The Priestess: From Sacrifice In Service To Self Loving Embodiment - Free To Be She Chapter Six Excerpt

Divine Mother’s call echoes through the lineage of every woman who has ever served the sacred. The Priestess hears this ringing within her cells. She is the woman who lives a life in devotion, holiness and tuned to the sacred.

She has known lifetimes of holy service…chanting in candlelight, tending the flame at ancient altars, remembering ancient lineages, healing through anointing oils and touch. She remembers circles of sisters, the hum of shared faith, the life filled with spiritual meaning and purpose, and the ecstasy of communion with the unseen.

Yet she has also known lifetimes of suppression, distortion, and exile; when her temple was overtaken by patriarchal gods or threatened tribes; when her rituals were demonized and vilified; when her service was demanded rather than freely offered; and when her voice was silenced rather than invited forward.

For the Priestess, her heroine’s journey follows the arc of Individuation, Reconciliation, and Unification by beginning with an awakening to service. This leads to her pursuing teachings, learnings and activations through others and eventually offering her sacred purpose and gifts in some ways unique to her soul, even if just in her focus on her own healing process.

This opens up access to often a deep fusion to vows that place the Goddess or God, the temple, or sacred duty above all else. She may swear to be pure, to renounce worldly attachment, to keep her flame lit for others even as her own body grows weary and her deeper emotions suppressed. She defines herself through the spiritual container of the temple, lineage, or mentor/teacher, often fusing with it for belonging.

Her shadow emerges in the subtle pride of self-denial: “I am the devoted one, the holy one, the one who has no needs.”

And in her quietest moments, this same voice trembles: “But who will serve me? Who will see me? Who will feel my pain and care about my suffering?”

Her individuation is to step out from the collective “we serve” into the sovereign “I am.” This vow to serve, once a sacred initiation, can become a bind, keeping her from evolving into embodied radiance that comes through healing her personhood wounds to access the gifts. It’s not betrayal to release it, but evolution that transforms “Goddess or God first” into “Goddess embodied through and AS me.”

This fusion once protected her from the chaos of the world. It gave her belonging, order, and purpose. Yet over time, it can become a sacrifice pattern, one that keeps her split from her sensuality, feelings and emotions, and deeper embodiment of her humanity and femininity that occurs through intimacy with herself, others and the Divine.

Her path of reconciliation is about softening her fusion with service so that she can open to love, intimacy, sensuality, and play. She learns that it is not betrayal of God to rest, to laugh, to make love, to create, to cry. These are not distractions from her path, yet they are the Divine expressing through her.

During reconciliation, she must face the shadows of her service in different forms and as expressed through lifetimes: self-denial, exhaustion, pride, control/manipulation, martyrdom, non-vulnerability. She feels and forgives the timelines of persecution, the wounds of obedience, the confusion between service and sacrifice, the betrayal by those once beloved. She realizes that her devotion has been a form of control or safety from intimacy and she starts to allow the deeper ache for it to inform her choices and her service.

In this way, the Priestess heroine’s journey is about learning that her service is not sustained by sacrifice, but by embodiment. As she unifies within, She lets the Goddess move through her rather than for her. The Priestess becomes the embodied portal of Divine Mother, allowing love, pleasure, and humanity to mingle with holiness. She evolves from initiatrix to embodied lover of life itself.

Love,

Jelelle Awen

This is an excerpt from Chapter Six of Free To Be She: The Priestess. I have been sharing a daily passage from each chapter of this book, my sixth book about awakening, spirituality, parts work, sacred union, and quantum soul reconciliation. Its release is on January 1, 2026…when it will be available to purchase in E-book, PDF, and print editions (and eventually an audiobook version in my voice).

This book is more like a transmission than conceptual or intellectual, more like a love letter from and with Divine Mother to all women and the men who love them. Long in the gestation, inspiration, and now..finally…the birthing and offering phases. I will also offer weekly meditation videos inspired by each chapter starting in January. You can take in all the chapter excerpts and videos plus links to purchase the book here.