to echo as they recite the names of gods in Hebrew through a harmony of songs. When the clock strikes exactly eight o’clock, a woman climbs up a tree and lights a special candle while performing a ritualistic incantation.

For history teacher Dr. Ruth Meyer, this series of events is a regular occurrence that she partakes in as a part of her spiritual development. She, along with others, believes in Kabbalah, which is an ancient form of Jewish mysticism that includes many ritualistic practices for spiritual growth.

“What we do is we sit in our chair, like I do here, and [our spiritual mentor] tells us to really feel, and she will put some special music on,” Dr. Meyer said. “She will say, ‘Imagine that there is a chord between your feet that going down, down, down, connecting you to the core center of the earth. And feel that you are anchored there.’”

Raised by parents who surrounded her in spiritual music and took her on trips to old churches, Dr. Meyer spent much of her childhood developing an interest in spirituality. However, it was during a trip to the Isle of Skyros for an art therapy course when she truly began her own spiritual journey.

There, an Indian analyst had her document and focus her art around her dreams, and invited her to a London workshop hosted by the son of Sir Laurence Olivier, a famous Shakespearean actor. There, she met spiritual guide Meagan Wagner, who later became her Kabbalah teacher.

“When I started to do her guided meditations, I realized how valuable it was getting you into a deep state of relaxation so you can actually visualize different worlds and angels and things like that,” Dr. Meyer said.

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Coincidentally, when Dr. Meyer came to America for her PhD, she reunited with Wagner when she happened across Wagner’s book tour for The Sapphire Staff. Since then, she has been attending a Kabbalah group almost every Thursday at Wagner’s house in Redwood City. During the meetings, people participate in a variety of spiritual exercises, including learning about chakra, singing Kabbalistic songs and meditating.

“In a lot of the Kabbalah, we see this world the physical world. Then there is another world immediately above it which is the dream world, and all the psychological world, which is psychological energy you cannot see, but you can feel,” Dr. Meyer said.

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Dr. Meyer encourages everyone, including Harker students, to try exploring their own spiritual path.

“You are very welcome to join Dream and Meditation club, [and] every single year, for the past three years, I have taught the same Recreate Reading book, which is ‘A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming,’” Dr. Meyer said. “It is only way that I can reach a few Harker students that might not otherwise be able to read about dream interpretation.”

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on May 7, 2018.