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There is a lot of misunderstanding and misconceptions when it comes to the field of psychology. These issues often are compounded by misleading terminology that reflect the utter lack of self-awareness plus frankly a good deal of misogyny amongst the early psychologists.

This is especially true when psychologists refer to the psychological concepts of Mother and Father. Early feminists were correct to be suspicious if not all out hostile to the “blame the mother” brand of psychotherapy. Especially since those views were politically used to literally push women back into the domestic sphere.

But what was missing from the public discourse was the specific meanings early psychologists attached to the terms, Mother and Father. And although the early definitions were gender based, the deeper meanings were not intended to refer to one’s actual mother and father.

If we were defining these terms today, we would probably use terms like inner and outer, or domestic and cultural when referring to the differing spheres of influence.

The Mother world referred to the domestic realm, which included one’s family, along with possibly your close friends and neighbors. The Father world was the realm outside of the domestic realm, including your job if it was not a family business. Most institutions exist in the Father world, i.e. government and business. And depending on your cultural affiliations, your church, health care providers and entertainment could exist in either world. For example, if your primary form of entertainment was singing around the dinner table, it was Mother world. If you went to nightclubs, concerts and theaters, it was Father world. The doctor which cared for your entire family and made regular house calls was more Mother world. If the doctors at the local hospital knew all of your children names ... it was borderline.

Each of the worlds require a certain orientation, a way of handling oneself in relation to the requirements of each world. We learn these approaches from one’s parents or parental figures as a child. And this is where the confusion sets in. Either parent or parental figure can teach you about both worlds. But early psychologists assumed that mothers teach the Mother world portion and fathers teach the Father world portion exclusively -- and thus the problems with the nomenclature is revealed.

Mother world orientation provides lessons of intimacy, boundaries, how to care for oneself. Concrete skills include how to make your bed, brush your teeth, eat at a table, use a bathroom ... all the way up to how relate to others in ways that are loving and respectful. An astute reader will recognize the association with the lower four chakras. We can also see how and why this orientational training is so easily associated with our actual mothers. However we learn the Mother world skills from everyone involved in our upbringing which can include fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, babysitters and early teachers.

And depending on your cultural heritage, almost anyone in a parental role can be the source of Father world orientation. So what are concrete Father world skills?

Father world skills include things like how to create a budget, pay bills, dress for an interview, how to talk to potential employers, how to behave in a restaurant, knowing when you are not safe, knowing who to trust or distrust ... all the way up to how to show up to work on time and how to stand up for yourself. And here you will notice the alignment with the solar plexus up to the third eye.

I am simplifying the list of skills, but if you think about it for awhile almost anyone can come up with lists of what one should learn from each world.

I noticed that the differences between the Mother and Father worlds has been coming up in my spiritual counseling sessions a lot lately. And this is worth noting for a variety of reasons.

Most of us are acutely aware of the repercussions of a faulty Mother world orientation. We see people who cannot take care of themselves; hell many of us need remedial lessons in self care like getting adequate sleep, nutrition and playtime.

But the inadequacy of Father world orientation can come as a surprise to most of us. Almost everywhere I look, I see people who are missing key components of the Father world orientation. Culturally we can see whole portions of the national debate missing a basic understanding of simple maxims like, “give from your surplus”, “invest in your future”, “you don’t get something for nothing”, or “judge folks by their actions, not their words.”

Often Mother world maxims like “you will attract more with honey than with vinegar” are inappropriately applied to the Father world where the the maxim is closer to “treat a person with respect and you can gain a customer.” I cannot tell how many times I have walked out of a store because a salesperson refused to just listen to me, and instead put on a fake smile and tried to oversell.

Mother world orientational training is where you learn how to care for yourself and your family. Father world orientational training is where you learn how to be a responsible member of society. We have culturally been blaming women and mothers for over a century. I think it is high time we admit that the problem may actually be a neglectful and missing Father.

I had a discussion this morning about the history of violence within my family. But that is not exactly the truth. We were discussing the history of violence within my urban community ... no .. within African-American culture ... within American culture ... within human ... within life.

The violence is unmistakeable. The smashing of horns, the slashing of teeth and claw, the blood and gore ... the cries of fear, pain and anguish ... after a while, it all starts to blend together.

But we humans take even the violence inherent in life and dare I say ... improve upon it. We add guns, machetes, bombs, drones, Molotov cocktails and napalm. We kill teenagers in the street, mothers in their beds, and children ... everywhere we kill children.

I have just finished reading The Hunger Games, where children are reaped to fight to the death to atone for the “sins” of their ancestors.

But what are the sins of the massacred Afghani families? What sin did those women commit in todays school massacre? Or in tonights beating of a woman somewhere, anywhere ... all around the world?

- - -

But that is not what we were discussing either. We were discussing the serpent that lays coiled deep down inside of me. The serpent that even now is poised, ready at a moment’s notice. This is not the kundalini, it is something else entirely.

This serpent is my penchant to react with violence.

It never sleeps. it never relaxes. It is armed to the teeth. And the only thing keeping it from rising and blotting out the sun ... is my training.

But this serpent is a product of violence. Just like the violence we are inculcating in the minds, bodies and souls of children all around this planet. We are ripping through their flesh and blood and bone and forcibly implanting them all with this serpent.

You who watched your mother being beaten and raped, you who curl deep into your father’s arms as the bombs explode, you who even in the womb can taste the blood of anguish ... all of our serpents like ticking time bombs waiting for the least provocation, injustice or insult.

And what does the world hand us? Hunger, fear, war and death.

As if the serpent is not already enough.

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And this serpent inside of me lays in wait. Waiting for the day when my training will not be enough, when my will falters, and my heart breaks open ... screaming ... Enough!

I have been struggling with my identity for over a year. Each time I come up against my usual habit of proclaiming my battlefields, i.e. “I am a bisexual Wiccan warrior woman of color, hear me roar!”

But today my mentor asked me a question. “What battle are you fighting now?”

And the answer was revelatory. “I am not on any battle field”

“So why are you still fighting?”

Good question ...

Our latest discussion concerns my calling myself a priestess. First off, it is not about me being a priestess, but my inclusion of that title in my self description, as in “Poet, Priestess, Warrior & Witch.” Skipping over the obvious battlefield references inherent in the “Warrior & Witch” parts, what is the purpose of declaring myself to be a priestess?

To me it is a title that best describes what I do day in and day out. It signifies my leadership role in the realm of spiritual community. And to me it is no different than the collar on a Catholic priest or the “Rev” on a minister’s calling card.

So my mentor asked me why I didn’t just call myself a teacher. Well I am a teacher, but I felt like the teaching part was inherent in the title of priestess. And this is where we hit the snag in our conversation. Because according to Dr Conforti, clergy and teachers occupy very different archetypal fields.

Teachers are inherently within the realm of elders, storytellers and the learning process. Clergy are within the realm of institutional and societal power. The explanations of Joseph Campbell figure highly here.

“In ancient times, that was the business of the [priest]. He was to give you the clues to a spiritual life. That is what the priest was for. Also, that was what ritual was for. A ritual can be defined as an enactment of a myth. By participating in ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life. And it’s out of that participation that one can learn to live spiritually.”

“A priest is a functionary of a social sort. The society worships certain deities in a certain way, and the priest becomes ordained as a functionary to carry out that ritual. The deity to whom he is devoted is a deity that was there before he came along. But the shaman’s powers are symbolized in his own familiars, deities of his own experience. His authority comes out of a psychological experience, not a social ordination.”

And the birthplace of religion is to be found within how “... the shaman ... translate[s] some of his visions into ritual performances for his people.”

But as soon as the hunter gatherers settled down and begin building institutions, the shaman was slowly replaced by priests who focused on the forms and structures and left out the “troublesome” mystical sources of the shaman.

And this speaks to the core of my internal conflict. I am both a shaman working with deities of my own experience and enacting my visions in ritual, and a priestess who is ordained to carry out societal functions. And further, my role as priestess flies in the face of the majority culture’s Abrahamic orientation, i.e. Christian, Jewish and Islamic.

So calling myself a priestess is both charging into another battlefield, and entering an archetypal realm ripe with issues like power differentials, spiritual inflation and clerical abuse. No wonder this is so hard.

Conversely as a teacher it seems simpler and more straightforward. A teacher guides, illustrates, and points out the path, the thread, or the essence. As my teacher David Rottman declares, “We can learn some things on our own, but for the rest we need teachers.” The ancient source of teachers is less conflicted and the mythological source is still close at hand. So the archetypal realm of the teacher may hold some negative aspects, but it is not as corrupted as the field of clergy is for both shaman and priests.

I actually feel less conflicted, less defensive even, when I call myself a teacher. And this difference is key here. Publicly declaring myself a priestess pulls up all my defensiveness, I feel like I am picking up the dropped flag and charging into battle. And quite frankly, I am tired of being constantly on the battlefield.

This questioning has been helpful for me in so many ways. It has helped me to clarify my internal conflict and its archetypal source. And since I am unwilling to fight battles I do not need or want, I can accept that I am both a priestess and a shaman without having to declare it for the world. And most importantly, I feel much more willing to declare my identity to the world in a new way. A way that reflects the ease I feel within me and within my work.

Katrina Messenger, teacher and writer ... hmmm ...

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