The Void
for women living between worlds
Begins December 21 Solstice
Ends March 21 Equinox
A three-month translocal journey for women navigating the space between what was and what is becoming
Hosted by Shilpa Jain
There are seasons in life when things go dark.
Much of life appears dormant, though profound processes of transformation are underway beneath the surface.
Our culture offers us few places to practice not knowing.
We live within cultural systems that reward certainty, productivity, and progress. We celebrate successes, but rarely honor the mysterious and fertile spaces in between.
Winter invites us into The Void. A space of darkness, mystery and not knowing.
We’re invited to go inward and rest with the Earth. To trust that seeds germinate in darkness.
For some of us, the Void has not simply been a season of winter. It has been years of our lives.
The Void has often called to those of us who know in our bones that another way of living is possible. We've glimpsed it. We've tasted it. We remember it.
And so Life has pulled us into the Great Unknown.
Our clear life trajectory suddenly lost energy. Doors closed. Relationships ended. Things that once made sense no longer made sense.
Some of us have left institutions, careers, or relationships in service of what felt more true. Some of us have devoted ourselves to work that serves something larger than ourselves, only to discover that our culture does not yet know how to support or value the lives we are attempting to live.
We've chosen integrity over convention. Meaning over status. Relationship over achievement. Enough over more.
And yet, instead of arriving somewhere, many of us have found ourselves in unfamiliar territory. We find ourselves living between worlds.
We carry both gratitude and grief. Hope and despair. Clarity and confusion. Strength and exhaustion.
Perhaps what has felt like personal failure is actually part of a larger cultural transition. We are living through a time when old stories, systems, and ways of being are dissolving while what comes next remains uncertain.
The way we have lived no longer fits, but the next way has not yet revealed itself.
What if the dark is not a problem to solve, but a place to gather?
This Winter Solstice, we invite women into the Void—not as something to overcome, but as a sacred and relational space to inhabit together.
We come together to explore what emerges when we gather during seasons of mystery and becoming. To honor and make meaning of our void seasons, and to share the wisdom we have cultivated.
Perhaps to weave the gifts of the Void we have received with one another. Though there is always an end to any season, we will forever be touched by the season of the Void.
Over three months, we’ll gather in an ecosystem of women living between worlds.
We’ll explore what it means to live during a time when so much is dissolving and so much has yet to emerge.
We don't know exactly what will come of our time together. That's part of the experiment.
The Core Elements
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Virtual Gatherings
Together we’ll explore the themes of this journey through the wisdom of rites of passage.
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Kinship Pods
Journey with a regional kinship pod of 3-8 women, facilitated by a Kinvener.
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Guest Speakers
Hear from others who have journeyed through the Void and found wisdom in the dark.
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Community Forum
Cross pollinate with a greater network and ecosystem of care and mutuality
Join us in The Void
Program registration is $125
Offerings to your Kinvener
will be invited in the spirit of the Gift Economy
Your $125 payment covers
Once you register we’ll collect info to place you into your kinship pod.
Meet Your Guides
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Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. He has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family.
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Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong commitment to spirituality and social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and activists, as well as artists, educators, families, and youth. Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption and co-author of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation. Her upcoming events and teachings can be found at www.kairajewel.com.
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Francis Weller is a writer and soul activist who has worked as a psychotherapist for more than 40 years. He's the author of many books and projects including the beloved grief text, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.
Francis is currently on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program. He also founded and directs WisdomBridge, an organization that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western poetic, psychological, and spiritual traditions.
His most recent collection is In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty.
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The second daughter of Chinese immigrants, Vickie Chang was born and raised in the SF Bay Area. Her work as a psychologist, facilitator, and writer is guided by Chinese ancestral wisdom including Buddhism and Taoism; Indigenous teachings; and 大地母親 (the Great Earth Mother), including the mountains Tuuyshtak, 武當山 (Wǔdāng Shān), Arunachala, and the Sangre de Cristos. Some of her teachers include West African (Dagara) elder Dr. Malidoma Somé, Jicarilla Apache elder Dr. Eduardo Duran, and Anuttara Lakshmin Nath. See more on her background and work at www.vickiechangphd.com
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LiZhen Wang drinks from a mighty confluence of ancestral traditions: Daoist-Buddhist practice, ancient astrology, and the most primal ritual of all, mothering. She is an astrologer as well as Co-Director at the School of Unusual Life Learning (SoULL), where they offer nature-based, life-cycle teachings that ease existential suffering in a time of systems collapse. Experiencing her mother’s death was one of the greatest spiritual revelations of LiZhen’s life. It has opened them to the incredible richness of a life that includes, not avoids, death.
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Oren Jay Sofer teaches meditation and communication internationally, integrating classical Buddhist training with Nonviolent Communication and Somatics. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is a Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Oren is the author of several books, including the best-seller Say What You Mean and Your Heart Was Made for This. A husband and father, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and teaches worldwide through courses and guided meditations. www.orenjaysofer.com
Special Musical & Poetry Guests
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Wholeheartedly fed by the folk and gospel traditions, MaMuse (Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker) create uplifting music to inspire the world into thriving. Interweaving brilliant and haunting harmony with lyrics born of honed emotional intelligence, MaMuse invokes a musical presence that inspires the opening of the heart. Playing a family of varied acoustic instruments including upright bass, guitar, mandolins, and flutes, these two powerful women embody a love for all life. The synergy that is created through this musical connection is palpable and truly moving to witness.
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Lu Aya is a co-founder of the Peace Poets and a father, son, brother, cousin, nephew, poet, student, educator, emcee, musician, facilitator, freedom singer, friend and cultural worker. He sees all of these roles as sacred spaces to listen, love and learn more and more, day by day, how to embody healing. He believes that the foundation of working for liberation is always here and now with all our relations.
Frequently asked questions
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Tuesdays (+ 2 Fridays - April 3 and 17)
11am–1pm PT / 2–4pm ET
8 sessions across 3 months (weekly at first, then bi-monthly):
Start Date: March 24, 2026
End Date: June 9, 2026All sessions will be recorded and recordings will be available to registered participants within 48-hours of each live session.
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We’ll help all participants join a kinship pod: small groups of 3-8 people. In localities with 3+ participants, local kin groups will be encouraged.
If no local pod exists, we will support participants in joining online kin groups based on geography/time zone or affinity.
if there is anyone in your local community that you want to go through this course with, having pre-existing relationships can really support your journey through this work. Feel free to join with someone you know or with your own group.
Each group will be supported in carrying out a collaborative project aligned with the book’s themes.
Kinship pods will meet during session breakouts and are invited to meet in-person as much as they’d like - we recommend meeting for project planning in the off-weeks when we are not hosting group sessions.
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Yes, all sessions will be hosted on Zoom and will be recorded. All registered participants will have access to a portal that will house audio and video recordings, transcripts and other program information.
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The Gift Economy is a method of managing resources that is modeled after natural ecosystems, and which aims to create sustainability for all people. Gifts, like this program, that are offered in the Gift Economy are not “free.” They are an invitation into a reciprocal relationship with the giver. During the program, we will share more about what this means and offer invitations for you to help make this program sustainable. No amount will be too small or too large.
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This program is a soft re-launch of the Fierce Vulnerability Network. After this program culminates, pods and individuals who would like to continue will have the opportunity to join an additional two-month program to onboard into the Network.
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Email support@kinvene.co for program support. We’ll direct your questions to the best person.
For a list of more FAQs about pods, gift economy and more go here.