What is a priestess or priest?

A lot of people get wrapped up in a title or idea of what a priestess/priest is and a lot of them get stuck on one idea, that a priestess/priest leads ritual and maybe does some pastoral counseling and that ‘s it, but the role is so much more.

A priestess or priest is anything reasonable and I suppose unreasonable, given what some deities can ask of you, that serves your deities. Nothing more and nothing less is your duty to your deity.

So, let’s look at the wider role. We are all priestess and priests every day we walk our path and that includes the people that choose the set-up and clean-up roles before and after ritual if you have enough people to spread around. It’s your door greeter. It’s your archivist/photographer. It’s the person who starts the phone chain. It includes everything even the non-glamourous roles.

You can be a storyteller, a musician, a baker, it isn’t what you do, it is how you do it? Do you perform what you need to do with a clear head and intent and open heart? Do you do it with your whole heart? If you didn’t get the job you wanted in ritual are you feeling relegated or hard done by instead of saying not everyone can be a star nor does everyone want to be nor should everyone be a star.

And if you always take a background role is it time to volunteer for something bigger?

Being a priestess/priest does, however mean growth. It means pushing yourself to do things that may make you feel uncomfortable because you happen to be shy or it isn’t something you really want to do.

Being a priestess/priest means accepting change, how does the chant go? “She changes everything she touches and everything she touches changes”?

This is a path of change and when we accept the anointing or mantle or whatever your tradition uses to acknowledge priestesshood we accept that as well. I don’t know a single person that hasn’t had difficult but amazing year after accepting the title and every step along the way our deities challenge us for accepting the title. They do listen when we take our vows just as we listen to them.