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Ishtar Kramer has a M.A. in Engaged Buddhism and Social Action from Naropa University and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Depth Psychology with an Emphasis in Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology and Ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Ishtar taught as adjunct faculty at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado in a variety of fields, including meditation, rites of passage and ecopsychology, and facilitating transformative experiences and personal growth.   Ishtar perceives teaching as deep inner work, an alchemical process that is relational, prolific, and organic; the goal of which is in the uncovering of the teacher/learner relationship an revealing that to the self and to the world. The university then is the home of learning, an alchemical vessel, which aims at quickening the maturation of lead into gold, inviting soul's pedagogy to be unfurled. Woven into the fabric of Ishtar's teaching pedagogy is a balance between academic inquiry, theory, application, experiential engagement, contemplative and mindfulness practices, expressive arts practices as well as heart centered learning. Ishtar believes that scholarship should be grounded in contemplative and integral practices, where the contemplative invites the heart and the mind to organically inform each other, and the integral invites all aspects of knowing to co-create the unfolding of the full human experience.   Ishtar strives to engage students in their own learning process, assisting them to find their voice in thinking, writing, and dialoging, through human-centered relational learning. This discovery assists students to reveal who they are as human beings, which informs not just who they are in the world but ultimately what impact they will have on the world as scholars and professionals. As students develop self-awareness they are able to move into enlightened action to be the change they want to see in the world.   Ishtar teaches the Wilderness Rites of Passage course that culminates in a transformative solo quest in nature, a diversity process class based on Deep Democracy and World Work developed by Arnold Mindell, entitled Conscious Diversity: Inner and Outer, the East-West Psychology Community Retreat, the Intro to East-West Psychology class, as well as the culminating MA Integrative Seminar.