From Babcia’s Rose Bushes, Magic Blooms
Priestess Pamela Talks Ancestral Enchantment and Modern Mysticism
By Victoria Koelkebeck
Pink roses and peaches in hand, I crossed the threshold into Priestess Pamela’s downtown apartment, eager to both witness her craft and unravel the woman behind it. The flowers are a nod to her “Venus Rose Coven” and the peaches are an offering from Utah. She makes me a cup of rose tea, and we talk about what to expect during the Reiki healing she’s about to perform.
She politely instructs me to lie down on a collection of velvet pink cushions with my arms outstretched and palms toward the ceiling. I look up at the giant pink disco ball before asking, “Should my eyes be closed?” Priestess Pamela nods yes enthusiastically. Sprawled on the cushions in the shape of a cross, I can’t help but feel like a pink-disco Jesus.
Pamela doesn’t know I’ve just crossed the country by planes, trains and automobiles to reach my uncle before he was surrendered to the West Virginia soil. Before I could process his passing, I was flung back to Vegas, then whisked to Utah and back before being carried along time’s current to this moment.
My eyelids flutter as I lie there, struggling to stay closed as I catch the glint of mirrored reflections from the disco ball overhead. I’m transported back to the D.C. Metro, where flashes of light sliced across the windows as the train weaved through tunnels.
I’m at the last stop, Franconia-Springfield. I step off the train and into the sticky August heat of Virginia, knowing the next destination is a funeral home. Gravity presses me into the plush cushions as I remember the way my Uncle Kevin looked in his casket from the first pew. I wonder now if I should have gone in for a closer last look as Priestess Pamela firmly grasps my forearms. My mind, now focused on her touch, sheds the weight of thought like an old skin.
I lay there for what felt like an hour, wrapped in the weight of memory, letting it dissolve with each breath. Sound sings from a small brass bowl and I lift myself from the cushions, as the ceremony ends.
Priestess Pamela greets me with a kind smile and asks how I felt. I fumble through an explanation of what I’ve tried to capture here, but she seemed to know—I was lighter than when I arrived.
From there, she reads my birth chart and laid out my tarot cards. When we shift into the interview, my gaze drifts to the crystal ball on her desk as she speaks of her home beyond this pink portal palace she calls an apartment. I picture her village in Michigan, just north of Detroit.
“It was magical,” she explains. “We lived on a lake near a forest, so I spent a lot of time in nature playing outside. I learned to swim there, and in the winter, I learned to figure-skate on that same lake. It was a great childhood.”
She continues to paint the picture: trails laced with flowers, lush foliage, a dirt road leading directly to the woods and lake, a home fresh from the 1970s—it’s the kind of place I imagine Bob Ross would be painting “happy little trees” all over.
I’d guess she floated here from the forests of Michigan in a pink bubble—Glinda style—to live out her magical dream life. But her journey into mysticism and her calling as a guide to the divine feminine began with her babcia (pronounced “bab-cha” meaning grandmother), Jadwiga, from Poland.
Her babcia started teaching her magic with little things, like manifesting money in rose bushes. Telling the story, Pamela suspects her grandmother planted a $100 bill in the bush, but nevertheless, she found it and the lesson stuck: magic reveals itself if you take the time to look.
From there, her babcia gifted her a collection of crystals with a book to research each.
“I love that connection with the divine and feminine—the matriarchy passes down the magic,” Pamela says. “I don’t want to forget that because I’m part of her—I’m part of this lineage of women.”
I ask if her great-grandmother gifted magic in this way to her daughter, to which Pamela solemnly answers, “It’s hard to say. They lived in Poland during the war [World War II], so I don’t know. But I do know she had a really hard life that I can’t imagine experiencing.”
Pamela’s great-grandmother passed when she was eight, and her grandmother when she was nine, so much information about the mystical matriarchs stopped there, she tells me.
“And the true gift is that I’m able to live as a magical modern mystic, whereas they were escaping post-war Europe for a chance at a better life. I’ve also had many past-life regressions with my babcia as witches and medicine women in the forests, secluded from society.”
Although she lost a direct connection to the lineage of her magic, she didn’t stop feeling it and feeding it as she grew older. Some magic comes from simply taking care—of herself, of others and of the environment. This manifested in potions and concoctions like milk and honey for illness. And sickness itself became lessons in presence, each fever its own teacher.
Pamela comes primarily from Polish lineage, but she also cites being a quarter Lemko, a nomadic people from Slavic descent with no country to claim.
“I find it important to note because that’s a huge part of me, consciously and subconsciously,” she says.
Right now, she’s into “mermaid magic” stemming from her childhood love of The Little Mermaid.
“I chose the title of Priestess Pamela recently because I’m here to guide the divine feminine, and The Little Mermaid was pivotal in my childhood—I was obsessed,” she declares. “I found the power of magic and mystical mermaid influence for the divine feminine within this character.”
Though Pamela speaks with confidence and clarity now, she shares, “You know, I never fit in…I was always, like, existing on another plane of reality. And I tried really hard to fit in at some points in my life. But I kept studying spirituality, and I kept exploring different modalities. What was really pivotal for me was the first time I received Reiki healing. That was when it became solidified that I need to be doing this for other people.”
From there, she delved into being a Reiki Master teacher while splitting her time supporting the Velveteen Rabbit—a cool, vibey downtown establishment she founded with her sister, Christina. She struggled to transition to a full-time healer, worrying others would judge her for being a spiritual guide. “But then at some point, I was just like, I have to fully go into this,” she says. The turning point came during a class in Ithaca, Greece.
“Ithaca is a very historic, powerful place, storied with Greek mythology,” she says. “I had this vision of receiving the priestess code—the divine feminine code—and I got the message that I’m meant to lead the divine feminine.”
She shares that during the class, they practiced shamanic visual meditations and journeying.
“Through rituals with the ocean, I met myself on one of these shamanic journeys, and she was waiting for me,” she recalls. “I just remember clearly this ring that I was wearing—I was guiding the way, and then I went into Fiskardo and Kefalonia, and I found this ring [Pamela points to the ring on her finger] with the amethyst! I was like, this is the ring I envisioned, and it gave me chills.”
Priestess Pamela still travels a lot for workshops and continued spiritual growth, but she says at home, Vegas offers its own spiritual vortex.
“While there is a lot of darkness in Vegas, I’m not going to say there isn’t. There’s a lot of light too, and I found that in my own path here,” she says.
She names Mount Charleston, Valley of Fire, and The Shops at Crystals among her favorite Las Vegas spots. I raise an eyebrow at the last one, and she smiles.
“…I know it sounds interesting because it’s luxury, but I’m not the kind of spiritual person who thinks material possessions are bad,” she explains. “We live in the material plane—everything is spiritual. Crystals is lovely. It smells nice, the lights and window displays are beautiful, and I’ll just window shop. There’s a café there where I sometimes work. I love the energy of it. If you want to be in the energy of abundance, you go to more luxury-type places.”
She also mentions the Wynn and Bellagio Atrium, adding, “It’s so beautiful. All the flowers. Flower frequency is so nice.”
I don’t even know what “flower frequency” is, but it sounds spellbinding. I can’t help but wonder: how does she maintain this feeling that life is mystical and magical? She cautions to be careful with your energy and mindful of how much news you ingest—not to be uninformed, but to protect your mind from a doom spiral.
“I was telling you earlier, we have a really powerful placement with Pluto and Aquarius, Uranus and Gemini, and Neptune and Saturn and Aries, forming this Grand Trine. We’re in a conscious awakening time. And I’ve gotten criticism for saying that because people say, ‘Well, look at what’s happening.’ And I say, ‘Well, conscious awakening isn’t always beautiful.’”
She stresses that the most important thing you can do to maintain a higher frequency is to show up for your community daily and maintain healthy boundaries. She reminds us:
“You have a purpose. And it’s important, and your journey here is meant for you. We need you to be in your highest frequency, in your authentic alignment, because the world needs this. Consciousness needs it. And you’re powerful and magical,” she says.
