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Awakening the New Millennium
Priestess
Nine-month process will initiate women into the Twin Cities circle
An interview with Anyaa McAndrew
by Tim Miejan
It'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 in the Atlanta area,
has worked for 25 years in the sacred work of emotional healing and leads women through
the Priestess process as taught by Nicole Christine. McAndrew will be in the Twin
Cities on August 9, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., to launch a free introductory gathering
to explain the nine-month process for a circle of women who are guided to such an
awakening. It will be the first such circle to form in Minnesota.
McAndrew's work is grounded in Transpersonal and Shamanic psychology, as she walks
the spiritual path of the Goddess. Anyaa is an ordained Madonna Ministry Bishop,
a Magdalen High Priestess, a Certified Shamanic Astrologer (in the work of Daniel
Giamario) and Shamanic BreathworkČ facilitator (in the work of Venus Rising and Linda
StarWolf), a teacher of Tantra and a Certified Imago Therapist. Her Priestess Circles
empower women to reclaim the lost soul essence of the priestess within, while learning
to walk in the underworld of their own fears to gain power, playful passion and magnetism.
With 29 years experience in the sacred work of emotional healing, Anyaa creates a
safe, nurturing space for profound personal transformation.
She spoke with Edge Life about the role of the Priestess and why the awakening process
is vital in the lives of those who experience it.
For those who have never heard of the Priestess Process, describe its intention
and for whom it's intended.
McAndrew: The Priestess Process is intended for women only and women who are
interested in expanding their spiritual life and also stepping more into their own
personal and spiritual authority. It is to assist women in stepping fully into their
spiritual authority, their personal authority, and also something that we call "individuate
from the patriarchy." A lot of us feel like we've done that, but there are little
places in our psyche where we're still attached to the patriarchal culture, so the
process really gives us an opportunity to be centered around our own Divine inner
feminine.
Regarding the patriarchy, do you mean that within women there is still something
within them it's okay to go along with it?
McAndrew: We do an interesting process on the second weekend. It's a process
of getting in touch with what we call our inner patriarch. We've found that the inner
patriarch is an aspect of the super-ego, like the inner critic or the inner judge,
and it gets passed down to us from our mothers. It's a set of unconscious beliefs
and judgments and rules about women and about how to get along in a patriarchal world.
In our process, we interview each other and get to hear our own inner patriarch;
it's a sub-personality, so it comes through in this exercise. We get to see those
limiting beliefs. Each woman has a ceiling, and that ceiling is a place that each
of us have to push through to be able to be a woman of power. These internal beliefs
would have us believe that, somehow, women are inferior, or we should keep our mouths
shut.
All of this was created in the Collective for good reasons. If you think about it,
200, 500, 1,000 years ago, for a woman to be in her power meant certain persecution
or even death. So these rules, or this inner patriarch, that's been passed down from
generation to generation...
Protected them in the past.
McAndrew: Yes! It was a way for our mothers to actually keep us alive, to keep
us safe. So, that's an example of what I'm talking about in terms of the individuation
process.
You have indicated that the centerpiece of this work is the living ceremony, in
which one is connected with the Priestess Oversoul. What is that -- and why are people
disconnected from it? Why is reconnection important?
McAndrew: Almost all of us have been indoctrinated in some kind of religious
form, and those religious forms have become very stale over time. Rituals that are
used in various religions don't have any life force left. Living ceremony is a way
for us to ceremonialize in the moment with individual and Collective intentions and
lift them up them to Spirit, to bring Spirit into matter. Ritual is something that
most of us are fairly disconnected from, because of religious indoctrination. Bringing
the life force back into ritual and ceremony really brings the magic back into life.
What is the connection between the Priestess Movement and the planet itself?
McAndrew: We saw with The Da Vinci Code going to the bestseller list in no time
at all that there's definitely a connection between the Earth and the Divine feminine.
Men and women are very curious about the whole concept of the lost feminine on this
planet -- and the power of the feminine. The connection with Mother Earth is that
unless we wake up and begin to understand that all life is sacred, then we're most
likely doomed. We may not destroy the planet, but we're certainly going to destroy
ourselves.
The feminine is very much connected to the planet, connected to what we call Gaia,
the Goddess of planet Earth -- and to the whole idea of embodied soul in these times.
It's no longer about us leaving our bodies, which would be akin to leaving Earth.
There's a whole Christian perspective now that the environment doesn't matter, because
we're going to ascend anyway.
The Rapture.
McAndrew: Yes, the whole Rapture thing, which is very dangerous. The task now
is really about creating celestial Earth, about bringing Spirit into our bodies,
connecting with our bodies, and connecting Spirit to Earth.
What effect has the popularity of The Da Vinci Code has had on women and their
spiritual paths?
McAndrew: I think it's truly made it okay for women to begin to talk about the
Goddess, to talk about the Divine feminine. The fact that so many men have read The
Da Vinci Code, and so many men are opening up to the concept of the Divine feminine,
has had almost a direct political impact.
In fact, there was a man in Portland with whom I had a conversation. His daughter
completed part of the Priestess process. One of the things that he said to me was,
"Anyaa, in looking over what it is you're doing, I truly believe that what this
is about is the Divine feminist."
And I thought, "Wow, that's a really interesting concept." I come from
the feminist movement in the 1970s, but in those days, spirituality and politics
couldn't survive in the same room, and now they're finally coming together. They
are surviving in the same room. You don't have to not talk about one to talk about
the other. You can talk about them in the same sentence.
Who is the Dark Madonna and how does she relate to this process?
McAndrew: The Dark Madonna is an aspect of the Divine feminine that is very mysterious
in lots of ways. Some say that she is Mary Magdalen, that Magdalen was actually African.
Some say that she's an aspect of Mother Mary, but regardless, the fact that she's
dark connects her to the shadow, to the repressed aspects of the feminine. It also
connects her to the deep feminine, those earthier, more grounded energies that have
to do with deep soulfulness and the underworld, being able to face our fears, to
gain empowerment.
To what extent is the Priestess Process a journey into one's shadow, with you
guiding them through the darkness and back out again?
McAndrew: It's very much about that, because when we create our intention statement
in the beginning of the process -- when we do our initiation into the process --
I tell the women that when you step into any kind of initiation, it will result in
some kind of a psychic death. We live in very shamanic times, and the shamanic element
is really about conscious death and rebirth. Whatever needs to die, whatever is in
our shadows that needs to come up, whatever is not about our intentions for the process,
will come up in the nine months so that it can be transformed, so it can be burned
away, so that it can be brought into the light, so it can be integrated -- whatever
way those shadow parts of us need to be worked with.
Sometimes they just need to leave. Sometimes they're aspects of our past that we
speak into when we tell the stories of our spiritual journeys, and it might be some
aspect of our past that we've been holding in secret. Once it's spoken, then we're
complete with it. Other times, it is a part of us that we feel is unhealable, or
parts of us that just need to be exposed to the light.
I'm wondering if that is something that all the women who come into the Priestess
Process share: a stirring inside that they need to go through that journey.
McAndrew: I don't think I can answer that. Some women who come into the process
just get an inner message that they've got to do this. They don't know where it's
coming from, and usually it's coming from some aspect of their Higher Self. I usually
ask women to ask for a message from Spirit, or ask for a message from the Goddess,
to see whether or not they want to do the process. Other women come into the process
because it sounds cool, and they get to dress up. I've heard women talk about that,
and that's okay, too. Or they want to hang out with a group of women, and their friends
are doing it and it seems like the "in" thing to do.
And then other women -- maybe they've been on the spiritual path a little bit longer
-- just know that this is a piece of work that is absolutely essential for them to
become whole.
Regardless of the reasons, do they all come out to the same place at the end?
McAndrew: We say in the process that each Priestess is in her own way and in
her own time. By the end, I think that the magic and the power of the circle itself
brings the women into a common place so that there's a harmony and there's a connection
that allows each woman to feel okay, to feel good about where she is on the Priestess
path -- no matter how much of the archetype or how much of her own power she's been
able to own in the process.
Of course, it's different for each woman. I have a woman in my Atlanta circle now
who's a very accomplished High Priestess, and she's coming into the process with
beginner's mind and really discovering some really important things, especially about
her maiden self that she hadn't been able to discover in other circles. It's about
each woman embracing as much as she is able to through the process. There is a sisterhood
that allows each woman to very peacefully and in a fulfilled way love her own Priestess
self and love what she's been able to embrace.
How does the Priestess Process affect the everyday life of a woman after the process?
McAndrew: In countless ways. I get lots of feedback from the partners in women's
lives. A lot of times partners are very concerned -- you could even say worried --
especially men, but also women partners, too, in lesbian relationships. They're concerned
that they're somehow going to lose their partner. I've had lots of partners come
to me afterward and say, "Thank you. It's really enhanced, really enriched and
really deepened our relationship." So, that's been a really good thing. Every
once and a while, a relationship will part ways, but mostly it enriches relationships.
There's a way that women demystify each other in the process. I'm sure this is true
of men, too, that we mistrust our own sex in different ways. So coming to a place
where women can lovingly embrace a group of sisters has a very healing and profound
effect on women's daily lives. They can begin to connect to women in their ordinary
lives in a whole different way.
And they really do walk in that spiritual authority. Especially if they're being
ordained in the Madonna Ministry as a minister, they'll find that they start having
some kind of a ministry. People will automatically start coming to them for counsel.
Overall, there are a lot of shifts and changes in terms of practical reality, like
"This is what I've always wanted to do and, by Goddess, I'm going to start doing
it, whatever it is." Sacred work is changed, relationships deepen or shift,
and the way that they walk in the world usually becomes very different. I hear that
from women who've been through the process five or six years ago.
It's up to each woman to decide how to proceed after the process?
McAndrew: Yes, some women go on and do the Magdalen Process, which is the Magdalen
Mystery School -- another nine-month process that works with the archetype of the
High Priestess and Mary Magdalen. Magdalen is the overseeing Goddess of that process,
because she was a master of this world and the celestial realms. What we truly believe
is that the time of Magdalen and Christ was a time of a transfer of power between
the masculine and the feminine, and that their sacred union provided the vehicle
for that transfer of power -- and that Magdalen was very much a master in her own
right.
Well, by all accounts if women would have been permitted to, she probably would
have been a disciple.
McAndrew: We believe she was a disciple. She was the main disciple.
Well, I mean an acknowledged disciple.
McAndrew: Oh, yes, an acknowledged disciple, absolutely.
Because, because clearly she was one of Jesus's closest friends.
McAndrew: Yes, if not his partner. In the Magdalen Process, we take the whole
concept of the Priestess even further. It is about walking in the world. We just
added an entire weekend devoted to politics and spirituality. We have a weekend that
is specifically about spirituality and sexuality. And we have another weekend where
we work specifically with money and spirituality.
Sometimes we work with the Black Madonna and sometimes we work with Ananna, who we
view as the first shamanic priestess. Sometimes we work with Miriam, the sister of
Moses and a prophetess. We're about healing those splits in the second chakra so
that we can be powerful women, walking in the world at the turning of the ages. If
we as women, if we as priestesses, are not connected to the world and don't understand
what's happening in these times, then we really don't walk with much power.
Yeah, I was thinking about the split between men and women in politics.
McAndrew: Yes, the women come in and they say, "Oh, I'm not political at
all." But what we discover is that they are very political. They just haven't
spoken what they believe. We give them a list of about 50 different issues, ranging
from the environment to animal rights to education, and all of a sudden they become
fired up and they begin to see, "Oh, my gosh! This is a spiritual issue! You
know, I am very political." And they start to voice their beliefs and their
concerns. It's just incredible to see what happens and how they come out of the closet.
Unfortunately, the system we have tends to disempower people.
McAndrew: Especially the system we have right now. It's starting to become really
scary to speak your truth.
You've written that women walk very differently on a spiritual path when they
are fully encouraged to express their soulful nature. How so?
McAndrew: When I say their soulful nature, I'm talking about just being in ecstatic
connection with their physical bodies. There's a wildness and there's a freedom and
there's a self-expression that happens. That's very different than male spiritual
disciplines.
When will the nine-month period begin, following the free introductory preview
evening?
McAndrew: We will offer an introductory weekend, September 24-25, allowing the
women to get a taste of the process. They don't have to commit to the entire nine-month
journey. They can just come to the workshop and then decide if they want to continue.
We're very excited about bringing it to Minneapolis-St. Paul. This has definitely
been a dream for me, because my love is taking the process to other cities.
How far has it come now, beginning in Atlanta?
McAndrew: North Carolina, Portland and Kansas City. I worked in Kansas City for
three and a half years. I'm finished there now. I've apprenticed five women who are
qualified to lead circles. I'll be going to Little Rock and I was just asked to come
to New York City.
Is anything like this process known abroad?
McAndrew: Not yet. I think it will be sooner or later, but at this point, no.
However, there are Goddess groups all over the planet. I don't know that they've
been connected. I expect that some day all the different priestess groups and circles,
and Goddess groups, will connect.
What are you learning as you further your own connection to the planet and the
process, and as a woman who is empowering other women?
McAndrew: I have just birthed another process called Awakening the Tantric Priestess:
Embodying Shakti to Heal Your World. I just came back from a 10-day event in Costa
Rica. I found that this is the next step for women, because they really want to go
deeper into their sexuality.
There is a very strong connection between women and sexuality -- and the split is
really deep. As a tantra teacher, I started being called to work exclusively with
women around their sexuality. I believe that as women reconnect with their life force
energy and their sexuality, they awaken their innate healing ability and awaken their
ability to connect deeply with the Earth. Shakti energy is very unique to women,
and so that's where the Priestess Process has been leading me.
We got some incredible feedback in Costa Rica, and the women went through major transformations.
The piece of feedback that stayed with me was one of the women who wrote on her evaluation
form, "I finally got that sexuality is a really wonderful, spiritual, sacred
thing and that it needs to be shared." And I thought, "Wow, that's it!"
That's a missing part of our whole culture.
McAndrew: Yes, there's such a split between spirituality and sexuality. Even
tantra has been bastardized by the West and it's not pure in any sense of the word.
I don't think we could digest it as purely as it is in the East.
One introductory weekend will be offered from 7-9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, to
launch Awakening the New Millennium Priestess in the Twin Cities. For a brochure,
or information on the upcoming fall 2005 circle for Minneapolis-St. Paul and the
free Informational/Preview evening, please contact: Carol Chase at (763) 438-9911
or e-mail carolachase@yahoo.com; Anyaa McAndrew at (770) 449-4030 or e-mail anyaa@bellsouth.net;
or visit www.tantrainatlanta.com and click on "Priestess Process Information
and Articles."
Tim Miejan is editor of Edge Life magazine. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free
1 (888) 776-5687 or e-mail editor@edgelife.net
Copyright © 2005 Tim Miejan. All rights reserved. |
| July 2005 |
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