The Pilgrim's Path
Dear Friends,
Blessings to you in this season of the Ancestors. This note is an update about the many different things happening in my life, at The Sacred Well, and in the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple.
I have recently been on a pilgrimage through Türkiye, Greece, and Crete. Now I am on my final leg of this journey, travelling through England for the next two weeks to explore sites of Goddess, witchcraft, and magic with some sisters from the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple. I’ll be home in late November, and back to my usual schedule of readings at The Sacred Well, very soon.
I have been documenting the sites I visited on this trip, and sharing some of what I’ve learned, on my social media. If you’d like to see my photos and read about the historical places of the Goddesses that I have visited, you are welcome to connect with me on Instagram or Facebook. Please don’t be put off by my Request to Follow on Instagram- I do that so my friends won’t be harassed by the bots and spam comments that seem to appear on most public accounts there. And my Facebook account is public so you can see everything there if you prefer. If you’ve visited the places I’ve seen, or if you’ve wanted to, please leave me a comment! I’d love to hear from you.
Each time I travel devotionally to sacred places, I learn more about the Goddesses, their herstories, traditional and innovative methods of priestessing, and myself. This particular pilgrimage has been instructing me in ever-deepening methods of patiently holding my vision of a matriarchal ancient future where Priestess is an accepted and honoured public role, for the good of women and our communities.
Some of you may recall that I was in Türkiye and Greece last year, so this trip was a return to those beautiful places, but this year was my first visit to Crete. Wow! What an amazing landscape and such a rich history! We went to Crete so that the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple could present at the International Priestess Convocation, which was organised by Anique Radiant Heart and the Temple of the Global Goddess of Maitland, Australia. It was a magical and healing gathering, with a deep and specific focus on repairing relationship and sister wounds in Goddess community.
Low vibrational energies between women can manifest as the behaviours of jealousy, gossip, rejection of women’s earned Elderhood and leadership, ageism, social media popularity contests, financial competition, relationship dysfunction, failure to credit sources/plagiarism, and disregard for the impact that one’s actions might have on other women. Instead of propagating these kinds of behaviours, attendees of this Convocation committed to each become aware of, analyse, and change at least one thing we are doing that resonates within that lower vibrational field. We really looked into our souls to see the places where we have intentionally and unintentionally represented these behaviours. And we invite others to do the same.
It’s easy to see these problems outside of ourselves, but it’s much harder to look into the black mirror of shadow work and admit that you have been part of the problem. As a global Goddess community, we certainly have our work cut out for us, disentangling the knotted threads that bind us to unhelpful patterns. At the same time, we have so much support when we can be in the light of honesty and non-judgment around our missteps and failures. It feels really good to cleanse the soul by admitting, “I’m human. I’ve messed up before and I’ll probably mess up again, but I’m always learning and I’m grateful that I’m in a global sisterhood of women who are willing to talk it over and fix it together, for the benefit of our world.”
Every one of us has been impacted by, and in many cases we have internalised, patriarchal conditioning. Taking responsibility for our own low energy actions is part of identifying and detoxing the patriarchal conditioning that harms us all. A lot of that conditioning is the result of our fear of being persecuted- as women, as politically vulnerable persons, as mothers, elders, and as witches. In many cases, our negative actions are responses to trauma or anxiety. These low level behaviours aren’t who we truly are, but they are the result of our wounding.
Our Temple offered a ritual at the Priestess Convocation, along with a group called the Sacred Birthkeepers and individuals from the Reclaiming tradition, called “Healing the Witch Wound,” in which we identified a number of ways in which the condemnation and persecution of witches worldwide (both historically and currently) has tentacles in sexism, racism, class privilege, dominator culture, and women betraying women. It was a powerful working in which we unravelled the bonds of patriarchy as represented by a crocheted cord, danced through our fears, anger, and losses, honoured the dead and elevated them, and symbolically birthed a future of peace, sisterhood, and harmony by consecrating a magical corn dolly who was later placed with offerings in the sacred Cretan cave sanctuary of the goddess Eileithyia, she of fertility and life.
We also offered a Dance Prayerformance in collaboration with Sophia Blanton of Ashland, Oregon based on the Delphic Maxims. I had a dream last year in Delphi that I was "dancing the oracles." Working with Sophia, we brought together our research and passions to create this dance. Each participant selected one of the recorded Delphic Maxims to enact through spoken word and Isadora Duncan style movement. It brought several of the people who were watching to tears, and it gave all of the dancers a creative ritual space in which to share our life experiences and dance our sorrows into wisdom.
And finally, I offered a solo workshop at Convocation introducing the Priestess Maxims that I’ve written, which are currently a self-paced class I offer in the Goddess Temple App, and which will be published as a book in 2023. In this workshop, I introduced the 6 main roles of the Priestess, who is
-a strong and self-disciplined individual
-a vehicle for the Divine
-a facilitator of sacred experiences
-a public service provider
-a pillar of the community, and
-a friend to humanity
All of our Temple’s work was lovingly-received at this event, and it felt so good to have the opportunity to contribute to the gathering. Plans for Priestess Convocation 2024 are beginning to take shape already, and I hope the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple will be there once again to contribute. I envision exciting ideas, such as a dream incubation ritual for Seers and Sibyls, a Spanish-language presentation track, scholarships for low-income women to attend, and increased opportunities to hear the voices of indigenous women at this event. I’m dreaming big about the Convocation that I hope we can help to co-create with the organisers and our sisters around the world!
At the same time, I’m also really looking forward to returning to my work of tending The Sacred Well and the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple when I get home to Dunsmuir in late November. I miss my husband Albert and our cat family, I miss my Kuan Yin shrine and daily practice, I miss the shop plants and crystals, and I miss being with you! My internet while traveling hasn’t been very strong, so when I come home I’ll be ready to get back to my video classes and gatherings, meetings with students, readings with clients, and my in-person offerings at the Goddess Crafts Faire in Sebastopol on Dec 3 & 4. I’m looking forward to finishing 2022 strong, and I have so many happy plans already in the works for 2023. You can see a few of them below.
As the wheel turns from Fall to Winter, I’m sending you warm wishes for coziness, a happy home, a full belly, loving companions, and magical moments of good cheer.
Wishing you all the best from rainy late autumn in England,
Yeshe