“It doesn't matter if we are the midwives of a new life sustaining world or hospice workers for a dying planet, the work is the same.” —Joanna Macy
Hi, I’m Naomi.
I was born into an intensely patriarchal, ultra-orthodox Jewish community, and grew up completely segregated from mainstream society. Though challenging the established order was considered heretical, I found myself wrestling with big philosophical, religious, spiritual, and cultural questions. I eventually left my family and community, and gave up all religious observance. I spent years backpacking alone in Asia and Latin America searching in earnest. I spent time in Buddhist monasteries, Hindu temples, Amazonian malokas, Native American tipis and sweat lodges. I rejected tribal isolationism, and embraced multiculturalism, and formed meaningful connections with people from around the world. After returning to the States, I trained in a vast array of healing arts, got ordained as minister, and certified as a celebrant. I’ve spent the last decade officiating weddings and funerals for people of all colors, cultures, countries and creeds. I believe, above all, in our inherent oneness, and I devoted my ministerial career to reanimating the sacred inter-connectivity of all life without the overlay of doctrine, dogma and deities. However, the pogrom in Israel on October 7th and the rampant rise in antisemitism that followed changed the blueprint of my soul. It has been a rude awakening, but also a powerful initiation. In this fraught moment on the planet I aspire to be a voice of truth, love, clarity and sanity. I believe that ideological orthodoxy, religious fanaticism, misogyny and patriarchal dominance in every sector and sphere is responsible for much of our collective suffering and societal and ecological collapse. It is time for women to lead in concert with nature. I am here to participate in that great re-balancing with as much grace, humility, creativity, benevolence, trust and passion as I can.
“When the first chakra is disconnected from the feminine Earth, we can feel orphaned and motherless. The masculine principle predominates, and we look for security from material things. Individuality prevails over relationship, and selfish drives triumph over family, social and global responsibility. The more separated we become from the Earth, the more hostile we become to the feminine. We disown our passion, our creativity, and our sexuality. Eventually the Earth itself becomes a baneful place. I remember being told by a medicine woman in the Amazon, do you know why they are really cutting down the rain forest? Because it is wet and dark and tangled and feminine.” —Alberto Villoldo
My work lives at the crossroads of ritual and writing. I offer expertise in ceremony, thresholds, rites of passage, dark nights of the soul, initiations, the ancient art of anointing, and more. Lately, I’ve been devoting time and energy to writing about antisemitism—a labor of both love and necessity in a time of rising Jew hatred. This work is unpaid, but vital. If my words have moved, helped, or challenged you—and you’d like to support me in continuing—this is a beautiful place to do so. Every contribution helps me keep going.