We have just completed a course here at Sunrise Ranch called Grace: Primal Spirituality 4. We spent four days creating an atmosphere of grace and discovering the essence and power of grace in all circumstances. We also experienced the many tools available to us to bring grace in every circumstance. It is easy to bring grace when all is going as planned and it is powerful to bring grace when things are not. There is discipline involved, and discipline is freedom. At the end of our course we shared a sacrament of commitment to live in grace.

Sacraments are ceremonies of sacredness. They are a declaration of the holiness of the next cycle and a commitment to it. There were many sacraments in the church I grew up in. In this course that we just completed we were providing an opportunity for sacrament, to step into a yes to the discipline and responsibility of staying true to your primal spirituality, the original spirituality you were born with. Here was an opportunity to choose to be masterful in bringing grace into every situation. When you are oriented in your primal spirituality, this is quite natural.

One of the sacraments I grew up with was the sacrament of marriage. There are things that people commit to when they decide to marry another person. Another sacrament, called Holy Orders, occurs when a person enters the priesthood. There’s a sacrament bestowed when a person is dying, called Last Rites or Extreme Unction. Each of these acknowledge stepping from one state to another.

The sacrament of commitment at the end of these four days was an opportunity to agree to being centered in the reality of who we are and to expressing grace from the reality of our primal spirituality. Grace is not difficult when things are easy. I can bless everything when things are going my way. But when they are not, I still have the opportunity to stay in the stature to which I committed. Through our ceremony of commitment I participated in a sacrament.

The ceremony of commitment was about being a member of a priesthood. That term may feel religious. But I am not talking about a religious priesthood. This priesthood isn’t defined by robes, special prayers, or vows of poverty. The word priesthood names my experience when I think of my life as a living temple. In the living temple are priests and priestesses. We serve there because we are in the temple and we are providing the temple, and we are creating the temple. And we behold the living temple when we are with people who are doing that with us. It is a living thing.

Going back to the sacrament of marriage, I would expect there’s a very different state between dating and being married. While dating, there is not necessarily a full commitment present. I am interested in making the full commitment to stepping into my stature because I say yes to my agreements and they mean something to me; they mean something to the people I’m making them with. So when I say yes to you, that I will stay in the stature of a priestess, I will honor my primal spirituality—which is the spirituality I was born with before it got all messed up or stolen or oppressed—I mean it.

I expect I will have opportunities to live in grace in which I make mistakes or where I trip over my feet. There are times when the pressure comes on and expansion is happening and an old way I’ve learned to be in the world shows up and doesn’t fit. There are times when I’m rising to another level of understanding, and all of a sudden I notice I have things with me that don’t belong in this new place. Who I am in this new place is different from who I was before. Suddenly something shows up in my expression that doesn’t fit. I probably never saw it before and am surprised by the new awareness.

I have found myself being under a lot of pressure these days. My life has changed. Creativity is accelerating all around me. Change is happening everywhere. Am I demonstrating grace as it happens? I’m sure you are aware that when you say anything publicly there is increased pressure. It may invite challenge from others who want to test whether you really mean what you said. But a public declaration of intention can also invite the creative pressure from within that you need to enter a new state of being.

So, I want to say there is nothing I want more in my life than to stand in the authority of my being and say, “I am a priestess of the Most High.” Do you want to do that with me? Many times people start analyzing, “Well, what the heck does that mean?” So I’ll give you the simple explanation: It means I will stay in the stature of the highest I know, the truth and the love that I know, and let all the parts of me come with me. I will let my primal spirituality be my reference. And I will discover and create with my friends who want to do that with me, and see how the world will change.

Recently, the attorney general of the state of Washington challenged the ban that our president is putting on people coming into the United States of America. He used the Constitution as a reference point to make sure things are accurate to that document. It is the foundational agreement for this country. The attorney general of Washington is asserting that the president is making a decision that is not in agreement with the Constitution.

My constitution is the living pattern contained within our primal spirituality. My constitution is the living temple. This is what sets the pattern—not my great ideas or plans. My commitment is oriented in the highest place I know, so I’m going there. It is a vibrational place. It is a living temple. It is my holy home.

I will keep it and care for it and create this living temple with everyone and anyone who wants to do that with me. It is our holy home.

There are people who will read these words, including some I haven’t met, who are interested in doing this and who are already doing it with me. I already know their spirit because they are keeping and honoring the holy home we all share, letting the things that are not holy be burned up, and being graceful in the process.

As Mike Tyson once said, Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Most everybody wants to be holy and graceful. And then something major comes up that says, “Oh, really?” As a child, I used to interpret that as God asking me to “prove it.” But that’s not really what’s happening. The “Oh, really?” comes when it feels like I’ve been punched in the mouth and I ask myself, Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to create this living temple? I want to be accountable. I want to know the holy home on earth, and so I need to help create it.

The pressure is actually coming mostly from within me, not from above me, not from someplace outside me. It’s coming as I am putting myself right up against the words that I speak: I will. This is important to me, and I will honor it; and I will create a holy, living temple with whoever wants to do that with me.

We created this course to allow people to be in the vibration of grace and feel what it’s like to be in that temple space, and then see if they want to keep going, creating and living in temple space. They have a chance to participate in the sacrament of commitment. So do we all. And it’s not for everyone. There is so much I want to do with my life, and there is a lot that can only happen with others if there’s agreement about creating the living temple and being there together.

In that place, there is an experience of communion with the invisible and the holiest thing you know. Keep coming. Keep coming to your highest and finest, to the Beloved that you know is you. It’s you. It’s me. It’s us. Here in this Living Temple.