Susanita on Service, Heart-Opening, & the Origins of SOULS

“My path is service. My service is SOULS. And it makes me really, really happy.”

For this month’s Wakey Wakey spotlight, we chatted with Susanita about the origin of SOULS and were honored to learn of the heart-opening journey that started it all. She took us back to the very beginning, well before the clarity of a mission, to a series of life experiences that gradually and powerfully reshaped her understanding of service, community, and love.

Raised in a secular Jewish environment that emphasized ethics rather than spiritually, Susanita never imagined that she would one day be a founding member of a faith-based organization, but even as a child singing in the choir she felt the stirrings of a divine presence in the world.

Later as a teenager in the Woodstock days, LSD taught her that there was something infinitely more beautiful and profound beyond conventional reality. But the full impact would have to wait until a deep crisis arose later in life after raising a family and running a successful business for more than thirty years.

When her husband Ira, a loving father and avid high school tennis coach, developed a serious case of leukemia, life shifted for them both. After successful chemotherapy they joined a meditative synagogue in the Seattle area and adopted a more mindful path. When a friend suggested going to Ashland, Oregon for a plant medicine journey, they heeded the call. By that time, two years after the original diagnosis, Ira’s leukemia had returned and, unbeknownst to them, he would die suddenly in treatment within a month.

That journey was profound for both of them. Ira was able to release many layers of ancestral grief and trauma in preparation for his transition from human to pure soul, and Susanita felt the warm embrace of divine mother bathing her in love and giving her a peek into the fiery cauldron of creation. In that experience her passion for the work was born, and three months later she hosted the first group ceremony in her home, with her son and daughter in attendance.

While in the medicine field, Ira came to her as a very strong presence, saying that since his transition he had turned into pure love, and that he would be with her always. Their partnership of 42 years was in fact never-ending, and his strength and guidance would be there whenever she needed him. Through joyful tears, Susanita knew her destiny was to carry these gifts of knowing to a world needing wholeness and repair.

As a growing community of love and healing, SOULS Church is the realization of this destiny, and of Susanita’s open-hearted commitment to loving service.

Portrait of Susanita's late husband, Ira