TEMPLE ARTS OF THE

PRIESTESS:
A Return to the Temple

Halo Seronko




©Shakti Temple Arts 2017-All Rights Reserved
 Introduction
Today we are experiencing a resurgence of Goddess wisdom as the
world spirals deeper into a state of imbalance. This imbalance is largely due
to the suppression, negation, and control of the powerful, multifaceted
expression of the Divine Feminine. As western women continue to gain the
freedom to safely follow their wisdom into the well of timelessness, we are
remembering, we are seeking and we are unearthing treasures nearly lost in
the dusts of time. The Dalai Llama has himself said, “the world will be
saved by western women”.
There was a time when the role of Priestess was held just as
prominently as the modern day position of the Priest. When women were
seen as translators of the Divine in their own right, and sought out for insight
and initiation. The world exists in a collective field of consciousness, and as
these modern times find that consciousness focused on a masculine view of
Divinity, in a not too distant past, the Goddess was alive and well, stewarded
by Her daughters of many colors, races and traditions.
While many of the male dominated religions have a tendency to fight
over their one true God, the Goddess worshipping traditions often celebrated
a pantheon of many faces, forms and attributes, for the Goddess is the queen
of multiplicity. The Goddess traditions viewed the Divine not as something
outside of the self, or nature, but intimately woven within every molecule
that dances this world and cosmos into existence. In essence, we are not
separate from this Divine thread, but the Goddess Herself manifested in
form out of Her deep love and passion for Her beloved counterpart,
consciousness!
In the Goddess traditions, the masculine was championed and
included as well, for when looking at the sun and moon, the earth and Her
elementals, the dance of dark and light, man and woman, how could one half
of the coin be put above the other? They are constantly in a dance,
penetrating and surrendering to one another in a love so spectacular that
existence IS! The exquisite experience of ultimate bliss or Samadhi occurs
when these two become One, neither male, nor female, but the exquisite
equipoise that precedes all concepts of separation. In the realm of the
Goddess, the dance of these two life force energies is seen as the mighty
love-play of creation, and therefore the maintenance of harmony between the
masculine and feminine, Yin and Yang is of utmost importance and seen as
the highest goal.
 The Priestess Traditions of Old
So what were the keys these Priestesses were holding in a time that
preceded such technology and “connectivity” as today?
One of the great mysteries in the collective consciousness of human
evolution is the incredible coherence in the occult realms that was held lands
and traditions over without technological global communications. In the
times that the Goddess traditions were flourishing, those holding the title of
Priestess were uncovering the same maps of consciousness, energetic
pathways, alchemy and liberation in most cultures throughout the world: The
Tanrikas of India, the Taoists of China, the Alchemists of Egypt, the Oracles
of Greece, the Priestesses of Avalon, the Medicine Women of the Maya, and
so on and so forth.
The most significant key across the board within these various
traditions was the reverence for, and cultivation of, our sexual energy
(commonly symbolized by the serpent) as the pathway to our own souls
revelation of unity. This was one of the major transitions that happened in
humanities fall from grace as patriarchal religions swept across the lands,
cutting humanity off from it’s root by separating us from our creative life
force through guilt and shame. In essence, the very first step on the journey
of a thousand miles was taken from us, thus creating the perfect climate for
an intermediary between individual and the divine, rather than the direct
revelation of self as Divine. One of the greatest examples of this fall from
grace is found within the biblical account of Adam and Eve:
There are several metaphors within this famous story that show the
death of the Priestess and the rise of the Priest. First of all, Eve being made
of Adam’s rib denies the age-old wisdom of life coming from the body of
woman. In both the Taoist and Tantric traditions, all is said to begin and end
in the feminine, which represents Time and Space (the Hiranya Garbha or
Cosmic Womb). The Taoists claim that the universe leans 51% to the Yin, as
the cycle of life again begins and ends in the Yin field where it seeks rest,
nourishment, and revitalization for the next cycle. It is interesting to note
here that all human fetuses start out with a complete absence of the Y
chromosome until the hormone testosterone kicks in, at which point the
genes to become a male are finally accessible.
The serpent in the saga of Adam and Eve is representative of the
energy of sexual desire, and thus is demoted from a symbol of great
alchemical power to a symbol of sinful poison. The apple is also a powerful
symbol of the Goddess that takes a fall from grace in this tale. The apple,
wherein the entire life cycle of the tree is evident from seed to fruit,
represents the womb. When eve eats of the forbidden fruit, or the direct
wisdom of the cycles of life, not only is she punished, likewise Adam suffers
for her “sins” and both are banished from the Garden of Eden. The full
context and psychology of this potent and disempowering myth could hold
an entire volume of it’s own.
For now let’s look into other traditions that experienced a similar fall
from grace for the female form. As is seen in the story of Adam and Eve,
woman, as one whom is deeply connected to the power of sexuality, the
earth, elements and rhythms of nature, is seen as a dangerous distraction to
the weakness of man in his own spiritual pursuits. In a desire to negate this
world for the next and to achieve liberation at the expense of the body,
monks, yogis and priests barred the door of spiritual attainment to women.
This happened in the Buddhist, Islamic, Vedic and Christian traditions to
name the most prominent. In fact it was only in the last couple of decades
that women were welcomed into the fold of monkhood even in the
spiritually advanced path of Tibetan Buddhism. This is because women were
seen as distractions with their emotions, bodily functions (menstrual cycles),
and erotic beauty viewed as pitfalls that could trap themselves and the men
around them in the endless rounds of Samsara, or death and rebirth. This
mentality has caused much destruction in the world as we continue to negate
our own bodies and the body of the earth with the mindset of temporality
and the constant striving for an after-world. Many spiritual traditions have
taken the spiritual lens of desire as a negative force, rather than the very
force that needs to be tapped and harnessed to reach spiritual attainment. We
live in a time where it is of the utmost importance for us to build a bridge
between the concepts of heaven and the reality of earth; the power of
consciousness, and the beauty and bliss of embodiment. For is it not possible
that heaven and earth are one?
This is where we turn to the ancient paths of feminine awakening that
have maintained their wisdom threads throughout the tests of time in order
to guide us back to the well of truth; the feminine path of awakening and
liberation. Let us take a deeper look into a few of the prominent Goddess
traditions of the East from which my studies and teachings have taken root;
the Taoist Priestesses of ancient China, and the Tantrika’s and Devadasi
(Temple Dancers) of ancient India.
 The Taoist Priestesses of China
Over the span of time that India was developing it’s system of thought
through the holy Vedas from which the more occult branch of Tantra grew,
the Chinese Taoists were cultivating their own path towards awakening and
energetic cultivation, which like Tantra, was a more occult offshoot of the
predominant belief system of Confucianism. Taoism is a very beautiful and
simplistic path with Tao literally translating to mean simply “The Way”. It’s
predominant symbol has become a very popular symbol today known as the
Yin Yang, which represents the constant dance of the feminine and
masculine energies of creation merging into one another, and simultaneously
containing the essence of the other. It is a symbol of duality that
paradoxically shows the unity of all things; that although two make up the
one, it is also true that one could never be without the two. The main
principles in Taoism are all about learning to balance these energies of earth
and heaven within the body, mind and spirit and ultimately within our lives
at large. The way of the Tao is all about connecting our energies with the
energies of nature, having power through them rather than over them. It is
within this soft and rather feminine system that a great Sage and
Priestesshood came into being.
The practitioners of the Tao recognized the foundational energies of
creation as Jing, our sexual energy, Chi, the energy we take in through the
elements, and Shen, our spiritual energy. They developed the systems of
Qigong and Tai Chi, and much of the elemental medical system that China is
famous for to this day. Among these practices they developed a powerful
system of sexual energy cultivation to use the abundant creative energy
latent within us all as a force for rejuvenation, vitality and ultimately
spiritual realization. The Taosists were also versed in magic, mysticism,
healing, and divination such as revealed in the holy text of the I Ching.
The Taoist Priestesses who practiced these arts of love and magic, so
to speak, lived both close to nature in monasteries and temples, as well as
within China’s Courts where they served as concubines and were said to rule
China from behind the curtain. They worked with sexual energy to bring
both self and consort into a higher plane of existence. They were sexual
initiatrixes into the power path of pleasure as an art form of awakening.
With their sexual energy they harnessed the gifts of health and longevity,
alongside the ability to cultivate and circulate extravagant states of ecstasy.
They were some of the most wise, learned and cultivated women of ancient
China, proficient in the arts and specialists in beautification on every level.
 As with so many lineages of ancient feminine practice, China also fell
under the spell of the patriarchy with rulers like Mao Zedong who made the
practice of Taoism illegal, destroying many monasteries and temples, and
sending it’s practitioners to labor camps and prisons. The Priestesshood
specifically had to go underground to preserve their teachings under such
harsh and uncertain conditions.
It is with great appreciation for the efforts of the lineage that these
ancient maps of female and male sexual energy cultivation, communion and
magic have survived into the present day. The Taoist school of practice and
cultivation is truly one of the great surviving mystery schools of our time.

The Tantrikas and Devadasi of India

We now continue our journey of feminine mysticism into the exotic
land of Mother India where the dancing Priestess and Sacred Initiatrixes of
Tantra were once revered as the Goddess embodied.
Tantra is a deep well that spans every possible aspect and dimension
of human embodiment and consciousness. As a more occult path that
stemmed from the strict Vedic system, Tantra has become sought after to
this day as a path that includes all aspects of humanity as already divine.
Tantra spans the entire spectrum from the left-handed, or red path that
reaches so far into the darker aspects of life as to worship in cremation
grounds and include sexual rituals and animal sacrifice, to the right-handed,
or white path in which deep austerities are taken to purify the body, mind
and spirit. As a cult of the Goddess they recognize the diversity of life as the
many faces of their beloved Shakti, the predominant title of the Goddess in
the Tantric system. Shakti in Her form as Kali represents time, the very force
of nature that both gives birth to life, but then consumes it in Her wild dance
of creation and destruction. The Tantrics recognize Kali in the darker aspects
of life, and this allows them to transcend duality by seeing Her fierce beauty
and compassion even in the shadows of immanence. In Her form as Tripura
Sundari, or the beauty of the three worlds (akin to Lakshmi) their beloved
Goddess represents the bliss of existence; the utter beauty and
auspiciousness of consciousness embodied in form. They recognize the
Goddess as the cosmic energy of love in all of Her faces and forms, and thus
their worship of Her excludes nothing, for everything is seen as Her energy
and play.
 Tantra views all of creation as a love play of the God Shiva and the
Goddess Shakti, Shiva representing the transcendent nature of supreme
consciousness and Shakti representing the creative energy from which all
that exists springs forth. Essentially, what we are experiencing within and
through these sacred bodies that we inhabit is the dance of Shakti for Her
beloved Shiva to witness. As in the Taoist tradition, although Yin and Yang
are distinct from one another, they are never apart in their spiraling dance.
So it is true in Tantra that although Shakti seemingly separates from
supreme consciousness, or Shiva, in order to be witnessed by Him, He is in
actuality completely immersed within every molecule of Her wild and
sacred dance. This seeming separation of human and divine, or the
immanent and the transcendent, is said to be the Goddess’s great Maya, or
illusion. It is this dream that we are here to awaken within, and it is through
the grace of the Goddess that we are guided into the ultimate union of spirit
and form, for it is through Her alone that we can come to know Her lord,
Shiva.
For many moons the Tantric lineages, specifically of Sri Vidya were
held predominantly by women. These women were witnessed and
worshipped as direct embodiments of the Goddess. These women would act
as sacred initiatrixes into the sacred rites of Tantra, including, but not limited
to, the sexual rites. These rituals were not meant to experience great pleasure
however, but were to awaken the sleeping serpent or Kundalini Shakti in the
disciple so that they too had the direct experience of themselves as the living
God/Goddess. This transmission was known as Shaktipat, or quite literally
awakening of the Shakti energy by one who has attained. The power of
lineage is of critical importance here, as the gift of Shaktipat was passed
from teacher to disciple ad infinitum, so each reception of Shaktipat carried
the power of each teacher whom had carried that power before.
In more recent times, while these traditions have largely been carried
forward intact, it is predominantly men who are transmitting the teachings
even though the tradition is greatly oriented towards the feminine, and
certainly some gems have been lost in translation.
During the times of the Tantrikas another magnificent tradition was
being carried out in India’s great temples, the tradition of the Devadasi.
Devadasi literally translates to “Servant of God”, which is, in essence, the
definition of a Priestess. This is important to note because today in temples
across India and the world you will find Priests aplenty, but sadly the
Priestess has vanished. In a time in the not-too-distant past the temples of
India held both Priests and Priestesses alike. The role of the Devadasi was to
be wed to the deity of the temple, either Shiva or Krishna (in the form of
Jugannath) depending on the tradition. As the consorts of the deity, they
were seen as embodiments of the Goddesses Devi in the Shiva temples, and
Lakshmi in the Jugannath temples. These women would worship and
appease their beloved lord through ritual dance, song, and music. They were
seen as the most auspicious women in all of India; learned in the sacred arts,
living in the temples, and able to spend intimate time in the inner sanctum
with their beloved deity. They were literally consorts of the Divine.
These women represented the riches of the land, and were an
important presence during festivals, special rites and pujas. It is even
speculated that these women also were adept in the arts of Tantric initiation,
and tantrikas they were indeed, for through the very ecstasy of their dance,
they would merge with their supreme lord; the beauty of form giving way to
the formless, the passion of Shakti giving way to the peace of Shiva.

Other Traditions of Sacred Dance and Goddess

Worship
While the Devadasi and Tantrikas were tending the temples of India,
other traditions of women’s sacred dance and initiatory rites were being held
around the world in the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and many other
lands and cultures throughout the world. Within the deserts of the Middle
East and Egypt developed the famous fertility dances of Arabic, Turkish and
Egyptian belly dance. These sacred dances of woman allowed the sacred
serpent to come alive within, undulating through their bodies, and
shamelessly expressing their feminine radiance with one another. These
sensual dances developed as a means of sexual empowerment allowing
women to gain supreme control of their muscular contractions and the
energy pulsating through their bodies. Originally this dance was practiced in
a circle of women attending a birth. It was a highly shamanic practice to
assist the child into the world; undulating, pulsing and shimmying the
birthing woman’s baby earth-side.
In Egypt’s temples of Isis the Priestesses were also said to have been
practitioners of sacred dance as is seen in their famous hieroglyphs. Most
notably they were revered for their powerful practice of alchemy, of which
there are many through-lines to the Tantric rites and rituals. The Egyptians
also worked intimately with the power of the serpent, and specifically with
sexual energy as the key towards divine union. It is said that the teachings of
the Magdalene, which later deeply touched the beginnings of Christianity in
the alchemical love and devotion between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, were
gained during Mary Magdalene’s time in the mystery schools of Isis.
In Turkey and Persia, the realm of the Sufi traditions, women were
entering into ecstatic trance through whirling and lyrical dances as well as
the rhythmic pulse of the frame drum. Here too women found their union
through motion, embodiment, sound, and at the root of it all, their creative
life-force energy.
Also in Greece’s once thriving Goddess tradition the women danced
in the temples of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. They held great festivities
in honor of the abundance and beauty of the Goddess and they honored the
deep wisdom of woman as they sought truth from the inner sight of the
Oracle at Delphi.
These were times when magic and mystery reigned, when the realms
of embodiment and spirit existed in ecstatic embrace of one another rather
than at odds with each other. These were times when human beings were
allowed and encouraged to be whole; sexuality and chastity, darkness and
light, fragility and power, humanness and divinity all included.

The Feminine Path of Practice

So what exactly do all of these traditions have in common, and why is
this so important at this time on planet Earth?
It is clear that the evolution of humanity has headed in a very
dangerous direction that is more aligned with destruction than with life-
giving ways, and more obsessed with separation than aware of the
undercurrent of unity. It is of critical importance that we re-align ourselves
with the great Mother energy, the life-force energy that is the great gift of
our embodiment, and in fact the very Earth’s wild, diverse and absolutely
glorious manifestation.
It is again time for us to draw upon these threads of old and weave
them into a new tapestry for this modern era; a tapestry that honors life in all
of it’s unique colors, forms and flavors; a tapestry that weaves harmony
between the sexes and their governing energies of masculine and feminine.
This is a time for the highest alchemy: the great balancing act between the
immanent and the transcendent.
 When we look at the maps left through these great Goddess traditions,
we can recognize key ingredients within their formulas of awakening:
Embodiment- The great creative energies of the body are activated through
movement; whether yoga asana, temple dance, qigong, or sexual rites, the
body is used as the vehicle through which awakening transpires. The body
exists as the alchemical chalice.
Presence-Through presence, or focused awareness the realm of form and
spirit merge. Presence is the foundation of practice, for it is through presence
that we develop mindfulness and can transform our inner and outer realities.
Presence allows us to attune to truth as it is in each moment; it is the pillar in
the ever-changing dance of life.
Breath-The breath becomes the thread that guides us into our inner space as
the exchange of essence with the greater hologram of creation. Through
learning to guide the breath we can guide the creative energies of the body
intentionally, flooding our bodies with greater and greater capacities of
experience.
Alchemy-Once we have anchored in body, breath and presence we can peel
back more subtle layers in the mind, body and spirit. In all of these mystery
schools and priestess traditions alchemy was practiced as a method of
transformation; of turning lead into gold, sex into super-consciousness, and
ultimately merging two or more seamlessly into the sacred One. Across all
of these traditions alchemy included the use of archetypes, elementals,
colors, sounds, mudras, frequencies and rituals.
Ecstasy-The pinnacle of the spiritual experience in these traditions was a
direct experience of ecstasy, or fully existing in the essential self, free in the
most profound sense of the word, and in full communion with all of
existence at a cellular level. In ecstasy the bounds of the physical body
become vast and spacious enough to encompass galaxies. It is essentially the
direct state of revelation of the Divine self, form and formless in full union.
The path of the feminine, of the Goddess, is a path of ecstasy.
No matter the practices one utilizes to reach the ultimate goal, these
are the quintessential elements that lay the path towards the realization of the
self as already Divine.
 Conclusion
For too long now the gates of the divine have been barred from the
feminine. In cultures and traditions the world over women have been
repressed from their full spiritual expression while men sought the divine as
yogis, monks and priests. The best women could hope for, according to
many traditions, was a rebirth in the body of a man.
However, the flames of women’s souls have been kept alight by our
cellular memories of the times we lived in the temples experiencing the
ecstatic state of divine union; times that were lost when the powers of the
patriarchy swept across the land. We were pulled out of temples where we
served as priestesses to our beloved Goddess, also being buried in the dusts
of time. We were vilified and abused, burned at the stake as witches, and
made into property. Our Mystery schools of feminine practice retreated
underground, where in devotional cultivation and deep listening we awaited
the Goddesses beckoning cry for our safe and timely re-emergence.
And She is calling now.
Her cries are quaking the four directions as She calls Her daughters
and sons home, for no longer can we afford the patriarchal path of separation
from the Divine. No longer can we afford to destroy this world for the
concept of the next, for THIS is the Goddess beneath our feet and in the eyes
of all sentient beings we meet! There is nothing separate from Her. We have
collectively been led down a societal maze that suffocates life itself with it’s
negation of Her manifestation; the immanent that exists in the here and
now!
What is the fear of feminine power?
Is it Her blood and Her birth? Is it Her ability to stand in the mists of
the veil between the living and the dead? Or is it Her deep and mysterious
communion with the cycles of nature, a force that try as we might, we just
cannot conquer? Is it Her sex, so desired that one’s control and precious
sense-of-self are endangered? Is it Her ability to obliterate self and other into
a pleasure that without her could never be tasted? What is feared in the
Goddess who invites us IN to our bodies rather than beyond them or in
negation of them? Is it difficult to accept that our every facet of humanness
is also divine after centuries of shame, blame and separation?
 By Her grace the Goddess is returning in the minds and hearts of each
one of us. She is reminding us that it is through our sacred body temple, Her
precious gift to us, that we will find the altar of divinity we have tirelessly
searched for and again reclaim our wild and free spirit as the eternal flame
keeping it alight.
The time is nigh that we return to the wisdom ways of the feminine;
that we unearth Her ancient maps of practice, communion and present
moment ecstasy; the ultimate merger of spirit and form in motion. The
invitation is here for us to surrender into Her in humility, adoration and
service to Her beauty way.
She is Love.
She is that precious force that we all live for, and without Her this
world lacks beauty, truth, and light. So let us open our hearts to the Goddess
that lives and breathes us; let us open our eyes to the Goddess that lives and
breathes as all things, that we may all experience the Divine union of God
and Goddess, spirit and flesh ever as One; in rapt revelation of our innate
Divinity as we are, here and now.

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