I am a Priestess of Asherah

My journey to Her and my calling

I am a Priestess of Asherah

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.

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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.

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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.