Kohenet Elana (Nahar Dinur: River of Fire) is a songwriter, musician, prayer leader, ritualist, and earth educator with roots in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. She is currently in the process of recording and releasing her catalogue of original music, with music available on all streaming platforms and for purchase on Bandcamp. Elana is available to hire for embodied and earth-based prayer services, shabbatons, concerts, community songcircles, and even voice lessons. Follow her on Instagram @elanatreestar and @river.of.fire and on Spotify for her music.
Rachel Dale
I/Thou
I tend the ragged edges of people's lives based on decades of experience with dying, death and grieving. I am a regular participant in the Kohenet Chachamot (Wise Women) group, in which we share and learn from each other's life wisdom. My understanding of sacred text and my ritual activity are constantly renewed by the insights of Toratah (the Regendered Tanach) in which the feminine is central to Creation and our relationship with the Creator (Tehovah: the Next Present Moment).
Rinah Rachel Galper
she/them
Rinah Rachel Galper, founder of Joyoushout, is an ordained Kohenet and Maggid, change maker and community connector, coach and healer, JEDI (Justice Equity Diversity Inclusion) consultant, educator, and writer. She specializes in supporting all who work for liberation and love at the intersection of spirituality, justice, healing, and creativity. Rinah is a queer, Jewish, lower middle class, neurodivergent, magic making woman of Russian Jewish ancestry in recovery from addition and trauma who has dedicated her life to co-creating communities and relationships rooted in and driven by our shared needs for love, care, joy, wonder and wisdom, beauty, creativity, dignity, and justice. She is a passionate believer in creating microcosms of the world we wish to live in and leave to our descendants. Joyoushout offers the following: - ongoing individual coaching sessions to engaged folks needing support during major life transitions, - consulting for white identified companies and organizations seeking to engage in reparations work, - enrichment classes for youth K-12 through its Change Makers programs and 1:1 tutoring, & - ongoing adult gatherings and retreats at "The Spot", our new space in Durham, NC (with virtual options). Joyoushout is also working in partnership with the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro to create a Durham/Chapel Hill branch of the statewide Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission and is in the process of creating a community support collective comprised of service providers committed to offering equitable access to a wide array of services in our local communities and beyond. For more information on joining us or for a free consultation, please contact Rinah at joyoushout@gmail.com or 646 241-7555.
Mei Mei Miriaym
Mei Mei is a maggid of mayim chayim, living waters, and a charash, a shape shifter, reshaping wood into yads, and consciousness through storytelling, teaching, empathic traveling, and fiction writing. A priestess of the Yoruba deity of fresh water Osun since 1992, Nigeria is my other home. A Hasid at heart, a Bay Fall, too. A gosheret gesharim, a bridge builder, and a shomeret, a guardian, of trees, plants, water, people and other animals. An anthropologist of religion, and teacher of Africana studies with particular interests in genders, religions and arts. The maggid of my shul. Co-edited Osun Across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas, and numerous articles about Yoruba religion. Writer of a Jewish mystical lesbian historical novel, The Lioness on the Ark, as well as an ongoing series of midrash on Animal Judaism. Water is medicine, and people are medicine, including the furry, scaled, leafed, winged and web footed. Ire, ire, ire, ire, ire-o!
Janet Devorah Danforth
Janet is a social worker and chaplain, with Master's Degrees in Social Work, Religious (Jewish) Studies, and Bioethics. She is currently working in a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Chapel Hill, NC, officiating at funerals and creating other bereavement rituals. Her heart is especially open to bikur cholim (visits) with Holocaust Survivors. jdanforth@gmail.com
Elyza Halev
Elyza is granddaughter of Russian & Polish immigrants, she seeks to tap the wisdom of her well-ancestors, who on both sides come from the tribe of Lavi. Her proudest moments and deepest challenges have been in the joyous project of mother to Avishai, Davida and Shoshana, now young adults all, along with her partner Jeff. Her past work in public health informs her community organizing and she serves as Jewish educator and artist. Currently she is at work on her next project - the creation of Beit Ohr-Lev b’Derekh, Home to the Light in the Way of the Heart, a space for working through craft, prayer and divination to tap deeply into the source of the Divine to discover and trust in our true path for this one sweet life we have been given.
Celia Strickler
Aly Evershyne
she/her
Ahava Lilith evershYne (“ALY”) is an Activist & Artist, Full-Loving Heart-ist, Circle Caster, Reiki Master, Healing Healer, Radical Cheerleader, Keeper of Gates, Reader of Fates, MeowMama & MagicK Maven, Hostexx of a Faery Haven, Wiccan and Hebrew Priestexx, Feminist Eclectic Witch, Singer, Songcrafter & enChantrix, JEWitch Coven Founder & Facilitatrix, Ritualist and Liturgist, Midwife of Blooming Bliss, Chronically Sick Chick, Twisted Sister & LUNAtic, Fabulous Faery, Loving Partner of Larry, Word Weaver, Blessed Believer, Faery G!ddUs Mother, MamaEarth Lover, Spiritual-Journey Guide, Womxn-Who-is-Fully-Alive!