She has guided and inspired Kings, Artists, Craftsmen, Warriors and Noble men. She has been known as Mystic, Shaman, Courtesan, Healer, Midwife, Medicine Woman, Saint and Weaver.
But she has also been exalted, feared, revered, shamed and blamed. She has been desired for her secret knowledge and chastised for her power, often from those who are jealous or scared of her. Those who are touched by her magic will either be all the richer for it, or totally resistant, accusing her of all sorts of “evils”.
A Priestess is a woman who owns her connection to the sacred and the mundane. She is a conduit between the two and not only tunes into things, but also tunes things in. The Priestess sits at the gate before the great Mystery, between the darkness and the light, as a channel for Spirit. She officiates sacred rites and ceremony that connects us to realms beyond 3D reality and trusts in the unseen worlds. She is tied to the moon, to wisdom, to magic, and to inspiration. She relies on intuition and inner knowledge, rather than intellect. Her message is powerful and unique, which arises from the depths of her own being.
The Priestess remains standing as a tree stands, grounded in the womb of the Great Mother; this is her safety. She trusts. The Priestess remains centred, and allows all the storms of fear, terror, anxiety and sadness to pass over her open heart; she accepts, embraces and feels everything with love. She knows she is the Creator of her life and that everything is the way it is; the only thing she can change is her own internal state of Being. She is then able to magically draw to her all that she needs to be in her joy, ease and grace in every area of her life from her relationships to her Service in the World. She is the Great Mother, the Great Sorceress, the Great Lover and the Great Warrior. She is the Great Goddess.
I find that when women truly awaken this Archetype they wake up to the deep call of bringing forth their Soul Work.
To be a Priestess, at its core, is the path of Self Mastery. It is honouring yourself, living with compassion, kindness and love yet also with strength and power. Always with integrity, vulnerability and authenticity. It is feeling a deep connection to all that is, feeling your connection and acceptance to the flow and equally the chaos that is your world. Ultimately, it is mastering the present moment, and trusting the unfolding with full presence. Then the creative juices just keep flowing; flowing towards loving Service.
Our soul yearns to be a full YES to love and life. For this to happen, we need a YES from our animal, a YES from our heart and a YES from our consciousness in the major areas of our life such as work and relationships. If we are only a YES from our hearts or consciousness and are ignoring our animal, we have a problem! Likewise, if we are only a YES from our animal and our heart, dissatisfaction will eventually ensue. Excerpt from the Song Of Tantra ebook by Chantelle & Simon
Challenges
A Priestess woman is challenged to be open and at the same time protect herself from what she doesn’t want or from what does not serve her. One of the major tasks of the Priestess is embodiment, grounding into her body and having self- respect otherwise her sensitivity will continually overwhelm her. She must remain true to herself even when that means she may be “cast out” or condemned. Her job is not an easy one as she is known to move people out of their comfort zone. A trans-connector, she facilitates between the material and the spiritual, the conscious and unconscious, and this stirs people up!
Shadow
The Priestess in shadow is a woman who has an incredible inner wisdom and sensitivity but does not own and trust it. If she became aware of this Archetype, she would serve as the receiver from other dimensions and become comfortable with not knowing anything. When she does not own it and trust it, she will spend more time trying to figure things out than following her inner guidance. She will push, control and “think” her way out of things.
The shadow Priestess will also often align with martyrdom, sacrifice and self-denial. She may have been taught to be everything to everyone, but herself. She may have allowed her waters and magical creative energy to overflow too much into others resulting in undefined boundaries and lack of self-love. Another shadow expression can be an egoic identification with spiritual energies and powers, and the use of them in service to ego to manipulate, control, or invade others, rather than to serve the Sacred.
Wounding
The Priestess gets wounded in a number of ways. As children, we are so open and often aware of things others can’t see, like angels and fairies or spirits but when we are told these not “real” we stop connecting. We also may have a knowing about things that adults are hiding (like alcoholism or abuse) but we are told it’s not true, that the abuse didn’t happen and we may get punished or told we are bad. This causes us to shut down “the knower” in us, or at the very least, hide it. It may also cause us to go into hypersensitivity for self-protection and lack of trust in the world.
Working with The Priestess
When we are working with the Priestess energy there is a new level of honouring oneself and guiding others to do the same. We recognise that our body, our being, is a temple to be treated with honour and respect. A Temple where love and respect sits in the centre.
The most common form of dis-honouring that occurs in our society its Verbal, Physical and Sexual Assault/Trauma. It is rampant! All of us have at some point been verbally, physically or sexually abused and is it ever justified or ok? Absolutely not. When someone is “attacking” us verbally, physically or sexually or being perceived to be attacking us, we go into an automatic stress response. When we are triggered or activated we have actually lost our rational or thinking brain (present time focus) and we are now in the Limbic and/or Reptilian brain (emotional, instinctual, past time focus). Those we love receive the “hit” of our past experience or conditioning when we are in this state, because thats where our brain is now operating from. So how do we get come back to presence and ease when the sympathetic nervous system is activated rather than copping abuse or dishing out abuse?
A Priestess knows how to keep herself safe and can teach others how to do the same to themselves.
At the next ELIYAH Practitioner Training: Priest & Priestess Course, my partner and co-facilitator, Dr Simon Martin and I will go through with you what is actually happening in the brain when the automatic stress response is activated so that you and your clients have a choice to go into a healthy response before freeze kicks in. To truly cultivate your Priestess and work with her energy is to change your life forever, as well as those you work with and those who are around you.
It is safe now to RISE in your Priestess once again. So Rise Priestess, Rise. You know who you are. The world is in need of healing and you are the midwives of transformation and sacred community.
Love Chantelle
