Do you have a longing to learn more about the embodiment of the Divine Feminine, but don’t want to travel? Here is the opportunity specially designed for you! Welcome to join Chameli and other feminine practitioners for a four weeks course, from your own home!

Welcome to join the FREE Introduction class June 19.

In Part 1 ( starting June 26), you will through specific practices explore how Durga can support you in living in true feminine power and integrity, how Laksmi- the goddess of abundance, can help you to transform the nagging feeling of ‘something missing” into an undeniable recognition of the infinite flow of blessings showering upon us each moment of the day. You will experience how Aphrodite can help you soften your body until you gasp in the ecstasy from whole of life making love to you, and in the soothing embrace of the White Tara you will open your heart in compassion for all.

The Return Of the Goddess Part 2: Gaia, Vajrayogini, Kali, Meerabai

The place where you are right now

God circled on a map for you

wherever your eyes and arms and heart can move

Against the earth and the sky,

the beloved has bowed there-

 The beloved has bowed there knowing

You were coming...

~Hafiz

UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women

An alternative to fight or flight

©2002 Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead.

When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.

read the whole article

The Power of Honesty

Beloved, you are my sister, you are my daughter, you are my face; you are me.
Toni Morrison

Every other week I have the honor to meet with a very special circle of girls. They are fourteen young women in sixth grade, and the story that follows is about a practice we did together. I have of course changed their names in order to respect our agreement of confidentiality.
One of the girls, Anna, had expressed to her parents and to her class that she often felt left out by the rest of the girls. She didn’t get invited to birthday parties, and she often felt that the girls were talking about her behind her back. Anna is a girl who speaks up if something is not right, so she expressed this in our afternoon session as well.
“I want to know why you stop talking when I come into the room and give each other looks. Do you think that I don’t notice? How would you feel if you never got invited for a play date?”
Some of the girls supported her by sharing that they wouldn’t feel good either about being treated like she was, but the girls that had been most active in excluding Anna were silent. At this point I felt that we all could benefit from the wisdom of the Spider Woman, a goddess of the Navajo Indians, so I decided to tell her story (this is my free interpretation of the legend):
In the beginning of time the Spider Woman was sitting in the center of the universe, which otherwise was completely empty. Out of nothing she created the planets, the suns, and the stars and the moons, she created heaven and earth, she created light and darkness, and each object she created was connected to her with the threads of life. She was a Spider Woman sitting in the center of her web, spinning out life from herself. She was creating human beings and birds and animals and trees, and she was blowing life into all these forms with her breath.
If you have seen a spiderweb you know that there are threads going out from the middle, but there are also threads crossing. In the same way, as human beings, animals, and everything else started their lives, threads were created that went between them all, and so everything in the world was connected. The threads of life permeated everything. If one part of the web was touched, the whole web was shaking.
“Can you see that each part of the web plays a very important role?” I asked the girls. “If you take away one part of the group it will be a different web.”
The girls nodded, and I noticed that they glanced around the circle. Maybe they were starting to see their little group as a web too.
“I love to travel around the world meeting with women,” I continued. “Women and girls have such immense powers and beautiful gifts that we can give to the world. But there are also other habits that are typical of girls and women that sabotage our gifts. They even disconnect us from the web, from our feeling of connectedness. I am talking about our habits of gossiping, talking behind each other’s backs, and of competition and saying, ‘She is more beautiful than me’ or thinking, ‘I want all the boys to like me, not her.’
We were all giggling at this point. The girls said they could recognize this in themselves. I opened the space for them to continue the conversation. Susan, a girl who often speaks what the other girls are afraid to voice, went first. “I really want you all to know that if you have anything to say about me, I want you to come directly to me, and not talk behind my back.”
The other girls joined her in this demand; they all wanted to have clear communication. By this point all the girls had a lot to say. I encouraged them to share things they had withheld from each other to clear the air, and especially to express what needed to be said to Anna. I was deeply touched by the girls’ honesty, as one by one they shared how they sometimes had been hurt by each other, shared their apologies, and shared their appreciation of one other. Whether Anna was invited to the next birthday party or not I don’t know, but it was clear that what happened in this meeting laid the groundwork for a healthier relationship among the girls.
Powerful healing is made possible when we come together, committed to speak face-to-face and abandon our habits of gossiping behind each other’s backs. The trust between women is deeply interconnected with our trust of the feminine itself. As we move closer to the divine feminine we are ruthlessly challenged to face all our judgments and criticisms of the feminine in ourselves and in others.

Click To order the book

The Secret of The Divine Feminine Deepening Retreat

A Lushious Retreat for women September12-18

Dalsland, Sweden

With Chameli & Ramya

On request from many women we will follow up the magical Secret of the Divine Feminine weekend from last year with a retreat with more time to rest, to be in nature and sink within...

Welcome to 6 days just for you...

~ rest in sacred silence and merge with the magical nature of Dalsland
~ experience the bliss of a body and heart wide open
~ immerse yourself in a juicy, deep and profoundly liberating spiritual practice
~ reconnect with the sacred feminine and learn ways to integrate this in your life
~ drink and rejuvenate from the infinite source within
~ dance your sorrow, dance your joy, dance your power
~ reclaim the power and aliveness of your rainbow of feelings
~ soak in the healing power of compassion

email: ramya@passionofheart.com

More info: http://www.wildlove.org/events/Secret.html

About Ramya: www.passionofheart.com

About Gallnas Retreat Center : www.one-ness.net/gallnas/

Please see event page for details.

Corfu May 19-26

In May we gather in Corfu Greece for week of sacred Yogini practice, wild dancing and lots of hot sun and salty ocean. Untill now women from the Us, Germany, Switserland and Sweden have enrolled! There are still spaces left but it is filling up quicly, so register soon. For more information go to http://www.wildlove.org/yoginiparadise07.html

Nevada City June 1-2

Temple Group Initiation with Chameli & Helena

Come and have a taset of the juicy practice in The temple of Divine feminine flow! After this initiation you may join the Nevada City Temple group, or if you come from out of town maybe you will want to start a Temple group in your hometown...

Details will be posted on the website soon.

For info and registration e-mail Helena

June 19 The Return of The Goddess- Free Tele seminar

June 26 The Return of The Goddess Part 1- Tele seminars

July 13-15 Denver,CO Awakening Into Oneness (Chameli & Arjuna)

July 20-22 Ashville, NC Awakening Into Oneness (Chameli & Arjuna)

July 27-29 Omega, NY Awakening Into Oneness (Raniji, Chameli & Arjuna)

July 31 The Return of The Goddess- Free Tele seminar

August 21 The Return of The Goddess Part 2- Tele seminars

August 12-18 Omega NY Deeper Love Retreat (Chameli & Arjuna)

September 1-2 Orange County, CA Awakening Into Oneness (Chameli & Arjuna)

September 12-18 Dalsland, Sweden, Deepening in Feminine Spirituality retreat (Chameli & Ramya

Temple Initiation in San Rafael,CA

May 11-12

with Helena Montelius

This initiation will be the start of The Bay Area Temple group! See www.lookwithin.net for details

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