Category: The Priestess ProcessTM

Reclaiming Initiation: The Priestess Path

By Anyaa T. McAndrew

Anyaa McAndrewThe Divine Masculine may have started out as a worthy counterpart to the Divine Feminine in the ancestral environment. Unfortunately, over the past few thousand years, patriarchy, the shadow side of the Divine Masculine, has gained ascendancy and fostered myriad forms of oppression (suppression of women’s rights, Holy Inquisitions, etc.). You can tell how true this is by how you feel in your gut about the very word “patriarchy”. Over millennia we’ve had priests but no priestesses; a male God, but no Goddesses. It’s been pretty one-sided . . . but things are changing.

One of the features of patriarchy has been an emphasis on “solar initiations” or those that focus on transcending the body to join with Spirit. Fire-walking, warrior sweat-lodges, the Sun Dance, meditations, some martial arts, and many forms of visionquests use endurance and trance to reach out of the body and, thereby, elevate consciousness. By contrast, the Divine Feminine employs “lunar initiations”, or those that call Spirit into the body (a welcome alternative to jettisoning out into the universe to make a connection!). After a long suppression, this Divine Feminine and the priestess archetype are returning to cultural consciousness and acceptance.

A feature of patriarchy is our loss of soul connection to our bodies. The result is that most of us center ourselves from our neck up. We identify heavily with our thinking. But as women reclaim their Divine Feminine natures, the true feeling function of femininity gets to play and be re-membered. Shakti dances into ecstatic bliss. Aphrodite revels in sacred sexual pleasure. Pele fully runs the life-force energy of fiery passion. Inanna consciously surrenders to the death-rebirth mysteries. Baubo laughs her bawdy belly laugh. Kuan Yin cries her tears of compassion for all living things, while Gaia pours forth her infinite abundance. Priestess consciousness allows the myriad faces of the Goddess to be soulfully expressed, as the human woman learns to step into her spiritual power.

Women walk very differently on a spiritual path when they are fully encouraged to express their soulful nature. The soul itself is described as feminine by many sources, being at once wild, willful, chaotic, earthy, sensual, sweet, deeply emotional, passionate and compassionate. These natural soul qualities are also the qualities of the divine feminine seeking to awaken the priestess within the woman. This awakening results in the full empowerment of the woman as a Priestess whose Temple is the everyday world. She exerts her influence in all of her roles—as daughter, mother, lover, career woman, neighbor, and in every interaction she has, moment to moment. At last, the divine feminine and the divine feminist are joined.

Women’s spiritual work calls for full embodiment if we are to co-create a New World with Spirit. We can no longer afford to be disembodied victims of a worn-out patriarchal system on any level: physical, economic, social or spiritual. At the same time we cannot afford to exclude the Divine Masculine as we embrace the Divine Feminine. This Sacred Union, or Sacred Marriage within, is the spiritual foundation from which springs true personal growth and empowerment. It is the alchemical activity that engenders wholeness and balance.

The Priestess calls us back with the “Charge of the Goddess”:

I who am the beauty
Of the green earth and the
White moon on
The mysteries of the waters,
I call upon your soul to arise
And come unto Me,
For I am the soul of nature
That gives life to the universe,
From Me all things proceed
And unto Me
They must return.
Let My worship be in the
Heart that rejoices,
For behold
All acts of love and pleasure
Are My rituals,
Let there be beauty and strength,
Power and compassion,
Honor and humility,
Mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me,
Know that the seeking and yearning
Will avail you not,
Unless you know the Mystery:
For if that which you seek,
You find not within yourself,
You will never find it with out.
For behold,
I have been with you from the
Beginning,
And I am that which is attained
At the end of desire.

—Doreen Valiente
from “Earth Prayers”

Anyaa McAndrew is a licensed psychotherapist and resides in Western North Carolina. Her work is grounded in Transpersonal and Shamanic psychology as she walks the spiritual path of the Goddess. As an ordained Madonna Ministry Bishop and a Magdalene High Priestess, she has birthed the Mystery School of Life Force Energy, encompassing the Scorpio-Taurus Mysteries. Her Priestess Circles empower women to reclaim the lost soul essence of the priestess within.

You can contact Anyaa or call 404-432-1499 or Anyaa@goddessontheloose.com

See “Events” for priestess circles forming or contact Anyaa to schedule an Introductory Weekend in your area.

Awakening the New Millennium Priestess: From The Spiritual Path of The Goddess by Tim Miejan August 2001


Anyaa McAndrewIt’s widely acknowledged by those attuned to the energies of the Earth that much more balance is needed. The Divine Feminine, once a powerful force on the planet, has been overshadowed by a patriarchy that diminishes the presence of the feminine. The result: few women in the role of spiritual leader and a culture lacking in compassion and nurturance of all. Cries can be heard, if one listens carefully, for the sacred feminine to be restored as an equal player in the consciousness of this planet. One who has listened and responded is Nicole Christine, author of Temple of the Living Earth and creatrix of Celestial Earth Center in Tucson, Ariz. She has created and nurtured a lineage of women who have set the intention to “fully awaken, enliven and integrate the inner priestess” through a process known as Awakening the New Millennium Priestess. Anyaa McAndrew, a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, has worked for 25 years in the sacred work of emotional healing and leads women through the Priestess Processâ„¢.
Tell me about the role of the Priestess in past cultures.

Anyaa McAndrew: There’s a lot of new information coming forth that indicates that the Goddess probably ruled on the planet for maybe up to 25,000 years before patriarchy. Women played the major role in those times and, even after patriarchy came in about 5,000 years ago, there was still the Priestess and the Priest. They co-facilitated and mediated between the Divine and what happened with the people on the earth. The Priestess’s role was that of a mediator, like the Priest or Pope in the Catholic Church. In ancient times, she facilitated puberty rights of passage, marriage ceremonies and served as an intercessional between the celestial realms and the earth realms. Right now we don’t need that. We don’t need Priestesses to be an intercession for us. The point now is not to reinstate the temples or reinstate Priestesses alongside of Priests and Ministers, but to really find those archetypes within ourselves.

That’s a major shift in the role from the past to the present.

McAndrew: Yes. Those roles that are spiritually better than or inferior to the rest are just not effective, because we are moving into a time period when it’s important for all of us to connect to the Divine within ourselves and to have a clear channel. It’s about the role of the Priestess to create what we call Celestial Earth on earth now – to create heaven on earth. The function of awakening the Priestess now is to help women claim their own spiritual authority. It has been very difficult for women to relate to a white, male God, because that’s so different from who they are, so there’s an automatic disconnect that happens when women try to relate to God the Father. They may not even know they are feeling this until they are in their later years, and they disconnected with their own spirituality.

Continue reading “Awakening the New Millennium Priestess: From The Spiritual Path of The Goddess by Tim Miejan August 2001”

Awakening the Priestess Within

By Kim Oursler

Driving to the Introductory Weekend of Awakening the New Millennium Priestess Process™, I found great apprehension nestled in my tummy. It took the form of a knot of fear and suspicion. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, knowing that I was to at least see what this whole “Priestess Process™” thing was about.

The weekend was held in a clubhouse which was part of an apartment complex. Before I entered the clubhouse, I cloaked myself in anonymity. I did not really want to be seen or to exchange pleasantries with strangers. Little did I know that these women were about to become part of a lifelong Sisterhood. I made my way to the back of the room and found the registration table. The scent of sage smoke wafted through the air and I turned to find its source. A short, stocky woman with flaming red cropped hair named Shae stood with a large abalone shell and a smudging fan filled with feathers. She told me to write down whatever was holding me back from embracing this process. I named my fear on that slip of paper along with past betrayals by women. I watched as flames engulfed the paper and transformed it quickly to ashes. Shae allowed the smoke to wash over my body in a cleansing way and I inhaled the sacred, familiar scent.

The ding of Tibetan prayer bells called us into circle. There were 22 women new to the process and 5 apprentices who had been through the process in a previous circle. A woman with shiny long straight hair and gorgeous turquoise eyes named Anyaa McAndrew welcomed us with a smile. She was the facilitator of the process. She instructed us to form an inner circle of 11 women facing out. The remaining 11 women were to form a circle facing in. Our two circles gazed at each other. Anyaa asked us to look into the eyes of the woman facing us. “She is your sister,” she stated as she proceeded to lead us into a guided meditation. “See her as a child, see her giggling and laughing at age four.” Many of us smiled and began to laugh a little as we glimpsed the possibility of a newfound “sister”. “Now see her Divine Feminine spark as you look into her left eye.” I felt my own light shine a bit more and began to feel strong. We each received the Divine Feminine mirrored back to us in the woman we stood before. “With permission, place your hands over the heart chakra space of your sister,” Anyaa instructed. My new sister, Emily, asked if she could place her hands close to my chest. I answered yes. Her hands hovered on my front and back, covering the heart space. “Now whisper this into her ear,” Anyaa shared and Emily leaned in to my left ear. She whispered, “I apologize for the hurt that women have caused you…in this lifetime, and in all others.” Whoosh! I felt something flush through my body from the heart space, racing down into my legs, leaving my feet and joining with Mother Earth. Tears filled my eyes and I knew that no matter what sort of commitment I had to make to these women and this process, I would do it. The fear was gone, the suspicion was gone and I opened like a child filled with the wonder of the world.

The Priestess Processâ„¢ was a nine-month journey into the seat of my own soul. The 22 women became my sisters. Together, we were initiated as Priestesses of the Goddess. We created divine works of art that represented the angels within each of us. We stated intentions that held great power and were blessed by the entire circle. We faced the shadow of ourselves and found healing. We shared the stories of our spiritual journeys and found that we had been guided all along to lives of awakened purpose and action. We learned about Shamanic Astrology and worked with archetypes that enlightened us more about who we were and why we are here. We released old stories, old patterns, and old ways that no longer served our highest good. We welcomed in the New, knowing that it was a complete mystery but trusting in it all the same. We embodied the Truth of the Divine Feminine and committed to continually opening to Her in our own selves.

When I want to connect with this Sisterhood of Priestesses, I recall dancing with my sisters during the Priestess Processâ„¢ as a moving time of meditation. There were times when emotions poured through me as I claimed my body and moved it in a way that was unique to my own inner rhythm. Looking on the circle with half-closed eyes, it seemed we were transported to another time, a time of the Temple Priestesses where the scent of frankincense and myrrh blended with the sound of jingling bells and tinkling chimes. The women flowed in their grace of movement and seemed much more alive at the end of every dance. This image remains in my heart, forming a healing connection to women Seen and Unseen, Known and Unknown. It is a blessing to me and an awakening from which I will never be released.

Kim Oursler is a writer, mother, and High Priestess. She is a spiritual midwife for women walking the sacred path and open doors for herself in order to light the way for others.

Acknowledging The Directions and Elements for Living Ceremony

1. (EAST)

We acknowledge the Spirit Guardians Of the East-Aires, and the archetype Of the Warrioress Amazon and the Element of fire. As the place of the Dawn, new beginnings, and personal Enlightenment, we ask that you bless Us with passion, creativity, inspiration, Ambition, warmth & joy. Help us burn Through our fears & blockages to stand In our truth & our light as spiritual Warriors. Warm our hearts & our hearths. We call on Pele and Kali, the Goddess Tonanizn, the dragon, the phoenix energy And the violet transmuting flame. (SILENCE HERE FOR ADDITIONS) Be with Us and bless our circle. Blessed Be.

2. (SOUTH)

We acknowledge the Spirit Guardians of the South-Cancer, and the archetype of The Great Mother and the element of Water. As the place of home, family & Personal roots, we ask that you bless Us with safety, emotional support, Fertility, unconditional love and Intuition. Help us feel the ebb & flow Of life. Help us to give and receive gracefully. Open us to the abundance of The Universe. We call on Gaia, Demeter, Hathor, the dolphin & whole energies. And we acknowledge the Great Mother of Us all. (SILENCE HERE FOR ADDITIONS) Be with us and bless our circle. Blessed Be.

3. (WEST)

We acknowledge the Spirit Guardians of the West-Libra, and the archetype of conscious Equal Partnership, and the element of air. AS the Place of partnership & personal relationship we ask that you bless us with friendship, healthy communication, intellectual growth & knowledge. Help us perceive with crystalline clarity & see without distortion. Show us the way to healthy relationships. We call on Isis, Hera, and Eagle Woman, Pegasus and all the winged creatures of the sky realm. (SILENCE HERE FOR ADDITIONS) Be with us and bless our circle. Blessed Be.

4. (NORTH)

We acknowledge the spirit guardians of the North-Capricorn and the archetype of the wise elder and the element of earth. As the place of right livelihood & personal responsibility in the world, we ask that you bless us with groundedness, good health, self-confidence and wisdom in all our endeavors. Help us be peacebearers and way showers. Help us understand the earth’s cycles of life & death, seedtime & harvest. We call on Kuan Yin, Miriam, & Cerridwen and the bear, the wolf, the horse and all of the ancient four-leggeds that bless our earth. (SILENCE HERE FOR ADDITIONS) Be with us & bless our circle. Blessed Be.

5. (CENTER)

We acknowledge the Spirit Guardians of the As Above So Below Mysteries and the As Within So Without Mysteries. We acknowledge the element of Spirit and the archetype of Sacred Union, and the Divine Couple. As the place of the coming together of all duality & polarity, we ask that you open the doors between the dimensions. Help us walk between the worlds so that we may unite Spirit & matter on earth. Help us co-create a new dawn of possibility this day & everyday. We call on Isis & Osirus, the Magdalene, the Christ, the Priestess & Priest oversoul, the Shadow & the Light. (SILENCE HERE FOR ADDITIONS) Be with us & bless our circle. Blessed Be.

The Magic of Emerging a Priestess

By Mona Reeves

Mona and AnyaaSliding through the door the second the ceremony began, I settled into a seat in the back of the room. The Mistress of Ceremonies, Anyaa McAndrew, was welcoming us to this important occasion. Eleven women were to proclaim themselves priestesses, aligning with and reclaiming their spiritual authority. I knew the gravity of what was about to happen because I went through the process myself only a few years earlier. Like them, I had embarked on a journey that spanned nine months, meeting for six weekends to play spiritually and do deep work emotionally. I found the best part of the weekends to be that I could fully own myself sans the roles I fill in everyday life. I could dream, play and just plain BE. The priestess process that these women were completing had required them to open their hearts and follow their spirits. It had moved them to connect with the Divine Feminine.

The air above my head was peppered with an exquisite explosion of color from eleven rows of eleven brightly colored banners – one banner on each row representing each woman in all her beauty and glory. The portal from which each woman would emerge was absolutely lovely draped in flowy pink fabric. On the right sat a table with each woman’s intention statement. On the left was a table holding each woman’s gift to the community. At the rear was a table abundant with succulent food.

Having arrived later than I planned to, I took everything in, and thanked the Universe for divine timing. Shortly after I took my seat, the Priestesses of Venus Star Rising floated, glided, sashayed, and pranced their way around the room. Each woman was a wondrously individual expression of the grace and beauty of the Goddess. They filled the room with their essence, creating heaven on earth. They were a gift to behold.

What a joy to witness each woman as she stepped into her priestess self, proclaiming the gifts she brings to the world. Drumming and chanting enlivened the air as each woman stepped forward to proclaim herself a priestess. Several of the women were also ordained ministers through the Madonna Ministry. The talent these women possess is simply amazing. They already moved through the world in powerful ways. The priestess process opens women up to being powerful across many dimensions. Each Priestess of Venus Star Rising claimed this power as her own.

Committing to the priestess process is the beginning of shifts in a woman’s life that move her life to coincide with her soul’s purpose. Each woman sets an intention at the beginning of the process. Once that intention is set, the woman on the priestess path steps into an initiation process. Along the way, she will laugh, cry, shout, dance, sing, play, pray, be. She will see herself reflected in the stories of the other women in her circle. She will come to understand the power of vulnerability and the power of facing the truth. And she will embody the power of being a woman.

To witness yet another priestess emergence was an honor and a privilege. The next priestess circle is one I will apprentice, so I will be taking part in an emergence ceremony about a year from now. I cannot wait to assist women in discovering deeply who they really are in their heart of hearts. What I love most about the priestess community of which I am now a part is that I have lots of sisters now that I connect with on a deep level. Women I can hug for minutes at a time. Women whose eyes I look into and I am embraced by the love beaming back at me. In a world where women are portrayed in less than sacred terms, to be connected with women on a sacred level is a godsend.

The way to saving the world from the end we are headed toward now is for women to gather and reclaim the power of the divine feminine. Only by healing the wounds laid upon us by the patriarchy and facing the fears that block our empowerment can we, as women, shift the consciousness that is leading our society to ruin. The priestess process is not the only way that women can come together to commit to saving Mother Earth. But is an extremely effective way of creating the safe space needed for women to show up fully as all of who they are.

The most beautiful benefit of being part of a priestess circle is the support that comes with women bonding together to fulfill a spiritual purpose. Whatever needs healing will be held in sacred space. Each circle is a place for walking the path paved in miracles. Some of us have divine appointments we made many lifetimes ago. Come as you are called to the circle of women.