Exciting update: I’m a Kohenet!

Aug 25, 2023

On Friday August 18th, 2023 (the first of Elul 5783), I was ordained as a Kohenet, a Jewish Priestess.

This was the culmination of 3 years of training with the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute: an embodied, earth-honouring, and feminist Jewish tradition, co-founded by Rabbi Jill Hammer and Taya Ma Shere 18 years ago.

My experience has been transformative and profoundly meaningful…

…which makes it hard to know how to talk about it! 

While I’m still processing and integrating (and probably will be for years to come), in the spirit of my Kohenet title: 

🌹the Priestess of Becoming and Wholeness🌹

I’d like to let you into my experience as it is currently unfolding, rather than wait for it to feel perfectly formed and ready (hello perfectionism!). 

So if you’ve been noticing the little Priestess-y breadcrumbs I’ve been dropping and want to hear more, read on…

Last week, I had my last of seven week-long retreats that have taken place over the past three years. 

I was accepted into the program in February of 2020, and my first retreat was supposed to be that May, at a Jewish retreat center in Connecticut. We all know what happened next.

For the first time ever, Kohenet offered their ordination-track program online. 

Amidst the deep isolation, fear, and confusion of those early months of the pandemic, I found community and connection, immersed myself in study, and anchored into spiritual practices like prayer, altar tending and lighting Shabbat candles.

That first retreat week, I learned about the history of Priestesses in ancient Israel, how prayer can be spontaneous and heart-felt rather than words on a page, about dream analysis, the structure and pacing of ritual, and how social justice is a form of modern priestessing. 

After years of feeling disconnected from Judaism, I had finally found a Jewish community that lit me up in all the ways and deeply aligned with my values:

✨ more feminist, less patriarchal

✨ more embodied, heart-led, and focused on meaning, less guilt, obligation, and rule following

✨ more working towards collective liberation and joy, less letting trauma and antisemitism keep us isolated, stuck, and repeating patterns of harm

✨ more wholeness, integration, and space for all of ourselves to be welcome and celebrated, less fragmentation, hiding, and gatekeeping

Ordination day - Smicha, in Hebrew - was one of the most magical days of my life: 

It started with morning mikveh (ritual immersion) in the pond, 

Shacharit (morning prayers) in a lush, verdant valley surrounded by mountains,

Singing, laughing, and waiting with nervous anticipation just before Smicha in a wedding venue-esque barn with my fellow soon-to-be-Kohanot, who all looked stunning in their white outfits (we lovingly joked it was like a queer, polyamorous wedding to Shekhina, the feminine face of God). 

Then, the ceremony began:

Witnessing and offering beautiful invocations to call in the Divine, the elements, the ancestors, and the Netivot (Priestess paths/archetypes)

Watching with love and admiration as each of my beloved cohort siblings were called up to receive Smicha - and celebrating the heck out of them when they did

And then, my turn!

Being led through the pomegranate-shaped portal (literally!) to hear my dear teacher Ye’ilah (Rav Kohenet Dr. Rabbi Jill Hammer) say some of the nicest things about me and feel profoundly seen in a way I’ve been yearning for my whole life.

Being anointed with sacred oil, having my Kanfot (ritual garment that I made and dyed with roses, hibiscus, marigolds and wild flowers) placed on my shoulders, and receiving Smicha - feeling profoundly held from before, from above, from below. 

And from within. 

This whole journey brought me deeper and closer to myself, feeling a level of integration of all of my parts, woven together.

While my Kohenet journey hasn’t been all roses and fairydust (people are flawed and messy, relationships and community are hard, brilliant spiritual teachers aren’t always the best equipped to lead organizations as they scale and grow rapidly, etc etc), I am truly beyond grateful for my experience.

Kohenet has been a healing cocoon for me. 

A reclamation of ancestral wisdom and practices. 

A deep integration of multiple strands of identity. 

A community of brilliant, beautiful, talented people that I feel such overflowing love for, it brings tears to my eyes as I write this. 

My life and work have gone through some pretty foundational transformations over the past 7 years, when I started my Art Therapy practice and offered my very first workshop (some of you OGs will remember Perfectly Imperfect). 

If feels very fitting to close out one 7 year cycle of self-employment and deepening into my skills as an Art Therapist (space holding, group and workshop facilitation, creativity as a pathway for self awareness and connection to intuition) and begin another: 

✨Now entering my Priestess era!✨

As I step more fully onto my Priestess path, I’ll be integrating my skills and experiences as an Art Therapist with:

🌹 spiritual space holding

🌹 oracle card readings

🌹 ritual and ceremony design and leadership (stay tuned for more on this!)

🌹 creating beautiful ritual objects (like Intuition Cards and altar collages)

If you’re worked with me over the past year or so, you know that I’ve already been integrating these practices into my work, and I’m excited to do more of that! 

While I don’t know exactly how my path will unfold, I feel more myself than ever, and excited to share more of my inspiration, creativity and magic with you. 

For now, I’ll leave you with this reminder / invocation: 

✨You are whole and holy in your being and becoming✨