Koan
Sitting With a Koan
To sit with a koan is to keep company with it. This koan is about not missing your life.
New · November 16–22
Thanksgiving Without Pretending
A Seven-Day Practice of Gratitude, Belonging, and Love
A brief email each morning for meeting the holidays, and your life, exactly as they are — with a teaching, a meditation, a koan, a poem, and a simple practice.
$50 · One email each morning
An invitation
You’re not broken.
You’re ripening.
I work with those who are no longer seeking “fixes,” but depth — those who have lived, lost, loved, and longed, and now hunger for meaning, myth, and embodied spiritual wisdom.
I am a Zen Roshi, pipe carrier, grandmother, and scholar of indigenous wisdom, with over twenty-five years of accompanying people through the passages that ask everything of us.
Read Illana’s storyFeatured talks
All teachings
Zen Practice
Step from the 100ft Pole
Life is full of all kinds of adventures, risks, and opportunities.
Elderhood
Aging as a Crossing
The Dream Journal podcast where Illana speaks about aging, indigenous wisdom and all things Zen.
Book a first session
Begin where you are
Tell Illana what you’re drawn to and she’ll write back with times. New clients receive a discount on their first 1:1 session.
Free 15-minute consultation
By appointment only · in Watsonville or on Zoom
Venmo & Zelle accepted
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I am a Zen Roshi, pipe carrier, grandmother, and scholar of Jewish and indigenous wisdom.
For more than twenty-five years I have accompanied people through the passages that ask everything of you: illness, loss, grief, fear, retirement, the slow turn toward elderhood. My work sits at the meeting place of Zen practice, indigenous teachings and ceremony, and the plain wisdom of Mother Earth.
I do not treat aging as a problem to be managed. I treat it as a rite of passage: a ripening that deserves ritual, company, and language equal to its beauty and depth. The people who find me are usually not looking to be fixed. They are looking for someone who will not flinch.
I live and work in Watsonville, California, and meet with people in person and by Zoom.
The Three Threads
Zen
Koan practice, silence, and the discipline of sitting still long enough for the question to change you.
The Pipe
Given to me by Sun Bear; carried with love, humility, care and gratitude. I hold this as a lifelong responsibility to prayer, ceremony, and community.
Elderhood
Not guaranteed with aging, rather a natural progression from a commitment to practice and self-realization. In service to those consciously crossing into the second half of life.
At Seven Directions Zen we practice a Zen rooted in place and koan practice. Silence and koans are our ground; the living world is our teacher. We gather in the early morning, we sit, and we let a single koan widen the field.
All are welcome: those new to sitting practice, those returning after years away, and those with a long practice looking for company.
The Seven Directions
East
Beginnings
First light, first breath, the willingness to start anew like each rising sun.
South
Growth
Innocence, warmth, trust, and the long patience of things that ripen.
West
Letting go
Darkness, initiation, grief, and the grace of surrendering what no longer serves you or is finished.
North
Wisdom
The counsel of elders and the clarity that comes with winter.
Above
Sky
Vastness, mystery, and everything larger than your plans.
Below
Earth
Ancestors, roots, all living beings and the ground that holds you without asking anything from you.
Within
The seventh
The direction only you can travel. This is where the koan does its work.
Teachings
On practice, and what it asks of us
A koan is not a riddle to be solved. It is a companion — something you carry until it begins to carry you.
Silence first
We begin by sitting. Not to empty the mind, but to stop bargaining with it. Thirty minutes is long enough for the noise to lose interest in itself.
A koan as companion
Together we sit with an ancient koan, opening to its mystery and allowing it to work on us beyond words. Nothing is explained. Something is understood. What is a koan?
A poem to widen the field
A poem is shared to deepen the inquiry and widen the field — a second door into the same room.
Mother Earth as text
Weather, season, and decay are not metaphors for the spiritual life. They are the spiritual life, read closely.
Begin your morning in the quiet company of an ancient koan.
You will sit in silence with a koan as your companion, opening to its mystery and allowing it to work on you beyond words. A poem will be shared to deepen your inquiry and to widen the field.
No prior experience is needed. Come as you are. Thirty minutes, twice a week, is enough to change the shape of a morning and eventually, a life.
What is a koan?
The basic assumption behind koans is that you are already awake, and that “light” has always existed within you and is always working on your behalf. Working with koans is a way to meet your life just as it is. The koan opens a gate into your consciousness so that you can experience your true self.
Sometimes a koan (\’kō-‘än\) presents as a question-and-answer between a teacher and a student. The answer is designed to shift your consciousness, not answer the question. Sometimes a koan is a moment from a poem or a story. It might be baffling, beautiful or surprising in a way that stops your thinking so you can experience your life directly.
Koans have existed since the 8th century and hold an ancient wisdom that you can use. I have been working with koans for over 18 years. It is always new and exciting to discover my life from the point of view of koans. This exploration, and its deepening practice, is the gift.
When
Tuesdays & Wednesdays
7:30–8:00 AM Pacific
Where
On Zoom
Link sent on request
Cost
Free & open
to everyone
Bring
A cushion or chair
and thirty minutes
Programs
Guidance for the second half of life
One-on-one mentoring, small circles, and meditation practice. New clients receive a free 20 minute consultation and a discount on your first session.
Spiritual Guidance
1:1 Spiritual Guidance
Ongoing, confidential counseling for people in the middle of a passage: aging, grief, illness, retirement, vocation, or a faith that has outgrown its old container. We meet as often as the work requires, in person in Watsonville or by Zoom.
Mentoring series
The Spirituality of Aging
A series of one-hour mentoring sessions for those seeking meaning, peace, and purpose in later life. Each session stands on its own; taken together they become a slow, deliberate reckoning with what remains and what matters.
Online circle · four weeks · dates TBD
Aging as a Rite of Passage
A transformative four-week online gathering for individuals sixty and older who are ready to explore the spirituality of aging as a sacred rite of passage. We meet virtually in a small circle, with ritual, silence, and honest conversation about what this crossing asks of you.
Annual week-long retreat
Vision Quest
A guided week in nature, held with ceremony and community, for those called to a deeper threshold. Held once a year in Mt Shasta, California with preparation one month prior and integration at the conclusion of your solo time.
$2,800
Answer the call
Open practice · free
Zen Morning Meditation
Thirty minute of silent meditation with an ancient koan. Held twice each week on Zoom. Free and open to everyone, whatever your practice all are welcome
Tue & Wed 7:30 AM PT
Learn more
Book directly
Open schedulerThe full session catalog, scheduled and paid securely through Acuity.
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In their words
What people say afterward
“For the past several years, I have been seeking someone with Illana’s experience to offer a group process for women as we enter these later years…”
“Illana has the amazing capacity to hold space for very challenging and delicate conversations. She taught me — and my husband — some incredible skills…”
“I have to say in my entire life I have never met a more powerful spiritual woman who is advancing the consciousness of this planet. I am so grateful for you assisting me to forgive my ex-husband, and now in 24 hours a true transformation with my daughter. I cried last night, and I hardly shed tears these days, because I am so happy, and immediately was able to respond differently to my daughter’s needs as her healer.
There are no words for my gratefulness, and the payment is so small for what you have given me. And again, thank you for introducing Mandaza in the healing process of my daughter and myself!”
“Just wanted to thank you again for the counsel today! You eased my heart, my mind and my spirit! I deeply appreciate the time and attention you gave me and the obvious gift you have for what you do!”
“Each week your awareness of the essential questions is astounding. Thank you for the opportunity to do the exercises, which are vital as we move forward exploring our journey with a sense of curiosity and wonder. Each week you offer us the unveiling of transformative self-knowledge, of doing ‘the work’ and reframing aging into acceptance, exploration, curiosity, wonder and gratitude for ‘what is.’”
Writings
Notes from the practice
Short pieces on koans, elderhood, ceremony, and the seasons — published here as they are written.
Practice
Letting a koan work on you beyond words
A koan is not solved, it is kept. What it means to carry one question for a season, and to let a poem widen the field around it.
Letting a Koan Work on You Beyond Words
I used to think a koan was something I was supposed to understand. If I stayed with it long enough, perhaps I would finally discover the answer to it and prove that I had somehow “gotten it.”
But that isn’t how koans have worked in my life.
A koan isn’t solved. It’s kept. You carry it with you for a while, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for years. I once worked with a koan for almost two years! You sit with it in meditation, but it also follows you into the kitchen, the garden, the grocery store, and the middle of a sleepless night. It may quietly appear when you are grieving, irritated, confused, or trying too hard to make something happen.
Most of the time, you don’t need to think about it. In fact, thinking harder often gets in your way. The koan seems to work somewhere beneath thought, loosening the stories you have relied upon and making room for something you cannot yet name.
Some days the koan feels alive. Other days it feels like nothing is happening. I have learned not to worry too much about that. Roots grow in darkness. Not everything announces itself while it is changing you.
A poem can help. Not because it explains the koan, but because it gives the question more room. A line or image may touch something in you that ordinary language can’t reach. The poem doesn’t provide an answer. It opens another door.
Over time, you may notice that something has shifted. You are a little less certain, perhaps, but also less defended. More curious. More willing to meet life as it is.
The question has not been answered. Instead, it has become part of how you live.
So keep the koan nearby. Let the poem keep it company. You don’t need to force anything. Simply notice what begins to open.
Elderhood
Aging is not a decline. It is a crossing.
Why the second half of life deserves ritual and company, and what a three-week circle can do that a lifetime of advice cannot.
Aging Is Not a Decline. It Is a Crossing.
I am aging, too. I notice the changes in my body, the things that take more effort, and the strange experience of looking in the mirror and sometimes being surprised by the face looking back. I have lost people I love. Roles that once defined me no longer fit in quite the same way. And I know that there is more life behind me than ahead of me.
None of this is theoretical. It is simply where I find myself.
But I don’t experience aging only as decline. It feels more like a crossing. I am leaving behind one way of living, yet I cannot always see what is waiting on the other side. Some days that feels freeing. Other days it feels confusing or lonely.
I wish there were more rituals for this part of life, some simple way of pausing and saying: Something is changing. I am changing. This deserves my attention.
Without that pause, it is easy to believe you are merely losing things. Ritual helps you notice that even as something ends, something else may be beginning. You may not yet know what it is.
I also believe you need company. Not because anyone else has the answers, but because it helps to sit with people who are asking similar questions. There is comfort in hearing someone say what you have been afraid to admit: “I don’t know who I am now. I’m frightened. I’m relieved. I still want something from this life.”
A three-week circle will not fix aging or take away its losses. But it can give you time to stop pretending you already know how to do this. It offers a place to listen, speak honestly, and be heard.
Sometimes that is more helpful than advice. Sometimes what allows you to cross a threshold is simply knowing you do not have to cross it alone. If you have a circle of friends that you would like to sit in circle with, or wish to create one, reach out and let’s set a date.
Membership
Join me on Patreon
Become a member of Great Tree for more writings and teachings, and to support this work.
Newsletter
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Support my work by subscribing for new writings on meeting these challenging times, koans, elderhood, rituals and ceremony, delivered to your inbox.
Payments
Venmo or Zelle
Please feel free to make your payments through Venmo or Zelle. Email me for the payment details and I’ll send them along.
I offer a ten percent discount on all services if you prepay for ten sessions.
Request payment details1:1 Mentoring
$175 / hour
Three-week circle
$55
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10% off
First session, new clients
Discounted
Blog
Reflections on practice and passage
Published on Substack and updated automatically here as new pieces go out.
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Seven-day email practice · November 16–22
Thanksgiving Without Pretending
A Seven-Day Practice of Gratitude, Belonging, and Love
RegisterDear Friends,
Thanksgiving asks you to be grateful.
But what if you are overwhelmed? What if your family relationships are strained, someone you love is missing, or the suffering of the world feels too large to set aside?
What if gratitude cannot be summoned simply because the calendar tells you it is time?
This Thanksgiving, I invite you into a different kind of gratitude practice — one that does not require you to deny your grief, loneliness, anger, or uncertainty.
Thanksgiving Without Pretending is a seven-day email practice for meeting the holidays — and your life — exactly as they are.
Each morning from Monday through Sunday, you will receive a brief email exploring one of the inner obstacles that can make gratitude and love difficult:
- Overwhelm
- Judgment
- Disconnection
- Scarcity and comparison
- Jealousy
- Sadness and loss
- Isolation
You will not be asked to push these feelings away or replace them with positive thoughts. Instead, you will explore what becomes possible when you meet each experience with honesty, curiosity, and compassion.
Every email will include:
- A short inspirational teaching
- A guided meditation
- A Zen koan or contemplative phrase
- A poem
- A simple practice connected to the holidays
- A question to carry with you throughout the day
The practices will take approximately 10–15 minutes and can be done wherever you are — whether you are preparing a large family meal, spending the holiday quietly, caring for someone, traveling, grieving, or choosing not to celebrate in the usual way.
Gratitude is not pretending that everything is good.
It is the willingness to receive what is here. It is remembering what continues to sustain you. It is allowing sorrow and appreciation, absence and love, to sit together at the same table.
Perhaps the deeper question of Thanksgiving is not:
What should I be grateful for?
But:
Can I meet this life with an open heart — and what becomes possible when I do?
I would be honored to practice with you.
Thanksgiving Without Pretending
A Seven-Day Practice of Gratitude, Belonging, and Love
Dates
November 16–22
Cost
$50
Delivered
One email each morning
Events
Sit, gather, and mark the seasons together
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Choose a time that works
There are moments when the life you have been living no longer fits and the life that is calling you has not yet fully revealed itself. You may be standing at a threshold brought on by aging, loss, illness, divorce, retirement, spiritual awakening, or a longing you can\u2019t quite name. You may feel that something is ending. You may know it\u2019s time to listen for what comes next.
A Vision Quest offers a way to cross that threshold consciously.
For six days, you will step away from the noise and demands of your ordinary life and enter into ceremony in the wilderness of Mount Shasta, California. Through preparation, fasting, prayer, solitude, council, and time on the land, you will be invited to listen deeply: to the Earth, to your ancestors, to the quiet wisdom within you, and to the life that is asking to be lived through you now.
The call to quest
A Vision Quest is not an escape from your life. It is a courageous turning toward it.
For thousands of years, human beings across cultures have marked important transitions in life through rites of passage. Birth, adulthood, marriage, loss, elderhood, and death were not treated merely as private events. They were held within ritual, witnessed by community, and understood as passages that changed both the individual and their relationship to the whole. Modern life offers many transitions, but few true initiations. You may endure an illness, a death, a divorce, a great success, or the ending of a long-held identity and be expected to simply carry on. Yet something in you knows that you cannot return unchanged.
The Vision Quest creates a sacred container for that change. It gives you time to release what has been completed, enter the mystery of not knowing, and listen for the shape of the life waiting to emerge.
The question is not only, what do I want from my life? The deeper question is, what is my life asking me to serve?
Answer the CallWhat is a Vision Quest?
A Vision Quest is an ancient form of initiation rooted in solitude, ceremony, fasting, prayer, and direct relationship with the natural world.
It is not about forcing a vision or seeking a dramatic supernatural experience. The vision may come as an image, a dream, a memory, an encounter with an animal, a change in the weather, or a simple knowing. Sometimes what is received is subtle and only becomes clear as you begin to live it. The land is not scenery for the experience. The land is an active participant, a mirror, a teacher, and kin.
Away from familiar roles and distractions, you may begin to remember that you are not separate from life. You belong to the living world, and your life carries responsibilities as well as gifts. The Quest asks you to meet this belonging with humility, attention, courage, and an open heart.
You may be called to quest if…
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You do not need to arrive with answers. Curiosity, authenticity, vulnerability, and a willingness to meet the unknown are enough to begin.
Answer the CallWhat you may receive
No genuine rite of passage can promise a particular revelation. The Quest may offer something more honest: the conditions in which you can hear what ordinary life has made difficult to hear.
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Soul work can be difficult. You may encounter uncertainty, frustration, fear, and your own edges. You may also find yourself surprised, humbled, awakened, and changed. What the experience gives you will be shaped by the sincerity of your heart and participation as well as your willingness to live what you discover.
Answer the CallYour guides
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Travel to and from Mount Shasta is not included in the program fee.
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(510) 759-8758Location
601 Cedar Drive
Watsonville, California 95076
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