Alexandra Hughes 12:30
Well, hello, Elaine kalila, Doughty and welcome to the witch hunt podcast. I am so honored thrilled delighted getting tingles all over my body to have you here.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 12:51
Thank you for inviting me what a pleasure. What a pleasure. I got to learn that Alexandria lived very close to where I was born for quite a few years. So we were just, we were just connecting around around our love of the southern part of England, Sussex County Assessor's so it was really fun to find that out.
Alexandra Hughes 13:08
And the magic there. Thank you for sharing that and I want to I want to go there because I want to really dive into your story. Yeah, before we do, could you just introduce yourself to our listeners?
Elayne Kalila Doughty 13:20
Yeah, absolutely. So it's such an honor to be here. My name is Elaine kalila, Doughty and I am the founder and the dean of the priestess presents Mystery School and temple. We have been around for I don't know about the last nine years online. I'm an ordained priestess of the 13th moon and lineage and also an ordained priestess of the Magdalene mirror for lineage and I really am here on the planet with this mission to train women in the ancient arts of the priestess as modern day priestesses. What does that really mean? What is the path of the process and really to demystify and and to really ground the the Whoo, of what can otherwise feel kind of like a little bit ungrounded or mystical esoteric, to bring that through to our everyday lives and actually provide really grounded ways for us to serve in our communities. And so, we are a temple over over 90,000 Women at this point, which is quite incredible. I'm also the founder of the red podcast, and that has been my delight, so I love doing podcast interviews. And yeah, so this medium speaks to my heart and I'm so excited to be exploring Alexandra this theme that you are out there in the world around this which wound in is really understanding the legacy of the generational trauma that we as women have held and are still excavating and healing within ourselves. So thank you for having me.
Alexandra Hughes 14:57
Oh, thank you for that really beautiful introduction. And I'm really curious to know, do you I'm really curious to know your story, you know, like how it was, or when it was you started to identify with words. Well, maybe I should ask first. What words do you identify? Some women do come here and they say, well, actually, I feel more like a sorceress, but when you know I use words like witch priestess, Medicine Woman, where do you work?
Elayne Kalila Doughty 15:31
I obviously was given. I was given the task of working with this word priestess. That is the word that made me jump out of my skin and go oh, yes, no. Oh, right. I remember. I was at somewhat of a closeted priest. Yes. Like I think many of us are. And, you know, I had been practicing as a psychotherapist for a long time. And I was specializing in working with women in recovery from addiction and trauma specifically, and so there was a lot of work that I had done with the divine feminine and with the reactivation of the power of the feminine through that work, but I kind of knew somewhere inside that that term therapist was not really descriptive of what I was doing, like it was the closest I could get and I think that that's really a story that a lot of us as women have is we we kind of find a parallel path that is like a proxy, if you will, of what we're actually meant to be doing in the world and we do that because there wasn't really the option and I always tell the story, Alexandra, that when I was in school in England in the 1980s, as that's really dating me, but then we go out with the height of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. I was obsessed with by the way, and for those of you don't know who they are, please go look them up because you have to give yourself that treat. I was given a careers test in school and they you know, you're sick all the boxes and I go back into the careers officer and she said, Well, I've got great news for you. Elena says great, she's just she said to me, she was pretty clear that you know, you're into the humanities and you're into the arts. And I said, yeah, that's pretty much true. And she said, I think what you'd be really suited to is to becoming a hairdresser and a beautician, and I was like, and I said to her, I said, this is the thing, right? Is she wasn't wrong, she wasn't wrong, because I actually love all of that work with adornment and beauty and style and interior design. All of that stuff is totally up my alley. And I said to her at my tender age of 15, as well what if I want to be in front of the camera? And she said, to me, she looked at me she said, she said, Well, she said, Darling, should that's very hard to do that and make a living, isn't it? And she said, you're better off getting a trade and then do it maybe doing some amateur dramatics which was beautiful answer right all the error. You know, this is before computers before internet. This is before we could be self appointed platforms and have our own worlds right. No one had any idea any of that's going to happen. So I didn't become a beautician or a hairdresser. But I became a therapist right which I will say to my hairdresser, you know, we all understand that hairdressers are just therapists who cut hair because they listen to people all day long. So there's a lot here and I find that when I talk to women, Alexandra, that that most of us have some version of that story, where we've kind of like we kind of knew who we were meant to be, but we didn't have a way to describe it because this word priestess or this word, medicine woman or Oracle or Thea or sorceress or magician, right. These weren't words that we grew up with that were like possibilities they were hidden in the annals of like the Lord of the Rings or the tales of Narnia, you know, didn't mean like they were they were mythic characters that we were not allowed to play with. They weren't like in the realm of fairy tales. So fast forward for me. You know, I when I was, I don't know, gosh, how many years ago now is like many 17 years ago. I was invited by a friend of mine to go and meet this woman REO Spilsbury. Who turns out to be Now my very dear Dear Mama, spiritual mother, and fairy godmother, founder of the third team and mystery school. What at the time, I had no idea what I was up to. So I arrived at this at her house and it's like this very suburban house in Northern California. And like, I have no idea what I'm doing here. And I walk in to the house and as soon as I walk in through the front door, it's like I'm transported to literally this timeless experience. There's these curtains hanging over the over the entranceway and I can smell the smell of Copal burning which is gorgeous and, and, and as I go through the curtains, I'm greeted by a woman who's dressed in a beautiful deep sapphire blue robe. And she's got this bowl of water. And she is and it brings me to the bowl of water where there's you know, rose petals floating and she begins to anoint my hands with the water, she washes my hands. And as she washes my hands, it's like I go into this what I can only describe as a full body remembrance where I literally was cut and like the head and my entire body was standing on end and I just started to weep. And there was no words spoken, I started to weep. And these tears were just uncontrollably rolling down and it wasn't like I was crying. It was that like someone had opened a floodgate within me. And I remember in that moment, saying, whatever this is i that I'm doing this I'm home. And it was like extraordinary because, you know, I had no idea what this was right. And so I then went and sat with Arielle, and, you know, we had an extraordinary encounter where there was very little said, but we we sat in deep meditation with each other. And I stepped into a circle of training with her. And at that moment, I already knew and I remember saying to Arielle, I'm here to serve this mission with you and whatever I need. To do, to step onto this path. And so, you know, long story short, I did that for a few years with her and I ran in person circles. And then there came this moment, Alexandra, and I think that this is the moment that I work with most women around. And for those of you who are listening to this podcast, I know it's going to be familiar to you because I had that moment where I, I was in my therapeutic practice. And I was simultaneously doing this kind of priestess work goddess work, but very closeted and I made sure never the twain to meet so I had this therapy clients and I and I had my priestess in clients. And actually, Sara Jenks tells a really fucking funny story around this around how we met, which I'll save for maybe the moment but essentially what happened was I reached this crossroads in my life, where I had to make a choice. And the choice was to bring this work out to a wider community and make this work I'm in the priestess thing work the 13th moon mystery, schoolwork. And that was when I heard Oh, you were to call this temporal precess presence. You're here to presence, the energy of the priestess back onto the planet. And I had all kinds of screaming abducts about that because I was like I am not doing that. Look, I will do anything else. I'll call it whatever else you want, but I am not using that. Word. precess people think I'd lost my mind that I think I've fallen off the edge of Woo. I'll lose all people won't respect me. People will think I'm gone mad. People will. You know, humiliate and shame me. I'll be targeted. All the stuff came up right and it was really intense. And for about six months I was inside this wrangle and I kept going I'm not doing it I'm not doing it and then it's you will keep coming back around presets presets presets. And this is by the way before anybody was calling themselves a priestess out there. This was not now it's absolutely find you to do that by the way. Because there's a lot of other people but at this particular moment in the in the history of the interwebs this was this was new that there hadn't actually really happened and so I finally kind of woke up one morning and went okay, fine, I'll do it. And I remember when I first stepped out into the world and said this is what I'm doing. I had to do so much work internally around Yes, the shame the humiliation, what you're calling Alexandria, the Witch wound right around the the fear of being targeted. The fear of being attacked, and ultimately the fear that we all carry generationally, which is that of being exiled or murdered, for standing in my truth of my spiritual lineage. You know, that heresy when we really think about the history and I know this is what you talk about a lot, but the history that particularly those of us who come from Western Europe, but also really because of the because of the colonization of Christianity and the colonization of the world, this wound has been passed into every country I think by this point whereby, you know, it's become dangerous for you to practice anything outside of the one church, the one religion, the one God. So, so yeah, so that's my story. I mean, there's lots of other pieces in there. But so essentially, that's the story of how I started to step out and I realized when I did it, that I was really opening a doorway for all of my other women who had the fear of answering this call, or, you know, of walking this path and I really want to acknowledge something because I think, you know, this goes along with this idea of privilege. And being inside a white body and it's a you know, an I, I admit that I have certain privileges that make it safer for me to step out into the world and claim this lineage. There are women all over the world women have different skins and different cultures in different lineages, where it isn't safe, where it's still, you know, and I think of women, particularly in the Islamic world, where this is not safe or even, you know, you know, even in some other countries where, where you would be absolutely targeted, exiled, stoned, still proclaiming any connection into the divine feminine. And so, I actually believe Alexandria, that it behooves those of us who have the privilege of walking safely in this world through the you know, yes, it can. There's projections and there's a little kinds of things that have come at me over the years, but I have not had my life threatened. You know, and I know that there are women who have had their lives threatened, you know, for the things that they have said, particularly uncovering the atrocities of the church. So I just, yeah, I just bow to you and to all the women who are willing to engage with the shadow and the discomfort that comes with us reclaiming our spiritual authority. Yeah.
Alexandra Hughes 26:59
You know, thank you for speaking to that. There's so many things that we can talk about that in a way, the way you were called to step into to make that choice. You know, it becomes a non negotiable and which time for this podcast, I was sitting on the Mediterranean. Right? Actually communing with Aphrodite. I had been in Brazil and we were moving back to Canada via my husband's land, which is Catalonia and and and the download came and the download was you're going to start a podcast and it's going to be called Witch Hunt. And it was just so explicit. So I think sometimes and then you and then it took a few months for me to like, you know, bite the bullet and actually, like, have a nervous breakdown and then died. But I wanted to I wanted to go back a little bit and I'm going to date myself even more explicitly. I was also a Duran Duran fan. Yeah. Birthday, which was in March, I did myself a concert with Ariel Oh, have you also had the privilege? Feeling her energy, you know, not in person, but online. And so so so, so, so special and powerful. But I wanted to ask you a little bit about those Duran Duran days and your experience growing up because what I've seen with a lot of the women that come on the podcast is that their magic in the early days you know, they are and then the 15 You're 15 years old, and the guidance counselor tells you well this is actually what you need to do, or or like tells you, you know, society tells you this is actually what you know, successful women do or whatever. But what about little you and I asked Sarah the same question on the podcast What about little Elaine? Like, and I know I know, because I listened to your first episode about you know, being ginger, which they call having red hair in England for those of you who haven't been and what that meant. And also before we hit the record button, you talked about your lineage and how it went back into this very sacred land. Yeah, yeah, we've both had the privilege of being on so
Elayne Kalila Doughty 29:22
yeah, absolutely. Well, I come from an area in England called Sussex and Sussex now kind of if you would ask people about Sussex they go, Oh, it's kind of this. This blip in between London and Brighton and it's kind of like a suburb of London. It's to the south of London. And what what I can tell you about this area that I was raised in is the you know, when the Romans came in, they conquest it England, which was when if you go back through history was when the Celtic Queen Boudicca, you know basically rose up to fight the Romans and she lost to them but she was this incredible, valiant queen and she is the is kind of like understood as being kind of like one of the patron saints of England. The Romans renamed her as Boadicea. You might know ahead Boadicea, the Buddha was her actual Celtic name, and she was from the Celtic tribe of the i cainy. And the iCandy were based in East Anglia, which is a bit to the north northeast of me and I'll tell you a little bit about that in a minute but Sussex was this county that to the North was completely shielded from London by this gorgeous forest called Ashdown forest and now Ashdown forest is still existing, and it's actually the home of 10,000 acre word, which is where a mill wrote poohbear Right where he wrote wind in the willows, and he wrote all of these wonderful sorry, not Wind in the Willows. I'm going to a different a different a different place from where he wrote about all of the Pooh stories, right. So this is the magical land that we're living in. So it was protected to the north by Ashdown forest, which meant that nobody couldn't get access to it was hard to ambush. A county that was protected by forests even for the Romans right? To the south. It was protected by the sea, the Dover cliffs if everyone seen the white clothes it dipped at White Cliffs of Dover and Brighton then this whole area of England, it's kind of protected. So what people don't realize about Sussex is that it was one of the last bastions during the Roman Empire's colonization of the UK to hold its original roots its druidic roots, its roots in the land its roots in the ancient ways in the pre Christian pagan lineage as the animistic lineages. And so there is an energy in Sussex that is very much in the land. It's a beautiful land. If you think about the quintessential English countryside, that Sussex it's, I call it affectionately Dingley Dell, I was born in Dingley Dell, and it's like, you know, it's little country lanes and thickets and, you know, hollows drive thru, and lots of batch cottages and, and country greens and country gardens and it's very, very beautiful. And, and quintessentially, that kind of like English. thing that you imagine. It's not the wilds of the Moors of Scotland. It's very curated and kind of, there's nothing going to hurt you there. Right. It's a little bit like what I imagined. You know, when Tolkien was thinking about the hobbits where the hobbits lived, it's kind of there. So anyway, that's why I was raised and I so I have a deep, deep love and a deep, deep connection into this kind of English countryside and the birds and mine and I was raised by a man, my dad. I wasn't raised by my mom. So I was raised by my dad, which is a very a whole nother story about my connection into my journey. But my dad, and my grandmother who has his mother, were very rooted into the folkloric traditions of England. So my dad was a carpenter. And he's what I described as a green man and he was connected into the earth. And he, he did wildcrafting before wildcrafting became trendy, you know, it was we would go on our walks and we would collect the elder flowers to make the wine with and the elderberries and the rose hips. We'd go and pick nettles to cook for dinner. My grandmother would go to the garden to pick all the things for the die, we would card the wall together, we die the wall together, we'd spin the wall, we'd knit and weave the world, we'd make all the things right. So I was raised in this very artisanal kind of country way, in England and that was my first connection into the season. So my dad celebrated the Holy Days, even though he wasn't, you know, he wouldn't he wouldn't have recognized himself as a pagan. That wasn't he wasn't that. But he was, you know, he was celebrating all of those high holy days because he was a Morris man. And now the Morris men were this tradition of men that dressed in white that were available to dance and sing the folkloric songs. They were bells on their ankles, they would get up, you know, on May 1 Beltane. And they'd come and greet the sun and that I believe that they were a tradition that grew out of the early precessing traditions and the Druidic traditions, and it wasn't men, originally that were doing those dances, of course, it was women and men to get that, because the whole nature of Beltane is to do with the hair osCommerce and the sacred marriage. So this was kind of the world that I was raised in. And, you know, it sounds very idyllic, right. It wasn't all very idyllic, but there was a piece of the framing of what later has become my awareness that this was always seated in me. And now my lineage also comes from the East End of London, which is my grandmother. My dad's mother was from the East End of London. My mother's family, were from Sussex and I could trace their lineage back 800 years into the same area of Sussex. So that tells you something and then my dad's family were from the East End of London, so they were Cockneys. And they were from East Anglia, which I talked to you just about a moment ago, which is where Boudicca was from and Scotland. And so my lineage is, is 70% Celtic and 30% Viking, Matt, you know, like from that's the ancient lineages. So my family has been in that part of England, the Celtic part of England from East Anglia down into Canton, Sussex, coming from Scotland down that that coast for many, many hundreds, if not 1000s of years. Now, I know that's a privilege that I have to be able to trace that route. You know, I happen to live with my partner who is a black American, who cannot trace his roots in that way and I we have those discussions quite a lot around my sense of rootedness and culture and plays and, and how that's influenced my spirituality, and also influenced what I know that I am here to hold. Right. And so I just want to say that out loud, but that's kind of the world that I grew up in. And I think, you know, now that I look back on it the magic that I was given as a child that is still so intact, and it's very interesting because now I live in Northern California and have done for half my life, right? So I didn't stay in England. I became a transplant over here into the United States and I've been here this year, it will be 28 years, and I lived in England for 27 years. So I just clipped the balance on actually living here longer than I lived in England, which is a big deal. But the roots that are still very intact for me, are these roots of the making and the crafting and the the being with the natural world and the magic that's available to us when we work with the elements when we work with the herbs when we work with you know the the planting and we bring the flowers and we all of that stuff is very much part of the lineage that I was born into and has become a big part of what my precessing path is for me personally, and not necessarily what I teach. I don't teach wildcrafting that's not part of what I teach, but from my personal practice that is where I find my connection. And so it's really lovely to talk about actually Alexandria because what I find when I talk about it is it's very nourishing. There's this deep connection into this like moss covered rocks in the river blowing through the wooded Glens and an end sort of forests of southern England that are very ancient and timeless. I guess that's okay.
Alexandra Hughes 38:27
So I've been I raised my children in, in that part of the world three I have, I have three kids and so when my youngest was born and in Sussex and I know I know the magic that you're talking about in that forest and in the downs and it's, it is idyllic. It is that sort of quintessential you know, English countryside that that totally in it and it is it's all like you can feel you can just the anyway. I could go on and on and on. You know and again, I want I want to thank you for speaking to the privilege a lot of the time it's something that we gloss over because we don't see it my daughter we adopted her in Mozambique and she's Mozambique and she's African Mozambique and she can't trace because of lack of records. Thanks to the Portuguese colonization. Yeah, you know, she can't trace back either. So it's what a privilege it is to be able to, to do that and to be able to route oneself. Yeah, in that in that story.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 39:34
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's part of what we what we're looking at when we're looking at the priestess path or the witch path or the reclamation of these sacred roles and functions of the feminine in spiritual leadership in the world of healing and see a ship and and leadership and ceremony, right like all of that where we were, you know, at times throughout, you know, earlier history. We were deeply embedded into this role and function within our communities. You know, whether we were the healers or the medicine women are the ones who would attend the births are the ones who would work with the death are the ones who would preside over ceremony or an Oracle ship or the ones who were working with the deities or with the the elements or with the fairies or the you know, all of these different pieces that were drawn to the were fascinated by working with the crystals working with water working in, you know, I could go on and on the dowsing that the art, the the dance, the poetry, the song, all of it. You know, and I more recently and this is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. And this has to do with the Celtic lineage and the reclamation of that part and when I discovered I did a you know, the DNA testing a while ago, but there's a there's a way in which you can trace your DNA to ancient lineages and that means that they test you. They see what your DNA is, and they compare it against samples that they have from all the archaeological digs all over the world because they obviously can claim DNA from the remains that they find that those digs and and there's a way for you then to match what your indigeneity is, in other words, what your indigenous tribal lineages were and so that's how I know that I'm 70% Celtic, and that I'm actually and this is really bizarre, because of course, it is in my family lineage. And I have the redhead a gene, which you talked about a little bit earlier on, but that actually my my lineage does trace back to Boudicca and the iCandy accounts. Of course, because that's where my father's family were farm and, and, and so, you know, it's there. And I that really lit something inside of me and so I have just recently started more deeply. I've been playing with the playing with the idea of it for a few years but more deeply studying the the druids tradition, and there's a tradition inside the druid tradition where the female druids were called Bandura AI, and the Bandura AI were the women who were the magicians and the women who were connected into the sacred grove and into the depths of connection with the magic of the land. And so that's a lineage that you're going to be hearing me talk more about as I continue to do my own studies and there's a sister of mine that I'm currently studying with who has been initiated herself she now lives in France, who has been working with a druid sect there, but you know, these, this, this, this, what I find so fascinating about all of us and I talk about, you know, there's new blood and cultural lineages, right, which is your, your bloodline your literal bloodline, and then there is your, your, your familiar family lineages, which may be different depending on you know, if you were adopted into a family or if your family took on different different spiritual lineages than your original blood lineages, and then there are your spiritual lineages. And so we're complex right? And there's been a lot of talk, I think around cultural appropriation and around the idea of like, well, can you stand in a certain lineage if you're not Bloodborne of it? And I think we've been through a lot of kind of mulching in the last few years around. Oh, what does that really mean? And, of course, many of us have been have been exposed to and initiated into lineages that are not our blood lineages. And I think you know, what it's bringing up is this conversation around honoring the diversity honoring who your teachers are honoring how you were initiated into something and what your responsibility is for carrying it forward? Because people often ask me about the 13 Mystery School any age, and it's like, well, you know, these female lineages. We don't have many of any examples of that there's unbroken, because most of our lineages were destroyed, wasn't it safe for us to practice? Then they went underground, and mothers and those priestesses who would have given the, the, the oral because most of this is oral tradition, right and RSE was really important. The telling of the stories and the initiating through story and, and through vibration and voids that was broken. You know, when I think about my grandmother, Alexandra, the one who was the cockney, she was that she was the one who was the intense wild crafter and she was she was quite a character. She was five foot tall and feisty. Her name was olive. And you know, and she went through, you know, she was born just after the First World War. She went through the Second World War, she gave birth to my dad and the Second World War in the Blitz in London. This is a feisty woman, she gave birth to my dad in an underground station. That's where the hospital was because they've gotten bombed so badly. And so she had this, this this, this wildness to her this this tenacity to her, but she also was the one who was innately connected into this deep history of women as weavers and spinners. Right and this is a story from her and I think it's really wild when we think about the lost art of the priestess or the lost art of of the sacred. She told me the story during the war. She worked in the, in the factories, where they were weaving parachutes out of silk, the silk parachutes that the soldiers were going to take into war. And she actually went death from that because of the sound sound pollution because it was so intense. And but what she shared with me of her story, she said that when she could you couldn't talk because it was so noisy. And so all day long. What she would do is she was weaving as she would weave prayers into the parachutes that the men would be safe. Can you even believe it? I mean, like, I wish she I think about that and makes me want to cry. You know, and it was like, that was what she was doing. And she said she would just focus that energy on seeing then landing safely and that everything would be okay, and that these men would come home to their families, and that that they were loved and that they were taken care of and then all the women who were weaving the parachutes were with them, holding them. And I had this image of literally the parachutes being held right by the women as the men would be jumping out of planes. So you know, that's a Can we feel how the lineage is right that that ancient lineage that women all over the world have woven and knitted and crocheted sacred objects talismans, which were imbued with prayers and mantras that were actively carrying a frequency and I think, you know, when I heard that story from her, obviously that imprinted something and then the years later when I started to study the ancient lineages and the stories, and I realized what she was carrying, I realized that she was a weaver and that that an a spinner right she was a spinner and a weaver and a knitter that was her whole world. And, and I don't, you know, it wasn't like anyone taught her that. That was just what else was she going to do for eight hours of weaving? When you can't talk and you can't hear yourself? She said the only other thing she would do is saying
Alexandra Hughes 47:45
these are the the arts of magic, the sacred arts, and she brings them into a factory. Just yeah, yeah.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 47:55
And it's funny as we're talking right now, I'm hearing the ringing in my ear. Which is telling me that she's here with us. So I just really want to acknowledge olive and her tremendous role in my life. She was really my mother figure. And, and she wasn't the most cozy, nurturing mother figure but she was extraordinarily magical, and, and potent in what she taught me. Yeah,
Alexandra Hughes 48:25
that's interesting. My maternal grandmother was not either particularly cozy, but she was one strong woman and I think in that generation you know, you kind of needed to be
Elayne Kalila Doughty 48:37
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's interesting I just found and I need to get it put into an mp3 format, but my olive when she was alive, she she recorded onto an old cassette tape. Stories of her life so she got it snippets of her life. And I found it the other day in my in my in the storage unit here at my house and I was like, I really do need to get back because I can't listen to it. Put on to an mp3 so that I can actually listen to her voice telling me some of her stories because she's been gone quite a long time. Now. She she lived it well into her 90s. But yeah, she's been gone for a while. So but she's not gone because she's clearly here. Right? That's, that's part of what we're here recognizing is our lineage is live in us. We're obviously you know, not just on a practical DNA level, but in the stories that we carry both the traumas and the gifts right because you know, a lot of what I feel we're up to as women is, especially now is being able to now that we're able to come together and be in sacred ceremony again together in a way that is not having to be hidden in the same way that it was. I do feel like there's a reclamation that's happening for many of us of healing within our lineages that maybe our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers were unable to do because they had to be in secrecy around this. They couldn't practice their magic together. They couldn't talk of it. It had to remain hidden and that and it's not that it was forgotten because it wasn't, it was not forgotten. And that's the thing it was put beneath the surface, but like any great treasure, it's right there to be reclaimed.
Alexandra Hughes 50:32
I have no idea. How many am Thurs you're giving me without me even and asking the questions. I'm not talking about the podcast questions. You know, life as a priestess question, yes. Yeah, thank you for sharing all of it, all of it, all of it. And I think you've kind of answered this question, but I'm going to ask it explicitly. Yeah. And how is it that you define magic Elaine kalila and how do you define your own unique
Elayne Kalila Doughty 51:10
magic? Well, this comes into another lineage that I am deeply connected into. So I spoke of the bandaraya direct lineage that's in my blood literally. That I'm excavating currently, but the one that has been so shocking, surprising, amazing, and deeply healing for me has been the lineage of the early Gnostic questions and The Magdalene and I, you know, I was raised alongside all of this sort of wildcrafting deep, kind of rooted earth based mystery was the overlay of the Christian church. And so I was raised within the Christian church. I was really raised within two different Christian churches because my, my parents were separated very early on in my life, and my mom was part of the born again, evangelical movement. And my dad's family were Anglicans were, you know, Protestant Anglicans Church of England. And so I went to church as a child and I was I have all of my family. I was the one who elected to go to church. My family didn't go to church, but I wanted to go. And I I had a very personal relationship with Jesus when I was little. In fact, I was one of the little girls that thought I was going to marry Jesus when I grew up there. was, you know, he was my man. I so cute, right? And I know and I would literally, I would literally sit on my bed. I remember with my dad when he would put me to bed at night. I would sit and out it would be a whole thing where I'd have to pray for everybody. You know, and everything that happened in the day I remember when I first saw the film, Bambi I was so traumatized. By the way we should never show that film to any child ever was so traumatized. I had to pray for Bambi and all the all the creature you know, it was so it was a big part of my life, needless to say, and then I grew up inside of that church and at 13. I was to get ordained and audience sorry, that would have been interesting. Wouldn't it confer? I would have if I could have been ordained maybe that would have been a different matter. That was the issue. I got I was about to get confirmed and confirmation in the Anglican Church. means that if you're basically considered adult enough to make your decision that you are choosing this as your faith, and that you are then after that confirmation ceremony, able to take the Holy Communion you know, the bread and the wine, the Eucharist and I was very excited and I went to the church with all the other girls and we will dress in our weight with a little crucifix design. And I am. I was standing there and the bishop with his big pointy hat was coming with the oil, right, the sacred oil that you're going to anoint me with. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, this is so excited. I'm going to receive the Holy Spirit like I can't believe I get to have this thing happen. So he comes along and and he looks me in the eyes and I'm looking at him and I'm like, There's I even knew I knew it. Then I was like, there's no one there. Like where the heck is this person? Like he was this old crusty dude and he went and he anointed my head, and nothing was conferred. There was no transmission of energy. There was no presence, there was no nothing. And in that split second, I knew something was off. And it like it was like the betrayal. Right? It was a moment of betrayal. Where the door opened, and I had this immediate thought. Where are all the women? Where are all the women? Well, this began this kind of rebellion inside of me at 13. You know, which is a classic age right as you're coming into your menstruation years as you're coming into puberty. I actually didn't hit puberty until I was 15, nearly 16. But I was on my way, and I was livid. I started to get this anger rose up in my body now this anger, y'all, this Dade? I don't know for probably 1015 years. I was an angry young person. I was an angry girl. I was angry with men. I was angry with the world. I was disgusted. I was I had all of that angst moving through my body. And it's so I separated from the Christian church and I just went back that I am not doing that. And that began this long journey of seeking other parts. You know, I went into the Tibetan Buddhist path I went into the that some of the Indian Vedic pilots, you know, all the things. But what interestingly Alexandra happened is about when I hit into the priestess path, I realized that a lot of the quote unquote New Age movement that we call New Age movement is based upon Gnostic teachings. And by Gnosticism, I really mean, there wasn't just one school of Gnosticism there were many, many, many different mystery schools and schools of philosophy and cosmology that were involved in the Gnostic traditions. You know, some, probably two to three to 4000 years ago through the Egyptians, and through the Greco Roman period, but this was a very, very strong flowering of human consciousness and spirituality that had many branches to it, but the core of Gnosticism was based upon the internal experience of the Divine, that you are, the divine lives within you, God lives within you, you are a shard of God, and you are God coming, coming to know oneself as God through the human experience that you've kind of at the root of Gnosticism and we can kind of hear that reflected throughout many, many of the different sort of what are called New Age technologies and ways of sacredness, so I started to become fascinated by this pre Christian before Christianity became Christian Christianity and I was like what were the seeds of this, of what has become so distorted and so reversed from love? What were the seeds of it there must have been see through it. So that led me on this inquiry, and then, about 10 years ago now 12 years ago, I met another teacher of mine, who I actually now founded the Rosa Mystica mirror for Mystery School with Diana dudebro and she is a center 19 Priestess. There's that little clue with the anointing from the bishop that wasn't an anointing. And she trained me in the ancient art of sent anointing which is the use of holy oils upon the body to prepare the body for a trans ascension experience to lift the energy often use in the death rates but also at birth. Also use to market transitions to awaken the codes of light or the light body what the Gnostics were called the pearl light body within us. So I kind of wove this thread and then the Magdalene appeared from that work and became a very strong influence and guide in my life and has remained so. And I realized that my attraction to the church to the Christian church was something that was really deeply embedded in the original teachings of the way of love and this sacred technology of what is becoming what they call becoming fully anthropologists, which is to become fully human to, to the marriage of the divine and the human. And so, there's this, this other thread which you know, and Magdalene holds that archetype of the fallen women of the prostitute of the scorned woman of the one who was really removed from her position as being the equal teacher, the partner in crime as it were to Yeshua right. They were a team. They were not she wasn't his Acolyte. She was his precess she was his initiator actually. And, and so there's a big movement right now where you're gonna see and you are seeing that as the divine feminine is rising up in consciousness. The Magdalene is at the forefront of that that that the kind of the tip of the spear, because she's not just a historical figure in terms of one woman, although the one woman is very, very important to study and to connect with. She also is a collective archetype energetically, you know, when they talk about the Second Coming. For me, the Second Coming is the collective avatar of the Magdalene the awakening of the Divine Feminine consciousness within all beings, not just within women within men and women, so that we can rightfully sit the Divine Feminine next to the Divine Masculine and actually create a sacred third, that is neither one or the other, which was the whole basis of Magdalene and Yeshua as teachings which is this idea of the Andrew Dine or the sacred being who was balanced in both aspects of divinity and humanity. So I could go on and on and on because this is my nerdy area of obsession has been for the last few years and is a lot of what I'm teaching on now with the Magdalene but this is I'm saying this because I'm wanting everybody to get the we all have many, many threads and lineages that we're sitting in, and as women, we are weavers of these lineages my loves. There are 1000 ways to kneel and kiss the ground and be in devotion to the gods and goddesses. There are 1000s of ways and parts to the one universal love God goddess spirit power, whatever you want to call that. One of the words that we use in the druidic nature is the r1, which is the the r1 is like it's kind of synonymous with the Varki from the Viking traditions and, and the Shakti from the Hindu. But it's the r1 is the inspiration of the poetry of life moving through us. It's the soul animating us. There are 1000s of ways to weave our lineages and each one of us doesn't hold a purity of lineage that's just doesn't exist in this way. That's not what I think we're here to do anymore. I think we're here to honor the diversity and the oneness. And I think that we're here to pay homage to our teachers, our blood, our spiritual, our familial and cultural lineages, and celebrate that extraordinary beauty that constitutes each one of us as we reclaim who we actually are. So that's what I will. I don't know if I answered your question. Quite a journey.
Alexandra Hughes 1:02:25
You know what, I think it's the most comprehensive, beautiful and inclusive answer to the question. Okay, good. Whoa, I know why I started this here. Let me give you this little agenda. Oh, they're so funny. Is that what you asked me? You love it. Oh, yes. The answers there.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:02:47
It is. And the beautiful part of it is the thing I was actually thinking of before I went on that tangent of that story, which is, you know, really my that's one of the nearest and dearest origin stories of my own work in the world. So I thank you for creating the space for me to speak that or to be have it be spoken. The reason I wanted to walk up the Magdalene was because the root of the word Magdalene, by the way Magdalene is not a name it's a title. Magdalene means many things. It means tower of strength. Okay, it means watch tower woman. It means great cosmic portal it means portal between the worlds it means Tree of Life. Maj Magi it means magician, it means magic one from the Persian word Magoosh which means magician. Okay, that's the root of that word. So the Magdalene is a magician. She's a magi. And what it means to be a magician is it means to be able to work with the elements of all of our humanity to transmute that to work energetically with that to actually engage with intention and focus and purpose to shift frequencies. And that is at the heart of the Christian teachings actually are about how to descend down into our humanity and through our humanity, awaken our divinity so we can transcend back and that we can move in and out between the realms. At well. That's really the teaching.
Alexandra Hughes 1:04:33
Like what comes to me is 13 year old you looking at this word that you use this crusty old guy that was there was empty inside and that the magic is actually you. Like not having that in between you and Right.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:04:54
Exactly. And knowing that that thing that priest had been put in the way between me and the connection, direct connection and Gnostic connection to the divine was what the Christian church did, to remove, right this right the anointing, right, which was always that with the metaphors and the women, by the way, was their medicine that got taken from them and put into the church and it was made heresy heretical for us to use anointing outside of that particular venue. Like the priests were the only ones who were allowed to use the holy oils anymore. So what a remembrance, right? And that's where I really clocked the Magdalene came in, she came in and then I went, I've been on this massive journey because like so many of us who have been wounded by the Christian church or betrayed or, or cast out or told that we can't be who we are. Right, we throw the baby out with the bathwater, because we're like, hell no, I am. No I'm going to no part of that horrifying situation. But what we don't realize is that hidden in the roots of that is so much beauty, so much truth, so much that we need and I do believe that the seeds that were planted 2000 years ago, by those early Christians before they became Christians, right, because they weren't called Christians then and so I've always have to say that. With planting the seeds of the way of love are now beginning to sprout through us. I really think that that's what's happening the Garden of Eden is starting to sprout and awaken as the divine feminine is reclaimed as we as women, begin to heal these wounds and step beyond our fears and step beyond the places where we have kept ourselves hidden and cloistered, but out of fear of being attacked and humiliated and shamed which is absolutely real. And I am not saying that that that is not to be overlooked, but it's not the reason for us to stay hidden anymore.
Alexandra Hughes 1:07:01
Yeah, yeah, I'm my current obsession is the book left handed Pat is it called the I always get the name muddled but left handed path and feminine Christ, but yeah, yeah.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:07:11
The one by sarin Bertrand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's done. Sarin and Aza have done some amazing research and I'm bow to them for doing the research and writing it down and writing the stories down because what they have put into that book is incredible and has served my own consciousness in deep and powerful ways. The other authors that I do just want to name just as a lineage piece if you're curious about the Magdalene is there's a beautiful book called The Woman and the alabaster jar by Margaret starboard and she was one of the first women that stepped out and really risked the the the, the defamation and the you know, what I mean that the attack and the and the kind of like the, the, the division of, of being projected on so I just really want to bow to her work and then another amazing mystic Christian by the name is Cynthia Bourgeault, who wrote Mary Magdalene, the meaning of Mary Magdalene and she is actually still alive and teaching and is a fabulous scholar. And, and she is, you know, she's very much within the Christian tradition, but she's really reclaimed the place of Mary Magdalene and really unpacked a lot of what were, you know of the history and the the real truth behind who Mary Magdalene actually was? So I think this and then the Elaine Pagels is another one who wrote a book called on the Gnostic on the Gnostic Gospels, the Gnostic Gospels of the apocryphal gospels are the secret gospels that were hidden. You know, when the four canonical gospels were agreed upon by the church, there was all these other scriptures that were hidden, so as to be protected and have been since found and excavated. So there's there's lots right for us to reclaim and, and I just say to you that anything of I've spoken if you are pinging inside your own body, there's lots to read. We live in an information age by the age of Aquarius. And what I want to encourage you to do is yes, read yesterday come study with me if that feels aligned. And the Gnostic tradition is that this lives within you and find the teachers who empower you to listen to your own inner knowing. Really want to say that because we as women, particularly, have been told that we need to look outside of ourselves to be told what it is we already know. And I want you to make sure you find the teachers who encourage you to go inside to find what you know, because that's where the deepest reclamation and repair happens. I'll stop by saying that it's 1111 here
Alexandra Hughes 1:10:04
is it is it. I wanted to ask you to speak to the color red. Oh, let me I know I know. And and we're after the hour, so if you have something else going on right now and you are you need I don't I
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:10:18
don't luckily I don't and since it you know, I have to notice that it was 1111
Alexandra Hughes 1:10:26
I've been watching the clock and I've been like oh but let me let her have the color about the color red, please.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:10:32
But if the color red.
Alexandra Hughes 1:10:36
Well, are you like it follows you know, it follows
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:10:39
the red thread, right? We've already at this point. We've all heard of a red thread and this idea that we're connected right through this umbilical cord. I call it the umbilical cord of our blood lineages. That at the end of the day, if we were to go back to the first woman that ever was, we all come from the same woman and we can trace that mitochondrial Lee back to the original Eve in Africa, right so we know that we we we migrated and we we went all over this holy smashing beautiful planet called Gaia. You know, the Read for me, is so many meanings. Obviously. I'm red headed, and I spoke about that in my very first podcast if you want to listen to that. It's called Red women in the notorious red women and notorious red. And if you stay tuned, my darlings I'm going to be doing a podcast summit later in the year in in July maybe we'll let you know about that. In celebration of the Magdalene feast day on July 22. But the red is the color that the Magdalene is most often seen in in in art. Red headedness has always been identified with the witches with the priestesses and you know, and it's very fascinating to me, when you look at that whole lineage and story and for me being redheaded as a child in England was to be different specifically where I was raised. There wasn't a lot of redheads. Now if I had been raised in Scotland or Ireland, I'd have been just fine. Because they have the most redheads on the planet and those two places. But there was a difference. There's been a power associated with red, right? There's been an idea that red is something that's taboo. It's sexual, it's erotic. It's passionate. You shouldn't wear red lipstick you should wear and when I was saying England, Red Hat, no knickers. I don't know where it came from. But you know that that was like the idea that a harlot or a prostitute would wear a red hat to identify herself, right? So there's all this history behind it. And when I was creating my podcast when I first started to dream into the podcast, I was like, What can I call it? And then I just heard the word read. I'm just gonna call it read. And for me the read women are women who are on the edge of birthing themselves in a new planet through who we're being and what we're doing in the world. We're daring. We're a bit audacious. We're a bit badass. We're a bit like, we don't care quite so much what people think of us. Were a little bit wildly a little bit rebellious, passionate, and a little bit wild and don't want to be contained. And that to me is the read. And it's an awakening of the Shakti they are when the Varkey they're the lifeblood of the divine feminine. And this is the thing when we talk about embodiment we're talking about being in these extraordinary bodies that are passionate and sensual and erotic and alive and that being alive is an erotic experience. Period. So, red is a is a name that, for me, holds us in our vast lineages of connection of all the diversity and the oneness that we come from. And is remembrance. So hello and welcome red women.
Alexandra Hughes 1:14:23
Beautiful, kidnapped Okay, I'm gonna let you go. But I will. And I've no idea how I'm going to create a summary and show notes for this. But anyway,
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:14:34
you might have to do two episodes as of the end of
Alexandra Hughes 1:14:38
May and write a chapter but anyway, where can people find you and your magic?
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:14:45
Yes. Okay. So you can find me on Facebook at priestess presence temple. That's a Facebook group that we run that's for specifically priestess presence. I'm over on Instagram priestess presence and also Elaine kalila and then you can find me on my own website at Elan kalila.com. So I'm all over there. You can find me on Spotify on the red podcast and that you'll find it right there. And I think we're already up to we've done 45 episodes in the last year so that's been really fun to create. So, yeah, all those places and what I was speaking to and just want to leave you with is there's I am doing a pod summit in July, July 22 for the Magdalene feast day, and I'm going to be publishing and launching something very special on that day. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet, but it's coming. And I've been working on it for the last few years. So I'm really excited.
Alexandra Hughes 1:15:41
Yay, excited to get to so we'll be sure to air this before. Before Magdalene feastday before.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:15:48
Yes, let's do that. Let's do that. And maybe I'll send you the link for the the way that we're sisters conjoined for that for that special event on the 22nd. I'll send you a link and maybe you can share that with everybody.
Alexandra Hughes 1:16:00
Wonderful. It'll be in the show notes. It'll be what a delight and pleasure. It's been talking to you today. Oh, thank you
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:16:07
Alexandra been so generous. And thank you for what you're doing in the world with this podcast. I can't wait to tune in and listen to some of the episodes myself now.
Alexandra Hughes 1:16:17
Well, you can see this is what do they say it's a project of love born of love.
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:16:23
Oh yeah, I get
Alexandra Hughes 1:16:24
rid of love and non negotiable Lee none sort of demand made as well. i
Elayne Kalila Doughty 1:16:30
So hear you I still hear you all right, my love much. Bye for now.
Alexandra Hughes 1:16:36
Bye my dear. recording stopped thank you so much Elaine. You're welcome done I do well Wow. Wow. Bye. Take care. Bye Love
