Anique’s Blog · Explainer · October 2015

What is a Priestess?

Women have carried the spiritual life of their communities in every culture we know of. They attended the births and the deaths, read the signs, kept the songs, and held the ceremonies that marked the turnings of life.

Most people would define a priestess as a woman who leads ritual. But there is a whole range of names and culturally defined meanings for women’s spiritual leadership: shaman, medicine woman, diviner, spirit-medium, oracle, sibyl and wisewoman, and countless titles in the languages of the world’s peoples.

Essentially, a Priestess develops the skills required to heal and take care of a community’s spiritual life. She is a Woman in Service — to a power that is both greater than she is, and is also all of what she is.

She becomes adept at changing energy within the body and within spaces, and she embodies the Goddess for her community, to assist us all to touch, feel and hear the Goddess in embodied form.

In the ancient temples of Egypt, the documented evidence shows us how the Priestesses lived and worked in the Temples dedicated to the Great Ancient Mother Goddess. The skills they developed there are still relevant now.

To be a Priestess is to be in Her Sacred Service, and that is a calling and a privilege.

Anique Radiant Heart