THE PRIESTESS: Patricia Ballentine

 I'm very pleased with this new Icon in my "Our Lady of the Shards" series.

It is called "The Priestess" because the model was Patricia Ballentine, who has been a wise, accomplished, devoted, and much loved Priestess of the Goddess and Earth Based Religion for many years.  She is the Founder of the Temple of the Creative Flame, which was founded in 1999, and is based in Mesa, Arizona. Patricia is also a wonderful artist, who among many other gifts, has created her own Oracle Deck.  Here is Patricia's  own  Sigil,  which is the emblem for the Temple, the Elemental Cross.

It was important that I put "flames" in her hands.   The "offered flame"  "ignites" creativity, imagination, inspiration, and hope.  I think that is what a true Priestess can do.  I remember that years ago I painted an image of a woman emerging from the darkness, bearing a flame in her hand - The Flame of Creativity can illuminate a Path in the dark as well. 

The Temple of the Creative Flame   is a temple of the Goddess serving the greater Pagan community. We are a temple for thinkers and lovers of life, building bridges through ceremony, ritual and dialogue within safe and sacred space.  All are  are welcome who come with open minds and open hearts. WE SERVE through a unified alignment with courageous hearts and compassionate minds. 

That's why I put "flames" in her hands.   The "offered flame" is very important to me - the flame that "ignites" creativity, imagination, inspiration, and hope.  Years ago I produced an image of a woman emerging from the darkness, bearing a flame in her hand - it was the same idea.  The Flame of Creativity can illuminate a Path in the dark as well. 

As an Archetypal Icon,  it is my hope that this sculpture is both personal, and collective, honoring Patricia and the work she and her colleagues have done in the world, and also the emergence now, the very important emergence, of the PRIESTESSES OF THE GODDESS, bringing  Her back into the world to heal the wounds of patriarchy, and the 11th hour of  ecological disaster.  There are many I have been privileged to know - Annie, Macha, Mana, Celestine, Selena, Angie, Starhawk, Kathy,  Constance, Lena, Prema, Vajra, Ava,, Elizabeth, Gloria, Judy,  Valerianna, Xia, Lydia, Max........and many others who serve Her.  Some of you may not call yourselves Priestesses - but you are.  You have all brought the Goddess, the Divine Feminine, back into a world that needs Her.    This is for all of you.  THANK YOU.

"She Changes Everything She Touches, and Everything She Touches Changes"

"Being a Priestess in the world today is messy. It seems that the longer we are on the path, the less obvious the path may be. Yet, we see it more clearly because we intuitively know where to step and how to work. This is especially true in the places where we are least welcomed. We continue to uncover and revitalize the Goddess through our individual and collective Priestess Presence."          

Patricia Ballentine

I am a Priestess of the Goddess

 

My sacred work draws me

Down raw dark corridors

Thru jagged doorways

Into seething vessels

Overflowing with the potential

For transformation only found

In the deepest depths of dysfunction and pain.

 

I am a Priestess of the Goddess

 

My regalia is frayed at the seams

With unrepaired snags and tattered cuffs

From the constant clawing

Of resistant illusions

So deeply engrained

In destructive beliefs and habits

Ripe for the harvest to good.

 

I am a Priestess of the Goddess

 

I walk in rugged boots

With soles worn thin

From the shards of broken hopes and dreams

That litter the pathway

Sometimes bringing me to my knees

In order to see more clearly

The remnant of the passion still present.

 

I am a Priestess of the Goddess

 

I am an unlikely servant

In an inhospitable environment

That incubates the most courageous beings

On the threshold of quantum healing

Through courageous acts of self reclamation

Compassion for others

And the elimination of the shackles of fear. 

Patricia Ballentine

www.PatriciaBallentine.com

The Glastonbury Goddess Festival 2015

The White Spring, Shrine to the Lady, Glastonbury, UK.

It is a great disappointment to me that I will not be attending the GLASTONBURY GODDESS CONFERENCE this year as I had planned, as I have to have a surgical procedure, and had to cancel my plans to go to England. The Conference begins on Tuesday, July 28.   But I  will always remember when I went to Avalon  in 2011, one of the most magical times in my life, and profoundly imbued with the presence of the Numina of this sacred and ancient Pilgrimage,  the Lady of Avalon.   How wonderful, and transformative, the Conference was for me.  I wish that same magic to any who are fortunate enough to attend this year.

 THE CHARGE OF THE GODDESS

I Who am the beauty of the green earth
and the white moon among the stars 
and 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 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 without.

 by Doreen Valiente, as adapted by Starhawk

I copied below one of my posts from 2011, remembering that time with great gratitude.  Also, at the bottom of this post, an interview with Kathy Jones, the founder of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference, from a series of interviews called "A Gathering of Priestesses" with Gloria Taylor Brown.

7/26/2011 

 "The island of apples Avalon  which men call “The Fortunate Isle” (Insula Pomorum quae Fortunata uocatur) gets its name from the fact that it produces all things of itself; the fields there have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides.  The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more. There nine sisters rule by a pleasing set of laws those who come to them." 

Geoffrey of Monmouth

I stopped at the Roman Baths at Bath  en route to Glastonbury, and saw the above, snapping a picture.  Truly, I felt like responding to the synchronicity with a  "Here I come!".

"Avalon" meant the "Apple Isle", and I thought of so many wonderful legends of the apples of the Goddesses.  And, of course, Marian Zimmer Bradley's famous book "The Mists of Avalon".

So walking a few days after arriving, I felt naturally drawn to a bough of apples hanging over a wall, and went to help myself to a few of them..  Right where I reached for an apple was a little niche in the wall - and someone had left a polished amethyst there, with a wire on it so it could be worn on a cord.

I'll take that as a blessing!

Photo by Tony Howell (www.tonyhowell.co.uk)