Teachers

Myoki Marcia Nehemiah, Sensei, is Dharma Heir to Seiso Paul Cooper, Roshi and guiding teacher of Two Rivers Zen Community. Myoki is a co-founder of the Two Rivers Zen Community. She began practicing and studying with Seiso Roshi in 2011, received lay ordination in 2013, and lay entrustment in 2020. She is the author of two books of poetry, Reclamation and Final Story, and of Crone Age, a book profiling the lives of eight women in their eighties. She has been involved in her community as a member of a writers collective, as well as an environmental advocacy group and an organization assisting older adults.

Kyoshin Penelope Lohr is a co-founder of Two Rivers Zen Community. She began practicing with Seiso Roshi in 2011, received lay ordination in 2013, and lay entrustment in 2023. Kyoshin recently retired as Library Manager for the Western Sullivan Public Library after eighteen years.  She is the founder and Artistic Director of Act Underground Theatre Company in Narrowsburg, NY, producing theatrical productions for this underserved community since 2012.

Kagayaki, Karen Morris, Sensei is a co-founder of Two Rivers where she serves as a transmitted lay teacher. She is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Montpelier, Vermont, an award-winning poet, and the author of numerous articles on psychoanalysis and poetics. She received the Gradiva Award (NAAP, 2010) for her article “Torture and Attachment: Conscience and the Analyst’s World-Seeing Eye,” which addresses psychologist’s participation in state sanctioned torture in Abu Ghraib through the lens of classical Persian and Sufi poetry. Her poetry collection, Cataclysm and Other Arrangements , published by Three Stones Press (2014) received the Gradiva Award for Poetry (2015). She serves as an Ambassador of Hope for Shared Hope International in their efforts to eradicate sex trafficking through public education and activism. For further information: www.sharedhope.org .