I remember when I first felt the calling to walk the priestess path.

I was about 12 years old. I had just discovered wicca and was eagerly devouring everything my local chain bookstore had not eh subject, when I came across the word Priestess.

To be fair, I didn’t really know what it meant, but it captured my imagination.

Priestess. Yes, that’s it. That’s what I want to be.

I had fantasies of running a coven, of organising events, of taking my group out under the stars to dance and pray to the moon…

venusian priestess pathOver the next decade or so, I fell deeper and deeper into the devotional aspects of paganism. I loved it whenever witch books would talk about moon rituals, daily practice, and honouring the Goddess. I ended up researching and falling in love with Goddess Spirituality.

And always, the call of the Priestess Path was strong.

Although a lot of the time, I still didn’t really know what it meant to be a priestess – or why I, the artsy atheist kid with zero religious upbringing, felt this call so strongly. Did it mean I had to join and run a coven? How could I become a priestess without one? What does a priestess do other than moon rituals?…

… and by that time, other thoughts had started creeping in, other sneaky, seductive thoughts like:

You know, I’m not sure I deserve to be a priestess.

I’m not devoted/calm/good enough for this.

Who am I to claim the title Priestess?

You know when you are a kid you don’t have any doubts about anything and you only see possibilities, not problems? You’re all, YES I am going to be a vet AND an astronaut, I’ll spend half my time in space and half my time on a farm looking after horses, perfectly reasonable.

Then you grow up a bit and suddenly the things you want most of all are the things you doubt the most. Your closest held dreams and desires are the ones most poisoned by doubt and fear, because they mean so damn much to you – how could you possibly measure up to them?

Stupid grown up brain and it’s stupid self-sabotaging ideas.

Anyway. My dream back then was to complete a Priestess Training, the only formal Priestess Training in the world I knew about, in Glastonbury Avalon. I honestly thought I would ever be brave enough to summon up the courage to apply – because to apply was to say to the universe, YES. I claim this. This is who I am. This is who I want to be.

And that was a huge deal. Who was I to claim it? What would people think?

In an unprecedented surge of outrageous courage, I applied and started the course and became a Sister of Avalon.

Doing the training, I finally felt like my dream was in reach and, strangely, I got the feeling of possibly: like this was something I actually could be. Like this was something that came so so naturally to me. Like this was something I had been training to be my whole life without me realising it. As if everything I had done up to this point – the events organising, the public speaking, the art school bit, the performance training, the dance education – I had really been a training to be a priestess all along.

It blew my tiny mind.

And even though I didn’t complete the further courses, my own personalised priestess training came thick and fast from the universe.

See, I think that once you started on the journey to walk the priestess path, and declare that desire to the universe – once you have categorically decided that’s what you are gonna do, the Goddess gives you the exact lessons you need no matter what…

… and, fair warning, and they probably won’t be what you expected them to be!

I expected to happily stay in that priestess training format and tradition forever more and that was that.

Goddess, however, had other ideas.

She took me on a profound journey of listening to my anger and expressing my truth – of challenging me to really get to know my feelings and take myself seriously. I had a LOT of shadow confronting to do, as I had spent a lot of my life as a Good Girl who didn’t let herself feel or express things that might bother or upset other people (and, real talk here, that shadow work was haaaaaard and painful and sucky but it had to be done).

Goddess challenged me to stand up in the world and be counted as Hers, to be braver than I ever have been before. She taught me how to really listen to my own inspiration, my own gnosis, my own heart.

She guided me to nourishing teachers and courses that took me deeper and deeper into what it meant to be a Priestess.

I remember being really explicitly encouraged by my guiding goddess Morgan to look deeper into the things that really really spoke to me – into mermaids and magic and devotion and dance and Avalon – and to be bold and share my love of Goddess and mermaids with the world through Rockstar Priestess.

She took me on a long, slow journey (I am a stubborn student!) of guiding my Spiritual Life and my Work Life towards sacred marriage. (I mean, it’s still a marriage in progress. They are in premarital counselling while they try to get on the same page. But you get the idea.)

And all the while, I knew I was meant to be Her Priestess. Sometimes I doubted it – sometimes (ha! Often!) I thought, who am I to claim this? Surely there are better people for this job than me in the world!

But I mostly trusted that if this is what I felt so strongly I had to do, then there must be a reason. There must be something I can do that She needs, that brings something needed to this world, otherwise I wouldn’t have this calling.

priestess path Godward CampaspeEvery now and again, when I feel full of doubt and thinking, why didn’t I want to do something simple with my life like be an accountant instead of this massive ridonkulous difficult spiritual epic effort, I remember that the Goddess needs all different kinds of Priestesses working for her in the world. She needs Priestesses with the balls (or should I say ovaries!) to organise retreats and events for women to connect in with Her. She needs Priestesses who are working to help women unleash their confidence and sexuality in dance class. She needs Priestesses who can write sacred songs in Her name, Priestesses who help heal the suffering of the world through charity work or being doctors, and Priestesses who champion animal rights.

She needs Priestesses who know how to work with herbs, Priestesses who uplift those around them, Priestesses who bring beauty into the world, Priestesses who love fiercely and care deeply about the people in their lives.

I think two things I keep relearning over and over again in my Priestess Training journey so far is:

 – You are never done training to be a priestess. There is always more to learn, more to embody, deeper to go. It’s not like you are initiated, and that it it. Nope. You are initiated, then the real work begins – you are challenged to step up and be bigger than you ever have before.

 – There is never only one way to be a Priestess, because being a Priestess is all about opening up to who you are on the fullest, most authentic, most real level. It’s all about coming home to yourself and to Divinity at the same time, because they are kind of the same thing. Goddess Spirituality is awesome like that.

I think if you have felt the calling to walk the Priestess Path, you know. You KNOW somewhere deep down – sometimes it’s so deep down you have buried with with fear and anxiety to try and keep you from touching it and stirring it.

When you hear the world Priestess, when you read about Priestesses, when you watch the Mists of Avalon or the Red Tent, something inside of you tries to leap towards it in excitement. It’s like you have an inner compass that always brings you back to this archetype of Priestess, no matter what other course you try to set it on – it’s like your antennae are just programmed to respond to priestessy things. You can travel around and try other stuff, but you are always drawn back to this true north. It’s a constant passion, a consistent interest, a desire you never grow out of.

I mean, it doesn’t mean you know how to get there. Or even that you feel like you are the kind of person who should go on that journey, (“Who, me?”) but you know it’s the direction you want to go, and no matter how much you try to talk yourself out of it, the compass still points north.

To the Goddess.

To the Divine Feminine.

To sovereignty, strength, inner knowing, deep connection with All That Is, and to serving women around the world.

Have you felt the calling of the Priestess Path?

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P.S. Sexy News: I am running my beautiful e-course Rockstar Priestess Practice in February 2018! It’s my 28 day bitesize course all about establishing a nourishing, no-guilt daily practice and learning what it means to be a Priestess in your daily life. Practical steps, done-for-you spiritual assignments, and the ability to make a move on your priestess journey in 15 minutes a day, cos we are ALL super busy, right? Sign up to the mailing list to learn more about it!