FESTIVAL ELEMENTS
RED TENT
Casey Adashek, our Red Tent Steward, is passionate about the ancestral blood rites of the womb. The Red Tent has traditionally been a temple space– specifically for rituals around womb blood, marking life cycles and transitions.
The Red Tent offers a unique holding, one that honors the Shechinah (Feminine indwelling of the Divine) as she has fractilized into infinite faces. Casey creates a space for the diversity of experiences held in wombs and women.
SACRED FIRE
The Eish Tamid is the ever-present fire at the heart of Chavaya, a living symbol of continuity, presence, and sacred gathering. In Jewish tradition, the Eish Tamid represents an enduring connection to the sacred that is carried through time and community.
Throughout the festival, this fire will serve as a place to gather, reflect, sing, pray, and simply be together in the glow of shared presence. It is a space for both celebration and stillness, where connection naturally forms around the flame.
As part of its ritual arc, the fire will be intentionally extinguished before Shabbat begins and then relit after Shabbat concludes, serving as a symbolic anchor for the rhythm of rest, return, and renewal that sits at the heart of the weekend.
As night falls, the Eish Tamid becomes a central point of gathering, reminding us that even as moments pass, something enduring continues to burn between us.
GRIEF CEREMONY
On Friday afternoon, Nala Walla will facilitate a dedicated grief ceremony, held as a closed, long-form container for those wishing to enter more deeply into grief, remembrance, release, and collective healing.
This gathering is rooted in the understanding that Jewish grief is not meant to stay frozen or contained. It is meant to move.
To be witnessed, spoken, and carried in community so that it can begin to shift and transform.
Together we will make space for personal and ancestral grief through ritual, presence, and care. Participants are invited to enter this container with intention and commitment as we make room for the fullness of human experience and the ongoing work of healing.
TEA ZONE
The Tea Tent is a space to slow down, settle in, and connect. Throughout the weekend, tea will be available alongside comfortable places to sit, rest, and engage in meaningful conversation. Whether you're meeting a new friend, reconnecting with an old one, taking a break between workshops, or simply enjoying a quiet moment, the Tea Tent offers a welcoming place to land. In the midst of the music, movement, and celebration, the Tea Tent serves as a reminder that some of the most meaningful moments happen in the spaces between.
COMMUNITY KITCHEN
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The Community Kitchen is a shared space for preparing meals, washing dishes, and gathering around food throughout the weekend. Basic amenities will be available, including handwashing stations, dishwashing areas, potable water, and communal food preparation surfaces. Whether you're making coffee for friends, preparing Shabbat dinner, or sharing a snack with a neighbor, we hope this space helps nourish both body and community.
DANCE PERFORMANCE
Jordan Sun is a passionate advocate for movement as a means of healing. She gives gratitude to her teachers. She humbly offers appreciation for the opportunity to learn and act as an ambassador of the dance and culture of other llineages of origin, including MENAHT peoples. Jordan gives homage to her ancestors of Mediterranean and Ashkenazi Jewish origin. She weaves the cultural dances of her ethnic lineage with fusion bellydance.
In addition to offering healing, teaching movement medicine and performing as a fusion dancer, Jordan is a self-taught watercolor artist and a burgeoning singer/songwriter. Currently, she is a holistic Thai Massage Therapist, Postpartum Doula and is pursuing her Master’s in Dance Movement Therapy with Lesley University.
@jordansundancer
JEWS OF COLOR PANEL
Many Jewish spaces in the United States can become siloed into predominantly white Jewish experiences.
Chavaya Festival is committed to creating space for a broader and more expansive Jewish future by uplifting the voices and experiences of Jews of Color.
This year, we will be hosting a panel highlighting Black Jewish voices and the experiences of people who carry both Jewish and African diasporic identities.
Together, we’ll explore the impacts of assimilation into whiteness, the complexity of identity, belonging, culture, and what it means to move through the world today as a Black Jew.
Pictured: Ben Wilson founder of Color and Sound
Moderated by Tisch PDX
THE BESHERET BOARD
Jewish tradition teaches that each of us has a b'sheret—a destined connection. While often understood as a romantic partner, a b'sheret can also be a dear friend, a creative collaborator, a teacher, a community, or someone who helps us become more fully ourselves.
Throughout the weekend, the B'sheret Board will offer a playful space to post introductions, friendship invitations, missed connections, heartfelt appreciations, hopes, adventures, and perhaps even a little romantic intrigue. Whether you're seeking conversation, companionship, collaboration, or love, this is an opportunity to make yourself known and discover who might be waiting to meet you.
After all, some of the most meaningful connections begin with a simple introduction. 🌿❤️
SHABBAT 101
New to Shabbat? Curious about the traditions, rituals, and rhythms that have sustained Jewish communities for generations? This workshop offers an accessible introduction to the heart of the Jewish week.
Together, we will explore the meaning behind Shabbat, its core practices, and how Jews across time and place have welcomed sacred rest into their lives. We’ll cover everything you need to feel comfortable and prepared for the Chavaya Shabbat experience, including blessings, customs, and the flow of the evening ahead.
Whether this is your first Shabbat or your hundredth, all are welcome. Come learn, ask questions, and prepare to enter the sacred time of Shabbat with greater understanding, intention, and joy.
AURELIAN
Arie and Bennet have developed an incredible immersive installation called Aurelian, which will be featured for the full duration of Chavaya Festival. This beautiful art piece invites curiosity, reflection, and wonder, and we’re thrilled to share it with the community.
Come experience Aurelian and spend time inside this living work of art.
OHEL CHACHAMIM (ELDER SPACE)
The Ohel Chachamim (Elder Tent) is an affinity space centering the wisdom, experience, and voice of elders within Chavaya. It is a place where older generations can gather in community, share insights, and offer the depth of perspective that comes from a lifetime of lived Jewish experience.
This tent holds space for conversation, storytelling, teaching, and informal exchange, allowing intergenerational wisdom to be spoken, heard, and integrated into the life of the festival. It is a space where presence itself is valued, and where experience is recognized as a vital source of guidance and meaning.
The Ohel Chachamim honors elders not as observers of community, but as active carriers of wisdom whose voices help shape and deepen the collective life of Chavaya.
SUNSET KUMZITZ
As the day begins to soften and the sun settles toward the horizon, we will gather on the beach for a community kumzitz of song, presence, and connection.
Rooted in the Jewish tradition of gathering around shared melodies, this is an opportunity to slow down, take in the beauty of the moment, and lend your voice to the collective. Whether you sing every word, hum along quietly, or simply listen to the waves and the music, all are welcome.
Together, we will greet the evening through niggunim, prayer, storytelling, and song, held by the water and the fading light of the day. Bring a blanket, bring a friend, and join us for one of the most timeless and beloved forms of Jewish gathering.
OPEN MIC IN THE CUDDLE TENT & TEA INN
Late nights at Chavaya are for music, stories, softness, and soul.
Join us in the Cuddle Tent and Tea Inn for open mic gatherings throughout the festival. Bring your instruments, your poetry, your songs, your prayers, your comedy, or whatever is alive in your spirit and share it with community. Whether you’re performing or simply listening under blankets with a cup of tea, these late-night gatherings are sure to become some of the most memorable moments of the weekend.
KIDS & FAMILY CAMP
The Kids & Family Zone is a dedicated space for families to gather, play, create, and connect throughout the weekend. With activities, crafts, games, and opportunities for exploration, this area is designed to support our youngest participants while fostering community among parents and caregivers. Throughout the festival, there will also be designated children's programming led by trusted staff and volunteers, giving parents and caregivers opportunities to attend workshops, enjoy music, connect with friends, or simply take a moment for themselves. Whether you're stopping by for a structured activity or looking for a welcoming place to spend time together, we hope this space helps families feel at home and fully supported at Chavaya.
REFUA TENT
The Refuah Tent will serve as a space for rest, care, healing, and support throughout Chavaya. Rooted in the Jewish value that every person is worthy of care and dignity, this space offers a place to slow down, reconnect, and tend to yourself when needed.
The Refuah Tent will provide a calm environment for rest, hydration, emotional support, grounding, and respite from the energy of the weekend. Whether you need some emotional support, a quiet moment to regroup, or simply a gentler place to land, you are welcome here.
Festivals are built on celebration, but they are sustained by care. The Refuah Tent exists to help ensure that everyone has the support they need to fully participate in the Chavaya experience.
THE LAND
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THE LAND
Chavaya Festival takes place on private land in Duvall Washington, on the Duwamish and Coast Salish lands of the Snoqualmie people, about 50 minutes north of Seattle. Nestled in a lush valley beside Washington wine country, the surrounding region is known for its breathtaking natural beauty and adventure.
Nearby towns like Carnation, Sultan, Gold Bar, and North Bend are beloved destinations for some of the Pacific Northwest’s most stunning hikes, rivers, forests, and mountain landscapes. If you’re traveling from out of town, we highly encourage staying a little longer to explore this incredibly special area.
Just next door is Woodinville, home to more than 100 wineries and also the hometown of producers Jacob and Aliko.The festival grounds themselves are truly magical: a half-mile-long open field backed by forest, with winding woodland paths where immersive experiences and performances will unfold beneath the trees. The land gently slopes down to a beautiful sandy riverbank beach, where many of our gatherings and celebrations will take place. I
n the summertime, the river is crystal-clear, swimmable, and absolutely stunning — a place to cool off, connect, and soak in the beauty of the land together.We feel deeply honored to gather here and can’t wait to share this experience with you.
FAQ
Chavaya is a Jewish space intentionally created for members of the Jewish community to gather, celebrate, and reconnect with land, culture, and each other.
We welcome Jews of all backgrounds, including Jews by birth, Jews by choice, Jews by descent reconnecting with their roots, and those who feel Jewish-adjacent and are exploring their relationship to Jewish identity. Loved ones and family members who are not Jewish are also welcome. We are an LGBTQ and BIPOC friendly event, our community and many of our team members reflect these identities and Chavaya is constructed with you in mind.
Chavaya is a multi-generational gathering, and we are excited to welcome people of all ages. Children and elders are an important part of Jewish community life, and kids 12 and under attend for free so families can join us with greater ease.
Our intention is to create a space where Jewish people can feel safe, joyful, and fully themselves while celebrating the many ways Jewish identity is expressed. Jewish people across political ideologies and beliefs are welcome as Chavaya is a space intended to hold the entire Jewish family. Anyone who resonates with Chavaya’s vision of community, land connection, music, and Jewish cultural expression is invited to join us in co-creating the spirit of the festival together.
Shabbat is a central and sacred part of Chavaya, just as it is for Jews around the world. It is the most elevated and intentional period of our gathering, a time when we deepen our connection to one another, to the land, and to the Divine spark within and between us.
In Jewish tradition, Shabbat invites us to pause from ordinary time and enter sacred time, to rest, gather, sing, pray, learn, and be present with one another. From Friday at sunset through Saturday evening, we will mark Shabbat together through community rituals, music, prayer, learning, and shared meals.
At the same time, we recognize that Jewish communities practice Shabbat in many different ways. Each person arrives at Chavaya with their own relationship to Shabbat, shaped by their lineage, community, and personal practice. Our intention is to honor that diversity as fully as possible while creating a meaningful collective experience.
Like other Jewish spiritual gatherings, including the approach modeled by MANNA Festival, we seek to cultivate a shared sense of “Shabbat consciousness”- a collective orientation toward rest, presence, and sacred connection.
Some practical details about Shabbat at Chavaya:
We will be using amplification and playing musical instruments during Shabbat programming.
There will not be an eruv on site.
Participants will be in community with people whose Shabbat practices may differ from their own.
If this diversity of practice aligns with what you need, we warmly invite you to join us.
As a community, we are also exploring creative ways to mark Shabbat as distinct from the rest of the week and cultivate kedusha (holiness) together. This may include things like reducing cell phone use, prioritizing face-to-face connection, slowing down our pace, and creating spaces for reflection, prayer, music, learning, and rest.
Our hope is that Shabbat at Chavaya becomes a shared container for presence, joy, spiritual renewal, and deep community connection.
At Chavaya, we recognize that we are living in a time of deep complexity, pain, and difference across the Jewish world. We do not ignore these realities. At the same time, Chavaya is intentionally created as a space where Jews of many backgrounds, identities, and political perspectives can find a sense of home.
We are committed to the value of showing up together across differences, rooted in a long tradition of Jewish communities holding multiple truths at once. This gathering invites participants to engage one another with curiosity, respect, and care.
There will be space to acknowledge and process grief, as well as opportunities for thoughtful dialogue grounded in compassion, presence, and mutual respect. While participants may hold a wide range of perspectives, calls for violence, dehumanization, or harm toward any people are not aligned with the values of this gathering and will not be supported in this space.
Our hope is to cultivate an environment where people feel supported in bringing their full selves, while contributing to a shared culture of dignity, listening, and connection.
There is no built infrastructure on the land —everything at the festival is bring‑your‑own. This is a phenomenal property with a huge camping field (about a mile long), so the festival is primarily a camping experience.
There are some local Airbnbs in the area, but we strongly encourage people not to drive on and off site, as this is designed to be an immersive camping festival. Bring all of the camping gear you need to be comfortable.
Camping location: you’ll be no more than a ~1–5 minute walk at most from the main festival area.
Facilities: porta‑potties will be provided both in the camping area and on the festival grounds
Parking: you are welcome to drive — there is plenty of parking on the land. Car camping is available, and you are welcome to park your vehicle next to your campsite.
Camping layout: camping will be fairly spread out and somewhat separate from the main festival area.
The safety and peace of mind of everyone attending Chavaya is one of our highest priorities. We want this gathering to be a place where Jewish people can relax, celebrate, and be fully present together in community.
To support this, we have developed a multi-layered safety and security plan in consultation with a professional security advisor. This plan includes round-the-clock professional security on site, a manual ticket review process, and keeping the exact festival location private, with the address shared only with confirmed ticket holders.
Our intention is to create a space where all Jews feel welcome, comfortable, and cared for, while maintaining a thoughtful level of protection for the community. Chavaya is about joy, connection, and Jewish cultural expression, and we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that everyone can gather safely and have a meaningful and peaceful experience.
At Chavaya, the health and well-being of our participants is a top priority. We will have trained medical staff and volunteers on site to provide care for any medical needs that arise, from minor injuries to more serious situations.
We are also committed to harm reduction practices, creating a supportive environment where people can make safer choices and access help if they need it. Our team is here to support both physical and emotional well-being, so everyone can feel cared for, seen, and able to fully engage in the festival experience.
Your ticket gives you full access to the entire festival, including:
Full Weekend Access: Thursday through Sunday.
All Activities & Workshops: Every scheduled event, workshop, and interactive session.
Shabbat Experience: All Shabbat services, meals, and special experiences included in the festival schedule.
Camping & Festival Grounds: Access to all camping areas, festival stages, and communal spaces.
Festival Amenities: Porta‑potties, community kitchen with basic amenities, basic campsite setup area, and general festival facilities.
Participation in Special Events: Any planned group activities, performances, or evening gatherings.
Parking
Food is an important part of any gathering, and we encourage participants to come prepared with the meals, snacks, and supplies they'll want throughout the weekend.
We'll have a selection of food vendors on-site throughout the weekend offering a variety of meals, snacks, and beverages for purchase. In addition, Chavaya will provide a community Shabbat dinner on Friday evening and a communal Shabbat lunch on Saturday afternoon, creating opportunities to gather and celebrate together.
To support communal cooking and meal preparation, Chavaya will provide a Community Kitchen equipped with stoves, an oven, dishwashing stations, and basic cooking supplies such as pots, pans, utensils, and common spices. Whether you're preparing meals with friends, sharing food with neighbors, or making a morning cup of coffee, we hope the kitchen becomes another place for connection and community throughout the weekend.
There will be a media team, photographers, and videographers at the festival.
By purchasing a ticket, you agree you may be photographed or filmed.
We welcome support in many forms, whether as a sponsor, partner, individual donor, or through contributions of time, resources, or in-kind support. If you’re interested in helping Chavaya thrive, we’d love to hear from you and explore ways to collaborate.
Chavaya is fiscally sponsored by Temple Beth Am in Seattle, so all donations are tax-deductible. You can also explore our sponsorship tiers here to see opportunities for partnership and impact. SPONSORSHIP TIERS SHEET
Pets are contractually not allowed on the property for liability reasons. If you have a service animal, please reach out separately at chavayafestival@gmail.com.
Food
Food and snacks for the weekend, food vendors may be available on site as well. See above food section.
Your own plate, bowl mug, and utensils
Each person needs to provide all of their own water for the weekend. Each person should plan to bring 1.5 gallons of water or more per person per day for drinking, cooking, hygiene, etc.
Suggested personal and camping gear:
Tent, stakes, sleeping pad and sleeping bag
Warm clothing, warm jacket, fun clothing, WHITE to wear on Shabbat, bathing suit
Towel
Stove, dishes, utensils, cookware
Toiletries such as: medications, hand sanitizer, personal first aid kit
Camping essentials: headlamp, day pack, trash bag to pack out personal garbage
Sun protection: sunglasses, hat, sunscreen
Optional items:
Journal
Yoga mat
Camping chair
Camping shower (no shower facilities are available onsite. Bring your own water for your personal shower)
Instruments
Costumes
White clothing for Shabbat
Songs, poems and offerings to share around the fire
What not to bring:
Pets
Firearms or weapons of any kind
At Chavaya, we strive to make every event a memorable experience. Please read our refund and ticket transfer policy carefully before making a purchase.
No Full Refunds All ticket sales are final, and we do not provide full refunds under any circumstances.
Partial Refunds Partial refunds may be requested up to 6 weeks prior to the event date. Requests made after this period will not be eligible for any refund.
Resale of Tickets
Tickets may be resold to other attendees. For convenience and visibility, we encourage ticket holders to post resale offers on our Chavaya Facebook page.
Contact:
For partial refund requests or questions about ticket resale, please contact us at chavayafestival@gmail.com
We want Chavaya to be a welcoming space for everyone, and we are working to make the festival as accessible as possible. Although the land is not fully set up for people with limited mobility, such as wheelchair users, we have accommodated wheelchairs on this land before.
Main walkways will be lit at night, but we also recommend bringing a headlamp for extra visibility. We will provide quiet zones and areas with lower sensory input for anyone who needs them.
For dietary needs, we are working to confirm food vendors that can offer kosher, gluten-free, and/ or vegan options to support diverse food preferences and requirements.
We are committed to learning and improving each year to make Chavaya a safe, comfortable, and inclusive space for all attendees.
We want to make this festival as accessible for individuals as possible, so please do not hesitate to reach out to inquire how we can best support your attendance.
You are welcome to drive. There is plenty of parking on the land. Car camping is available and does not cost extra, and you are welcome to park your vehicle next to your campsite.
If you’re traveling from Seattle, WA, USA to Duvall, WA, here are the typical public transit options:
🚌 Bus + Transit (No Direct Route):
There is no direct public transit from Seattle to Duvall — you’ll need to take at least two Sound Transit / Metro bus connections.
A common route is:
From Seattle downtown, take Sound Transit Bus 545 toward Redmond.
At Redmond Transit Center, transfer to King County Metro Bus 224 toward Duvall.
Total travel time by this method is usually ~2 to 2½ hours (one way) with transfers.
Typical transit cost (not including local passes) is around $6–$7 USD for the combined bus journey.
🚌 Local Duvall Transit:
King County Metro Transit Route 224 (Dial‑A‑Ride Transit) provides service between Duvall and Redmond.
Snoqualmie Valley Transportation (SVT) buses run up and down the valley — including service through Duvall — but these are local shuttles and not direct Seattle commuter buses.
🚗 Other Options:
Rideshare services (e.g., Uber or Lyft) are available in Duvall but pickup times may be longer than in larger cities (and fares vary widely).
Want to help out?
Come to Chavaya!