About

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Embodied reverence is my passion. Exquisite presence and aligned pleasure are my primary modes of prayer. I love to play in realms of transformative ritual, ancestral healing and embodied vocalization.

I give thanks to live in a time in which honoring the sacred feminine is not only possible, but sought out and treasured.  I co-founded Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a transformative ritual arts and spiritual leadership training for women & genderqueer folk embracing the Goddess in a Jewish context.  The books my co-founder Jill Hammer & I co-authored - The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women's Spiritual Leadership and Siddur HaKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook - are primary texts for this movement.

I root in my spiritual lineage by birth and I pray on a multi-religious path.  With Shaykh Ibrahim Baba Farajaje, I co-founded Makam Shekhina, a community of Hebrew Priestesses and Sufi Dervishes gathering in embodied, multi-gender, ecstatic counter-oppressive devotion.  Find us weaving multi-religious Sufi Muslim & Jewish worship and zikr (embodied remembrance), or listen to our album Makam Shekhina: Hebrew & Arabic Chants of Counter Oppressive Devotion.

I serve as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Organic Multireligious Ritual at Starr-King School for the Ministry, known as the most progressive theological school in North America, where I train emergent clergy across faith traditions in transformative ritual craft, multireligiosity, ancestral practice and trauma-aware spiritual leadership. I recently shifted out of my role as core faculty of Embodied Ministry and Embodied Leadership at The Chaplaincy Institute, also in Berkeley, CA, but still sometimes pop up there to guest teach.

I adore the power and portal created when sound meets the sacred.  I teach embodied vocalization, guide chant experiences and record Hebrew Goddess soundtracks.  My albums Wild Earth Shebrew, Halleluyah All Night, Torah Tantrika and This Bliss have been heralded as "cutting-edge mystic medicine music."

I'm a practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, a body-awareness-based trauma healing modality, and trained in SE because of the ways it has deeply supported my own healing. Somatic Experiencing theory and practice - rooting in and returning to positive resource - informs my approach to both teaching and devotional contexts. I’m also a practitioner and teacher of Ancestral Lineage Healing and remain awed by the immense blessing available through cultivating direct relationship with bright and benevolent lineage ancestors. 

I host the Jewish Ancestral Healing podcast, engaging spiritual leaders, artists, activists and visionaries on their journeys of ancestral healing, embracing resilience, and ancestor reverence practices rooted in Jewish traditions and counter-oppressive devotion. spiritual leaders, artists, activists and visionaries on their journeys of ancestral healing, embracing resilience, and ancestor reverence practices rooted in Jewish traditions and counter-oppressive devotion.

I offer virtual courses in Embodied Presence, Jewish Ancestral Healing, Pleasure as Prayer and Conscious Menstruation. The journey is intimate and the empowerment is real.

The sweet synagogue where I rabbi'd for a decade named me Spiritual Leader Emeritus in 2015.  It's wild to be both esteemed and former.  I very occasionally still train bmitzvah officiants in the model of Mitzvanitiation rites-of-passage work I developed.

My journey of training up has not been linear.  The version that fits in lines includes me studying the folklore of religion in a land called Ivy League and later sitting at the feet of plenty a renewal rabbi.  The schooling that steeped me most strongly was with earth-reverent ones on remote beaches of Bahia, Brasil and with barely clad women singing to the moon on rowhouse rooftops in West Philly.

I tend temple / make home by the sea on Turtle Island, and journey regularly to the Maghreb, where I immerse in & study gnawa ceremonial music.

I'm smiling bright at the possibility of connecting with you in reverent ritual play.