Taya Mâ

Taya Mâ (@tayatransforms) plays passionately in realms of transformative ritual, embodied vocalization and ancestral reverence. She is co-founder, with Ibrahim Baba, of Makam Shekhina multi-religious Jewish & Sufi community. She is co-founder and Rav Kohenet of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, co-author of The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership, and serves as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Organic Multireligious Ritual at Starr King School for the Ministry, training emergent clergy across faith traditions.

Taya Mâ hosts the Jewish Ancestral Healing podcast and offers online courses including Embodied Presence, Jewish Ancestral Healing and Pleasure as Prayer through Kohenet Virtual Temple, an online school open to all. She co-founded Al Kahina - Jewish, Sufi & Amazigh sacred journeys in the Maghreb. Taya Mâ’s Hebrew Goddess chant albums — This Bliss, Wild Earth Shebrew, Halluyah All Night and Torah Tantrika — have been heralded as “cutting-edge mystic medicine music.”

Issa Effendi Chishty

Sheikh Issa Effendi Chishty is the son and successor of Pir Ibrahim Baba in the Ajmeri Chishti and Qadiri Sufi lineages and serves Atesh-i Ashk Sufi community based in Turkey (Konya & Istanbul) and in the California Bay Area. Sheikh Issa Effendi has spent over a decade studying Turkish Classical music, and Sufi music in the centuries-old Sufi lodges of Istanbul. His voice and vision can be found on the gorgeous new album Ilahis of the Atesh-i Ashk Community.

Yael Schonzeit

Yael Schonzeit is a devotional musician, Hebrew Priestess, and scholartivist endeavoring to live in service to beauty and collective healing. She currently resides in the SF Bay Area / Ohlone territory where she priestesses at the intersections of justice, healing, art, spirit and ancestral memory.

Riv Ranney Shapiro

Riv Ranney Shapiro (they/them/theirs) is a queer Ashkenazi multi-modal artist, educator and ordained Kohenet living on Chochenyo Ohlone land. Riv worked as Ibrahim Baba’s assistant at the Starr King School for the Ministry, and had the privilege of soaking up his stories and teachings while the two connected over their mutual love of the intersections of Hebrew and Arabic, Judaism and Islam. In addition to supporting the album as a vocalist and sound engineer, Riv’s has served Makam Shekhina as a digital storyteller with their film production company Sacred Witness Media. Riv’s creative work is process-oriented and often participatory, reveling in the intersections of ancestors, interspecies relationship, justice, queerness and spirituality. Blending the roles of Educator, Priestess and Artist, Riv is dedicated to sharing the wisdom and the medicine of their Jewish ancestors through adaptive, accessible, and liberatory means.

Matta Ghaly

Matta Ghaly (they/them) is a queer spiritual devotee of Egyptian descent, residing on Stl’pulmsh lands, near Chinook territory in Portland, Oregon. After studying process-oriented psychology, Matta completed a Master of Divinity at Luther Seminary and a Master of Arts in Liberation Theology at the Graduate Theological Union. In their practice, teaching and accompaniment, Matta aspires to be intimate with the heart, attuned to the body’s wisdom, and grounded in cultural humility. Matta enjoys being out in nature, pilgriming to sacred places and deepening connections in loving community.

Maryam Hasnaa

Raised by two parents who are spiritual teachers, Maryam Hasnaa (@maryamhasnaa @theflowerpriestess) has been immersed in a world of mysticism, ceremony and celebration since before she was born. A Sufi Priestess, Energy Worker, Medicine Woman, and Flower Practitioner, she has found her calling in offering training and mentorship for those with the trait of high sensitivity. Maryam uses her own highly sensitive gifts to remind other beings of the energetic nature of this universe. She has learned the importance of living in alignment with one’s intuition and most authentic self. Maryam has synthesized ancient teachings along with cutting edge information to create a unique system of healing for those on the path of Liberation. Through shining her light so brightly her intention is that others will see themselves reflected and do the same.

BINT al-Shalabia

Bint Al-Shalabia (@binnttt) is an interdisciplinary artist, experimental musician and dervish witch. A large portion of her work is dedicated to the compilation and revival of practical Islamic esoterica from across the Muslim diaspora – especially as it relates to the feminine. Bint fell into Sufism through the portal of the Hebrew alphabet. As an initiate within the Hermetic Qabalah mysteries where extensive emphasis is placed on the written Hebrew word, she naturally incorporated the Arabic alphabet into the equation. Reflection between the two alphabets is a core focus in Bint’s revival research on Islamic esoterica as well as her multimedia creative work.

Iskender Chisty

Iskenderbaba Chishty received ijaza as a sheikh from Ibrahim Baba and tends the lineage of Gharib i Nawaz through the Dargahrden - abundant urban garden and spiritual center in the heart of West Oakland. Iskenderbaba is a tireless advocate for the unhoused, and a devoted father to Jibril.

Shams Eugene Monteiro

Shams Eugene Monteiro is a servant of the divine and has long found his connection to the love intelligence of the universe through physical activity, music, and teaching. Shams is co-founder of Dare To Bless The Love, a multi-religious community inspired by the life and teachings of Ibrahim Baba. He is a certified teacher and Bhakti yoga instructor whose pedagogy is rooted in counter-oppressive facilitation, radical inclusivity, and creating spaces that foster social and emotional literacy.

Sukina Pilgrim

Sukina Pilgrim is a Poet, Spoken-Word artist, Playwright, Workshop Facilitator and Event Organiser and co-founder of Muslim female Hip Hop duo, Poetic Pilgrimage. She facilitates workshops - The Art of Speaking from the Heart - across the world empowering communities to use the written word as a tool for dialogue and as a means for accessing their authentic voice. Sukina has played an intrinsic role within the British Muslim creative communities as a performer and events organiser and has created platforms for many national and international Muslim artists to express themselves and launch their careers.  Her work has been featured on the BBC News, World Service and Asian Network, ITV, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera and has been written about in the Huffington Post, Daily Mail, The Voice and many other international media outlets.

Jen Miriam Kantor-Altman

Jen Miriam is a percussionist and ketubah artist. She founded and co-directs The Puppet Players, a Jewish ritual puppet theatre troupe in Berkeley, CA and a member of Octopretzel music group. Jen Miriam has studied drumming with master drummers from many traditions, including Babatunde Olatunji, Airto Moreira, Souhail Kaspar, Tobias Roberson and more. Jen Miriam is a proud mama of two girls and works as a doula, supporting laboring mothers in the birthing process.

DHRUV SANGARI

Dhruv Sangari @dhruvsangarimusic (Bilal Chishty) بلال ڇݜتى سنگارى is a Sufi qawwal and Classical Indian vocalist, composer, teacher and scholar based in New Dehli, India and popularly known as 'Prince of Qawwali'. Drawn to Sufism and its music from an early age, Dhruv began visiting the courtyard of the shrine of Saint Nizamuddin Auliya. Here, he met the late Ustad Meraj Ahmed Nizami of the Delhi Qawwalbachhe lineage who agreed to become his teacher. A meeting with the legendary maestro late Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and his brother the late Ustad Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, led Dhruv to become their disciple as well, and solidified his bond with qawwali and Sufi music. Dhruv’s repertoire includes Farsi, Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi verses from the works of famed poets and saints such as Baba Farid, Amir Khusrau, Mirabai, Maulana Rumi, Maulana Jami, Bulleh Shah, Guru Nanak, Kabir Das, Saim Chishty, Allama Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, Bedil and Shah Niyaz among many others.