Ali Montgomery
My Path as Priestess
Meet our Founding Priestess
In more than thirty years of work ranging from frontline crisis care to human‑service agency leadership, I saw again and again how disenfranchisement around race, sexuality, and spirituality fractured people’s sense of belonging. I knew those wounds personally as well. As a Black queer woman in the United States, I often felt I did not fit into the spiritual or cultural spaces around me. Thirty years ago, that landscape began to shift for me when I encountered a small statue of the Goddess Sekhmet. Its symbols stirred something deep within me, and I began to dream.
I dreamt of an open‑air temple, with a central fire pit, two large flat altar rocks, and a ring of stones. The temple stood on a hill beside a gently rolling river and lush papyrus marsh. Worship there was led by women as shamans, midwives, and tenders of the sacred. Dance itself was worship. Sexual energy was raised in honor of the Goddess. And all were welcome to participate as a community. Over time, these dreams grew stronger, and I came to feel Sekhmet calling me into a different kind of belonging.
I traveled to the women‑built Sekhmet Temple in the Nevada desert, one of the few modern sanctuaries in the United States dedicated to Her worship. Standing before the Goddess in that quiet desert chapel, I felt the same fierce presence that had moved through my dreams. The experience affirmed my growing sense of connection to Sekhmet’s living traditions and strengthened the call to create a community devoted to Her power, presence, and embodied ritual.
The Birth of a Spiritual Practice
Together with my partner, I discovered and developed the Sekhmet Ritual Meditation - a guided practice that awakens our energy centers through the symbols carved on the Goddess’s ancient statues. I began teaching this work at gatherings such as Pantheacon, MindQuake, SoulPlay, and Medicine of Pleasure, guiding seekers into embodied worship where sexuality, spirit, and transformation are honored as one. In my coaching, the Ritual Meditation has become a powerful way for people to explore their inner landscape and to invite Sekhmet’s fire to clear what no longer serves, opening space for renewed spiritual vitality and deeper self‑connection. Out of this teaching and practice, a small community began to form.
Pilgrimage to Egypt
In 2019, I traveled to Egypt to test my visions against the land itself. Were my dreams of Sekhmet’s worship only imagination, or could they be found in the stones of Her temples?
In Karnak, I was given time alone to bow prostrate before the statue of the Goddess in Her Sekhmet chapel. The stillness of that chamber was filled with Her presence, and I felt completely exposed before Her gaze. At the temple of Khonsu, I chanted Her many names before Her image in the inner sanctum, each name resonating quietly within me. That night, sailing on the Nile, I experienced a new kind of ecstasy - orgasm not only of the body, but of union with Goddess, God, and the universal flow of creation. In those moments, I received a message: I was to call people together for the Goddess, to grow the living community already taking shape at home.
Art and Worship as Call
I conceived of an exhibition at CounterPulse Gallery in San Francisco, dedicated entirely to Sekhmet. Others in the community were inspired by my vision and joined in the work. The gallery became a temple, and the art itself became invocation. At the opening and closing receptions, we shared ritual, poetry, and performance, extending a public calling to all who longed for the Goddess. What began as an offering of art became a doorway for others to step into the circle.
A Living Temple
From those beginnings, we have grown together. We have built rituals for the full cycle of Sekhmet’s holidays, honoring the Goddess in Her ancient aspects as Destroyer and Healer, as fierce Protectress and nurturing Mother. We also gather in study, researching ancient artifacts, inscriptions, and scholarship while offering classes where seekers can learn and practice together. Alongside ritual and study, we hold craft workshops, recreating ancient artifacts as tools of ritual, preparing cosmetics from ancient formulas, and blending ointments inspired by temple traditions - all used in ritual to embody devotion through scent, color, and touch.
It is Sekhmet’s fire that sparked this temple, and it is Her presence that continues to guide us. Today we are a sisterhood of priestesses, tending Her flame together. And around us is a wider circle: friends, seekers, and companions of every gender and path, who join us in ritual, study, and celebration. Together we honor Sekhmet, and together we become Her vessel of strength, pleasure, and transformation.
✨ Join Us
We invite you to step into this living temple. Whether you are seeking renewal, longing for belonging, or feeling moved to awaken your creative fire - all who come with respect and longing for the Goddess are welcome here.
Sekhmet - Pleasure Is Our Prayer, the Body Is Our Altar.