On Gratitude

Blessings, Courageous Ones!

I am preparing for my pilgrimage to the Goddess Temple of Orange County on Friday, the first of two pilgrimages I have planned for the weekends prior to my Ordination.  I will be travelling down to Southern California with my Priestess-Sister, Lady Carolina Amor, Presiding Priestess of the Spanish-language Circulo de Isis.

Carolina and I have been Goddess Sisters for many years now.  It has been a long and winding sojourn for us, starting with a relationship as Goddess-circle Sisters, moving into friendship, and finally, also into an understanding and kinship as Priestess colleagues.  I deeply cherish my connection with this woman and count her among the greatest blessings in my life.  May we continue this adventure together throughout this lifetime and beyond!

My relationship with Rev. Ava Park, Presiding Priestess of the Goddess Temple of Orange County, began at Z Budapest’s Goddess Festival in 2008.  It feels so very auspicious that I am journeying down to this Sacred Temple for Queen Convocation during this time directly before Festival happens again.  Ava is a dynamic and exciting Teacher, a true embodiment of the Queen archetype that she shares with us through her Queen Convocations, priestessing, classes, and other counsel.  This will be my third Queen Convocation and my first at the Goddess Temple.  I enthusiastically open myself to the teachings of this skilled and magnificent woman!

Lately, I find myself contemplating the nature of Gratitude.  What am I grateful for?  What blessings have I received in my life?  In musing on Gratitude, I am recently drawn to thinking about all of the Teachers I have had thus far in my life, especially those in the Realm of the Goddess Traditions.  I am thinking about all of the Priestesses whose lives have intersected with mine.  I am thinking about women who lead with grace and passion.  I am thinking about women who “walk their talk” and have devoted their lives to Service.

Who were my first Priestess-Teachers?  Zsuzsanna Budapest, of course.  I also add Shekhinah Mountainwater and Laurie Cabot to this list, although I have not met them in the flesh in this lifetime.  ALisa Starkweather, whose ritual at the Women’s Herbal Conference in Peterborough, NH in 1998 changed my life; it was my first large women-only ritual and was extremely powerful and poignant for me at that time and in that place.  I add those Sisters who participated in my small coven in NYC where we first named and acknowledged one another as Priestesses of the Goddess in sacred ceremony.

Leilani Birely, energetic and magnetic High Priestess of the Daughters of the Goddess here in the Bay Area, was hugely influential on my Priestess Path.  Leilani was my primary Teacher during my initial Priestess training, and I served with her as a Temple Priestess for five years before hiving off and forming the Sisterhood of the Moon.  I learned from her what it truly means to hold the cauldron of a women’s community on a daily basis.  I learned how reverence and irreverence, how solemnity and laughter, woven together, create great ritual.  With her, I learned to look at my Shadow Self and the lessons of the Dark.  I learned what to do—and, at times, what not to do—to create a healthy Sisterhood.

As Teachers, I name all of the women I have circled with over the years, including those I am blessed to call Priestess-Sister. I also add the names of these women, whether or not I have participated in formal training with them:  Bobbie Grennier, Ava Park, Leticia Layson, Susun Weed, Diana Paxson, Starhawk, Ffiona Morgan, Victoria Slind-flor, Deeann Bruno, Bendis, Ruth Barrett, Falcon River, Bu Nygrens, Lupa, D’vorah Grenn, Oloya Tyehimba-Ford, Maria and Lynda Yraceburu, Patrice Erickson, Louisa Teish, Evelie Posch, Jennifer Berezan, Rosemary Gladstar, Barbara Nardozzi, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, Selena Fox, M. Macha NightMare, Yeshe Rabbit, Venus Elyse, Heatherly Stankey, Patricia Cramer, Marianne McCarty, Artemis Passionfire.  I know there are more. 

Not all of these women would claim the title “Priestess,” yet all of them are undeniably Priestesses of their own particular Realm of knowledge and expertise, and through the gifts they share with the world.  Many of these women embody the quality of being an Empowered Queen of their own Realm.  Many of these women exemplify exceptional Leadership through Service.  All of these women have touched my life and taught me something important about leadership that I did not learn anywhere else.  Thank you from my heart!

In my continuing exploration of Gratitude, I am finding that sometimes it is what I have learned NOT to do that is the true gift and blessing, the true teaching.  We are all human beings doing the best we can with what we have.  I offer my gratitude to all of these Teachers, those named and unnamed, for their influence on who I am today. I offer my gratitude to the Multiverse for enabling our Paths to cross.  I offer my gratitude for the wisdom in finding the true gift in all of the offerings I have received.

And, to all of the Teachers whom I have not yet met, I look forward to the day our Paths converge!

Blessed be!

Lady Jesamyn Angelica