When I was in training to become a priestess, the priestess guiding me told me that although the world had once required us priestesses to seclude ourselves in temples, to focus solely on our devotion to the Goddess and adding that light to the world, that we had evolved into a space and time where we were called to be among the masses. No longer were we to be sequestered away from the world. This transition brought both blessings - freedom to explore many experiences in the world while maintaining one's commitment to being a priestess, and challenges - more energy and drama to sift through as we endeavoured to sustain and raise our priestess consciousness. 

 

I do not have any historical data to back up the shift that Priestess Aquarius was teaching me about, like my ancestors, a lot of the teachings that I have received from my spiritual teachers, the priestesses, the yogis and the mystics have been oral teachings that have been passed down from generation to generation without the pragmatic factual history taking to back up the teachings, it's what I consider to be herstory, the oral teachings without the black and white book keeping to justify it's truth. 

 

I've been thinking about this shift in the priestess calling, the shift that brought us out into the world of the mainstream but required our dedication to the sacred, a lot lately. This has been on my mind because I have been walking through a great wave of disturbance in the past few weeks. It has been an intentional practice of mine to disengage with world news, I do not follow it, read it or discuss it. My priestessing practice is grounded in a foundation of mysticism which requires me to turn away from the appearances of discord and inward to the space of Source. That being said stories do find their way into my awareness from time to time (thanks social media), and for the most part I transmute them into love and trust that I have become aware of these stories because there is a space within my own consciousness that is being called to elevate and that there is a space in the mind of humanity that is calling for a blessing that I can offer. In this way I feel useful and free of being dragged down into the horrific stories that abound when one goes seeking for them, however, there are stories that seep in and grab me, they shake me up, chill me to my bone, traumatize and break my heart, and, it was one of those stories that had made it's way into my conscious awareness over the course of this past month that called for me to dig deeper into my truth and my practice.

 

Being shaken up by a tragic story or circumstance that I become aware of is nothing new to me, however, the extent that I have been impacted by a recent bit of news that came into my awareness was shocking to me, learning how to navigate it as a priestess was the gift that has been actualized through this event.

 

When I first began to hear of this particular story I at first went into denial and skepticism, surely what I had read wasn't true, or it was sensationalized in the very least. As the awareness that what I had read was in fact occurring in the 3D Matrix that we call life began to dawn on me and the knowledge that it was in fact even worse than what I had originally doubted as being true rocked me. I spent a week sick to my stomach, up all hours of the night praying and meditating and trying to find my grounding. I was unable to stay present during the day and was hit with such extreme waves of grief, anguish, horror and despair that I felt as if my old ptsd was being triggered, though this was a situation that I had never encountered in life, it was as though I was tapping into the ptsd of each person being effected and I was lost about how to steer through the intensity of what I was channeling.

 

My go-to practice is to remember that all that is not love is an illusion. To own that if it came to me then a part of my consciousness is believing in it and I begin to work at healing my consciousness, I utilize the ho'oponopono prayer, I lay the story in the lap of the Great Mother and go into my inner sanctuary in mediation to raise my frequency and then I trust that I am being a contributing presence in the healing of the situation. In this instance however, the intensity is what stopped me, I couldn't tell whether or not my old formula would be a form of 'spiritual leapfrogging' an avoidance of deeper transmuting work that I could offer. Perhaps the feelings that were rising up within me were coming to me because I could be a willing presence to transmute them into love for all of the people that were directly involved and couldn't transmute their suffering for themselves. On the other hand, with the amount of shock and lack of presence that I was experiencing perhaps I was allowing my vibration to lower and it wasn't in the highest good for me to lower into the sensations of grief and anguish that I was tapping into. I couldn't find my middle path and I, someone who "wears the world as a loose garment," as the Master taught us, was suddenly very much entangled in the pain of the world.

 

This is what came to me through my inner seeking and in reaching out to the women that act as teacher in my life.

 

What first became very apparent to me through my praying and meditation was that I had the power to transmute some of the pain occurring and that that is why this situation had grabbed hold of me so tightly, I was being called to serve in the realm of spirit, that's what I began with. I would breathe it into my heart and out of my heart, not filtering the pain or numbing it. Praying was hard because of my belief around prayer, I don't believe that we influence Source through prayer, rather that prayer opens up the channels of communication between ourselves and our Source self, and so my prayers were ones of seeking out guidance and understanding from my Highest Source Self and then waiting for the answers to come. 

 

After a week of turmoil I sent a message to the yogi teacher, that had walked me through the NICU stay that my daughter and I had after her birth, I messaged her asking what I was supposed to be doing with the amount of what felt like trauma that had arisen within me, stick with it and transmute it or rise above it? Over the phone, across the coasts, her and I discussed some of the deeper truths that are. One of the first questions she asked me was what part of the story was personally effecting me, what came through when we simplified the fear was a fear of abandonment of the Divine Mother. We confirmed that this fear is false and she reminded me that when I work on the part of my consciousness that is in fear and I heal that area on a microcosmic level, then it adds the healing on a macrocosmic level. That was all fine and good, however, I had to point out that while I was working on that universal truth within my own consciousness there were actual people and souls incarnated on Earth right now that were experiencing huge amounts of trauma, whose brains were being formed and were going to be altered by the trauma that they were experiencing, it was at this point that clarity finally came to me. My teacher pointed out that while that was true, where I was located meant that there was little I was able to offer in the form of action steps, if I lived closer I could look into the activism that is being called for at this time, however, I chose to incarnate where I did and so my power lies in holding truth and sending pure love to where it was needed. This confirmed a practice I had already begun, I had gathered like minded souls to join me daily in conjuring up the highest frequency of love and grace that they could in meditation, once this frequency was tapped into it would be consciously sent out to every mother, father, child and person involved in the injustice taking place. I picked a time each day when one of the power numbers grabbed my attention, 1:11, 11:11, 3:33, and so on to go into meditation and to send this presence out to those involved in the suffering. Though I had been doing this already talking to my teacher clarified to me that this was my power and once I identified this practice as one of power rather than one of desperation I became stronger in the love and grace that I could conjure. 

 

Next came the big question, what about the pain? What was I to do with it? Did I transmute it or did I disconnect from it and rise above it? 

 

"What is happening in your mind when you experience this pain?" she asked me, and I told her that I would feel the pain and then my mind would begin to race, I'd picture the children, or the mothers, I'd look at my own girls and feel sick to my stomach - "okay," she cut in "this is where you drop into fear. Some of the people involved in this situation would be able to take what you're experiencing and grow in empathy from it, but empathy is not where we are lacking, in fact we have it in abundance, that's the problem!" she laughed. "When your mind begins to wander into these stories you are buying into the fear and that's when your energy dips." There was my answer, I felt it click. Feeding the drama in my mind was pointless, however holding the pain was a gift and an honour.

 

I was born empathetic and compassionate for a reason, my faith is a gift, not only for myself but for the world, it is an honour to hold the pain of another, and an honour to hold the pain of a group of people. I know what to do with it, I know how to hold it as sacred and how to breathe love into it, I know how to lay it in the lap of the Cosmic Mother, what I didn't know how to do was to claim these practices as power or how to disengage my mind when being in service to the suffering of the world. When a matter grabs my heart as hard as this one did it is my Source self calling me into faith action and if I can stay out of the despairing thoughts, out of the drama and the fear thoughts then I can be with the energy of pain and be a part of raising it up, or in the very least taking a bit of it from the brave souls that are walking through the impossible.

 

Today, I was at the airport and I heard a dog howling, each howl hit my heart like an arrow cutting it, my heart literally ached. I looked at the attendant and asked her "is that a dog being prepared to fly?" 

 

"Yes," she responded with sad and defensive eyes, I peeked around the corner to see a little crate on the conveyor belt. My mind began to contemplate questioning their ethics and practices and then another bark tore at my heart, it felt like an urgent moment where I was called to choose between conflict with the employees and stepping into my priestess power of presence, in this instance I was not called to action. I let the thoughts of condemnation go and just was with the dog, breathing the barks of fear in and raising them into love, being with the dog until the howls passed and peace resumed.

 

This practice of faith and presence and transmuting is by no means a way to excuse taking action when one is called to action, I've called animal control, had the hard conversations when I've seen injustice and was called to speak out, I've signed the petitions, and walked when I felt called to walk, this is a powerful practice that can be implemented when I am called to action and when there is no action that is available for me to take and when I am called to be still. This is a practice that reminds me that my presence and my implementation of spiritual tools is a form of activism on the cosmic level, it is Cosmic Activism if you will.

 

Since this great lesson has been seeded within me I have been diligent in sending love and grace to all people involved in the situation that grabbed at my heart so strongly, and I have come into a stillness and a relationship with the present moment that is deeper than ever. I am recognizing all of the times that I am given opportunities to be in service to the whole from my highest Cosmic Mother self, another situation that occurred today involved me picking a wandering toddler up and handing him back to his Auntie, "come here bad boy," she said as she carried him inside, I paused in shock at the choice of the words that she spoke. After I drove away I continued to hear her saying those words in my mind and I fell into regret that I hadn't spoken up, (if I was able to relive the situation I would have spoken up, I was just in such shock at the time that it happened and it all went by so quickly), it was in that moment that I stopped and directed my thinking onto another path. In my mind's eye I did speak up "he's just doing what's in his nature, exploring, he's a good boy, there are no bad boys," I said in my replaying of the situation, and then I held that boy tight in my arms in my mind and whispered in his ear that he was a good boy over and over again, once I walked through that I left the worldly condition and went into meditation, raising it all up into it's highest frequency, that's where the real power is, when I drop the story and come into contact with Source and merge into the Allness that is.

 

This is the next step in my priestess practice, cosmic activism, I still will not read or actively seek out the news, what I will do is take any of the stories that seep into my awareness and bring my deep presence and faith to them and I will remain ever focused on remaining present to the area's that call on my empathy and compassion in my day to day life, the dog in the crate at the airport, the innocent child being called bad because they have wandered off, the angry customer being rude to a cashier, whatever the picture that presents itself to me, if I can remain open hearted and rooted in faith I can serve the All of humanity, for in the end we are all one and when one person hurts we all hurt, when one person heals, we all heal. I will honour my pain and your pain and the pain of the collective, I will hold it sacred and offer it up to the Cosmic Mother, and I will be the transmuting force of love and grace that I am called to be as a priestess who merges the as above so below mysteries as her gift to humanity, perhaps I will meet you in the midst of the great Mystery joining me in this deep and sacred gifting to humanity.

 

Sohum.

 

Grace Be With You,

Priestess of Grace,

Candise Soaring Butterfly

 

 

image artist unknown to me.