Priestess

I am three-quarters of the way through a year-long training called Modern Day Priestess. The training is being facilitated by my mentor Rev. Kate Rodger, who is the most pristinely awake human I know. I spent five days last week in Montecito, Ca on the incredibly beautiful grounds of Casa de Maria, a retreat center set among old growth live oaks with San Ysidro Creek running through it. There is a labyrinth, a meditation chapel, orchards and many quiet, peaceful places tucked away where one can lose oneself in Stillness. Most importantly, there are 15 extraordinary women taking this journey with me - a journey to one's own heart, to the truth that lies at the center of each of us, a truth that is boundless and eternal. Doing this work with like-minded sisters underlines it, makes it more vibrant and clear, as each of us brings different life experiences and approaches it from a unique angle. The Whole is exposed through the various planes and angles cut into the prism that is Life.The unity of the Divine Feminine, the Sisterhood, is familiar to me and feels as old as Time itself.

 As I move more deeply into this work, I am shedding the layers I have allowed life to lay upon me, the persona's, the 'ways of dealing', the habitual patterns and default settings that have literally become 'Me'. For years I used my spirituality as just another layer, practicing what Chogyam Rinpoche calls 'Spiritual Materialism', which he described as "the desire for a spiritual path that led you to become something, to attain a state you could be proud of, instead of a path that unmasked your self-deception." While my soul was always called to something much deeper, my personality thought the spiritual stuff was cool and edgy and set me apart. And I'm thankful for that because it kept me on the path. I remember the exact moment five years ago when I realized I was on the path for the 'wrong' reason - when I instantly understood that there was nothing to get, nowhere to arrive at. That the path itself was the destination, that to reach for awakening was to be in service to all Life, which was the entire point. In a moment, I knew that striving to be something kept me from being what I already was. In a moment, I let go of needing to be cool. What freedom! And so began the real work, of letting go of everything I wasn't - the manufactured belief systems, the thoughts that arose that I thought were me, and others' opinion and experience of me. The Modern Day Priestess work takes this even deeper - down into the energetic experiences that birth patterned response and behavior. I can actually go back into an experience and transform the energetic reality of it, which then spirals up into my current experience of it. I find this absolutely amazing work. I leave each time hardly recognizing myself on a surface level and at the same time, feeling myself melt into the deeper truth that always underlies who I am. I feel the truth of my own subtle energy body and the energies that completely surround us - from other beings, from plants, animals, planets and even rocks. We exchange with these energies whether we are aware of it or not. And moving into a place of conscious exchange feels like lifting up the covers of the world and finally seeing what I have always known - there is SO much more than meets the eye.

I have many friends and family members who have absolutely no interest in lifting the covers - this life is enough for them to be with already. And they find it peculiar that I am so eager to run around in the woods talking to plants. I get it, it sounds peculiar to me as well. And I have always been called to investigate and understand the Mystery, to know what's behind the curtain, to explain what my body was always feeling as truth.  So for me, it is a life-time of prayers answered - to have the ability to interpret the Reality on a deeper, more integrated level, to leave the world of the mind with all its shifting loyalties, and live from my heart, the true Wisdom seat of my being. To see all beings for what they truly are, beyond appearance and action - to see them as Oneness, expressing Itself as Love. To see the entire Reality as One, as Love Loving Itself. Wow. Deep, deep breath. That feels amazing and exactly like the truth.

My personality struggles a bit with this deeper knowing. As I shed my crusty layers and feel the subtle energies, I get blown out a bit by people around me. I find I am quite sensitive now, perhaps because for the first time, I am actually hearing what people are saying. I can feel their energy and the energetic charge of their words. And people are intense, which is probably why we build up crusty layers in the first place. My personality wants me to layer back up, to protect myself from the blast - and I refuse. I have traveled very far and studied very intently - over multiple lifetimes - to be exactly here. Open, exposed, girding my courage to stand face to face with myself, with others and with how things really are. This both enthralls and boggles my entire being and that's okay, I came for it all - to be boggled and enlightened and boggled again. It is a process, a first-class e-ticket ride home, to Oneness, to Love. And I am entirely, completely and utterly all in.