The House of Life

The Garments of Isis

• This article was first published in 1990, in the book Voices of the Goddess edited by Caitlin Matthews. Times have changed since 1990.  The sense of personal isolation which pervaded my thinking at that time has been replaced by an astonishment at the growth and variety of courses which now nurture the priestess-Goddess relationship.

• I am presenting the article in its original form, despite a strong desire to amend and update the text. However my words and thoughts can only stand as a record of the time in which they were written.

There is little doubt that this often-quoted statement is perfectly true In reality; however; only a handful of women in each generation make this discovery and proceed to live by it. It is difficult to say what factors lead a woman to this inner realization. Every woman who consciously finds herself standing at the portal of the Temple has her own story to tell. She has found her way by trial and tribulation, for the path to the Temple is hidden and obscured in the times in which we live Nevertheless, women still discover the path and make the journey and every woman who finds the way makes it easier for others to follow.

I would suggest that karmic factors outweigh all other contributing impulses, even when they are not consciously acknowledged. The incidents or circumstances that actually bring a woman to face the Goddess serve as triggers for a deep and instinctive knowledge which is already present. I am sure that many feminists would disagree with my explanation, but, it is possible to argue that the mythologies and images of the Goddess serve to exemplify the natural state of womanhood, untainted by patriarchal conditioning The moment of realization comes not with the force of a long hidden memory, but with the realization of the social, cultural and political forces that have shaped the condition of womanhood until a woman can no longer recognize herself in the Mirror of Isis.

It is possible to disagree about the forces, that precipitate the awakening of the Goddess within, but the process itself cannot be denied. When this point of realization comes, it frequently brings its own angst. Like the butterfly newly emerged from the chrysalis, there is no going hack, yet where is the path?

The process that impels a woman to search out her own nature takes both inner and outer forms. Inwardly there is conflict between competing value systems, between the old and the new; the radical and the accepted images of womanhood. There is a keen sense of questing for the Goddess, of actively searching for Her. Just as Isis searched for Osiris and Demeter searched for Persephone, so a woman must search for the Goddess. Outwardly the personal search takes many forms - seeking like minds in groups and acquiring new ways of thinking, extending personal knowledge through studying literature, psychology; mythology and the expansion of personal consciousness through the application of esoteric disciplines. All these many avenues have but one focus - the Goddess Herself.

Every would-be priestess has to find her own way using the circumstances and opportunities available to her. Speaking personality, my path was solitary and tortuous. I walked alone for a long time. Once I had inwardly discovered the Goddess, my search revolved around the ways of establishing contact. In the absence of any teaching I was forced back on my own intuition, instinct and intention, driven on by an inner restless compulsion. My only teacher and initiator was Isis.

“I am She who I am She who is black.
I am She who is white
I am She who is Nothing.
I am She who is All thing.
I am She who contains Everything.
I am She
She is me
She and I are one.”

 With this somewhat amateurish invocation, I made a space in myself for the Goddess to enter. I sat alone in a darkened room wondering what on earth I was doing. A single candle quivered in front of me. My altar was the top of a chest of drawers. It was perfectly empty apart from the candle, not by some grand design, but because I simply had no knowledge of ritual objects. I found myself intoning out loud. 'How ridiculous you are,’ repeated the left side of my brain over and over again until it was like a competing background chant. As the invocation continued and rose in power; so my skin began to prickle, the candle flame appeared, to my inner vision at least, to grow taller and I seemed to sense a presence enveloping me. What had I done? Had I done anything other than sit in a darkened room and make myself ridiculous?

I repeated this over a period of weeks. I still felt ridiculous, but I was also magnetized by the process. On one particular occasion, the sense of presence was so overwhelming that I stopped. I cannot remember whether I became nervous or quite convinced that I had actually achieved something. In either case I no longer felt the need to perform my own ritual of identification.

It is only hindsight that has enabled me to rationally understand my own actions. I could not explain what I was doing, even to myself, I had plenty of good intentions but little else. Intent, however, carried the day and enabled me to open a doorway in myself to renew a very old relationship between myself and the Goddess. That was over 12 years ago. The door has never been shut since.

At that time I was a new member of an esoteric study group. We met for talks regularly as a lot of groups still do, but it was not a magical working group, though it had pretensions to be one. For me, contact with esoteric teaching was like exposing potassium to air - the effect was instant, explosive and devastating. I began to remember a distant life, I recalled spiritual practices long since passed away but above all I began to remember Isis, or perhaps She began to remember me.

My religious upbringing had been a very mixed affair. My father's family were Jewish and orthodox, but he had abandoned the religion and hated all things that smacked of ritual observance, so I never knew my Jewish grandparents nor any of my father's family. I have never been inside a synagogue nor mixed with Jewish people in any religious setting. Rationality was paramount in my father's eyes. My mother was nominally Church of England, but I cannot remember ever being taken to church with my parents. In fact, we grew up in a spiritual vacuum in many ways. I have often called it, 'splendid isolation.' We were brought up, instead, to value humanitarian principles and live by an ethical code. I was also brought up to be sceptical, questioning and slightly cynical and I was encouraged to read and think for myself. I was always interested in people's belief systems, though, and made an effort to acquaint myself with those with a religious commitment and engaged in many deep conversations, especially with Christians, But they could never answer my questions. In time, my questions inevitably led me to a more esoteric standpoint and I discovered for myself that rationality was not paramount.
As a child I had loved myths and the stories of the many gods and goddesses. I read them all avidly and, I especially loved historical novels set in ancient times. I particularly loved one tale set in Crete. Part of the story revolved around the training of a young priestess and I still especially remember one incident. As she walked across a courtyard, she was stopped by a group of rough and slightly drunk soldiers. One barred her way and began to show off before his friends. He began to taunt her and lifted her skirt slowly and deliberately. She stood perfectly still as he continued. The atmosphere tensed. She looked up at him and said, 'Do you dare to life the veil of the Great Goddess?' He stopped and let the hem of her skirt fall - he had been humiliated before his friends. The crowd parted for her and she walked on.

This incident remained with me for many years as a symbol of the mysterious power that a woman possesses when she walks in the light of the Goddess. I was struck by the confidence and inner strength of the young girl in the face of brute force.

In those tales of ancient places, becoming a priestess was considered to be honourable. The route was straightforward, though the training was long and arduous. I had read how suitable girls were taken to the Temple, usually at the age of seven. Such girls were often discovered by their visionary ability to dream true dreams. Temple life was ordered and strict with ritual observances and ceremonial duties. There were classes and many new skills to learn. The Temple was an important place in the life of the state and the people. Those days are long gone, yet the Goddess remains, even though her schools and Temples have disappeared.

When I took the decision to open myself up to the power of the Goddess, I had been involved in esotericism for no more than a few months. I had little conscious understanding of what I had spontaneously written and it took me many years to discover that I had generated a charge to the Goddess. A charge enables the priestess to draw upon the power of the Goddess and become one with Her and  it usually takes place within a ritual. The priestess may then be inspired to speak as an oracle, give teaching or just bless the assembled with the presence of deity. My invocations were held in private for myself alone At that time I would not have dared to become the Goddess for anyone but myself - it seemed so presumptive.

I continued with my studies and began to work hard at learning how to shift my own levels of consciousness. I took up meditation as part of my general studies and I set an evening aside each week for esoteric study. I read a great deal and, for a while, fell under the spell of Moon Magic and The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune (both published by Aquarian Press, 1989). 1 then embarked on another series of small rituals and used an invocation that I hoped would admit me into the service of Isis. I sat much as before, I lit my single candle and entered a meditative state When I felt ready I began my invocation (I felt a little less ridiculous by now) and when I felt that that power had died away I closed with thanks.

The conscious decision to serve as a priestess and dedicate myself quite spontaneously to the Goddess simply felt like the most natural thing in the world to do, even though at that time I had no contact whatsoever with other women who might also be described as serving priestesses. I was working purely alone, guided by instinct and the crumbs I might glean from some esoteric writings.

Offering oneself to the Goddess is a serious undertaking and it should be the culmination of a long period of preparation and inner searching. Ideally such an event should take place within a working group as a ritual of initiation. The ceremony links the individual with the chosen Goddess and marks the beginning of an intense and personal relationship between the two. When the ritual aspect of the event is over, the group celebrates. The whole event marks a turning point in an individual life.

Initiation is much misunderstood. It is perhaps most easily grasped if one thinks of it as a rite of passage that represents death to the old life and birth into the new - it is an inner transformation, not an outer event. There are many initiations as we travel the path and encompass new levels of our being. I was not fortunate to have the support of a group and the certainty of collected knowledge as I journeyed so I stumbled along feeling my way intuitively, My initiation came through a series of inner experiences. In one extremely deep meditation I found myself among a group of people who were robed and I was not. I was called forward and stood in the centre of the group, I was given my own robe and a figure stepped forward to put it over me. The experience had an intensity that I could not forget. When I surfaced I was shaking and in tears. I knew that something had happened to me, but I did not know what it was. I began to remember initiation in another place and time. It was fiercely demanding, requiring every particle of self-control, discipline and courage. I have always felt that such initiations mark the soul eternally.

I continued to work after this primarily on my own, but I did meet someone who was a priestess and this eased my feeling of isolation. My dreams or meditations took the place of a group and inner teachers appeared instead of outer ones. I can still recall my first encounter with the Goddess through meditation - it took place at a public festival. The scenario is now familiar to me, but then it was completely new. We descended into the meditation and traveled through a wooded landscape until we reached a clearing amidst the trees. In the middle there was a well. As we stepped towards it, the Goddess came forward to greet us. She held a chalice in Her hands and She offered us a drink according to our needs. I can still recall my utter amazement at Her image in my mind. When I stepped forwards, Her gaze was penetrating. 'Drink deep, my child, drink deep, she said, and I did.
I was so shaken by the encounter that neither the hall nor the people seemed in the slightest bit real. It actually took me several days to recover and to get my physical bearings again. Part of my total disorientation was doubtless caused by my own lack of experience, but everyone has to start somewhere. The reality of the experience came as a psychological shock and brought me face to face with perennial questions. Where had this experience really come from? Was it an external event that I was experiencing inwardly? Was it an internal experience that I was externalizing? Above all came the question, why did the experience shake me to the very roots of my being?

I have always dreamed vividly and in bright colour, but my dreams became especially vivid and often frightening, indicating a tremendous release of power and the discovery of hidden places. Throughout my life I had the recurring dream of being in a huge house with many rooms. In the dream I would go exploring and would always eventually discover that my way was blocked with a pile of rubbish or debris. I could never get into the room that I wanted to visit and I knew that this was a 'secret' room. During this period, I found, to my amazement that I was able to find this secret place with no difficulty at all. The house became Tardis-like, apparently ordinary from the outside but vast within. It took many forms in my dreams and still reappears from time to time. Now I made an effort to remember my dreams and made this a part of my daily routine; my dreams having become a rich source of personal inspiration and information. For example, I knew when I was pregnant with my first daughter and, much later, with my son, through my inner life.

In the case of my daughter I had the following dream: I was standing in a hall, much like a school hall. The doors burst open and in came a procession of women. The leader of the group held a chalice aloft and the group sang as they walked. Someone then said to me, 'The children are coming back now.’ I took this to refer to the fact that I had previously miscarried twice. The chalice symbolised the vessel that contains the waters of life. It was held high in celebration because it contained the beginnings of new life. Some years later I was leading a male student through a meditation and we encountered a woman robed in green in a circular hall filled with greenery and climbing plants. She addressed him and then to my surprise she turned to me and smiled. She handed me a single white arum lily. I knew that it meant that I would have a child. I was, in fact, already pregnant, though I could not have known it at the time as it was too soon for physical confirmation. I still smile at the classical annunciation image.

I am always amazed at the knowledge that dreams are able to convey to the intuitive mind and I am still fascinated by the dream state. I consciously put myself into an altered state before sleeping and use the sleep state to actively open myself up to inner teaching and experience This, of course, as I discovered later, was part of the work of a priestess in the ancient schools of Egypt and other places. The naturally intuitive feminine function was refined through training to produce reliable dreams. The dream life, when under some degree of control, becomes another altered state of consciousness that serves as a tool for realizations. The priestess of old was trained to attain a wide range of altered states: deep trance, waking sleep (hypnosis), conscious dreaming, meditation, astral travel and identification with deity among others. Such states not only permit the development of clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition and other psychic skills, but also demonstrate the workings of the human mind from the inside. I found the study of the mind so fascinating that I trained as a hypnotherapist. This enabled me to put my own ideas into practice and to work directly with people.

The study and application of altered states of consciousness remains a major personal interest of mine. I see the conscious control of altered states of mind as playing a major part in the training of a priestess. After all, when the priestess is mediating the Goddess, she is certainly not in her usual state of mind! The assumption of the Goddess by the priestess remains perhaps the most sacred mental state of all. I don't think it can be taught, it can only be experienced. It can be described as a moment when the priestess, 'makes way' for the Goddess to enter and empower her. It is not mediumship, which is often unconscious, and it is not possession, which takes over individuality. It is sometimes called mediation, that is, the priestess opens a channel within herself that enables a power to flow through her and out into the assembly. The priestess is fully conscious of herself and of the power entering and later departing and of the surroundings, and there is no loss of consciousness, even if the priestess speaks as a channel. I can best describe the whole process as a moment of transfiguration - the priestess becomes, 'a garment of Isis' and she may seem to alter very subtly in appearance and can seem to be suffused with a radiating energy. It is perhaps this personal contact with energies of a very high vibration that gives a functioning priestess an extraordinary quality of vitality.

As time passed, I met other women who were like myself and I discovered that there were groups that offered esoteric training. I joined a well-established training school and found security in being in a group. I enjoyed, too, the opportunities that arose to meet people at lectures, group meditations and the exchange of ideas these activities brought about.

I became involved in ritual workings for the first time and once again this seemed the most natural thing in the world. Ritual work cannot be taught, it can only be experienced. It is an extraordinary meeting place of trained minds, heightened sensitivities and patterns of force. Each ritual creates its own ripples, sometimes even shock waves, as inner plane dynamics emanate into the outer world. The success of a ritual, that is whether it achieves its intention, depends upon a complex web of balanced dynamics between the forces brought into the group through the conscious activation of the participants. In ritual everyone participates - there are no onlookers. Each individual brings a different force into the arena, like a carefully orchestrated symphony of vibrations. It is of the utmost importance that each person has a working and integrated knowledge of the forces that they individually bring to the group. In practice this means that individuals usually work with Goddess forms that they have familiarized themselves with through their own study and meditation. Esoteric students invariably discover a Goddess-form that draws them very powerfully and with whom they develop a close and intimate relationship. Over a period of time students extend this relationship to other forms, but one usually predominates. Close identification even brings subtle changes in appearance and hearing so that students can and do resemble their chosen Goddess-form. The relationship between the individual and the Goddess-form is very subtle.

During this time I found myself frequently ritually cast in the role of Nephthys, the dark sister of Isis. As the priestess moves more deeply into the service of the chosen deity, parallels between the life of the individual and the mythology of the Goddess seem to appear so that the two somehow become conjoined. I have seen this happen in many lives. I am not in a position to say whether it 'should' happen, I simply know that it does and I often say choose your archetype with care!

Nephthys is sister to Isis, partner to Set and mother Anubis, the jackal-headed god. She is the opposite to Isis in every way - passive, ruling over the darkness and the processes of decay that leads into regeneration through death. Hers is the twilight realm of the things yet to come. She escorted Osiris into the Underworld and helped Isis to swathe the body of Osiris in funeral wrappings. She stands behind Osiris when the hearts of the dead are weighed and is one of the Goddesses who take care of the mummified organs in the canopic jars. Nephthys was not a Goddess that I had worked with in any depth, but I can only report that, during this period in my therapeutic practice, I seemed to have an undue number of clients who came for help as a result of bereavement. In several cases the cause was not initially apparent, but eventually came to light as the therapy deepened. A man came to me who kept passing out in the street and experiencing uncontrollable panic attacks. He had no idea what was causing this. He had received treatment at the local hospital, but this had not led to any improvement. Our sessions eventually revealed that his close friend had been killed while operating a fork-lift truck. My client had trained his friend in this job and felt that he was responsible in some way. He had consciously put this incident to the back of his mind and had never been able to release his inner feelings at the time.

Another young man came to me suffering from an irritating cough. He was always clearing his throat and felt as if he had a permanent lump there. I asked him to spontaneously draw for me. He drew using only black throughout. His picture showed a stark single figure on a barren landscape. He had drawn a sun, but his figure had no shadow 'Looking for my shadow?' he said. I looked at the picture and asked him who had died. He was amazed. His twin brother had choked to death - no one had been able to save him. This was the key to the problem. He had only two sessions with me, the symptoms just disappearing once he had recognized the problem and was able to talk about his twin.

I seemed to spend a great deal of time exploring the possibility of an after-life state with several clients. It just seems to keep cropping up quite unexpectedly. I have always thought it very important to talk about death openly. When I was in my late teens I underwent a series of experiences that convinced me of the reality of life after death. I became interested in the pioneering work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in this area and I was able to refer several people to her books. In this rather indirect way I hope that I was of service to people with a particular need. The work with Nephthys seemed to reinforce a part of my nature and seemed inexplicably to draw people who needed what Nephthys had to offer through me. I also seemed to have some memories of being trained to travel in consciousness with a person to the point of death and then return to the living. I have never been able to corroborate this in any way but the feeling remains very strong.

In my practice as a hypnotherapist I sought to help my clients help themselves through their own realizations. I frequently used symbols and path-working techniques to explore problems and I often had intuitive flashes or insights that proved to be significant. I had dedicated my practice to the Goddess and I always felt that I was a channel for a wisdom that was not mine.

My practice slowed down after my daughter was born. My practice was fulfilling up to a point and I learned a great deal from my clients, but I could never be open about my orientation. I found this frustrating and knew that I needed to work with people who specifically wanted to explore esoteric teachings, both theoretically and practically Meanwhile, I slaked my thirst for magical involvement by attending one of a series of what proved to be extremely highly charged weekends. It was at one of these weekends that I recognized a friendly face from London. Although I did not know it, he was to become my magical partner and my future second husband. Sometimes it is better not to know one's future and I am glad that I could not see what lay ahead.

In time we formed a small esoteric group. We gave courses in Qabalah and Tarot as basic symbols systems and taught the discipline of meditation. We later moved on to ritual work. We celebrated the quarterly rituals and, during one season, we enacted the descent of Persephone at the winter solstice and her re-emergence at the Spring equinox. I took the part of Persephone on both occasions. Looking back on this period, I seemed to be unduly mediating Underworld figures. The group remained remarkably cohesive over a long period of time and we had, in fact, created a very stable group mind that persisted even after we eventually withdrew I found my work in the group totally fulfilling as it provided me with the opportunity at last, to serve as a priestess. For me the role of priestess encompassed all aspects of group work - it was not limited to purely ritual functions. I drew on my powers as a priestess when lecturing, leading a group meditation, writing a ritual, planning a course of work or just helping someone solve a problem. I was at last free to be myself.

I also shared some workshops with a friend who is an extremely experienced magical practitioner I remember one course especially, we had far more men attending than women and  the course included a small ritual. We served at the altar; two priestesses jointly presiding over the communion of bread and wine. It was a rare event - women administering communion to men and each of the men commented on this fact afterwards. One man had been a monk for 17 years and had finally emerged, not just to minister to the outside world, but also to find the Divine Feminine, which was absent within the monastery walls. For him, communion from a woman as a mediator of the Goddess was a very special event. It was also very special for me.

I have always worked with men and women, having never felt the need to work exclusively with women, though I can envisage circumstances in which that might take place. I have always felt that a priestess has something to offer men, too, for where else can a man find a conscious reflection of the face of the Goddess? To deny a man contact with the Goddess is simply to force him back into the prison that patriarchy has created, and patriarchy does imprison men too. It is when a man comes to this realization that he most needs to reach out for a feminine image of divinity. I am aware of men who have made a dedication to the Goddess and this can only continue to happen if priestesses are willing to awaken men to the feminine aspect of deity.

My time as a priestess has not been easy. It is a great mistake to think that service to the Goddess somehow brings protection from the hardships and sorrows of life, because if anything, it does the reverse. We will not learn what it is to serve life it we are cocooned and protected from it. I have had my share of pain: my second daughter was still-born, I have felt alone, I have been physically and emotionally exhausted, I have even felt close to madness. There was even a time when I wished to cut off my long hair as a conscious act of severing my service to the Goddess as I felt unworthy to serve Her - I no longer trusted my inner guidance, inspiration or dreams.

It was during a particularly unhappy period in my life that a close priestess friend suggested that I went to Ireland to the Fellowship of Isis and so we traveled together with my children in tow. There I was renewed and re-discovered myself after a long period of estrangement. In a meditation that was the culmination of my stay, I experienced Isis as Queen of the Heavens, crowned with a thousand stars. We were deep in the heart of cosmic space, dark blue and silent. It suddenly struck me that I had no gift to give her. Tears streamed down my face - I had nothing left to give her 'I give you my tears; I said. 'Every tear will be a crystal,' was Her reply and a necklace of crystal was placed over my head. In that single moment I understood more about the pain I had been through than I could ever explain in words. I had been lifted out of the Underworld and restored to myself.

The women I know and respect as priestesses are quite different from any other women that I have ever met. As individuals they are each true to themselves and as a group, they possess keen minds and are independent thinkers. They are highly creative and accomplished scholars in their own right, each having a commitment to serve the Mysteries. Each has a timeless and ageless quality Some are wives and mothers, others are independent and free. Everyone has discovered her own womanhood and each presents a face of the Goddess to the world.

As for me, I shall continue to be but one Garment of Isis. I cannot think of a higher or more honourable calling. I am now resolved to offer help to those who would also tread the same path by preparing an induction course into the Mysteries of Isis. May Isis grant you the powers to hear the inner voice and the courage to follow where it leads.