About Rev. Xia

by Jeanne Leiter Clark aka Pythia

Judy Tatum, also known as Xia (pronounced Shee-ah), is a Priestess and Director of Temple of the Goddess, which received its nonprofit recognition as a church from the IRS in 2004.  For almost two decades Xia has walked the path of the divine feminine, committed to her role as an inter-faith ambassador for the Pagan Community. Among her many articles, an essay entitled Paganism: Out of the Closet and into the Fire, originally written for her son’s school in Pasadena, California for a Diversity in Religion series, has been reprinted countless times.

Xia has also written numerous mythological and ritual works centered around archetypal studies of the Goddess including Rites of Passage: A Goddess Ritual for Women, which aired on The Learning Channel–showing Pagan rites for Maiden, Mother, and Crone. She also produced and facilitated the segment. Other articles include: Ritual and the Art of Alchemy, The Mythology of Nature, The Myth of Matriarchy, and Secret Garden of the Feminine. She is the author of Feminine Alchemy: The Sacred Art of Cooking (publication pending), a treasury of recipes that combines feminine lore and empowering healing rituals with the most timeless of women’s art, cooking. Feminine Alchemy uses cooking as a woman’s metaphor for personal transformation by focusing on the archetype of the divine feminine as a container for healing.

As a mythologist, minister, counselor, and healer, Xia has been creating, writing, and facilitating rituals for groups and individuals for more than a decade. She has led thousands of men and women in transformational rituals. For the past five years, Xia has written many contemporary myths for Temple of the Goddess’ Mythic Players, an ensemble of artists that emerged out of the yearly Sabbats produced with Xia’s guidance by Temple of the Goddess. Some of the myths include: Lilith and the Fruit of Knowledge, Creator Destroyer: Revelations of Kali, Awakening Our Dream Seeds, A Journey of Balance: Maat & Anubis, Amaterasu and Power of the Sun, Child of Duality, Mystical Time of Twilight, Singing To The Bones, Dance of Polarities.

Temple of the Goddess holds public Sabbats for the Los Angeles community in Pasadena, California. These Sabbats are ritual theatre that follow the seasons and cycles of the Pagan calendar and combine mythology and art to re-connect, as well as strengthen our connection to the earth. The temple rituals are multi-media programs combining music, dance, liturgy, spoken word, visual art, and participatory theater. With her expert spiritual guidance and keen business sense, Xia has brought together a remarkable group of people–singers, actors, dancers, story-tellers, musicians, puppeteers, ritualists, and those who are starving for ritual, to honor the Divine and celebrate the Wheel of the Year. She works toward the day that the spiritual church will become a brick and mortar building, housing space for worship, art, healing, and learning.

She also teaches Goddess classes, dance classes, as well as serpent workshops with temple serpents, Isis and Serapis. As a sacred dancer, Xia has been featured in the “Trends” section of Newsweek, and in Rites of Passage on The Learning Channel. She is also the subject of the video documentary Dance is Prayer, directed by Jules Hart. Xia has performed as a dancer in Los Angeles and Northern California in such venues as International Woman’s Day, Pagan Pride Day, Isis Oasis, and the Long Beach WomanSpirit Festival.

Xia has always considered her two great accomplishments in life, to date, her son Zachary, an actor, writer and dedicant priest of the Goddess; and Temple of the Goddess, a vision given her shortly after the birth of her son–to create a living temple, healing center, education and arts complex.  After 10 years of legal work, crafting the language, and dancing with the IRS, Temple of the Goddess was given legal recognition by the U.S. Federal government and became a bona fide Pagan church in 2004. This huge feat she did with grace, dignity, and intelligence, responding to IRS questions such as “We understand you do ritual, but how do you worship?”–countless times.  She met the never-ending barrage of questions from the IRS regarding Paganism by creating all-embracing religious principles, liturgy, and the Temple of the Goddess Handbook–each destined to become guiding forces in a growing movement.

As a writer/producer, Xia has written a six-part documentary series about the ancient face of the feminine which explores women’s culture, art, and heritage throughout the millennia, called Forbidden Knowledge: A Glimpse Behind the Veil which she continues to develop in anticipation of funding and production in the coming years.  Additionally, she is also developing the feature motion picture Snake Woman Stone with writer Anita Clearfield as well as six highly-diverse television shows she’s written under her Amber Moon Productions banner with film maker and friend, Jules Hart.

As a mythologist Xia believes there is no greater medium than TV and film. In a personal statement she says, “Television and movie screens are the flickering fires where we gather and hear the stories of the people—to be entertained, yes and hopefully glean something that will enlighten the human condition. Television, for good or bad, has become the hearth of the home. It is the fire we light when we walk in our cave door. Movie houses are the “cathedrals” of our day as more people attend the ritual of cinema than all the churches combined. As conscious artists, our choice then becomes do we create a life-affirming mythology or a fear-based mythology? Producing film and television gives us the opportunity to tell the stories that impact and influence people. We are the visionaries and mythologists of this millennium and it is our responsibility to create not just profitable entertainment, but ‘theater of the soul.’”

Xia is relentless in all she does and has followed her vision of serving a community of spiritual artists by creating a nonprofit educational arts organization called Nine Muses Arts. She continues to hold the space for Goddess, Pagan, and other like-minded groups who are seeking to become a legal church/temple to benefit from Temple of the Goddess’ 501c3 nonprofit status under the umbrella of Temple of the Goddess group ruling.  She continues to be a voice and an advocate for the Earth, the Goddess, the Temple, and the Pagan community.

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From the author: In 1990 my spiritual path, just discovering the Goddess, met up with Xia’s.  We have remained friends through good times and bad.  I tell people that she’s a hard friend to have.  By that I mean, that she pushes herself to do the best at whatever she’s doing, and expects those around her to do the same.  She has coerced more from me when I thought I had given all I had.  That is what family and friends do, they make you better, sometimes in spite of yourself. 

                                                                             Jeanne Leiter Clark   (aka: Pythia)

© Copyright 1995 Jeanne Leiter Clark aka Pythia except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved worldwide. This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state, and local laws.