Date: 2026/04/19. Speaker: Rev. Jūken Zach Fehst. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

After first encountering the Dharma and studying meditation while living in South Korea in 2006, Jūken entered the path of formal practice in 2014 as a member of the Brooklyn Zen Center, and was ordained a priest by Sōsan Flynn at Clouds in Water in 2025. He is a chaplain on-call with M Health Fairview hospitals, and works with youth as a mindfulness teacher at the Minneapolis Juvenile Detention Center and as a public high school educator, where he teaches English to recent immigrants.

Date: 2026/04/12. Speaker: Rev. Myo-O Habermas-Scher. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Myo-O is a fully ordained Sōtō Zen priest, having received transmission in 2012 from Dokai Georgesen. She began Zen practice in 1975 with Katagiri Roshi, who was her root teacher, and studied with him until his death in 1990. She also studied and practiced in the Vipassana tradition for twelve years. She is the originator of VoiceWork™, a somatically based voice training, which she offers in private practice, and has taught at several colleges and universities. She is presently a consulting teacher at Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Date: 2026/04/05. Speaker: Rev. Shodo Spring. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Shodo Spring has belonged to the natural world for as long as she can remember. She grew up running half-wild in the fields and woods of northeastern Ohio, with early mornings on the shore of Lake Erie and long days outdoors alone in the woods and creeks. Civilized human society was more difficult. She studied physics hoping to understand the universe, then psychotherapy to understand humans, then Buddhism to free herself – all while voraciously reading in history, anthropology, archaeology, political science, philosophy, and spirituality. She joined a series of political movements, finally focused on environment and environmental justice, what would be called deep ecology.

Along the way Shodo started one of the first battered women’s shelters, worked as a community organizer in inner-city Cleveland, trained to become a psychotherapist, and explored spirituality including Sufism, Dianic witchcraft, and shamanism, practiced nonviolent social change, and finally entered the practice of Zen Buddhism, which unlocked her internal cage. Shodo has two children and four young-adult grandchildren. She has practiced Zen for over forty years and taught for twelve. She still works part time as a psychotherapist.

Shodo’s written work includes Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World (Tuttle 1996), editing Shohaku Okumura’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” (Wisdom 2018), numerous essays in anthologies, and an ongoing monthly blog.

Shodo’s ordination name means “right way” or “true path.” That path integrates activism with spiritual practice and deeply nourishing engagement with the earth. Shodo has participated in long retreats, public sitting meditation as activism, and walking hundreds of miles, including leading the 2013 Compassionate Earth Walk along the planned northern route of the KXL pipeline. Mountains and Waters Alliance expresses her vision of humans working with the beyond-human world to heal and regenerate life on earth. She lives on a small farm which serves as a learning laboratory for growing those relationships, and as a residential community of practice.

Date: 2026/03/29. Speaker: Dr. Anita MacDonald. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Anita MacDonald is a daughter of a Filipino immigrant, professor of Women's studies, and a Marxist professor of philosophy with mixed European ancestry. She was raised essentially as an atheist, though briefly converted to Catholicism in high school. She learned about Buddhism through her husband, Angus, who has been a practicing Buddhist since college when he attended a Buddhist Studies study abroad program in Bodhgaya India. She eventually took Buddhism into her heart in 2006 when she started attending Clouds in Water Zen Center after the birth of her youngest, being drawn to Clouds in Water because of their active children's program. Anita is a family medicine physician and has been engaged with political organizing with the group ISAIAH since 2020.

Date: 2026/03/22. Speaker: Rev. Sōsan Theresa Flynn. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Sōsan has studied and practiced Sōto Zen Buddhism since 1992, receiving Dharma transmission (full teaching authority) from Joen Snyder O’Neal in 2012. Sōsan's areas of teaching include body awareness in Zen, loving-kindness practices, and the intersection of Buddhist practice and racial justice. She has a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and has worked in both community mental health and staff training.

Date: 2026/03/15. Speaker: Rev. Sōkyo Jido Chee Xiong. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Sōkyo Chee started practicing at Clouds in Water Zen Center in 2017. In 2021 he received jukai, lay ordination, and in 2025 he was ordained as a Priest-in-Training. He has experience working with Communities of Color towards the planning and updates of public parks, public-serving spaces, and assets. Sōkyo sits on the Board of Directors for the Hmong Museum. He lives in Boulder, CO with occasional fly-in presence in the Twin Cities.

Date: 2026/03/08. Speaker: Rev. Jinzu Minna Jain. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Jinzu is an artist, writer, and racial & systemic equity educator. They identify as BIPOC, disabled, queer and trans/nonbinary. Jinzu has been practicing Sōtō Zen Buddhism for over twenty-five years and is a novice priest, member of the teacher-ryo, and Communications and Marketing Director at Clouds. Jinzu believes that Sōtō Zen practice helps us cultivate the capacity for collective care and liberation, so that we may meet ourselves, one another, and these harrowing times with a well of stillness and courageous action.

Date: 2026/03/01. Speaker: Rev. Taizan Alford. At Clouds in Water Zen Center.

Taizan was ordained as a Soto Zen priest by Sosan Flynn in 2016, and completed shuso in 2021. He received Dharma transmission from Sosan in 2024 and has full authority to teach in the Soto Zen tradition. Taizan's journey with meditation began on the yogic path in the early 1980s after getting sober. Taizan’s focus in Soto Zen Buddhism is on how zazen, taking refuge and loving kindness can heal old wounds and help create less suffering for individuals and their communities. Taizan is a member of the teacher-ryo at Clouds.