ABOUT RIVER DEVORA

I am a multi-trad spirit worker, healer, clergyperson and Santera. I have been an active member of the Bay Area pagan and polytheist communities since the early 1990s, and have led classes, rituals, workshops and other programs locally and nationally. I initiated as a community priestess with Waxing Muse Coven in 1996, crowned to Ochun in 2011, and have initiation and oaths of dedication sworn to a number of Gods and Powers from several different traditions. I began the Strong Roots and Wide Branches Polytheist class series and interfaith community in March 2015 (see below for class information).  I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my extended human, animal, plant and spirit family.

I have been providing spiritual counseling, somatic coaching, divination, and other magical and healing services since 1996. I am also a practicing nutritionist and herbalist. If you are interested in learning more about my spiritual or wellness services, please contact me at river.devora@gmail.com.

ABOUT THE MONTHLY CLASS SERIES

The old ways are returning. Slumbering gods reawaken, gaining strength and gathering followers. But many of the traditions themselves are incomplete. In addition to devotion to deities, most older polytheist societies also included ancestor veneration, life cycle rituals, personal ethics, group mores, ways of living on and with the land and its spirits, ritual and spiritual artistic expression, and spirit tech to best do these things. This monthly class series is intended to bring together folks of any polytheist path to help us all deepen into our own personal and group practices and beliefs, and to help us build a strong interfaith polytheist community that bridges pantheons and traditions. Open to all polytheist paths, old, new, and reinterpreted.

This monthly class series is intended to bring together folks of a variety of polytheist paths to help us all deepen into our own personal and group practices and beliefs, and to help us build a strong interfaith polytheist community that bridges pantheons and traditions. Our classes are discussion based, with an emphasis on finding or exploring your own answers to the questions posed. Our class meets once per month, and classes are available online as well as in person in Santa Clara, CA. All classes are drop-in, and there are no prerequisites for the main classes. In addition to our monthly general class, we also have a monthly warding and ritual safety cohort for those looking to work on their ritualist skills, and an invite-only mediumship cohort for more experienced practitioners who engage in divination, oracular work, trance possession, or other methods for being in direct contact with Gods and spirits and other unseen beings.

Statement of Inclusion

The Roots and Branches class is committed to radical hospitality. What this means is that, as a community, we will be working collaboratively to build and maintain an open, fair, inclusive, and nondiscriminatory environment for all individuals across differences of race, religion of origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, socioeconomic status, family and relationship model construction, ethnicity, age, learning and cognitive processing style, physical ability, and medical condition.  All who come with an open heart and a desire to engage with the class material and with the community we are building are welcome.  Abuse, discrimination, and dismissal of the lived experiences of other class members will neither be tolerated nor ignored, but will be addressed directly and immediately as it arises within a community accountability framework.

For more information, to sign up for a class, or to be added to our email list or facebook group,  please email river.devora@gmail.com.