art - Natalia Drepina
"You're a shadow priestess,
you already know it speaks to the poison already in them and not you..."
What does it mean to walk the path of a Dark Goddess, when the vibration of your soul, deep in your bones, infused within your very blood, calls out, screams for authenticity, and in so doing births a Shadow priestess?
The calling aches and births us from pain, with pain, and for pain, embodying the wounded healer and receiving Chiron's keys to this world; unlocking the memory of what it means to sacrifice your comfort in service of another, of all others. When the Shadow Priestess finds herself in a position of shadow poker; churning the coals, stoking the fire, bringing forth the unpleasantness from the depths of people. It can be demoralizing to know that the venom you receive is a reflection of the medicine that you bring just by being, just by speaking; but when this is your authentic truth, you can no more deny it than you would reject breath in your lungs; this is your purpose. There is spiritual need that drives it; you were birthed and claimed by a Dark Goddess to deliver Her messages, speak for the harmed, rally the broken, stand, arms spread against the craven and the cruel, the short-sighted and callous who seek to tear down those with self assertion, connection and authenticity.
It can take a voice of a fellow priestess to remind you that the poison is not yours. It belongs to those liquidated in their own shadow and the choice to choke on it, regurgitate the same broken cycle and contribute nothing is made not by the Shadow Priestess, but by the individual. The Shadow priestess instead makes the decision whether to sink to the level of mud slinger or refuse outright to contribute to a tangled mess of ego and pain. Instead they alchemize their own pain and spin it into magick, their work, their motivation... filter it into something nobler... giving it rhyme and reason and unlocking the doors before them for both themselves and those willing to make the difficult journey to self ascension.
The path ahead is littered with the bloody footsteps of those who have traveled before, and the silent memories alongside them of each lifetime you have walked the path. The choice to keep imprinting your lessons along the mountain side is often distressing, as the harsh words seek to wound you, the judgments and abuses seek to derail you and keep you from your truth. The Shadow Priestess turns tone deaf to the ugliness in utterances from the dismissive and destroyed, for those are the voices of the ones who cannot render destruction into therapy, they do not wield their power merely cut themselves in spite, as though their bleeding wound would injure ought but themselves. They have lost their way. Instead the Shadow priestess walks on their own torn feet, shredded, bruised and aching, marked in testament to the experiences that could have ruptured their soles and instead bear witness to real strength, the courage in the utter refusal to lie down.
artist - unknown
We cannot please the masses and reject the common conceits of our world. A message worth speaking, worth hearing, comes at the price of stepping outside the pandering comfortable tones that people prefer, and speaking with a razor edged sincerity, avoiding placation as well as arrogance, knowing that the many things we do not know vastly outnumber those that we do.
I cannot heal your shadow. Only you can do that. But I can illuminate my lessons of spirit and bones which have served me well and might too serve you in their consideration. I will not bow to the oppression that surrounds, nor validate the self proclamation of victim-hood nor superiority. Their words do not touch me, nor define me,
Only I, myself, can do that.
And though in the walking I might embody the wild waves churning up scum, the world still needs the cleansing, and though the shadows rise to the surface heeding the call of the Wild Darkness of the Shadow Priestess they are not crashing over me.
I will not drown.
Stay Fluxy, Starlet
Many Dark blessings
Joey
All my own work and design all rights reserved
Image - Natalia Drepina
