Once upon a time, temples to the Goddess existed in sacred places the world over, staffed by priestesses. There were the swanky high priestesses of the temple, often royal women who did the main ritual and ceremony work and in some circumstances embodied the Goddess’ herself in oracle and ritual. These mamas were powerful, in some cases exceptional magical women and they held a lot of social standing as the Goddess’ representative on earth.
But who made the candles for the ceremonies? Who made the statues, the costuming? Who made sure that the Grand High Priestesses were fed and kept the temple clean? And who, in Goddess’ name, tidied up all the crap after the celebrations?
This was often the job of the temple priestesses. These priestesses didn’t lead ceremony, or oracle to the public, or keep the Gods happy through ritual. These job of these temple priestesses was simply to tend to the temple. Mop the stone. Sweep the floors. Dust the surfaces. Replenish the water, the incense, the candles. Clear up the offerings. Keep everything clean for the Goddess.
There were priestesses whose sole job was to wash the floor of the temple, never do the grand ritual or public presence thing, and they were still entitled to the role of Priestess. These women spent their lives serving Goddess (I am sure with varying degrees of rapture and enthusiasm) as the temple’s priestess cleaners, priestess cooks, priestess administrators.
In our lives today, we don’t tend to have big temple complexes we can join to serve the Goddess, or, I expect like many women who became nuns in centuries past, escape our lives of abuse, social shame and exhaustion with the world by becoming a temple priestess. And today the idea of being a simple priestess is often totally overlooked by the idea and glamour of being a great big sexy top-of-the-hierarchy priestess. A lot of us got started spiritually in Wicca, where the Priestess was just the top dog who knew everything, did all the swanky cool ritual stuff, and was all spiritually awesome. There wasn’t much scope for, say, an official gardening priestess position, or a role for the priestess who cooks the big dinners and that’s it.
In our modern day longing for Priestessness, for devotion to the divine, we tend to expect that we need to become a lot of things that we are not. That we need to be top at everything spiritual to even be considered for priestess position. That we have to be mega ritualists and community leaders, and experienced tarot readers, teachers, intuitives and theatrical ninjas.
But we don’t have to be that to serve and live in the presence of the divine.
Remember that, once upon a time, there were Priestesses whose whole service to the Goddess consisted of mopping floors and sweeping up cobwebs.
Remember, once up on a time, there were Priestesses whose spiritual devotion was just washing dishes.
Remember that there are so, so many ways in normal every day life where we are doing the work of the Priestesses that came before us. All we have to do is recognise that.
Header photo by Heifen Owen on Flickr, edited by me.
Thanks for this great post. Yes, there had to be housewife-type priestesses to do all the cooking, tending, maintenance and clean up. Some goddess fiction paints a portrait of temple life.
When I attend gatherings, attendees are to bring food to share, offerings and money in order to participate and ameliorate the cost of the work and physical effort involved. I admire how well organized these gatherings can be, with host group members attending to the various needs of the group and the leader priestesses.
It’s on the smaller level that I’ve noticed a discrepancy. When I’m hosting and leading a working, and it’s at my house, so much of the work is up to me, including the housework prep. Thankfully my husband helps, and I’ve learned to streamline the working so that they’re not too complicated or difficult to clean up after. Making time for a spiritual cleansing bath after the working has really made a difference for me. Not only does the work feel complete, I’ve let go of it and renewed my body and spirit via the bath. It’s the best option since I don’t have any temple priestesses hanging out waiting to clean up after me!