God Wasn’t Always a Man: Feminist Judaism & the Return of the Kohenet

I love this example from the book of Samuel, this is where the phrase that gets translated as, "That shall not suffer which to live comes from." This is when King Saul banned all women from practicing any kind of divination or witchcraft, or priestessing and said, "Only the colony now, like only my priests, these men, they are the ones who have this power, and no one is allowed to seek out any of the women experts in town, any women who are found to be doing this will be exiled or killed or what have you." Then he went to the colony, the king, went to his own priests, and asked them to divine for him, to channel for him. They gave him nothing. Where did he go to the Balatov of Andorra, the medium, the witch of Andorra? He knew she was the expert. Through that book, we get, through that Jewish text, we get evidence that women never stopped doing it. He went to her disguised and she said, "But I couldn't possibly because the king would kill me. No, no, I promise, nothing bad will happen to you." He actually kept his word. In this story, she channels for him. Successfully channels for him. He doesn't get a message that he likes, but he doesn't kill her. He goes off with his bad news message. This way, we have evidence in Jewish tradition. Why did they put that in there? Why did they keep that in there? It's so interesting. Evidence in Jewish tradition of women doing this work in the community, and men valuing them for it, even as they said they shouldn't be doing. [music] Everyone and their cat is talking about witches. But what is a witch? Or a medicine woman or a priestess? How does one become one? And what is the common thread between women who identify as such magical creatures? [music] Welcome to the Witch Hunt podcast, where we hold space for healing conversations that collectively explore these questions with the intention of celebrating, of illuminating, and of elevating the rise of feminine energy, magic, and self-sourced power, all in a world that's gone pretty much mental. Every new and full moon hostess Alexandra Thakal Hughes, who identifies as all three of these sacred tithes in her own weird way, invites you to brew some tea, to light a candle, and to join her in her conversations with witches, medicine women, priestesses, and other magical creatures from around the world. So come gather to share in the knowledge, experience, magic, and sacred stories of those women who once hunted to be burned at the stake are now hunted to be held in the light so that they so that we can illuminate the way. [music] Welcome to episode 61 of the Witch Hunt podcast. In titled, God wasn't always a man, feminist Judaism, and the return of the cohenet. In today's episode, I get to speak with Annie Matan, a full-time cohenet or Hebrew priestess, Jewish clergy, and spiritual leader whose rewriting, what sacred leadership can look like, and what belonging to the Jewish faith can look like. We talk about the ancient roots of priestessing in Judaism, yes, before the rabbis, and about the ways patriarchy tried to bury that lineage, but did not succeed. Annie shares the story that you've just heard that totally blew me away about how, in the book of Samuel, a king bans all female spiritual leaders, but then secretly goes to a woman medium for help. Why is that still in that text? This episode is about reclaiming what's always been ours, power, voice, ritual, and remembering the threads of the sacred feminine woven through even the most patriarchal texts and traditions. This is an episode that is going to blow your mind open and turn history upside down into a little bit more of a herstery. Enjoy. Hi, Annie. Welcome to the Rich Hunt podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you here after our meeting, which was a few months ago now, when there was just this magic click and connection. It was such a lovely time together. I'm so grateful you're here. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Can I just begin by asking you to introduce yourself, informally to our listeners? Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks so much for having me. So yeah, I'm Kohennet. That means priestess in Hebrew, Annie Matan. I use she her pronouns. I live in Toronto, and I am a practicing priestess full time and Jewish clergy. I found it a community in 2014 and I have the privilege of working as a Hebrew priestess every day. And I really love the intersection of spirituality and arts and feminism, especially and deconstructing to our community in religion. These things like really light me up. And I want, I'm going to repeat what you just said at the end because at my end, it cut off. You said, did you say deconstructing patriarchy? Is that patriarchy? Yes. Okay, okay. All right, through religion, right? Yeah, patriarchy in religion. In religion. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I love that, like I think about the coming together of feminism, you know, and spirituality and how so many faiths just haven't been serving women because there's no reflection of them. And I, I just, I mean, we've just been half an hour talking about the importance of your business. And I, and I totally want to go there because I think it's super important and so needed, especially right now. But let me, let's begin. Just can we dissect words? You know that I'm a word which that can be and talk a little bit about the words, witches and the word priestess and the word cohenate. And how you define the experience of being these things and where the overlats are and where they stand out distinctly and just a little riff on those words. Okay, where to begin? So cohenate is priestess in Hebrew and it's different from being the daughter of a cohen, which a lot of Jews are like, wait, what's the difference between being a bot cohen and a cohenate? And the reason it's different is that I was trained and ordained in the cohenate Hebrew priestess institute, which existed from 2005 until last year, 2023, when it closed down. And the founders of that institute, Rabbi Jill Hammer and Holly Tama Sheer, they intentionally chose the word cohenate, which predates the cohename, the air night line of priesthood in Jewish tradition. I believe it comes from Sumerian. And in Judaism, we know that there were cohename, there were people using this title before the temple because it's in the Torah. We had Mahidzadek who was a priest and we had Jethro, Yutro who was a priest, who were both called cohen in the Torah. And so that word, oh, a ritual intercessory human between the humans of the community and God was a known word in the culture at the time. And in Sumerian culture, it wasn't only men, it was men and women. And in fact, there's plenty of evidence that in Israelite culture, there were men and women doing this work. And with the advent of the temple, the women were cut out of the practice. It became men's work exclusively. So that's sort of where cohenate comes from. There was a reclamation of this word priestess that existed in Jewish tradition a long, long, long time ago. And so even in, I think you'll you'll see in the bio that I sent you that, so I was ordained in the first class of Kohano in the Kohanate Hebrew Priestess Institute, which was in 2009. And I like to say that we were the first class of ordained Hebrew priestesses in 2,500 years because we existed. We may have used that name and other names. And that's what the training institute is about. We learned 13 different archetypes of priestessing. And so explored, oh, where can we see these archetypes in our text and in our history and in archaeology? Where did it go when it disappeared? What did it look like? like when it reappeared and what does it look like today in our hands. So, Kohennet has a very particular, in this case, Kohennet has come to have a very particular meaning to me and there are Jewish women who call themselves Kohennot, who had nothing to do with the training program. They just resonate with the identity of priestess in their own practice and when I was in the program you know, I felt kind of protective of the title because we were studying and you know, we were immersed in it and now I think it's wonderful that folks can claim like I claim for myself this title that makes sense to me in the way that I do Judaism and the way that I you know practice. This is what I've heard from other folks and I think it's great just like which or medicine woman or wise woman. If somebody comes to this title through their relationship with their spirituality and the divine and their community and it feels authentic to them who am I to tell them that's not true. Yeah, so that's sort of how I feel about Kohennet and I also want to name that before the institute closed it had undergone an evolution in terms of who was included and so when I started it was a training program for women explicitly and by the time the institute closed it was women and non-binary folks who identified with this sort of sacred feminine approach. So priestesses and priestesses which has been really great. I got to learn a lot about gender expansive and clear ways of looking at Judaism beyond the feminine beyond the feminization which is I think crucial. I like to say queering the world heals the world so I really loved being a witness and also wrestling with my own feelings about that as a woman who has felt the scarcity of women's space in spiritual community to recognize that all of us of marginalized of marginalized genders have had that experience and there's a way to remember that there's enough there's enough space there's enough language there's enough innovation available for all of us to support each other. I mean we're all really challenging kiriarchy and patriarchy so more more allies and collaborators in that evolutionary work is better as far as I'm concerned. Yeah and there's also something about like I want to ask you about the word which but there's also something about you know the excluded bringing in to our circle the even more excluded. Of course. Yeah. And within a context where you are effectively let's see how let me see if I can articulate this properly. In a context where you used to have a role of being an intermediary between human and God let's say and then you're not allowed to have it anymore to be able to open that space to all those marginalized people it's just such I just think it create you know if we talk about like messages and communication and just you know how things are brought into people it like opens up the language that we receive from our divine source right like God God us whatever they want to call it you know like the more different kinds of experiences can be there to be that intermediate intermediate I don't even believe we need it. No I was just gonna say I feel like I want to amend I don't think it's about intermediary I feel like now it's about facilitation because I think we're all able innately to access the divine but we've many of us been conditioned out of that belief and when I say divine I don't mean necessarily one concept of God I mean like our sense of connection in the wider universe to energy to each other to the capacity of creation and love and hope and peace it feels much bigger it's a much more expansive concept than you know a person who stands between you and God I think that that's a limiting approach yeah. Hey love if this conversation is stirring something and you even just a whisper I'd love to invite you over to connect dad that dot c a it's where I gather everything that I offer soul rooted ceremony moon circles and reflections to support your own becoming and if you stay on the site for a little while a pop-up will invite you into something special a free guy that I created called the cycle it was the very first step I took back to myself a way of thinking in rhythm with my body my energy in the season supply if you're craving more magic more truth more you it's all waiting there for you connect dad that dot c a c o n ec ta d a dot c a yes yes yes yes thank you thank you thank you at you know something that's one of the big challenges about this part one of the intentions and big challenges about this podcast is we're trying to put words to things that didn't exist that don't don't have words because they've been taken away yes taken out of our likes the corn right so a lot of you know thank you for being patient and thank you for the correction and what I think what I'm trying to say I love that facilitator and also you use you said I teach you say facilitator ritual facilitator earlier on yeah you know but you know like the more different kind of experiences that are doing that facilitation the richer they are and the more open it is to like just bring other people into connection yeah with ourselves with each other and with the beyond us right yeah yeah and and also I have some colleagues who would say you know the human world and the beyond human world too including every other species on the planet yes yes okay so now tell me about we've talked co-headed we've talked priestess tell me about your relationship to the word which yeah so I used to have a challenging relationship to this word because when I told people I was a priestess or studying to be a priestess they'd be like well you know what's the difference between that and which or aren't you just a witch and I didn't feel like which spoke to me it didn't feel like my story for a long time and then I think two key things happened and I wish I could remember who wrote this thing that like really opened my eyes but a few years ago I saw a piece of writing and now I I feel like I want to go find it I'm sure I took a picture of it on my phone but where a woman talked about witches and priestesses and shamanesses and wise women and medicine women and the way that she talked about these titles and what we share as being sort of keepers of wisdom and and practitioners in relationship with you know embodiment and earth I honestly can't remember what exactly she said but and and what part of what we had in common was persecution and suppression and I read it and I was like oh I get it it doesn't matter which for suddenly it didn't matter to me which word was being used I felt like oh we're kin and so now I'm like great yeah witchy you know and for me witchy means embracing of these earthy and I'm not a very earthy I'm not a crunchy earthy person I grew up in Toronto and I'm like the folks can't see me but I'm a gingy and I'm really pale and I'm allergic to insect bites and so like being on the earth when it's not covered in snow and I'm freezing is generally a pretty uncomfortable experience for me but I'm able to connect to the elements and I love looking at ritual and religion through the lens of connecting through the elements through you know what the earth has to teach us what the beyond human world has to teach us herbs like not my forte but I flipping love learning about them and all of that feels witchy to me and part of it is women were called witches just for being smart and powerful and articulate and wise and helping each other through like what do I want to say like they had toolkits that we're not allowed you know we're not in regular use in the day-to-day I want to say like you know Christian hegemony patriarchal colonizer society they were like but wait you know try this herb to heal that wound and that was threatening to the power system at the time and so they were called witches it was a term that was weaponized and not necessarily the term they would have used at the time so in that way I feel a solidarity I think this is similarly with priestesses with folks of other titles that have been considered marginalized and crazy. Like, oh, you think you're that? You must be mentally unstable, too woo, too much of a hippie. Like, there was a lot of stigma that goes with thinking that things from the earth can heal a person, or that approaches to spirituality, community, and the divine could be maybe non-hierarchical. Just to name a couple, I think anyone who is challenging, I use these phrases, I use the industrial complex, like the medical industrial complex, the religious, I actually think religious industrial complex, the military industrial complex, the legal industrial complex, the educational, right? We have all of these modes of being in society that have become an industrial complex, which means they've been designed to further capitalist, to a fundamentalist degree, right? Values, and anyone who comes and challenges that and says, hey, maybe it would be better if we looked at this in a holistic way. Maybe it would be better if we looked at this from an earth-based perspective, an embodied healthy perspective. They're told they're wrong. They've been, we've been told we're crazy. We've been called witches, or, you know, other names, and been pushed out, exiled, over and over and over again, or worse, right? Harmed, abused, killed, over generations, and I think that shared experience, right? Oh, and I'll add, you know, people who are trying to be amplifiers of indigenous practices, and I think of that when I think of Shaman or medicine woman, same, right? Like, what do you know? Uncivilized, savage, barbarian, like this kind of language gets used when it doesn't fit in with the white colonized or capitalist patriarchal approach, which is really designed to maintain a hierarchy and maintains a lack of health and a lack of well-being in our society. Yeah, it keeps us in this role of being like capitalist units of production. And it feels like, like, if we look historically, and I actually, I really want to jump to the next question, but I have written down, I mean, one commonality is like the persecution piece, but also like, if we go, what I was going to say is, you go back in history and you think about the advent of the temple, and, you know, like, there was, I mean, it's impossible to say it was their fault, you know, but there was a movement that was moving towards like patriarchy and hierarchy and capitalism and colonialism and all there was this movement, and the women, the feminine energy that was in the way of that, that threatened that they were shoved out, you know, with the, that was one example that happened in, you know, Judaism, but then if you look at like the witch hunts and let's start in Europe, there's another example, then we look at it said that the the matriarchal leaders and the medicine women in the colony, what the former colonies, they were the first to go because they were the biggest threat, they were pushed out, and so now, you know, people are reclaiming these words, like, you use that word reclaiming, but like along the way, they've just been kind of shoved out, like feminine force. Yeah, and then irony though is shoved out. I love this example from the book of Samuel, where this is where the phrase that gets translated as thou shalt not suffer which to live comes from, and this is when King Saul banned all women from practicing any kind of divination or witchcraft or priestessing and said, only the colony now, like only the only my priests these men, they are the ones who have this power and no one is allowed to seek out any of the women experts in town, any women who are found to be doing this will be exiled or killed or what have you, and then he went to the colony, the king went to his own priests and, you know, asked them to divine for him to be a channel for him, they did, they gave him nothing, so where did he go to the Balatov of Andorra, the medium, the witch of Andorra, he knew she was the expert. So like through that book, we get like through that Jewish text, we get evidence that women never stopped doing it, and he went to her disguised and she said, but it couldn't possibly because the king would kill me, no, no, I promise, nothing that will happen to you, and yeah, I actually kept his word, and in this story, she channels for him, successfully channels for him, he doesn't get a message that he likes, but he doesn't kill her, he goes, he goes off with his, you know, bad news message, and this, this way we have evidence in Jewish tradition, like why did they put that in there? It's so interesting, like evidence in Jewish tradition of women doing this work in the community, and men valuing them for it, even as they said they shouldn't be doing. And the man who set the rule broke his own rule because of that power, it's interesting, I wonder if it was an accidental like non-omission, because I really fucked up with that one. Well, I think it's funny because the rabbis say there's no such thing as an accident in the Torah that everything in there has its purpose, and so like I wonder, and you know, I learned this story from my teacher, Ralph Cohenett, Rabbi Jill Hammer, and I wonder what she would say, it's like, you know, why would the rabbis keep this in here? And I love it, as, I mean, that was really what our Cohenett training was about, was like mining the text, a big piece of what it was about, was mining the text for evidence of us. And so I love this, like juicy, juicy story of evidence of a powerful woman, and you know, that expression right behind every powerful man, you know, there's a, and you know, a powerful woman, a wise woman, a helpful woman, and here's a great example of that. So even though women are being, you were elbowing as you were describing all the places where women have been pushed out, but still sought underground or in back alleys the whole time. The whole time, the whole time, I hate to reference an IG me more post, but I'm going to do it in a way. And it was like something like plant medicine isn't alternative medicine, plant medicine is the original. Yeah, it makes me think like, you know, witches or, you know, witches and medicine women and princesses aren't the alternative. They were the fucking original, you know, yes, but it, your story, it makes me think of like the Christian story of, you know, Mary Magdalene. Why was her book not completely and totally destroyed? Like why was it just sort of hidden somewhere to be unearthed probably around the same time? People started talking about, yeah, three times. People started talking about the story that you're talking about, right? Like it's as though there was some kind of secret intelligence that had to like, sort of dig it, bury it. And it was always, always there. Yes, so I read, I'm rereading now, Nicki Marmory's book, Lilith. And, you know, in it, she, she, she, she posits that the sacred feminine is the one who was like, they're not ready, they're not ready, but we're gonna, you know, we're gonna make this available for when they're ready about the texts like the Mary, like Mary Magdalene's writings, which were finally unearthed in 1951, I think. And by the way, and even then there were delays. Right. And just for the sake of the listeners, you can get Mary Magdalene revealed by Megan Watterson on Hayhouse. You can also, you know, Nicki Marmory's book. Lilith is available wherever you buy your books. And these are excellent examples of the stories of important women figures. And this book, Lilith, it's, it's called biblical fiction. It's modern midrash, right. Fan fiction on the Bible. And, and in it, she explores several key women figures from, it's not just Judaism, like Judaism and Christianity. And it's amazing. And I, and it's so well, like her, her citations at the back are great. I'm like, I want to go read all the source texts. There's, there's amazing evidence of in our texts, in our history, in many of these traditions of women doing amazing things, being priestesses, you know, in this tradition, it would be called priestesses in others would probably be called witch medicine woman, shaman, other things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I really want to jump into what a co-hennet does. Well, like what your job is. But let's rewind the clock a little bit first. So when did you realize that you were a magical woman? Whether it, I mean you said you kind of the word which didn't align, but just kind of the magic. How did you know? What was your kind of like, hmm, there's something a little bit different about me moment or moment. So I didn't know in my head that I was a magical woman as you say. I didn't claim it until really I think my ordination or maybe in my training between 2006 and 2009. But I think I had many hints in my heart and body from the time I was a little kid. And yeah, some of those I can remember, I remember really explicitly, just ways that I thought about the world that felt magical, like a feeling of alternate realities and like my home growing up had a front hall with mirrors that met in a corner. And I would stand in that corner and see the four different or the three different reflections of myself and imagine that each of those versions of me was living a completely different life in a completely different reality. And there was some part of me that felt like this is true. Like why aren't we all talking about this? And I didn't really talk about it with anyone at the time. And another memory I have is I had this ring that was a piece of costume jewelry that had really big shiny stones in it. And I used to sit and scry in this ring. And I really thought I was seeing in like the memory that I have right now is there was like a battle with horses involved. Like people on horseback engaged in a battle. And I was maybe seven when I was doing that. And I really, I didn't, I wasn't really exposed to scrying anywhere at that age or imagining alternate realities and mirrors. That was, I would say, that came from my imagination, which Abraham Hicks would say was receiving mode. So, you know, looking back with the glasses, you know, the spiritual glasses that I have now, I see these things and go like, oh, I knew even then some part of me was trying to find my way there. And a big clicking moment for me before I went to university, I read The Miss of Avalon, which I know by Mary Ann Zimmer Bradley. And I know she's quite a contentious figure now. And some friends and I we think like that book was channeled, right? Like there was a history described there that I felt really connected to. And I felt myself in that story. I felt myself a priestess in relationship with Druids and the land in this particular way. And it felt like a bit of an awakening. Like this is a part of who I am and who I meant to be. And it wasn't until I got to co-hennet training and saw Jewish women making altars covered in herbs and spices that I thought, oh, I can and co-hennet was a Jewish priestess program. And it felt like it brought these different parts of my identity together in this magical way, really sort of like syncretic. And when I grabbed, when I even gradually were ordained, we received smear, which is like a hands-on transmission. From our teachers. And that automation ends with the words. And from this moment forward, you are a co-hennet. And after that, I felt it. I was like, this is me, this is who I was always meant to be. And then I went back to my regular day job and my regular life. And it felt hard, hard to claim. And like a little uncomfortable because I was like trying to wear these clothes in a climate that wasn't designed for me to to to wear this identity. So it's taken some time. And now 15 years later, I wear it very confidently and very comfortably. And I meet random people, you know, at a social gathering or a community thing. And they're like, so what do you do? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a priestess full-time freelance priestess and Jewish clergy. And it feels so exciting to be able to claim that and know in my whole self the truth of it. A priestess entrepreneur, I sometimes say, which feels so funny. Like the bridging of these two words is two concepts, which I have to say, like thank you to C.V. Herkweil and the women of the feminist enterprise forum. So P.K. Much and the feminist, what is the F's, the entrepreneurial feminist forum, the totus that being entrepreneurial feminists and feminist entrepreneurs is a thing, which makes me feel much more comfortable calling myself a priestess entrepreneur. I love it. I love it. I love it so much. I'm, can you remember before you decided to enroll in the course? What was attract, what appealed to you? Like what was it about you? That that made it happen. It's so amazing because it was such a strange confluence of events. I met a guy on J-Date who lived in New Jersey. And I mean, he's heard me, we're still friends and he's heard me tell this story. And he told me about this Jewish retreat center called the Ila Hayim Center for Jewish Spirituality, which at the time was in Accord, New York. And about this Jewish day school kid environmental sustainability program called the Tava Learning Center, which was at the Isabella Friedman Jewish retreat center in Connecticut. And he worked at Tava. And I applied for a job there. And in the meantime, like I looked at the website for Ila Hayim and it was announcing the Red Ten Week and the launch of the Co-Henet Hebrew Priestess Institute. And there was this like tingling, what is this? This seems so right for me. And then this feeling of like whenever am I going to get to Accord, New York? Like this is so unrealistic. And it feels important, like I'm getting feeling the strong feeling to say when I shared with my aunt who paid for my J-Date membership. So I was like excitedly telling her about the guy I met. And I told her, oh yeah, so this Ila Hayim. And she said, oh, that's Zalman's thing. So here's like a little moment of Jewish of Yiches, of like being related to a somewhat famous person. So the founder of Jewish Renewal was Rabbi Zalman Shaktor Shalomian. He was my great uncle. And so my aunt was like, that's your uncle's thing. Like he founded that place. And I knew him and had been exposed to renewal Judaism through my aunt and had never heard of El-At-Khayim. And so, you know, it was kind of cool to find my way to this program under the umbrella of this thing that I maybe should have been raised, you know, or like taught about growing up. And I didn't. I found it sort of separately from that. So I ended up getting a job as the office manager of the Tevalerning Center. And a week after I moved to the Isabella Friedman Jewish retreat center, Ila Hayim and Isabella Friedman merged. And the cohenet Hebrew priestess training institute literally came to me. Because there I was living, I'm getting like holy shivers remembering. And I had missed for the first week. And my colleague, Ila Hayim, whose work I still love her name is Tamushi Ran. She was like, you haven't missed it. Rabbi Jill, co-founder of cohenet is coming here to lead high holy days. Reach out to her and see if you can get into the program. And I did. I reached out. I applied late and she enabled me to have my interview with her in person at Isabella Friedman. And it just felt like such an incredible serenity and incredible synchronicity that like clearly I was meant to connect to this experience. Because it like the two retreat centers merged. All the programs of Ila Hayim were then housed at Isabella Friedman. And I actually became the registrar of Ila Hayim when I finished my contract with Teval. And so I got to work for this. And by the way, Ila Hayim means tree of life. And it's in the feminine. And so there was like a real embracing of the divine feminine in the fabric of Ila Hayim Center for Jewish spirituality. And getting to be the registrar for that organization was like a really amazing shift for me and my working in my career. And what I got to be exposed to. I got to be exposed to all of their training programs, including cohenet. And I became a student of cohenet after their first week. Like by the time we met again, by the time we had our first conference call, because this was in 2006. So we didn't have web courses. We had conference calls. I was on the call and in the program. And it felt like this yearning in me to experience priestesshood and experience feminism in Judaism, which I really like that had been loud. My frustration with patriarchal language, especially in liturgy. I'm also a word person like you, Alex. And so I really struggled with Jewish liturgy and the masculine. language of Hebrew, like the masculine forms of Hebrew that are in Jewish liturgy. And here at Cohenet, we pray in the feminine. And we learn about aspects of the sacred feminine and of women doing this work. And these 13 archetypes are, you know, the archetypes were created by the founders of the Cohenet training program. They were trying to capture what they were seeing in the text and practice in these 13 archetypes. And so I had this opportunity to see all these different possibility models in the tradition in which I was raised that had never been illuminated for me before. And it's interesting, like I had this yearning, but until I saw the possibility of engaging with it and knew that it existed, I wouldn't have known what to ask for. Well, it came to you anyway. Exactly, it came to me. I was the youngest in my cohort. I was like the baby in my cohort. And just like got to be in this community with these incredible people, women, and even actually in our cohort, there was a person who after there's two levels of the training and after the first level, he transitioned. And so even in our cohort, we had a trans person who came out and was celebrated with us. We were very, we were like, you know, the first wave, so like very fringy, like radical feminists, lots of queer folks. It was, it was pretty powerful. And family, we were also still that cohort where the ratio note, the first ones. And I still think of them very much as family. And I'm really grateful for them in the ways that they proudly proclaimed to have reparented me. And I'm so, so grateful both to the program and the community that I gained as a result. What, it's an incredible story. I mean, from great uncle aunt, like, you know, the boyfriend lead, like the whole thing, the merging, like all of it, it was just like, and you had said, there's no way I'm ever going to get to New York. Well, because I didn't drive, I don't drive. I still don't drive, actually, I'm weird like that, but I grew up in downtown Toronto. So I never needed to. So the prospect, like, who goes, how am I going to get to this random place in the middle of nowhere? And yeah, I felt so divinely guided through the whole process, especially looking back. It's like, it's good. I love that you're naming these, you know, these pieces. And there were others, you know, there's so many more, but those are the big loud, you know, highlight ones. Yeah, yeah. What it's a very serendipitous story. Exactly. Totally. Like, there's no, you can't argue. You can't make this shit out. Exactly. Yes. Right. So, so you're on this path. Did you ever feel like doubtful about it or I guess the question that I pose is, you know, how did you, what supported you, what helped you to embrace this journey and embrace what was growing inside of you throughout this journey? Is there anything like where there's specific things along the way, modalities, teachers? I love how you're referring because, you know, before we hit the record button again, we were talking about messaging and, you know, in our world, a lot of the time we shoot, I just had a parimenopausal brain fart. Maybe I'll take it out. I think you're referring to, I think, right? Like the feminist practice of naming our teachers and our sources. Yes, yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. How we were just in this individualistic culture where we only talk about our like from regs to riches story, but you throughout have talked about, you know, referred to the people that have helped you along the way. And I just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate and celebrate that. And also you can continue to do that. But I just wanted to ask a little bit about like what helped you along the leg. It's interesting to think about, because I think I want to answer this question about both that time and this time, because I want to acknowledge also at that time I was living in the U.S. and the Jewish community in the U.S. is very different from the Jewish community in Canada and especially in Toronto. In particular, I mean, the population, I always think of this, you know, it's like a cell phone, whatever. And the population density is higher and so the possibilities for creativity and diversity are higher. And so in the U.S. telling people that I was studying to be a co-hennet, by the way, I was working in a Jewish job. So you know, there were some people who were like, that's so cool. Tell me all about it. And you know, the more like a traditional folks who I was around were like, that's idolatry. So you know, that was also a factor. But I had enough people in my life in the, I was living in Boston. Once I left, once I moved away from Isabella Friedman Jewish Retreat Center, I moved to Boston, to the Boston area. I should say I lived in Boston, I lived in Selmerville, I lived in Brooklyn. I know they're very particular about claiming the right neighborhood. And I got to be a part of some communities there that were really supportive. In particular, I made friends with folks who were students at Hebrew College, which is a post-denominational rabbinic school. And that was part of why I moved to Boston was, and part of why I moved to the States for this job at TAVA was that I wanted to go to rabbinic school. And I mean, also to be fair, I wanted to have a career as a singer, a singer-songwriter. And I thought being in New York, which is where TAVA was leading me, would be a good pathway there. And instead, once I got to TAVA, it led me back towards the possibility of rabbinic school. And Hebrew College seemed like a good fit. So I was surrounding myself, no, it wasn't active. I found myself in community with especially women who were studying to be rabbis and queer folks who were studying to be rabbis. And new models for what it meant to be Jewish clergy and Jewish leaders who were mostly very supportive of what Kohenit was doing. And also, my gosh, to be Adela Chayim, it doesn't exist anymore in that form. But the kinds of retreats that were happening there, and to be around those teachers, there was Jewish shamanism with Gershian Winkler, who literally wrote the book on Jewish shamanism. There was Toriyoga and embodied Judaism training programs. There was Rabbi Shafog, which I feel like I should name everyone, but people go look these things up. And right, and Kozimra, a chanting training program. And of course, the Dovenant Leadership Training Institute. So these were all affiliated with the Oleh Feline's for Jewish renewal, but there was such a variety of ways of doing Jewish and of engaging in spirituality that it made. We were still treated in a lot of spaces. Kohenit was treated like the weird cousin for a while. So when we were the newbies, that was challenging, but we also had support. The folks who worked at this retreat center who supported our existence helped subsidize our scholarship and offer scholarships so that students like me could afford to participate. And it felt like, especially as the years went on, Kohenit had a fan club. And it became a growing movement. There are only, I want to say, wow, there are 137 or dame-koan note in the world. And the movement of Kohenit is so much bigger now than the training institute ever was, because people would get to, you know, people from the other training programs would come to our Shabbat service. Or like, we would have one or two open services during the weekend. They would be like, wow, I didn't know it could be like this. So their reactions to us are teachers like the support of the students who are in the reactions to us. Our teachers, like the support of our teachers, as they sort of fostered us to grow into who we each are as Kohenit. I mean, all of that made it possible for me to claim this identity. And I will like specifically say, like there are, I have friends and colleagues who were rabbis who became Kohenit. And I think I needed to see that too, like folks who were ordained through the, you know, the rabbinic establishment who chose this as an additional avenue of Jewish leadership. So we ended up having a lot of, oh, and we had guest teachers, you know, like there were a lot of people in the wider Jewish world who were supporting what we were doing. And that helped me. I don't know if other people felt like they needed it, but it helped me feel validated. And it helped boy me up, like helped, helped lift me up so that when I came back to Toronto, When I ultimately came back to Toronto, I came back to Toronto via the Part A institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. And boy oh boy, was that an interesting experience as a newly minted cohenate? As it's a really amazing learning place, like a place of learning for Jews of all backgrounds in Jerusalem, and it also considers itself a holotic institution. So some of my teachers didn't really know what to do with this whole cohenate thing. But they were so. What's a holotic. A holotic one. It means. A holotic one. Even though they welcomed Jews of all backgrounds, when it comes to prayer and Jewish practices, they choose the more observant form in order to be in alignment for those who are observant and feel like they need to be living in alignment with the most observant form. Which end cohenate is not. Okay. You know, it would be. I'm not the most observant. Okay. No, it would be like as it would be considered an alternative. Like at Part A, the services I led were part of the alternative minion. I'm saying with air quotes. So that included in the alternative group were reformed Jews and people doing yoga or meditation, just like to give a sense. Anything that wasn't like reading the prayers as written in the book with a separation between men and women in the most traditional way was considered some form of alternative. There were tears in between. But getting. Even there, like getting to study Torah and talk like the original writings, the rabbinic writings, through the lens of this feminist training I had just been in. It was really powerful. And at that time I still thought I was aiming to become a rabbi. So, you know, I had a huge group of friends that year as well at Part A's who were. There was a scholarship that year for anyone 30. I think it was anyone 30 and under. And usually folks who go much younger, but I was 30. And so I like made it in by the cutoff. And so we had a group of us who were older than the typical students there who became really good friends. And we were the. We were the woo ones. We were into yoga and meditation and chanting and feminist approaches to Judaism. So I think, you know, I feel like that year. All of this. And I had also received so much support and blessings from my co-hennet community and my Boston. Yeah, and my Boston community on my departure. Like go to Jerusalem, learn, bring us with you, you know, start your rabbinic training. And there was. There was just so much hopeful inspirational support in all of that. I felt really, really supported in what I was doing. And then I came back to Toronto and I felt really alone. I was the only Canadian co-hennet for a long time. And the Toronto Jewish community is much more conservative on the whole than the American one. So I felt excluded from clergy community, from being considered part of the Jewish leadership in town. And I think for a long time I didn't own it either. Because I was still looking for the approval from the rabbinic world that I don't even agree with. So it took me a while to learn that I don't need approval from the structure that I'm sort of seeking to deconstruct. I know. Which feels like a scary thing to say, but it's true, right? Like, yeah. And now I. you know, there's more support than there used to be. And there are also more co-hennet in Canada than there used to be. There are 15 or a day in Koehnoat. 13 are still in the country. And nowadays I would say what supports me, the communities that I'm a part of and that I lead especially. So my red tent community and Matanote Lev, Gifts of the Heart, which is the community that I founded here in 2014. It is an intentionally feminist queer of center, witchy spiritual community for folks of all backgrounds through a Jewish lens. And the people who come and participate are what make it possible for me to see myself and my work and my gifts reflected. I don't know if that makes sense. But like when they say yes, yes, I needed this. It tells me that I'm on the right path. So that's been big. And then the tool, oh, and how can I forget my mentor Judith Monriquez, who I connected with in 2018. And before her, I was working with Amashbia, Rabbi Ruth Gunkigan, the founder of Jerusalem's Jewish community, Navati Hila. So I mean, I've been very lucky to have amazing teams of colleagues and mentors and supporters. And even it was Rabbi Ruth, who said to me, "Some people received me from above when I was wrestling with quitting rabbinic school." And she said, "Some people received me from below." And that was what was happening. I had a community of people in Toronto who were asking me, when are you going to lead Shabbat for us? When are you going to lead high holidays for us? We come to all your workshops. We're interested in everything you do. And she said, "Allow them to name you their teacher and rise to the occasion." So that was sort of the beginning of that was in 2017, 2018, and then starting to work with Judith, who helped me think about all of this in a business context. And I still get to work with Judith and a group that she's formed called SOAR. And that group has been an immense support. We started in October of 2021, so we're now three years. And we use Judith taught me human design. And I've learned much more about astrology. It was actually, I think, Rabbi Jill, who taught me about bibliomancy and other forms of divination. In addition to tarot and oracle cards, which I use a lot in my practice. And I started channeling intensely in 2020 and receiving channeled messages from it felt like my relationship to the divine feminine or to source. And in 2021, for New Year's 2021, the signature on the message that I channeled was the wisdom of the well. Like there was this one was it in 2019, I turned 40. And another community that was immensely supportive with Sheikah system, which was a feminist coworking community founded by Emily Antfleck. And a bunch of it, so it closed in 2018 and a bunch of us got together the next year and we were pulling cards. And there were a bunch of wise women, which women, priests to see women in that community. And I pulled the Empress. And I wasn't really familiar with tarot yet. And I was like, what is this? And so they started teaching me about the Empress card. And it was right before my 40th birthday. And on my birthday, I was actually on a call with Judith when I felt like the essence of Empress in me, which felt like a contrast, like the priestess archetype, which felt like I'm using my hands to my mind. It felt like energy coming. So my hand is reached up above my head and felt like I was coming down into my head and then out mostly through my mouth or my heart. Like I'm a singer and a speaker. And just felt like a lot of movement through like I was a conduit. And in contrast, Empress feels like, and here I'm spreading my arms as if I'm holding a really big basket in front of me. When I embody Empress, everything slows down and my voice gets deeper. And the image in my mind is of this pool of water and like silt settling at the bottom of the water, at the bottom of a well. And this sense of like this wisdom is always here. It's not moving, it's present, it's part of you, it's deep, it's old, it's strong. It feels very like mama earth connected. And in fact, the light seers terror deck, which I use, I think depicts Empress as a pregnant with a pregnant belly that has the earth on it. Like it's a common image. And so also learning to tap into Empress as a guide or as a part of me has also really supported me, especially in in channeling. And around that time I started working with Bryn Bamber, who is a core energetics practitioner at Scholzer Self-Atheminist Witch. In fact, oh, I'm like, well, I should introduce you. And she was my therapist actually for a couple of years and she really invited me to tap into my gifts when I was wrestling with. decisions or healing work, she would be like, hey, what does your Empress say? So I really mean there are other practitioners who were on my support team, encouraging me to use my tools for myself and others. And then every time I encountered a friend or community member or like random person I met on the internet who said, oh yes, I want that. Can you do that thing you do for me? It felt like an additional layer of affirmation and validation of my gifts. - Yeah, yeah, but it still resonates for me. Like, and I think for a lot of our listeners as well, like the entire path here that we're talking about on the podcast and that you reference in your life implicitly is this trust of self? You know, like not, I wrote down like rules within, right? Like, you know, you were waiting for permission when you arrived in Toronto from the authorities belonging to the establishment that you're bringing down. I'm constantly waiting for like affirmations or permission from like, Patrick Arkel sources that tell me I'm on the right track when actually the entire purpose of the work that you and I do is to help humans connect with themselves so they can find the answer that is sourced through their divine feminine wisdom, right? Like, that's inside or comes from above or comes from below, but it comes through our body. It's not about like, it's not dictated from the powers that society has decided are. - Patrick, any sense? - It makes so much sense and just watching you as you were miming the from above from below, right? It reminds me of that moment of ordination as a cohenate, our three teachers. So there was Rabbi Jill and Teammassir and Shoshana Jedwab. They positioned themselves around us. So one of them had their hands on our back and would say from before, one I think was above, one was from below and then the group of whoever else was there. So when we got ordained, it was the next class who said this for us. And from this moment forward, you are a cohenate. 'Cause I think it's important, we need to be able to tune into ourselves first and we need possibility models and we need community and we need collaborators. And I can't, it occurred to me earlier and I was like, when will be the right time to say this? I had a spiritual guidance session. That's not what she calls it, I can't remember what she calls it with this woman, Anisa, who was in this group with that Judith Ran runs. And in it, I had this vision in my session with Anisa, I had this vision of coming out of a body of water, like swimming, I was naked, I was tired, I was swimming, I arrived at the shore. Of this, it turns out was an island and I'm pulling myself up onto the shore and these women reach down, all these women suddenly I like meet me there and are reaching down and pulling me up. And we get onto into this space and it's like a meadow. This big beautiful field. And I'm suddenly in this huge circle of women, of all backgrounds, of all shapes, of all ages, of all ethnicities, like I love this myriad expressions of the divine. I like to think of it as like all different bodies, we're all naked, we're standing in this circle and they say to me, welcome queen to your circle of queens. - Oh my God. - And it's suddenly like language that I've been learning from the entrepreneurial feminist community about inter-independence, that's also a CVHR quail term that like we are each sovereign and powerful and have full agency and are connected to each other and responsible for each other. And that image has been instrumental in the way that I see the world, in the way that I see my work in the world, in the way that I see how community needs to happen and work together how relationships between any humans need to happen and work together. So I would say like that session and that vision was immensely supportive of how I see myself being a priestess and a practitioner in the world. - I'm so so grateful that you're sharing that vision because it's, you know, the work that I do in messaging which is born of Kelly Diel's work who's a feminist marketer, who you know, right? - I know that's, I met Kelly at the AFS, at the entrepreneurial feminist forum. - I love it, right? Like so these are the women that are pulling us up out of the water and we're all standing there naked, trailblazing this new way forward. And I think I just think about, whatever you can say is like the messaging work, the ceremonial work, like it's all weird and wonderful, but it's new. It's actually not actually the point is, is that it's not new, is that it's ancient. It's just being resurfacing now. And so this new approach to life, to being, to interacting, to creating businesses, to religion and spirituality, all of it, you know, is through the feminine lens. And I also wanted to say, out of the 137 cohen, cohenot, is that right? Cohenot. - Coohenot. - Coo-ho. - Coo-ho. - Coo-ho. - Say it again. - Coo-ho-not. - Coo-ho-not. - Yes, you got it. - I have had two cohennotes. - On the return podcast. - Yay! - Yay! - The fun of the set, it can be fun. - Pleasant shout out. - Shout out to Pleasant. Check out episode 30. I want to know, and we've already gone over time, of course we have, but I do want to know. How do you spend your days as a cohenot? What does the cohenot do all day? - It feels important to say that there are no cookie of how to priestess is. Some cohenot are peace activists, lawyers, workplace safety advisors, queer educators, rabbis, artists, just to name a few. So I just want to say, the way I cohenot is not the way most cohenot cohenot. - But it's interesting that you're a full time cohenot. Like I think that is a really beautiful and sacred life. - Yes, I'm coming out the only full time cohenot, but I'm one of few who are full time, I think full time clergy. So for me, I like to say, imagine what your local clergy person, your rabbi, your imam, your priest, your minister, your pastor, what they do. I do those things. I lead, I call them un-services for the Sabbath and Holy Days. And I call them un-services, 'cause they're not like any service you've ever been to. I lead also red tents right now for women, and I'm working on creating gender expansive red tent experiences. So that's-- - Okay, I just want you to explain to our listeners who don't know what a red tent is. - Yes, yeah, yeah. So a red tent in this context, inspired by ancient practices where women would go into a red tent when they're menstruating or birthing or recovering from birthing and being community with other women. This was amplified by Anita Diamond's book, The Red Tent, which came out in the early odds, I think, which is also modern midrash biblical fiction. So for me, this is a sacred space for authenticity and authenticity being vulnerability and power and celebrating both of those things. It's been historically a women's space, and that is evolving because we're recognizing that people of all genders, including cis men, really need sacred space for authenticity, for vulnerability and for power, to learn from each other, to share with each other. And in the ones that I lead, I do one for the new moon, where we sort of talk about the energies of the month, and one for the full moon, which is called the Sex Goddess Red Tent, where we explicitly have conversations about our intimate relationships with ourselves, our bodies and our partners. And the most, to me, the holiest part of any red tent is a personal sharing circle, where everyone has an opportunity to share what's up for them if they choose to, and be seen and heard, and held and witnessed with no crosstalk, and no responses, nobody is trying to fix anyone, we are just holding and witnessing each other. And that has proven to be the most magical part of the experience. So I lead those currently in person in Toronto twice a month. And I do one-on-one spiritual guidance work, especially with folks of any gender who are going through a transition, who are feeling stuck, who are just looking for some guidance. I especially tend to attract folks who know that they have some intuitive gifts, and want to learn how to use those safely and powerfully, and mentor those skills. And I do facilitate life cycle rituals, especially for folks who have felt marginalized in mainstream communities. So my background is Jewish, so I tend to attract a lot of interfaith, folks and also I'm queer and poly so like those are my specialties so weddings, baby welcomings, funerals and memorials. So in particular queer and interfaith weddings, baby welcomings for, you know I'm one of the few Jewish clergy in town who loves doing baby welcomings for Jews of interfaith families or of patrilineal descent or maybe a boy who's not having a circumcision or who's family doesn't want to emphasize the circumcision but they want to have a special welcoming ritual. Also memorials and funerals for folks who choose to be cremated or you know whose death doesn't follow, who chooses death rituals that don't follow the most traditional customs in the Jewish community. Being a cohenate I have decided that frees me from the need to follow the traditional norms and I love meeting families and individuals where they're at and helping them really co-create ritual that speaks to who they are and their needs and the needs of their own families. So there's none of this like having a Jewish wedding but leaving the traditions of your spouse of another background at the door. It's like I co-efficient which is rare in the Toronto context to have a Jewish officiant who will do all of these things and it's not just that I will do them, they're my favorite. Like this is what I would love to do more of queer, interfaith, serving folks who feel like they can't have it because the industry or their religious tradition won't allow it, I'm here for you. So many people need this, right? As people like step into the authenticity of who they are, like there's so much more permission to do that, I think that's why now is the time. Like one of the questions why is now important for this is because people are waking up and they're like feel it. I think that the barriers to actually being who you are and there you are, and they're making it sacred. So so so so important. I want it like I know we're over time but I want to talk. Okay let's see if we can keep this. I'm fine. You're you're you're gonna take it well. Well I'm also very aware that our listeners like you know everybody says keep it short that way they'll listen to the end right? And I'm like yeah but there's so much good stuff. You can always come into two. We could kind of into two. I have done that before but I wanted to speak a little bit to like why the work you do is so important. Like you know particularly for the Jewish community and I say this because I have so many dear clients and friends who are Jewish, who are women and who are feminists and who are looking for something that speaks to them or then you know what they're actually quite fucked off with which is a very patriarchal thing. Right. I can relate. For the most part. So could we speak a little bit to like that statement I said you know when we were when I became a Judaism? Is it what you think it is? It isn't yeah. It wasn't always like this. Yes and what I said is you know we as in the priestesses the witches the medicine women and in particular in Judaism I want to say like we the goddess worshiping earth-based Jews have been here the whole fucking time. We've been here the whole time. The Jewish tradition is written like the rabbinic texts that are the foundation of the way most communities do Jewish today was written by men for men about men and we know that because who's in who's named and who's not named right and how are women talked about and how are people of other genders talked about. So we know they're not focused on us but that doesn't mean we weren't doing it. We were doing it. We were just recently I had this thought we were like off-camera you know we're in other writings that have been intentionally kept away and also many of us women didn't have access to literacy the way that men did and so it's you know oral traditions that were cut off. So here we are and we're trying to figure out what what would Judaism look like if crafted by you know these women who've been here the whole time and this is how I thought about my high holiday offerings this year inspired by my colleague amazing I can't believe I didn't mention her yet and cohenet roach de vorigran the founder of the lilyth institute we had a podcast we had 50 conversations about the first 18 were called priestessing the priestesses and then it was attending lilyth's fire so inspired by her I have a sweatshirt and a poster that says what would lilyth do and that was the question that I asked myself in crafting the high holiday offerings this year and it wasn't the first year I did that but it was my I marketed a little bigger and I rented a bigger space and so I'm really thinking about like what would these holy days look like if the rituals were designed by women and other folks of marginalized genders for all of us not only for women I feel like it's important like let's not play this us or them game let's say like what if we were designing these experiences for all of us and all of our parts and that's how I approach Jewish practice that's how I approach shabbat and I I'm also big piece of my work these days is I'm an educator with the Jewish learning collaborative and all of my students where we are now we're studying texts about holidays prayers I'm reading this book lilyth with one of my students with one of my learners these are adult learners professionals and it's always through a queer and feminist lens so if you know if you want to learn about what does Judaism look like like let's look at our core texts and read it with an understanding of the roots of the words in Hebrew and we can find ourselves there we can find the feminine we can find queerness we can find gender expansiveness that was maybe translated out so I love looking at text which is like biblical text and liturgy through that lens and helping people connect to their own desires around practice in Judaism with ease with like inviting more ease oh yeah one of the programs I mentioned that I offer is called free your Passover which is where we like break down the core elements of Passover and help you design your Passover experience for yourself or your family with more ease and pleasure and joy and intention and connection and that's what I like to bring to any Jewish holiday that we're exploring like why I got to study with Karina Zilberman the founder of the Shabbaba network and she really taught us that the feeling of the experience is more important than the content so if we start with we want to have positive experiences of connection and intergenerational connection and multi-gender and multi-faith connection where we're coming together inspired by something Jewish but it's the coming together that's the point not necessarily doing I'm seeing an error was doing Jewish better like actually that's never the point as far as I'm concerned it's a more alignment in a way that feels more authentic and authentic both I think the sweet spot and I learned this from Jewish renewal is where it feels authentic both to our ancestors the traditions of our ancestors and on a way that our ancestors could look and be like I get it and that we you know with melodies and language from liturgy you know that's hundreds of years old so we go oh yeah my booby said this my great great great grandfather said this prayer and is authentic to our contemporary identities and values in our progressive society like I think that's the sweet spot we need both I veer I tend to veer more to the contemporary side and I really try to find the traditional pieces that are resonant and evocative and deconstruct them if they feel problematic so that we can find our way in and sometimes that's a struggle and then I have to like look again and and find other possibility models like I want to mention Jericho rabbi Jericho Vincent who's a trans rabbi whose writing is always challenging our traditional understanding of the text and I got to learn a little bit with them in the big cohenet Jewish which is circle with or cohenet or hargill and I I'm so grateful sometimes I feel like I don't have the words or I don't know where to look for what I need to look for other than inside me and I'm grateful for those who been doing this writing and doing this work publicly because they're making it possible for the rest of us to find each other and ourselves. Thank you I mean I just This love, this concept of honoring the lineage and honoring the contemporary. And I believe, like, let's say our great-grandfather spoke a prayer in a certain way, and it was the sexist way, or what we consider today to be sexist. That doesn't, it's like throwing a baby out with the bathwater, right? Like, it doesn't, it's like, what's the essence of it, though? I'm remembering that that human was a human, conditioned in those times. Exactly. Right. And so there is an ethos that can be taken from that. And the other thing that came to me as you were talking was like, you know, no matter what our lineage is, if we go back enough, it's a land centered one. And so, like, always using the word indigenous book fate respect, that word does mean land centered. And so in many ways were re-indigenous. Yeah. Well, especially when we're aware that I, Sukkot is a great example. I was at this workshop this weekend at the Miles Nidel, JCC, with Aaron Routenberg and Elena Potter and Lauren Shriver Sasaki. And it was, it was a crafter noon, DIY, local lulav, an atrog. And so there we got, we got to learn like, what are the four species in the, in this ritual object that we use for this holiday we're in right now called Sukkot. There are these particular plants that are used. I got to learn the whole background of like why these plants and remembering that they come from Israel because the tradition comes from Israel. And that so many Jewish holidays were, you know, they were all founded there. We're all doing Jewish in the, you know, anyone is not there is doing Jewish in the diaspora. And that we don't have to do it the same way. We don't have to use a plant that was flown across an ocean. And for this holiday that is very land based, we can collect local plants that remind us of the intentions of the plants that were chosen in Israel. So that we can connect to our land when we say these blessings that are in our design to invoke the right weather for the right season. That's what Sukkot is about. It's all a rain dance actually. So, you know, here maybe maybe in Toronto, like we don't want rain, but we want seasonally appropriate weather, right. We're living in a time of climate chaos. So we can create our ritual objects that are earth based from our place, nodding to the origins of the practice of creating a ritual object from the land that has a particular purpose and a particular meaning. And my Lou Love looks very different from my grandparents Lou Love. But and it's technically not a Lou Love either, but my four species, I should say like my Arba Minim. And it feels right for me and right for the place where I am and I get and my daughter and I, you know, we both made them and we did the prayer and we did the ritual and it's the same prayer that our ancestors would have said. And so, at the same time and celebrating the same holiday, but doing it in a way that is authentically connecting to where we are right now, understanding that where they were right then was the reason they did what they did at that time. Yeah, yeah. And I think that it's really important for us to remember that migration and global movement is part of the story, you know, when I was in Glastonbury this summer. And by the way, you have to, if you have anything like the magic there, but anyway, there's there's there's a tree there that said to have been brought by Joseph of Eritrea, who was Jesus's uncle. And it's sort of it was, you know, planted up at the at the door and then someone brought it down but someone replanted and it and it's it's a magical tree because it only flowers twice the year of anyway came from Palestine. This is this is a tree that's become sacred to one particular place like a place where people, you know, pilgrimage to see it that isn't even its original source. Right. But it's sacred because of its original source, which is thousands of kilometers or miles away, right. So it's just interesting how, you know, we morph from place to place and land morphs as well. But that relationship can still continue to be so we're okay. And now I'm going to ask you the question that we talked about, but I ask everybody, how do you define magic Annie? Oh boy. Right. So I got stuck the first time I saw this question and now I want to say for me. I guess I want to say my magic and sometimes I use the word superpowers and I think about it as intuitive or psychic gifts. I know things that I'm not necessarily supposed to know in human design terms. I have an open spleen and so I can feel other people's intuitive gifts. And in fact, as I've mentored people with a variety of gifts over the years, I kind of collected them. So mediumship and dream walking. Some clear audience. I don't really have clear voice. I'm not really clear sentence like feeling things and channeling like just receiving messages that I know I've received specific messages for specific people at at times sometimes with clients sometimes with the random people it used to happen a couple of times that happened on dates. And I was like, I'm supposed to tell you this. It feels really awkward and uncomfortable. Is it okay for me to tell you this. And it was very specific to them and things that I didn't know about them in both in these cases, they were people I didn't know very well like first or second dates. And yeah, that's I feel like that's mostly where my personal magic is. I mean, I also have a gift of helping people feel comfortable to be themselves in spaces that I facilitate. There's like a case to be made for that gift coming from you know trauma and being a woman socialized in patriarchy socialized to be of service. So I know there's some overlap sometimes between innate gifts and conditioned ones. But it all I think of it sometimes like how spider man, you know how many superheroes get their powers through a traumatic experience. And that just because it came from surviving a traumatic experience, it doesn't mean the gift isn't real. And I would argue that it's even more real because it's it's birthed a balcony. Oh, that's a cool thought. Yes, exactly. Yeah, maybe not more real, but it's definitely real. Yeah, I've also seen like energy work. I've seen different kinds of magic wheel dead where you know with electricity and with fire with the elements in different ways on smaller or larger scales over the years. I definitely believe in magic and I have an eight and a half year old daughter. And I have raised her to believe in magic. And for her magic is unicorns and mermaids and dragons and superpowers. She in fact is the boss of the founder of the secret club at school, which is for her call her classmates who all believe like she does. And they have created a world together and you can only be in secret club if you're a believer and she as the founder gets to decide who's in or out. And I encourage her. I'm like, go you, you know, like I encourage her to hold on to her truth that this magical world is real. I like to say just because I've never seen a mermaid or a unicorn doesn't mean they don't exist. They have good reasons to be in hiding. And I you know, I say that when I'm defending her to grownups who try to convince her otherwise and also I believe that I believe that magical creatures exist. I believe lots of things are possible that we didn't know was possible. I mean, anytime I've had the privilege of being in the presence of someone with psychic gifts or other magical gifts and seeing them in action. It's or you know, these stories of serendipity, right? Yeah. So it's it's I don't believe it's random. I think it's magic at work in the universe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just think imagine who we would all be and what the world would be like if children were raised to keep believing because so many of the stories that I've heard on this podcast is that I knew I was magic and someone told me I wasn't and I shut down. And then it takes 50 years, you know, but who would we be? Yeah. Okay. Where can our listeners find you and your magic, Kenny? I think the best place is my link tree, because it will take you everywhere else. So that's linktr.e/animaton. And that'll take you to my sumstack called The Priestess is in, and opportunities to work with me one-on-one. I'll make sure there's a link to much and it'll let gifts of the heart, my community on there. Yeah, I think that's the best way. And you can also always reach out to me by email contact at animaton.com. And I would love to. If you hear this and you're like, I kind of want to talk to her, just do. It would make me so happy to get to meet more of my people. Yeah. And not only that, I just think that this is going to open up a lot of questions for people who feel like not served in the way they wish they were served. If they happen to be feminist Jewish by their faith, or by the institution. Yeah. And I work with folks who are not Jewish too. Just there are different sources, resources, and skill sets, and tools in my toolkit, depending on what the need is. And yes, if you're a feminist and/or queer and/or witchy Jew and you're trying to figure out how to do Jewish and be you reach out for sure. Yeah. That was very beautifully put. Thank you so much for being here today. I am so grateful for all your climate energy and wisdom and sharing. Thank you. It's such a pleasure. I'm so glad you invited me. I know we'll get to keep talking. And I'm looking forward to catching up on more episodes of The Witch Hunt Podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing how people receive this too. Thank you. Thanks so much, Ian. Thank you, beautiful, for listening to The Witch Hunt Podcast. We appreciate your presence and are so honored that you're here. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, subscribe, and share it with your friends. One great way to share is by taking a screenshot of the podcast on your phone and posting it on your Instagram story. Please tag us at The Witch Hunt Podcast so that we can help share too. Spreading the word like this will help us to find more witches and to wake more witches. Now you know what it's time to do. Dance it out to the groovy tunes of this, the Daniel, which means I miss you in Spanish. It's by Gama Skys. Till next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]