I am a nerd about names, their meanings, origins, and connections. So it's no wonder that this story is full of names that are meaningful to me.

My priestess name, Tziporah Laila, translates to Singer in the Dark. There’s a pun in it I can’t help loving. I was a professional singer for years before I was ordained, performing in bars and clubs, so the name landed as an alignment between my secular life and my spiritual one.

The truer meaning runs deeper than the pun. Singer in the Dark is about telling the truths that are hard to tell. I have a way of seeing through layers of obscuration to the essence underneath. It’s a gift that’s gotten me into trouble more than once, because I tend to name the thing people don’t want named. A couple of years ago, in a channeled conversation, Lilith confirmed it herself: Laila, Lilith, we are connected. We are night.

When I renamed my community Matanot Lilith, (Gifts of the Night), I was naming something I’d already become. Matanot means gifts in Hebrew, and is a play on my chosen married name, Matan. Lilith shares a root with Laila, which means night (and symbolically, darkness). And what I learned in my Kohenet training, and was reminded of in that conversation with Lilith, is that like light, darkness is a gift. The dark is the womb. The night sky. The soil a seed germinates in before it cracks open and sprouts. The depths of the sea. These are places where healing, growth, and mystery actually happen.

That reminder affirmed what I’d already been doing all along. I’m here offering restorative experiences in intimate circles, tents, and living rooms, countering the push-through culture and the erasure of embodied practice that patriarchy and capitalism have made normative. My work is to gather community in comfortable spaces and sing light into shadows where Goddess and her stories have been hiding, in plain sight, all along. We do this in ways that honour our nervous systems, nourish our bodies, and remind us that Her power is our power.

Long before Lilith was in my community’s name, hers was the first sacred story I ever found that told the truth about what happens to a woman who says no. And the full story might surprise you: yes, she leaves Eden but it’s she who chooses to leave. She is not exiled. She chooses freedom over domination.

The story you already know, and the one underneath it

You’ve probably heard some version of her: the demon, the seductress, the cautionary tale. What most people haven’t heard is that she starts as Adam’s equal, made from the same earth, in the same breath, and the “demon” story only shows up after she refuses to lie beneath him and leaves. That’s the pattern that runs through nearly every reshaped or erased goddess figure I study and sculpt: a woman claims her power, and the story we inherit is designed to make us afraid of our own.

I’ve been studying and sitting with Lilith for over twenty years. She’s the one I know in my bones. I’ve written her a song, painted her, sculpted her, talked with her. My friend and colleague Ruach D’vorah Grenn, founder of the Lilith Institute, co-hosted a podcast about her with me for thirty-two episodes. A poster she designed hangs on my living room wall, reading, “What would Lilith do?” I’ve used that question to guide my spiritual planning for years. Lilith is a guiding goddess and ancestor to me, not just a story.

All of that has lived in public: in songs, in sculpture, in this Substack, in a podcast. Now I invite you into the room where we will actually sit with her texts, together.

What I want to offer with her is study and sharing: reading together, sitting with what unsettles us, letting each other’s readings change what we see. So when I decided to offer a new series of small story and study circles, each one centered on a different figure the patriarchal record tried to reshape or erase, there was never a real question of where to start.

Her Name Is: Lilith

Starting October 14th, I’m running three weekly sessions, 75 minutes each, over lunch, online, moving through who Lilith was in the earliest texts, what was done to her name in the commentary that followed, and who she is now: in the stories being told about her today, and with space to discover how she lives in you.

We’ll open and close each session with chant. There’ll be space to check in, to reflect, to sit with what’s landing. I’ll share some of my own Lilith art, and a song I wrote for her more than twenty years ago. If you want to hear it before the class, it’s here.

This is an invitation to meet her as I have: a guide who asks us to name the truth, even when we’re afraid it will cost us our comfort.

Learn more and register →

Her Name Is: Lilith is the first in an ongoing series from Kohenet Annie Matan and Matanot Lilith. A different goddess, a different reshaped or erased story, each cohort.

P.S. — the piece pictured above, Lilith Mini Goddess, is available to purchase if she speaks to you.

I never have a perfect picture of what she’ll look like when she’s done.

I know the Sacred Feminine wants to be expressed through my hands. Sometimes I know a little more — a piece that wants to be wilder, or feels like community, or is calling for a particular energy. But I keep working until she feels done. Until she becomes who she is meant to be.

I think of it as a collaboration. Between me, the materials, and the Divine.

I have sold pieces at markets, in my living room, on Instagram when someone saw a newly finished piece and claimed her. But this is different. This is the first time I am intentionally gathering a collection and inviting you to bring them home.

It feels like a pivot. A shift from caretaking service to tangible creative expression — from my soul, my hands, my heart. It feels like a calling. And offering it here, to you, I feel tender and terrified and trusting.

Whether or not you are looking to purchase, you are welcome here. The stories of each piece are lovingly and thoughtfully crafted. The teachings and the blessings they carry came through me for all of us.

You’ll notice that not all of these pieces come from Jewish tradition. Some predate it. Some come from other civilisations entirely.

My work has evolved that way. What began as an exploration rooted in Jewish sacred feminine wisdom kept expanding — because She kept expanding. She changes names across cultures and centuries — Inanna, Ereshkigal, Asherah, Venus, Medusa — but the threads are the same. The same grief. The same power. The same beauty. The same invitation to remember.

I’m aware that weaving across traditions is not without complexity. I hold that complexity with care. What I’m honouring is what runs beneath all the names. The current that connects them.

Each of these pieces translates intuition and lineage into tangible form — something you can see, hold, and return to. A presence that carries a blessing and gives it back to you every time you look at it.

Three packages. Nine pieces. Take them in. See who calls to you.

Pieces are available by reply. Canadian orders by e-transfer, US orders by PayPal. Shipping calculated per order. Ontario customers, HST will be added.

PACKAGE 1 — ORACLES | Set: $525

These three know things. They hold what can’t always be named — the grief that lives in the dark, the wisdom people travel to receive, the trust required to follow a path you can’t fully see.

• Ereshkigal mask | glazed speckled stoneware | ~4.5” x 8” | $395

• Devorah Goblet | glazed speckled stoneware | ~6” x 3” | $195

• Full Moon mini goddess | glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

To claim this package, hit reply with “Oracles.”

ERESHKIGAL
Hand-sculpted mask | Glazed speckled stoneware | ~4.5” x 8” | $395

Dark sister of Inanna. She holds what the upper world cannot. Grief, rage, jealousy, the sacred darkness that lives in all of us.

She grieves openly. She asks to be witnessed.

The first mask I ever sculpted without a mold, I didn’t know who she was until she was almost finished. What brought her into focus were the stamps I found for her eyes. Ancient-looking. Coin-like. The moment I pressed them into the clay, I knew they would be copper-glazed and placed over the eyes as the toll paid to cross into the underworld. And that made this piece about Ereshkigal, queen of the Great Below.

I glazed her in the blue-green of throat and heart chakras. The colours of speaking truth from the heart. Because that is what she invites of you.

She comes with a stand, or she can be hung on a wall. She is confronting. Intentionally. An invitation to see the parts of yourself you’ve been told are too much. To recognise them as sovereign, real, and necessary.

To claim her, hit reply with “Ereshkigal.”

DEVORAH GOBLET
Wheel-thrown and hand-built | Glazed speckled stoneware | ~6” x 3” | $195

Queen Bee. Matriarch. Warrior. Prophetess.

The people came to her. For guidance, for wisdom, for the songs that would shape generations.

I built her as a goblet — speckled white stoneware, ancient copper at her sides, a warrior’s triangle at her chest. She is food safe.

Raise her at your Shabbat table, your altar, your kitchen counter. Every time you drink from her, you are drinking a blessing. Of speaking and singing. Of owning your wisdom and your power. Of sharing your gifts with those who find their way to you.

To claim her, hit reply with “Devorah.”

FULL MOON MINI GODDESS
Hand-sculpted | Glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

She is fullness. Harvest. Wild and luminous. Mysterious.

The full moon is when we notice what no longer serves. Letting it go makes space for what does.

She shines — glazed entirely in gold, catching the light like the moon does.

Place her on your altar or anywhere you need a reminder that you are full, you are ready. That you can trust what you cannot fully see. That you can follow the path even in the dark.

To claim her, hit reply with “Full Moon.”

PACKAGE 2 — WILD WOMEN | Set: $225

These three are wild. They refuse to be tamed, contained, or made small by a world that wants them diminished. They are feral and loving and unashamed. They know what they’re worth.

• Medusa mini goddess | glazed Raku clay | ~2.25” x 5” | $95

• Venus mini goddess | glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 4.5” | $95

• Wolf Goddess mini | glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

To claim this package, hit reply with “Wild Women.”

MEDUSA mini goddess
Hand-sculpted | Glazed Raku clay | ~2.25” x 5” | $95

She was vilified. Called a monster. They lied.

Medusa is beautiful. Fierce. Unapologetic. Her hair of snakes tells you that the ancient enmity between woman and serpent didn’t take.

She was violated. She became fierce in her own defence. She took no shit until those who couldn’t abide her power took her down. She lives on in us.

She is an icon for every woman who has survived being made into a monster by those who feared her.

She dares to be seen.

Place her where you need a reminder of your own unapologetic power. Your beauty. Your wildness. The parts of you the world needs right now.

To claim her, hit reply with “Medusa.”

VENUS mini goddess
Hand-sculpted | Glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 4.5” | $95

She is beauty. She is love. And she is brave enough to offer both without condition.

Venus loves as easily as breathing. Even those we feel don’t deserve it. Even ourselves.

Her beauty is every woman. Every body. Every face.

She is glazed in red. Blood. Life. Root. Love at the foundation of everything.

Place her where you need a reminder that love begins with you. That you are worthy of the same fierce, bottomless love you offer everyone else.

To claim her, hit reply with “Venus.”

WOLF GODDESS mini goddess
Hand-sculpted | Glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

Wildness. Instinct. The howl you refuse to contain.

She runs with her pack. She is not meant to be alone. She comes alive in the shadows, in communion with the earth, feral and intelligent, living by her instincts. Strong. A protector.

She broke and was healed — with support, patience and care.

Place her where you need a reminder to call on your pack, get your feet on the earth, howl at the moon, let your instincts rule you. Shake off layers of propriety like water after a doggy paddle in a deep forest glade.

To claim her, hit reply with “Wolf.”

PACKAGE 3 — EARTH, SEA, AND SUN | Set: $425

These three sustain. Through roots, through water, through light — and through joy. They are the forces that keep life going. Ancient. Elemental. Unextinguishable.

• Asherah pillar figurine | glazed speckled stoneware | ~4” x 8” | $295

• Miriam Goblet | glazed speckled stoneware | ~3” x 7.5” | $195

• Sun Goddess mini | glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

To claim this package, hit reply with “Earth, Sea, and Sun.”

ASHERAH
Hand-sculpted | Glazed speckled stoneware | ~4” x 8” | $295

She is the one they tried to erase.

Asherah is the ancient goddess of the Ivrim. The Sacred Feminine to whom my ancestors prayed 2,500 years ago. Tree of Life. Earth. Wisdom. Mama. She is Jewish — even though patriarchal Judaism would rather forget her.

I sculpted her as my take on a Judean Pillar Figurine, the ancient form that started everything for me. On her back, a Tree of Life. A more literal nod to who she is and where she comes from.

She carries the blessing of roots. Of feminist ancestral healing. Of all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and daughters — from before and yet to come — moving through us like mitochondria. Guiding us with their wisdom. Reminding us we were never alone.

We were never alone.

To claim her, hit reply with “Asherah.”

MIRIAM GOBLET
Wheel-thrown and hand-built | Glazed speckled stoneware | ~3” x 7.5” | $195

She spoke up. She celebrated. She sweetened the way.

Miriam never waited for permission. She talked her parents back into each other’s arms. She followed her baby brother down the Nile and kept him tethered to his people. As adults, she stood up to her brother and spoke her truth. She was punished unfairly for it.

She knew there’d be time for joy, so she brought instruments into the wilderness and led the Israelites in dancing and singing on the other side of the sea.

She is a prophetess of water. A well of sweetness followed her through the wilderness, sustaining her people wherever they wandered.

Drink from her as a blessing of clarity and sweetness. The confidence to speak truth to power. And the wisdom to pause for joy with your whole self.

To claim her, hit reply with “Miriam.”

SUN GODDESS mini goddess
Hand-sculpted | Glazed Raku clay | ~2” x 5” | $95

Big Shine Energy.

She is radiant. Commanding. She generates her own light. Takes up all her space. Never plays small. Larger than life.

She can nurture, burn, or blind. She holds the power of life and death and she knows it.

She is the reminder that you are meant to shine bright, stand tall and speak boldly. That you are glorious.

To claim her, hit reply with “Sun Goddess.”

Ready to claim yours? Hit reply with the package name or her name. Canadian orders are processed by e-transfer, US orders by PayPal. Shipping is calculated per order and I’ll confirm the total before we finalize anything. Ontario customers, HST will be added.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you.

Thank you for walking this journey with me — through the rabbinic path I left, the pottery class where She first came through my hands, the ancestors who were making her long before I was born.

I hope something in these pieces, these stories, these blessings, landed for you. I would love to know which ones. Hit reply and tell me — which pieces are speaking to you today?

Whether she comes home with you or simply visits through this post, I am grateful you are here. Each of these pieces is one of a kind. When she finds her home, she won’t be available again. Next week I’ll be back — and if someone is still calling to you, that’s the moment to say yes.

— Annie

And then something cracked open.

Rabbi Jericho showed us the Judean pillar figurines. Small ceramic goddess figures, made by Jewish people in the land of Israel approximately 2,500 years ago. At least a thousand have been found by archaeologists. Most of them are broken.

I raised my hand.

“I’m so excited,” I said. “This is what I’ve been doing for the last eleven years.”

The figurines are mostly broken because someone tried to destroy them. In that class I learned that, in the 7th century BCE, King Josiah criminalised the worship of the Divine Feminine in Judaism. He ordered her sacred objects and spaces destroyed. And yet archaeologists have found so many of these figurines that scholars believe there was at least one in every household. The people kept Her anyway. They refused to let Her go. After Josiah died, the people said he was wrong. They committed to bringing Her back.

The broken pieces are the evidence that She was there.

Rabbi Jericho writes about this history with depth and fire. I invite you to go deeper with them.

Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness

The Menorah is Probably a Goddess Symbol

When I was an ultra-Orthodox kid studying the Hebrew Bible for a couple of hours a day, I learned something that even back then, in a world thick with magic and superstition, struck me as bizarre…

Read more

8 months ago · 21 likes · 3 comments · Jericho Vincent

I looked at those figurines and then at my own work, at the pieces I’ve been making for over a decade, and felt myself inside the current that flows and sings across time. The work of my ancestors, reaching from their hands to mine across 2,500 years.

I had been painting trees of life on… everything (even my body). Making Asherah vessels. Sculpting curvy femme bodies for altars and Shabbat tables. The lineage was already in my DNA, in my body, in the work of my hands. It had been there all along.

After that class, I started practicing the ancient forms intentionally. Pillar bodies. Hands tucked under breasts. Rooted like a tree. I had to experience what my ancestors made.

And then the call came. Louder than before.

“We want to be wilder. Louder. Take up more space!”

So I heeded the call and started making Her wilder.

Bigger. Louder. Purple and teal and deep red and gold. Spiral heads, moon crowns, sun halos. Coils and tendrils and lupine ears. Each one a little more expansive, a little less contained, a little more herself than the last.

She is being reclaimed now. In clay. In colour. In the refusal to be quiet about what we know and who we are.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some pieces available for purchase. Each piece is a tangible representation of that current that sings through us, of where we’ve been and where we’re going. All are one of a kind. When they find their homes they won’t be available again.

We are bringing Her back. We always have been. When I sit with my collection, I feel the truth that She has always been here. And the power we carry in Her legacy, in our bodies, our knowing, our refusal to keep quiet, is exactly what this moment needs.

— Annie

Take a pottery class. Sculpt goddesses.

I had never thought about sculpting before. But in that moment I could see them — forms that felt both human and divine. And I knew they mattered.

And then I just… kept living.

A lot was happening. I was back in Toronto, working in corporate admin, meeting the man I would marry, applying to and finally getting into rabbinic school. Then we got married and moved to Israel to study for a year. When we returned to Toronto in 2013, I started a job in the Jewish community.

For four years I carried that call quietly. I mentioned it to friends sometimes. One day I’m going to take a pottery class and sculpt goddesses. It stayed in the back of my mind like something I knew I hadn’t forgotten.

When the opening finally came, I walked in and did exactly that. While everyone around me was making mugs and teapots and platters, I was sculpting goddesses. In a Jewish space. Using nude self-portrait photos as my model, which I hid under the table as I worked.

I’ve been doing it ever since.

Right now, as I write this, I’m a member of a studio where the shelves are lined with bowls, cups, tall vases. Beautiful, functional, skillfully made. And among them, my femme-bodied goddess figures stand out. They always do.

I chose this studio partly because it’s a Jewish space. That felt important. That felt safe. And still, I find myself navigating that old familiar feeling — goddess imagery in a Jewish context can feel transgressive, even taboo. Even to me. Even now.

This is not a feeling I have resolved. It’s one I keep showing up inside of.

Because the call to do my own thing — the true thing, the strange thing, the thing nobody else in the room is doing — doesn’t come with a guarantee that the discomfort will eventually go away. Sometimes I just get better at trusting it anyway.

Part of why I keep showing up is because I made the thing I wished existed.

A few years ago I created a Havdalah set — a kiddish cup, candle holder, and spice box for the Jewish ritual of separation between sacred and ordinary time. I made them as goddess pieces. Femme-bodied, sacred, explicitly invoking the feminine in a ritual context that rarely does.

I shared them on Instagram. Eventually they found their way to a woman here in Toronto who had been looking for exactly that — Jewish ritual objects designed to invoke the feminine. She came to one of my events. She bought the set. She kept showing up. She’s part of the community now.

That’s what I’m reaching toward when I pick up the clay. Not just making beautiful objects. Making the thing I wished existed so I could meet the people who need it too.

And when the loneliness of being the only one in the room gets loud, I return to a favourite Hasidic teaching I learned from Rabbi Shir Meira Feit.

At the moment we received Torah at Sinai, everyone who was ever meant to receive it — across every place, every time, every soul — was present. Those who came before. Those yet to come. All there, in that moment of revelation.

I think about that when I’m the only one sculpting goddesses.

The priestesses who came before me — the ones who honored the sacred feminine, who kept these forms alive across centuries — they are in the studio with me. And so is anyone who has ever felt like the only one in the room answering a call nobody else could hear.

If this resonates, reply “lost” if you’re in the thick of feeling like the only one in the room.

Reply “found” if you’ve had the experience of arriving in good company.

Feel free to share more about your experience, wherever you are.

You/We are not alone in this room.

— Annie

Hi!

Did you know I wanted to be a spiritual leader from the time I was a child?

For most of my life, rabbi was the only word I had for that. So I pursued it. Through university, through years of study, through an application process that finally landed me in rabbinic school in 2011.

But somewhere along the way, I heard myself describing the experience as “pretzelling myself into a box.” For a long time I thought it was me. I was a bad student. I wasn’t getting it. I kept telling myself it would make sense on the other side, that I just needed to keep going. It took me a while to realize it wasn’t me at all. The box just didn’t fit.

It wasn’t until I started asking harder questions that I understood what was actually happening. I found out that rabbinic ordination would mean I couldn’t officiate interfaith weddings in my hometown of Toronto — one of the things I felt most called to do. My contemporary, progressive instincts about justice and inclusion weren’t enough. They had to be ratified by men who’d been dead for centuries. Through a tradition built by men, for men, and about men.

The word I eventually found for what I was feeling was patriarchy.

And I realized I couldn’t keep twisting myself into a box I would never get out of.

What I hadn’t fully recognized yet was that I already had everything I needed. Years earlier, in 2006, I enrolled in the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, thinking it would be a good precursor to rabbinic studies. I was ordained as a Kohenet in 2009. I had community in Toronto who were already asking me when I would lead Shabbat and Holy Day services. My Spiritual Director helped me see that their recognition of me as their leader was smicha (ordination) “from below” — and that I didn’t need to wait for ordination “from above,” in the rabbinic line.

I left rabbinic school in 2014. And something in me that had been held very tightly began to loosen.

I began to claim my identity as a Kohenet Hebrew Priestess. As a leader and a teacher. I had my community. I had the knowledge that Judaism could be feminist, queer, embodied, earth-based, and completely valid. Kohenet taught me to reach underneath the patriarchal tradition toward something older, truer, and more fully mine.

Maybe you can relate to that feeling. Something you kept trying to prove, or a container you kept reshaping yourself to fit, before you finally asked whether it was ever the right fit for you.

This week, try one small thing that brings you back into your own knowing:

• Notice what your body is telling you, and let it finish the sentence before you edit it

• Touch something real — earth, clay, your own skin — and let that be enough information for a moment

• Think of one woman in your lineage, recent or ancient, and ask what she knew that you might be carrying

If something comes up for you, hit reply. I read everything.

— Annie

It’s been a while since I reached out.

The past few months brought deep changes: my father’s death, illness, the turning of sacred time. Grief and life caught me off guard, and I needed to step away and let things be quiet.

Now, I’m finding my way back—and beginning to re-engage with the work that brings me meaning and connection.

As we settle into the deep quiet of the season, I’m opening up space for a few one-on-one Gifts of Darkness Insight Sessions. These are 60-minute intuitive readings, drawing from Tarot, Oracle, and Human Design. They’re designed to help you reflect on where you’ve been, reconnect to what matters, and receive whatever wisdom this dark season has to offer.

Gifts of Darkness – Insight Session

• 60 minutes via Zoom or phone

• A personal, intuitive session guided by what’s most present for you

• $111 +hst

• Available through December 31

→ Click here to book

Whether you’re craving clarity, ritual, or a reset, these sessions offer a space to pause, listen, and align.

If this feels like something you want to step into, I’d be honored to hold that space with you.

Thank you for being here. I’m grateful to reconnect.

Warmly,

Annie

PS — These sessions also make a meaningful gift. If you’d like to purchase one for a loved one, just reply or message me and I’ll send a giftable booking link.

Beloveds,

I’ve been thinking lately about how often the world asks us to choose sides, be certain, and get it right. But truth isn’t always a straight line. It bends and breaks and evolves. It can hold contradictions. And sometimes, it’s not about being right—it’s about being real.

The prompt was: If it’s true, I tell them…
I thought of my daughter—she’s nine—and all the things I want her to know. What I would actually say out loud. What I believe, even when it’s complicated.

This poem poured out during Always Proud Jewish Queer Creative Writing Camp. It’s a reflection on what I teach, what I’m still learning, and what I wish I’d known sooner: that kindness and meanness are both choices. That making mistakes is inevitable. That healing—and power—start with telling the truth, especially when it’s messy.

This is the kind of conversation we have inside Priestess Power Mentorship—a space where your whole self is welcome: the doubting parts, the fierce parts, the tender parts. If this piece speaks to you, I invite you to read all the way through and see what’s waiting at the bottom.

What Is True?

July 25, 2025 – Always Proud Writing Camp

“If it’s true, I tell them...”

That people are good & kind
That people are mean & cruel
That we’re all trying our best with what we know & what we have

That sometimes the collective wisdom evolves so fast
and we can’t keep up
and we’re wrong before we know it
and a little compassion
from those who have the patience
to help us catch up
can make all the difference.

It’s okay to make mistakes
no one is perfect
and we must still choose
to be kind,

which means listening to each other’s ouches
and to our own
and saying oops when we’ve caused the ouch
and leaning in
offering care & repair
believing each other
giving each other space
to catch up
and choose kindness.

If it’s true, I tell them
some people think you’re kind
and some people think you’re mean
We can do our best
and still be wrong
We can do our best and still be misunderstood

and we can still choose
whether to be mean
or be kind
and to see the world
to see other people
to ask for repair
to participate in repair
to rest
to show up.

We choose
who we are & how we see
We must speak up
for our ouches
and our oopses

And still
some people are kind
and some people are mean
and we don’t always know what is true.

If this poem speaks to the part of you that’s still learning how to live aligned with your truth...
If you’re aching to name what’s real—to yourself, your children, your community—
If you want space to be seen, supported, and stretched in all your holy complexity...

Priestess Power Mentorship is that space.

This is a six-month journey for people who are ready to live from their truth, even when it’s messy. Even when it evolves. Even when it hurts.

Inside this container, we name what is true.
We choose kindness on purpose.
We mess up and begin again—together.

If you want a space where your wholeness is welcome,
where your voice matters,
where your sacred contradictions are not a problem but a path—
I’d love to welcome you in.
👉 Learn more and book a sacred conversation here →

Beloveds,

What happens when grief enters the room—and we’re still parenting, working, supporting others, being supported, trying to live?

In this tender episode of The Priestess is IN, I’m joined by my dear friend, fellow mother, and long-time Red Tent sister, Shira Gellman. Shira is a counselor and coach trained in the NARM model of healing trauma, and she’s recently been walking through the deep terrain of grief after the sudden death of her stepbrother.

We recorded this conversation as we approached Tisha B’Av—the day in the Jewish calendar that holds our communal grief, destruction, and longing. Together, we explore:

• How grief actually moves through us (hint: it’s not about “getting past it”)

• The importance of showing up with and for each other during times of mourning

• What it means to grieve as mothers with young children

• Making space for paradox: babies at Shiva, comfort in discomfort, joy beside sorrow

• Personal and spiritual rituals that anchor us—including a beautiful intergenerational protection prayer you can use right now

You’ll also hear reflections on Jewish mourning practices:

• Shiva (שבעה): The first seven days of mourning after burial, often observed in community with visits, prayer, and shared meals.

• Shloshim (שלושים): The 30-day period after burial, marking a shift from intense mourning toward return to everyday life.

• Minyan (מניין): A quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain communal prayers, often gathered during Shiva to recite Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer.

And we zoom out to the wider grief in our world—collective loss, ancestral trauma, and what it means to stay present in a time of destruction—and how our traditions, our children, and each other can help us hold it all.

If you're grieving right now—someone you love, something precious that’s been lost, or the world as it is—I hope you feel held here. May you remember that your way of grieving is valid. And that comfort, joy, and love do return.

🕯️ Shabbat Nachamu—the Sabbath of Comfort—is coming.
💗 Tu B’Av—the Day of Love—is coming.

And you are not alone.

For further resources on Jewish mourning and end-of-life support, I recommend The Shomer Collective—a beautiful, accessible hub of wisdom, care, and ritual grounded in Jewish tradition.

If you're tender with grief right now—personal, collective, ancestral—I've shared other posts that may offer comfort or companionship. Each includes both writing and audio, so you can read, listen, or do both:

🌀 Grief, Hope, How To — A channeled reflection on grief, rage, and what comes after.
🌫️ Uncertainty — A raw, poetic piece about standing in the unknown and trusting your body to lead.

May these offerings meet you where you are.

With love and tenderness,
Kohenet Annie

🎧 Listen to this episode wherever you get your podcasts or right here on Substack.
💬 I’d love to know what this conversation opens for you—feel free to reply or leave a comment.

When I was 19, I self-published a collection of poems I’d written from ages 8 to 18. I called it Still Not a Butterfly. One poem, written in a moment when the words wouldn’t come, ends with this line:
“Now if only I could draw.”

Decades later, I’ve become the artist that girl longed to be—sculpting goddesses, painting, drawing, creating sacred forms with my hands. And the irony is not lost on me that this piece, born from the prompt “Making art is…” in Stav Meishar’s Always Proud Virtual Creative Writing Summer Camp, is a poem about the years when I couldn’t write.

Some of the artwork I mention here—goddess sculptures, crocheted ritual items, sacred vessels—will be with me this Sunday, July 27, at Menagerie Market in Toronto. If you're nearby, I’d love to see you there.

This is the spiral of art and healing. Of letting go of perfection. Of remembering that even in silence, even in stillness, even in mess—we are making something holy.

With love,
Annie

Making Art is Prayer
Kohenet Annie Matan

Making art is...
what keeps me alive.

I used to paint with words. They'd flow through
my pen, in riotous colour. Somehow carefully &
carelessly chosen at the same time.
Whole, holy, heart-wrenching depictions of life
took shape in metre and rhyme on my page.
It felt effortless & cathartic.

Prayers
Poems
Secret longings
that were both uniquely mine & universally familiar

That was my gift.
My art was my writing.

Sometimes —
well, for years it was often —
words came through with melodies too
and singing them
I vibrated
I was filled up & emptied out
lifted & set back down

the songs of love, heartbreak & Goddess
that came through me
kept me company
when I was desperately lonely
& lost

I did feel God/dess.
She sang
in & through me
I was Her conduit
She was my life force

And then...
The words became elusive

writing became painstaking
I had to pick my way carefully
through my vocabulary
so damn particular about getting the words
just right.

Frustrated with myself,
I stopped looking for them.
My voice grew rusty.
My throat felt stuck shut.

That flow of creativity that animated me
for years—it stopped.
I stopped.

I gave up on fretting over perfectionism
I gave up on writing
It was too much
this pressure I put on myself
to be good
to be right.

And for years
my pen was quiet
I forgot I was an artist
I didn’t count all the other ways
creativity moved through me

silly lyrics for diaper changing pop songs

crocheted sacred objects
in vibrant & textured ribbon yarns

crocheted baby blanket quilts
stitched with yearnings & blessings
of parents & siblings
in their favourite colours

There was a Shabbat morning at the Kallah
when sitting at the back
I beheld a sea of colourful heads
adorned by kippot I’d been custom crocheting
all week.
Each stitch laden with Torah
from every class & conversation
I’d immersed in while my hands
kept busy with hook & ribbon
pulling, catching, looping, building
tiny temples
—each one tailor-made to hiddur a mitzvah
shimmering with elemental blends

earth
air
fire
water

And I didn’t think I was an artist
just hustling to pay for rabbinic school
with the work of my hands
like so many others.

One day,
my hands found their way to clay,
and the words of my broken heart
sang without sound—
offered as medicine from Goddess,
they shaped themselves
into bodies
women’s bodies
curvy women’s bodies
with round bellies, breasts, hips & buttocks

depictions of goddess
in my body
decorated with spiralling trees of life
red & copper, purple & white, brown as earth
they form themselves
through my hands
they play with becoming functional
kiddush cups, candle sticks, tiny vases

or stubbornly resist usefulness
for anything other than devotion on
an altar

they didn’t arrive with stories
or names
they just stand
for priestesses
ancestors
Earth
Goddess

They’ve been unearthed
they’re remembering themselves
through my hands, lumps of clay, brush strokes of glaze

I see them tucked together on my shelf
like little families
and I hear
the voices of my ancestors
chanting prayers from 2,000 years ago
sometimes their words
press against the backs of my teeth

until they pour out
imperfect
in the wrong language
full of awe and yearning

and making art is
letting all of who I am
& who I’ve been
be seen and heard.

and making art is prayer
song
poem
sculpture
blankets
Torah
everything.

Gallery: Making Art is Prayer

Below are a few glimpses of my sacred art—pieces I’ve sculpted, painted, and shaped with intention. Many of these will be with me this Sunday, July 27, at Menagerie Market in Toronto. I’d love to see you there.

Featured in this gallery:

• Asherah Relief – wall piece honoring the Tree of Life and the ancient goddess

• Golden Ribbon Kippah – hand-crocheted head covering from my earlier ritual work

• Cleo – ceramic mask representing solar power and feminine power

• Earth Mama Vase – ceramic sculpture with carved back, evoking rooted feminine energy

• Listen Loudly – original painting inviting deep, sacred listening

• Goddess Kiddush Cups – ceramic vessels that blend function with sacred form

P.S.
If you're feeling disconnected from your creativity or unsure how to find your way back to your voice, you're not alone. This is one of the sacred paths I walk with my Priestess Power Mentorship clients. If you're curious about working together, you're warmly invited to reach out—or explore more here.

In this special episode of The Priestess Is IN, I’m interviewed by my colleague and fellow intuitive, Heather Drummond, about my one-on-one offering: Priestess Power Mentorship.

Heather generously held space for me to speak openly about where this work comes from, what it looks like, and how it supports people—across genders and spiritual backgrounds—to step into lives of greater authenticity, sovereignty, and soul-alignment.

In this episode, I share:

🌀 What it means to be a Kohenet, an ordained Hebrew Priestess, and how I’ve reclaimed Jewish spirituality through a feminist, queer-affirming, embodied lens.

🌀 Why authenticity is the gateway to true power—and how vulnerability is the other side of the same coin.

🌀 The kinds of clients I serve: folks who already know who they are deep down, but haven’t felt safe or supported to claim that identity out loud.

🌀 Why I believe in a choose ease approach—especially in a world that teaches us power must come through hustle, sacrifice, or burnout.

🌀 How I use tools like Human Design, divination, and channeled guidance to help my clients access their intuitive gifts and hear their own soul’s voice more clearly.

About Priestess Power Mentorship

This is a six-month 1:1 spiritual guidance container that starts with a simple question:

“What if you could live your life as your most whole, fully-expressed, divinely-connected self?”

We meet on Zoom, two to four times a month, for 90-minute sessions. Some clients work with me for six months and move on; others have stayed with me for four years or more. And for those curious but not quite ready for a full container, I offer one-off Transformation Sessions as a powerful entry point.

Whether we’re naming a truth you've never spoken out loud, softening internalized shame, or building personal rituals for your spiritual path, this mentorship is always client-led, intuitive, and rooted in deep care.

I’ve worked with psychics, therapists, writers, lawyers, teachers, parents, polyamorous folks, newly-out queer folks, and people at the edges of faith and tradition—all of them finding their way back to themselves.

A Client Once Said...

“I look forward to stepping into this container every time, because I know I can bring my full self—my questions, my magic, my mess—and I’ll be met with clarity, compassion, and truth.”

That’s what this space is for. ✨

Feeling the tug?

If you’re curious, ready, or even tentatively wondering if this kind of spiritual mentorship is for you, I’d love to meet you where you are.

🔮 Book a free Sacred Conversation with me here.
You’ll find all the details—pricing, structure, what to expect—on that page.

Doors are open. And if I’m full, there’s a waitlist.

No pressure. Just an invitation.

With love from the liminal,
💜 Annie

Beloveds,

You may already know me as a Priestess, a poet, a mama, and a ritualist—but I’m also an artist. A maker. A woman who once sat in a pottery class full of students making platters, vases, and teapots, while I shaped sacred bodies from clay, with nude self-portrait reference photos hidden on my phone in my lap.

I was following a call I’d received years earlier: to sculpt goddesses.
That quiet, a little rebellious, deeply vulnerable moment—eleven years ago—was the beginning of my sacred art practice. And I’ve been creating ever since.

I recently made a short Reel to share that story visually. It offers a glimpse of those first pieces and traces the evolution since.

It’s an offering to the Sacred Feminine—and a glimpse into my practice of #bringinggoddessback.

🎥 Watch the Reel on Instagram

And if you feel moved—share it, follow the art over at @sculpting.goddesses, or simply whisper a prayer to the Sacred Feminine, Theminine, or Masculine in and around you. More goddess art work is unfolding every week—I’d love to share it with you.

With love and paint-smudged fingertips,
Annie

Happening this Saturday!

Dear ones,

If you’ve been longing for a Pride space that feels spacious, joyful, and fully affirming — Gifts of the Rainbow is happening tomorrow.

Join us for an all-ages, restorative Pride gathering with:
✨ Activity stations (coloring, books, divination cards, crystals, snacks)
✨ Gentle chanting and sacred song
✨ A special visit from Todah the Sloth Puppet 🦥
✨ Optional picnic in the park

This is Pride with room to breathe. An invitation to pause, restore, and arrive fully in the present moment — grounded in the spaciousness of Shabbat, and open to people of all ages, genders, and traditions.

🗓 Saturday, June 28 | 4–7 PM
📍 Toronto Friends House (60 Lowther Ave.) + Taddle Creek Park

If cost is a barrier, use code COMP when you register.
➡️ Register Here

I would love to share this space with you. 💖

With love,
Annie

🌈 Gifts of the Rainbow

A Restorative Pride Gathering for All Ages

Dear ones,

Pride season is here, and I’m feeling that familiar mix of love, joy, overwhelm, and longing for spaces where we can be fully ourselves — with room to breathe.
This year, I’m offering Gifts of the Rainbow, a Pride gathering that weaves sacred spaciousness, playfulness, and healing into our celebration. I would love for you to join me.

Do you love celebrating Pride — but don’t love loud and crowded?
Do you wish there were spaces to mark Pride that feel cozy, welcoming, and gentle on your nervous system?
Do you believe that people of all ages carry wisdom, beauty, and delight — and that being in intergenerational community is sacred?

Me too. That’s why I’m offering:

🌈 Gifts of the Rainbow: A Pride Gathering
🗓 Saturday, June 28 | 4–7 PM
📍 Toronto Friends House (60 Lowther Ave.) + Taddle Creek Park

In the midst of the joy and glitter of Pride weekend, this gathering on Shabbat offers an invitation to pause, to restore, and to arrive fully in the present moment. To step out of the noise and into sacred spaciousness.

This is Pride for those who want to show up as they are — fully, authentically, and without pressure to perform. A sacred, playful, restorative space to celebrate our queerness, our aliveness, and our community.

What to expect:
✨ Activity stations: coloring, books, divination cards, crystals, snacks
✨ Gentle chanting and sacred song to connect with all genders in ourselves, each other, and the Divine
✨ A special visit from Todah the Sloth Puppet (because even sloths love Pride)
✨ Optional outdoor picnic in Taddle Creek Park (weather permitting)
✨ Freedom to move, fidget, snack, sing, rest, and be your full, beautiful self

This is an all-ages space — babies to elders and everyone in between. Queer, trans, nonbinary, interfaith, neurodivergent, sensory-sensitive, allies — all are welcome.

Accessibility:
🌿 Scent-free space
🧑‍🦽 Wheelchair accessible
😷 Mask-friendly (please respect each other’s preferences)
✨ Sensory-friendly environment
Full accessibility details for Friends House are available here.

If cost is a barrier, use code COMP when you register.
➡️ Register here

✨ And if this kind of sacred, affirming space speaks to you…
Your power isn’t too much. Your tenderness isn’t too much. You are sacred exactly as you are. In Priestess Power Mentorship, we create a space where your truth is welcomed, your healing is held, and your magic has room to unfold. If you’ve been longing for that kind of sacred support, you’re warmly invited.
➡️ Book a Sacred Connection Call here

Come find the kind of Pride that feels like a breath of fresh air.
A healing, joyful space where your full self is welcome.
Gifts of the Rainbow is waiting for you.

This morning, I felt called to write and paint. I sat down and set myself up with my journal and my supplies. I lit a candle. And I asked that the portal be opened. These poems/prayers/and painting are what came through. I offer them to you.

Some blessings for and from the light on this Longest Day. And dreams and blessings of being Divinely carried — for the parts of us that long for ease and support.

These are my offerings. For my little self, my grownup self, and for you.

1. A Poem for Solstice

The longest day
All the light a body can take in
in all the languages light can transmit
beams, rays, soft waves, glow
shine on me
through me
into me
around
above
below
over
under
within
(anywhere a cat sleeps)

bathe me
cleanse me
purify me

I bless the dawn
the day
the high noon
bright 4 o’clock
the blinding orb in the evening
the sun that won’t set
until late
that keeps me up

What do you want to show me?
What do you want me to see?

2. Place Me Gently

I sing to God/dess/xx
of our longing
for salvation
for home
for peace
for rest
for freedom
for remembering
that we are all God/dess/xx.
It is in our hands.
But we feel like children.

I feel like a child
wishing for a compassionate parent
to come & pick me up
to carry me over
rough terrain
thresholds
chasms
all the hard parts
& place me gently
on the other side.

3. Carry Me Up

Carry me up the stairs to bed
I can get there by myself
but the steps are so big
& my legs are so little
& I’m tired
please
just pick me up
hold me close
so I can turn my head
into the warm nook of your neck
I let my thumb find its way into my mouth
I curl my body into you
heavy in your arms
my eyes closed
so I don’t see the dizzying view of railing bars
sliding by beneath me

carry me up
& set me down
gently
in my soft bed
tuck me in
kiss me goodnight
touch my forehead to yours
bless me with sweet dreams
& I love you’s
& stay by my side until
my breath finds its nighttime rhythm
& my body softens into slumber
& my soul dances off to the cosmos
until morning.

4. Just a Thousand Times

Oh Mama / God/dess/xx / Beloved
just a thousand times
I wish you'd hold me
all night long
whispering into the ears of my heart
that I am good
that I am beautiful
that I am loved
that I am yours.

Feel free to share or save if these words resonate for your own prayers or practice.

Share

If you're feeling alone in your growth — longing for someone to walk beside you, to hold space as you untangle, soften, and grow — you're warmly invited into Priestess Power Mentorship, my one-on-one container for sacred, witchy, queer, feminist, God/dess/xx-honouring unfolding. We go gently, deeply, together — into your own becoming.

👉 Book a Sacred Connection call — a free initial conversation to explore whether mentorship together is aligned.

Shabbat Shalom, beloveds.
May this long day’s light carry us gently into rest.

Annie

Location Update: In a fitting twist for a holiday that celebrates journeys, our UnSeder has found a new home! We'll now be gathering near Wellesley station (exact address provided upon registration). Sometimes the universe has its own plans for where our liberation stories unfold…

The Details

• When: Saturday, April 12 (first night of Passover)

• Where: NEW LOCATION Near Wellesley station (address provided upon registration)

• What: A liberation-centered journey through the Passover storytelling tradition

• Registration Deadline: Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12pm

Just a few spots remain for this intimate gathering where we'll reimagine the ancient ritual for contemporary hearts and minds. Our UnSeder creates space for your whole, authentic self—no fragmenting required.

What to Expect

• We progress through the ritual at a leisurely pace, with plenty of time for meaningful conversation

• We start eating at Karpas and continue noshing throughout the evening – no waiting until midnight for dinner!

• Our meal includes both meat and vegan options from Meals from Nancy plus potluck contributions

• We welcome your favorite readings and songs to be shared and unpacked together

• We honour diverse views and feelings in our sacred space

Sliding Scale Options Available

We offer sliding scale pricing options, including a potluck discount for those who prefer to bring food to share. No one will be turned away for lack of funds – for free tickets, please see the coupon code on the registration page.

→ Register Now

Can't make it in person? My recent Substack post offers universal Passover resources, including four reflection questions, a reimagined Sea Crossing, and information about one-on-one mentorship sessions.

In these challenging times, creating intentional space to gather, reflect, and reimagine liberation feels more essential than ever. I hope you'll join us at the table.

With love and anticipation,
Kohenet Annie

Highlights of This Post:

• For Toronto locals: Invitation to our in-person Matanot Lilith UnSeder on Saturday, April 12 (1st night of Passover)

• For everyone, anywhere:

  • Four essential Passover questions for personal reflection or card reading

  • "Sea Crossing in the New Paradigm" - a reimagining of the Exodus story for today

  • Sacred Connection Calls - Schedule a complimentary 30-minute session

  • "Free Your Passover Seder" one-on-one mentorship sessions

As the spring unfolds and we approach the first day of the Hebrew month of Nissan – one of Judaism's four new years! – I find myself drawn once again to the powerful themes of Passover: liberation, renewal, and the journey from narrow places to expansive possibilities. This season marks our entry into both spring and the Passover season, a time of profound transformation in the natural world and in our spiritual lives.

For Toronto Locals: Join Our In-Person UnSeder

I'm excited to invite you to join me for a Matanot Lilith (Gifts of the Night) UnSeder on Saturday, April 12, the first night of Passover – a feminist, queer-affirming, and earth-based journey through the Passover storytelling tradition at my home in Toronto!

This isn't your traditional Seder. For many years, I've developed an "off-book" approach to the Passover ritual, using the traditional Haggadah's framework as a guide while creating a more organic, conversational experience. Rather than reading from a fixed text, we use the Table of Contents of the Haggadah as our roadmap and create our own oral tradition through sharing, discussion, and collective meaning-making. Our UnSeder liberates the ancient ritual from the bonds of the printed page, allowing the story to breathe and evolve as we bring our full selves to the telling.

What makes our UnSeder different?

• We progress through the ritual at a leisurely pace, with plenty of time for meaningful conversation

• We start eating at Karpas and continue noshing throughout the evening – no one goes hungry waiting until midnight for dinner!

• We welcome your favorite readings and songs to be shared and unpacked together

• We create space for diverse views and feelings – your full humanity is welcome at our table

In my family, Passover has always been about going beyond the traditional narrative. My father would create a social justice Haggadah each year, cutting and pasting from various sources – first literally with scissors and glue sticks, later with photocopiers, and eventually digitally – to create something uniquely relevant to our time and community. His sources included folk songs like "The Times They Are a-Changin'," traditional and contemporary poems and prayers, and even Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. My brother deepened this practice by teaching me to tell the WHOLE story, including the uncomfortable parts where our ancestors, having escaped oppression, went on to displace others from their homes.

Over the years, my approach to Passover has been further enriched by teachers from the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, feminist Jewish scholars, earth-based spiritual practitioners, and contemporary liberation movements who have shown me ways to weave ancient wisdom with present-day consciousness. This tapestry of influences shapes our UnSeder experience.

A Sacred Space for Your Whole Self

Matanot Lilith gatherings create spaces where tradition and innovation dance together, where darkness reveals its gifts, and where rest and celebration fuel our work for justice.

Have you ever sat in a religious gathering feeling that crucial parts of yourself needed to be hidden or diminished? Perhaps your queerness, your feminist perspective, your love of Israelis AND Palestinians, your neurodivergence, or your desire for more embodied spiritual practice?

Our UnSeder welcomes your whole, authentic self – no fragmenting required.

Food That Nourishes Body and Soul

Our meal will be a beautiful mix of catered dishes from Meals from Nancy (including both meat and vegan options) and potluck contributions. The catered food will be made with kosher-for-Passover ingredients, though not prepared in a kosher-for-Passover kitchen.

We offer sliding scale pricing options, including a potluck discount for those who prefer to bring food to share. All the food is for everyone and no one will be turned away for lack of funds – for free tickets, please see the coupon code on the One Table registration page.

For full details and to register, visit our One Table listing.

For Everyone, Anywhere: Passover Resources and Connection

Whether you're in Toronto or anywhere else in the world, whether you celebrate Passover or simply resonate with its themes of liberation and renewal, the following offerings are for you.

The heart of Passover lies in its invitation to place ourselves within the story of transformation. In 2022, when unexpected illness led me to cancel my seder with friends and celebrate a solo "UnSeder," I reflected that this wasn't diluted Judaism, but distilled Judaism – capturing the essential questions that have animated this holiday for millennia.

These four questions can serve as powerful prompts for reflection, whether through journaling, meditation, or divination practices like tarot or oracle cards. Set aside some quiet time as we approach this season of renewal to explore:

Four Questions for Your Passover Journey

(Perfect for journaling or a card reading practice)

1. Where have you felt stuckness, narrowness, or bondage in the past year? (Where is your Mitzrayim—your narrow place?)
   

2. Where have you felt expansiveness or what expansiveness are you moving towards? (What is your Midbar—your wilderness of possibility?)
   

3. What remnants, patterns, or parts of yourself are you leaving behind to move forward freely? (What are you willing to let go of in order to cross the sea?)
   

4. What dream or vision are you evolving towards? (What is your Tzion—your destination of hope?)
   

These questions invite us to personalize the ancient Exodus narrative and find ourselves within it – moving beyond abstract concepts to discover how liberation manifests in our own lived experience. The journey from slavery to freedom isn't just historical; it's happening within each of us, right now.

Reimagining Our Crossing: A New Way Forward Together

One of the most dramatic moments in the Exodus story is the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. In the traditional telling, the Israelites find themselves trapped between Pharaoh's army and the sea – a seemingly impossible situation with no way forward.

In 2020, I channeled a different vision of this pivotal moment, one that speaks to our contemporary needs:

"We are journeying... And finally, I'm finally learning this new way, this way called Freedom! I take with me what I need: Drums. Easy Food. My community. And when I think: Ah, I'm finally out! I find myself between a rock and a hard place. Or maybe between an army of Egyptians and the sea... And it feels like this sea of Unknowing is a great chasm that may be impossible to cross."

But then comes the revelation:

"The new way is to stand at that shore and open our eyes. And look to your left. And look to your right. And look behind you. Look at all these faces. And realize no one does it alone, EVER. We are not being called to step forward alone anymore...We have to do it together."

This vision—where no one drowns, where we all make it safely to the other side, where we "arrive and arrive wave after wave after wave and hand by hand pulling each other up into the new world of our dreams"—represents the heart of my belief in liberation work. It offers a template for a web of mutual support where we lift each other up and ensure no one is left behind.

Watch the full "Sea Crossing in the New Paradigm" video on YouTube

Creating Your Own Sacred Connection

Sacred Connection Calls: I'm offering a limited number of complimentary 30-minute sessions for anyone who:

• Feels spiritually disconnected from traditional Jewish spaces that don't embrace your full identity

• Is navigating spiritual life as a queer and/or polyamorous person

• Struggles with religious traditions that seem at odds with your feminist or earth-honoring values

• Desires rituals that honor your whole self without compromising who you are

These moments of transition are the perfect time to realign with what truly nourishes you and explore how your spiritual practice might better reflect your authentic values and lived experience.

→ Book your Sacred Connection Call

"Free Your Passover Seder" Mentorship: One-on-one support to co-create a Seder that feels aligned with your values and needs. Whether for online or at-home Seders, for your community, your young kids or teens, or grandparents, I will provide you with resources and advice to make this Seder feel easy and meaningful.

→ Learn more and book your session

Holding Hope in Complicated Times

In this era of rising fascism, anti-semitism, transphobia, and deepening polarization within our communities and families, the ancient Passover story speaks with renewed urgency. Our freedoms - hard-won over generations - feel increasingly precarious. The sea before us seems wider, the armies at our backs more threatening.

Aligned with The Chapter 9 Project from The Shalom Center, I believe our liberation doesn't require others' destruction. Our perceived enemies don't have to drown for us to be free. We can rewrite these narratives together, even when we don't all agree. Our stories and our tables may hold complication and contradiction. But with intention and care, they will also hold hope and reminders of our connection to each other - the opportunity to always start again, try again, love again, and free everybody along the way.

May this season of liberation bring us collective courage to face these challenging times. May we find the strength to cross the sea together, supporting one another as we journey toward the more just world we know is possible.

Beyond this Passover season, our work of creating liberation-centered community continues. Women are always welcome to join our new and full moon red tent circles, and everyone is invited to subscribe to the Matanot Lilith calendar on Luma to be notified when new events go live and are open for registration.

With love and devotion,
Kohenet Annie

Trying On New Identities: The Power of Costume Play

Before our storytelling began, we created a vibrant costume station and modelled our crowns, masks, capes, butterfly wings, flowers, superhero accessories, and even chain mail! This wasn't just for fun (though it certainly was that!) - it connected deeply to Purim's tradition of disguise and the holiday's themes of hidden and revealed identities.

Participants of all ages delighted in trying on different personas, experimenting with how it felt to embody different characters and energies. We took photos throughout, creating opportunities to reflect on how each new costume element shifted not just our appearance but our feelings and even how we moved through the space.

These transformations became a physical manifestation of our discussion about masks, both literal and metaphorical, and how we present different aspects of ourselves in different contexts.

Through costume play, we explored firsthand how it feels to both conceal and reveal different parts of ourselves.

A Feminist Retelling: Finding Our Collective "NO!"

The heart of our gathering was a co-created, feminist retelling of the Purim story that introduced new traditions reflecting our values. Instead of the conventional practice of booing only at Haman's name, we made noise at any harmful behaviors mentioned in the story, regardless of who perpetrated them – a subtle but powerful shift that acknowledged that oppression comes in many forms and sometimes from unexpected directions.

Perhaps the most powerful moment came when we connected to Queen Vashti's experience of being told by King Ahashverosh to dance for his friends – something that didn't feel right in her body. Together, we all channeled our inner Vashti and let out our loudest, most emphatic "NO!!!" We covered our ears and screamed and stomped and banged. Everyone, young and young-at-heart, joined in with their voices and/or bodies. It felt so GOOD. One participant later shared that this moment was the highlight of the event for her – a healing experience for her inner child who had not felt free to express and protect her boundaries.

All Ages, Fully Engaged

What struck me most was how the space held everyone's attention and energy. No one needed to sit still or be quiet – a refreshing departure from many religious gatherings. Children and adults alike tried on costumes both before and during the storytelling, asked questions, offered insights, and fully participated in the unfolding narrative.

One father commented afterward that I somehow managed to keep a room full of people of all ages "raptly attentive and engaged for a long time." When I asked the adults if they got what they needed from the story too, they offered a resounding "yes" – confirmation that multigenerational spaces can be deeply meaningful for everyone when designed and facilitated with both playfulness and intention.

Ancient Stories, Modern Parallels

Our retelling wove contemporary issues into the ancient narrative, drawing thoughtful parallels between figures like Musk and Trump and the unchecked power of Haman and Ahashverosh.

The Purim story, though ancient, remains painfully relevant today—not just for Jewish people, but for trans, migrant, and racialized communities who continue to face systemic oppression. As we recognized these ongoing struggles, our community responded with an enthusiastic collective 'boo,' reminding us that raising our voices against injustice is both an ancient and a modern act of resistance.

I also compared the more ancient narrative of Lilith, Adam, and Eve to Vashti, Ahashverosh, and Esther – highlighting two stories where women who stood up to their "husbands" had to leave and were replaced by women who were supposedly more docile but went on to use their power to effect immense change. This connection elicited thoughtful nods and cheers for these powerful female figures, demonstrating how these ancient stories still resonate with our contemporary experiences.

Hamantaschen: Cakes for the Queen of Heaven

No Purim celebration would be complete without hamantaschen! These triangular cookies, traditionally representing the villain Haman's hat (or ears or pockets), were abundant at our gathering. But we also explored their possible ancient connections to "cakes for the Queen of Heaven" – treats once offered to goddess figures in pre-monotheistic times and, embracing International Women's Day, we also acknowledged that they're shaped like vulvas!

The delicious cookies, purchased from local baker Present Bread, included gluten-free options ensuring everyone could partake in this sweet tradition.

For Those Seeking Ritual That Honors Their Whole Self

Have you ever sat in a religious gathering feeling that crucial parts of yourself needed to be hidden or diminished? Perhaps your queerness, your feminist perspective, your neurodivergence, or your desire for more embodied spiritual practice?

The response to our Purim gathering reinforced something I've observed again and again: many of us are hungry for spiritual spaces that welcome our full humanity—where we can explore tradition while also reimagining it for our modern lives and complex identities.

I've witnessed the visible relief on people's faces when they realize they can ask questions, move their bodies, express doubts, and bring their authentic selves to our gatherings. The collective energy shifts when participants recognize they don't have to fragment their identities to participate in spiritual community.

This is exactly why I created Matanot Lilith and why my work as a Kohenet Hebrew Priestess focuses on creating containers that honor the whole person—including aspects of ourselves that traditional religious spaces often ask us to minimize or hide. There's a profound healing that happens when our spiritual expression aligns with our lived experience rather than contradicting it.

Creating Your Own Sacred Connection

If you're feeling called to explore what a more authentic, embodied approach to spirituality might look like for you, I'm offering a limited number of Sacred Connection Calls throughout March. These complimentary 30-minute sessions are for those who resonate with any of these experiences:

• Feel drawn to reclaim your relationship with Jewish tradition and/or the divine feminine

• Are navigating spiritual life as a queer and/or polyamorous person

• Desire rituals that honor your whole, authentic self without compromising your values

During our call, we'll explore your unique spiritual journey and discuss how personalized guidance, ritual design, or creative spiritual practice might support your path forward.

→ Book your Sacred Connection Call:
Let's explore how spirituality can be a source of liberation rather than limitation.

Looking Forward: Join Us for Passover

Purim reminded us of the power of play, resistance, and reclaiming tradition. As we look ahead to Passover, we’ll continue exploring liberation—both personal and collective.

Matanot Lilith (Gifts of the Night) continues to create Toronto's feminist, queer-of-centre, mystical, spiritual community through a Jewish lens for folks of all backgrounds. Our gatherings aim to create spaces where tradition and innovation dance together, where darkness reveals its gifts, and where rest and celebration fuel our work for justice.

If you missed this gathering, save the dates for these two exciting Passover events coming up:

• Passover Playshop for all ages on April 5

• Passover Seder for adults and babes in arms on April 12

Women are always welcome to join our new and full moon red tent circles, and everyone is invited to subscribe to the Matanot Lilith calendar on Luma to be notified when new events go live and are open for registration.

Share Your Experience

I'd love to hear from you: When have you experienced a moment of saying "NO" like Vashti, or finding your voice like Esther? How have you reclaimed ancestral traditions in ways that honor your authentic self? Reply to this email or leave a comment—your story matters to this community.

Special thanks to all who contributed costumes, snacks, and most importantly, your wonderful presence that made this space so vibrant and meaningful.

With love and devotion, Kohenet Annie

P.S. If the themes of feminist retellings, embodied ritual, and reclaiming tradition resonate with you, consider forwarding this newsletter to a friend who might also be seeking a spiritual home that welcomes their whole self.

I'm thrilled to share this personal narrative poem that will be featured in an upcoming anthology from Girl God Books. This piece traces my spiritual journey as a Kohenet Hebrew Priestess and my reconnection with the divine feminine within Judaism.

To call you in, I sing, “Oh Mama, show me what’s in my heart…”

I feel You reply, “What’s in your heart is what’s on your heart.”

I place my hand on my chest, on top of the tattoo that was finished just weeks ago, and it reminds me that You’re right here.

You’ve been with me all along.

You’ve seen my seeking, questing, wrestling devotion.

I’ve been finding my way back to You my whole life. For lifetimes.

I have had dreams of lives spent as different priestesses, witches, wise women

Devoted to the sacred feminine

Serving Goddess through serving Her people

In loving communities

Or more often, in suspicious ones that shunned Her and me, by association.

Then I found myself in this life.

Raised in a Reform Jewish family in Toronto.

Growing up the only kid in my class who loved religious school.

I loved the artifacts of my tradition – my dad’s silver filigree siddur, the menorah collection on the piano in the dining room, the mezuzah on the front doorpost.

And I loved singing in synagogue! I joined the kid’s choir and revelled in the glorious harmonies we got to sing at Friday night services.

When I got a little older, I asked the rabbi why the liturgy only mentioned God as Father, King, Lord, and Master.

He said, “it’s not written for You.” His words repelled me from Jewish community for years after.

In my self-imposed exile, I found You in music.

You flowed through me in unexpected sanctuaries – On stage at Lula Lounge, where my songs of love and heartbreak became prayers.

You awakened Ancient rhythmic rememberings in my womb and bones when I danced to drummers on the streets of Kensington Market.

You scried with me in the pages of novels about druidic priestesses that were a portal into my lost home.

I started to write a song about my calling to holiness and got stuck at “I feel God.” I sang my yearning for You on the streets of Toronto – in bus shelters, in the tiny living room of my basement bachelor apartment. I sang the same verse and chorus over and over and couldn’t find the next verse, the next part of my story.

Until… I took an office job at a Jewish education program for kids in the wilderness of Connecticut.

I met You there.

After a hike, late one night, You walked with me through the tree-lined entranceway, in the dark.

And there, I finally heard You loud and clear. "God" also became "Goddess" on my lips, and the song transformed just as I was transforming. A door was opened and the next part of my song poured out, whole. “I hear Goddess in the katydids. I hear Goddess like my mothers did.”

My skin twitched at those words because they rang true but the mothers who raised me were not the mothers I was singing about. I had a new awareness of my ancient mothers - priestesses and prophetesses.

And more songs came. I sat with You on a bench by the lake, paced with You in a beige yurt, hiked with You up a yellow trail to a breathtaking overlook. I felt You just enough to sing of my yearning. And my awakening.

Then, You brought the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess institute to me.

The retreat center that was host to the institute merged with the one where I worked just one week after I arrived. In a flurry of synchronous events, I embraced this path my feet had found even before I knew where to look.

I entered my training to become a Kohenet Hebrew Priestess.

There, I finally learned to pray Your names: Goddess, Shechinah, El Shaddai, Mother, Queen, Tree of Life. And praying in the feminine, I learned to sing myself into the prayers of my ancestors and tradition, crossing that bridge of longing that stretched back for eons.

I found myself at home in Judaism for the first time.

Finally included, finally mirrored.

You and me. Seen, heard, held in Jewish community.

I journeyed along and immersed myself in Your 13 priestessing pathways.

You wove yourself into my life beyond my training with ease.

I painted, wrote poetry, led prayers.

I shared You everywhere I went –

In a moon lodge we built together in the forest outside Falls Village, women gathering for ritual in sacred space.

On a crowded Brooklyn living room floor, voices rising in harmony as we welcomed Shabbat together, passing prayers and melodies back and forth along with the challah, hummus, brown rice, and roasted vegetables.

In a circle of women in a Somerville park under the summer sky, teaching my "Oh Mama" chant at an intimate Tu B'Av celebration.

In a Toronto apartment dubbed "The Funhouse," where each month, women gathered to welcome the new moon with song, art, and sacred witnessing.

On stage at Jerusalem Comedy Basement's open mic nights, singing songs of the Sacred Feminine in a dim bar, from a stage ringed by seminary students and soldiers on worn couches and wobbly tables.

Proclaiming myself Your priestess was not always welcomed.

Like my ancestors before me, I showed up bravely in Your name.

In Jewish boardrooms where I was called an idol worshipper.

In Rabbinical school, where the pressure to adhere to the norms and teachings designed by men for men and about men felt like pretzelling myself into a box.

In Seminary, where my friends “accidentally” called me “princess” instead of “priestess.”

Even when a rabbi colleague earnestly asked me at her kitchen table, “do You have to call Yourself clergy? Do You have to call it smicha?”

I never left You behind.

And the more I shared You, the more I came to life.

I filled my world with trees of life:

I blessed my walls in a new home by painting 10 sephirot on spiral branches, hidden under two thick coats of paint in my first red room.

When I got engaged, my wooden ring was decorated with curly branches made of protective tourmaline.

I puzzled together a giant, white, tree decal and named it the “placenta tree of life” on my daughter’s wall in my “womb room”.

I etched and glazed swirling trees into the curvy-bodied sculptures I formed from clay to remind me of my own divinity.

You are on my living room curtains, on altar stones, on the covers of notebooks and journals.

And finally, on my body. You are the Torah on the parchment of my chest.

An As-Above-So-Below, reversible tree of life, tattooed front and centre, on my heart.

I longed for this tattoo for over a decade, and I didn’t really know why.

It took three artists, three sittings and more than a year before my return, my reclamation was complete.

I saw You imprinted there and declared, "I am a Priestess of Asherah!"

A knowing flashed through my ribcage – the same sacred mark my ancestors bore, proclaiming devotion across generations.

I'm priestessing out loud now.

Ready. Holy. Carried by ancient voices. Yours. Mine. Whole.

This piece will be published in the upcoming Girl God Books anthology, Asherah: roots of the mother tree, scheduled for 2025. I'm honored to be included among the voices celebrating the divine feminine in this collection.

For those interested in learning more about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, you can visit kohenet.org.

What has your journey with the sacred feminine been like? I'd love to hear your stories in the comments below.

About the author: Kohenet Annie Matan is a Hebrew Priestess and multidisciplinary artist who channels the divine feminine through writing, music, visual arts, and ritual leadership. Her creative practice spans ceramics, painting, fiber arts, singing, and poetry—each medium becoming a vessel for sacred expression. Annie's work weaves together ancient tradition with contemporary spiritual practice, inviting others to experience the sacred feminine within Judaism and beyond through her rituals, artwork, and spiritual guidance.

Connect with Kohenet Annie's Work

Our "Purim Playshop: Masks, Power & Cakes for the Queen" is happening THIS SATURDAY!

📅 Saturday, March 8 ⏰ 3:30-5:30 PM 📍 Near St. George Station

A few friendly reminders:

• Feel free to bring costume pieces to share

• Hamantaschen will be provided (including GF options)

• All ages welcome and encouraged to participate

• No one turned away for lack of funds (code: COMP)

Can't wait to celebrate with you!

Register and get all the details here if you haven't already: https://lu.ma/w2db2yol

Questions? Just reply to this message.

Joyfully,

Kohenet Annie

Dear Friends,

I'm excited to invite you to our upcoming Purim celebration on Saturday, March 8 (which happens to coincide with International Women's Day this year!). We'll be gathering from 3:30-5:30 PM near St. George Station for a unique exploration of this joyful holiday.

Purim Playshop: Masks, Power & Cakes for the Queen

This year, I've been reflecting deeply on the themes of Purim that feel especially resonant right now: the power of masks (both literal and metaphorical), the shifting nature of power itself, and the ancient connections between our traditional hamantaschen and "cakes for the Queen of Heaven."

What better day than International Women's Day to celebrate the powerful women archetypes in the Purim story? We'll honor Queen Vashti who said "No" to exploitation, and Queen Esther who found her voice and used her position to save her people.

Did you know that Purim is traditionally a day to wear costumes and play with gender representation? We're encouraging folks of all genders to explore their inner queens!

• What we'll be doing together:

• Trying on different masks, crowns, and costume elements (and reflecting on how it feels to "wear" different identities)

• Sharing the Purim story through multiple perspectives

• Enjoying delicious hamantaschen (gluten-free options will be available!)

• Singing songs that celebrate transformation and hidden truths

• Relaxing in our cozy book nook and coloring station

This gathering is truly for everyone – whether you're bringing children or coming on your own, you'll find meaningful ways to connect with the holiday and our community. All ages, faiths, backgrounds, and abilities are welcome in our circle.

If you'd like, bring along:

• Costume pieces to share in our communal dress-up station

• Your favorite hamantaschen (with ingredient list noted)

• Your playful, curious spirit

The exact address will be provided upon registration, but we'll be meeting near St. George Station.

As always, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. If the sliding scale pricing is beyond your means, please use coupon code COMP when registering.

I hope you'll join us for this special afternoon of celebration, reflection, and community!

Warmly,

Kohenet Annie

Register here

Matanot Lilith is Toronto's feminist, queer-of-centre, witchy spiritual community through a Jewish lens for folks of all backgrounds. Our gatherings create spaces where tradition and innovation dance together, where darkness reveals its gifts, and where rest and celebration fuel our work for justice.

Post Oct 7 note: This space is for you if you believe in the humanity of all. As an Israel-loving Jew, advocating for safety and sovereignty for Israelis and Palestinians, it's important to me to offer a space that can hold nuance and a lot of compassion. Matanot Lilith gatherings include folks across a spectrum of backgrounds and perspectives. Grief and hope are welcome.