I wanted to share the story of changing the name of my work from Midwife of the Soul to Priestess Your life, and how this shift arose.
A name change, but more than that, the birth of a whole new identity.
Seeded in the Void at the end of last year, Midwinter in Canada, when the name ‘midwife’ was taken away from teacher, sisters and School.
Legal action threatened for claiming to be midwives, living the meaning of that word to its depths and heights: ‘with woman.’
They will never take that name away. It is written on my heart.
It’s the Way I learned.
However, that Dark Moon moment seeded the need for change. ‘Midwife of the Soul’ no longer a sustainable name. But no inkling of what could replace it.
A few months later, a dream. I am 10 weeks pregnant. Some kind of conception on Christmas Eve. I ran the dates. Quickening and birth, milestones along the way, all tied to events of the Four Seasons Journey, this work of the Midwife.
She whispered to me, this girl-child. I dreamed I held her in my arms, so tenderly. My own daughter.
I waited. I could feel myself pregnant, impatient to meet the new. I waited in the Not-Knowing, in the slow-time of Soul that cannot be rushed.
And finally, one day – overdue by all calculations! – I awoke from a dream that I was in labour. A clear heads-up from my psyche, the time had come!
What a gift, this dialogue with Soul so tangible – I still marvel! It does not always flow this way for me…
That day in October, labouring. I felt uncomfortable, unusual. Not getting anything done, moving somewhat testily through the day, unsettled.
And then I felt my consciousness shift, multiple threads weaving together within me.
On the surface, a solidifying of this Priestess Your Life idea, which had tickled for a while. A myriad of thoughts of what such work might look like. Mapping on large sheets of paper who a priestess is, how a priestess lives…
And simultaneously, more deeply, I was re-membering myself woven into the Oneness, as Minmia says. Grief at not knowing my songlines, that I had no one to pass on such vital infomation and understandings, yet relief at knowing myself ‘of this Land.’ Home.
Home. Home I had sung for, rebirthing myself in sacred ceremony in July, beside the river where I was born. Now, home, in a cosmic sense. A subtle finding of my place, the next unfolding, my roots going deeper.
On that day, I birthed myself anew, quietly, at home.
Priestess, this word, this thread, weaving through my Lunar Journal maps and reflections this year. This soul conversation with the divine feminine, divine Yin principle. Simmering there, in the cauldron of my psyche, for months, but on this day, it all came together and I knew myself as priestess, and I understood this work as the work of a priestess.
And like any brand new baby, there is so much unknown, so much to learn, so much to yet unfold.
Living Our Prayers
That is the story of this change, from Midwife of the Soul to Priestess Your Life.
And more than that! A shift of focus from me to you, from me to sisters everywhere – and some special brothers too! – living their prayers and praying their lives, every day.
I am hoping that this is a language that sings to the hearts of many of you, though this is not a given. Priestess remains a word of taboo and loading. Yet what the world needs now is spiritual living, deeply rooted in the Earth, an honouring and valuing of all bodies. This is what priestesses have always done, channelling the divine from the grounded realities of body and land.
There is much awakening occurring all over the world, much shedding, much rewriting of stories, in these exciting and desperate times.
This is my Full Moon prayer tonight, a prayer of thanks that you, me, we… are singing ourselves up as spiritual beings, as spiritual bodies – and we’re learning what that means. May we be the change the world needs now…
Full Moon ritual
From this significant birth, I move towards another significant ritual this month.
A full-moon moment of my life, according to a 30-year cycle of the Moon (what astrologers call a progressed full moon).
A deep illumination of my life threads to date, most especially this thread of spirituality, ever-present in my life since birth.
My whole life a search for how to best express this relationship with the ineffable.
The possibility of a feminine spirituality, a spirituality that honoured my sexual, creative, birthing body, seeded back in 2002, now illuminated here, almost 15 years later.
Ah, I bow deeply to these cosmic paths we each walk.
On Monday 21st November, I will stand on the beach and commit myself to the Goddess – whatever that means! It is still unfolding!
At first I was calling this ritual ‘marrying myself.’ And that’s still a good name. Committing myself to the divine feminine is fundamentally committing myself to honouring my female body in this lifetime and how it is an expression of the divine.
I have my grandmother’s ring, as symbol of this marriage, and the women of my line stretching back before me. An eco-printed kimono as vestment. Bare feet in the sand, I will speak my vows in front of precious bridesmaid witnesses, dear priestess sisters and teachers in this lifetime.
There is much I do not yet understand about this undertaking. Parts of me are quietly scared, or anxious, or shy. But I know I need to mark this special moment – goodness knows it’s been a long time coming, a very long time of being with the Not-Knowing, as I shed the only spirituality I knew, the faith of my childhood.
And now, I feel the familiar synchronicity of the Flow holding me – it is such a reliable river.
This river, this river. Here I swim, forever…
(I share this as an example of weaving ritual and ceremony into life, as shamanic conversations with all that is unseen. There is more is going on than meets the eye, always, and I believe we don’t need to understand it all. It’s enough to follow our gut.
Also, I’m very happy to talk though your current phase in the 30-year progressed lunar cycle in an astrology reading/conversation. We can dialogue ways to mark and honour where you’ve come from, where you are, and where you’re heading! I call this work the Life Spiral.)