Awakening Women

09/02/2026

Here is a trusted on the ground organization in Nepal we donate to

08/09/2026

Since the very beginning, yoginis, priestesses,
seidr-konas, artists, lovers, healers, seeers,
mothers and mystics,
have felt the pull from below the borders
of ordinary consciousness;
a call to travel down and in;
to retrieve from exile
the abandoned and suppressed;
to weave both darkness and light
back into the splendor of the undivided heart.

This same current that moves you to the deeper waters,
moved through the Sumerian Goddess Inanna and Her priestesses too,
and it will eventually reach our daughters
and our daughters’ daughters, and their daughters again;
a holy undertow emerging from the primordial feminine.

In Sanskrit She is called Adi Shakti--
the original creative tremor that crystallizes into all that is.
In Buddhism She is called Prajnaparamita—
the cosmic womb of wisdom.
The Tao calls Her the valley spirit and
the dark feminine, a wellspring within you
you are free to draw upon as you will:
it never runs dry.

And in the Sumerian poem about Inanna’s decent,
it is her Sister Erishkagal from the Great below,
who calls her into the eternal alchemy of death and rebirth.

No matter how you experience this pull from the dark—
like an ache in the hidden corners of your being,
a longing, restlessness, hesitation or even relief,
or perhaps it is not even detectable in
your conscious awareness at all—
trust that it is here, right now,�
with each breath initiating you,
moving you from underneath the surface;�
a powerful love
knowing all of you
holding you,
and guiding you.
She will never let go of you
no matter how much you think you fail.

Like a faint but steady pulse,
a lighthouse in the heart of the world
She is waiting, ready to guide us home
to the unfathomable wholeness we are made of.

~ ~ ~

“The spirit of the valley never dies;
This is called the dark feminine.
The doorway into the dark feminine
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
It is there within us all the while;
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry."

~ Tao Te Ching 6

~ ~ ~

The story of Inanna and the path she cleared for us was born out of this deep creative darkness too. Through the ages, even when it was buried and lost, the myth has stayed alive, waiting for the world to again turn to Goddess.

If you feel the longing to be held in a conscious circle of women, and guided by ancient goddess wisdom pathways, we warmly welcome you to join us for the Inanna gathering in Boulder, Colorado, October 29-31.

>> Learn all about it and register here

07/20/2026

Chameli will be back in magical Boulder, Colorado, October 29-31, 2026, for another Embodied Mythology weekend gathering, this time with the Goddess Inanna as our guide.

For 3 days, we will enter into a living, breathing ritual, where mythology, prayer and spiritual practices are explored as embodied portals of awakening. We will practice with the ancient poem Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld – a luminous map for navigating change, loss and transformation.

Learn all the details and register here.
https://awakeningwomen.com/2026-boulder/

With love,
The Awakening Women Team

PS: Register before September 1st to receive the Early Bird price!

07/10/2026

Oh Mother Of The Vast Sweetness Of Silence

I bring to you my worried mind
My spiraling out of control
obsessions and anxieties
My endless stories of
comparison and judgment
My multitudinous fears
both real and imagined
My endless litany of self criticism
and self recrimination
And lay them at your feet
Trusting that they will gently dissolve
into the starry night of
your blessed emptiness
Vanishing into the cosmic depths
of your spacious expansiveness
Effortlessly transformed into the
energy of soundless,
wordless light and gently pulsing peace

Oh Mother Of Steadfast Love

I bring to you my deepest
needs for connection
My yearning to be witnessed and valued
My burning thirst for
acceptance and belonging
My desire to be seen as precious
My aching to be loved
Allowing them to be held in the
boundless compassion of
your mamas heart
Letting myself be a child again
Pulling greedily on the hem of
your silken robes
Hungry for the sweet embracing
smile that is always there
For me and me alone

Oh Mother Of Miraculous Healing

I bring to you my perfectly
imperfect body
My lifelong chronicle of
illnesses and injuries
Those multitudes of traumas and ailments
That have left me feeling
Damaged, wounded, limping, scarred
I ask for your powerful restorative touch
Your capacity to make whole again
that which has been diminished by
time and ordeal
Your ability to bring harmonizing grace
to my body and my soul
To teach me to cherish myself
in my all too human limitations
As I know you are able to cherish me

Of Mother Of Expanded Mercy

I bring to you my broken heart
My seemingly bottomless well of grief
My shattered dreams
My darkest disappointments
My most shameful defeats
And nestle them in your ample arms
Where they can be bathed
in the golden honey
of your tender beneficence
Melting away like butter on warm toast
Soothed and comforted by
the infinite store
of blessed kindness that radiates
from every pore of your celestial being
Like a dazzling, sparkling golden sun
Beckoning me to remember
my most essential truth
That I am both human and divine
And to invite me to rise up out of the landscape of loss
To step into the world again
From the deepest luminous core
of who I truly am
Who I always was And who
I was born to be

~ Chris Zydel

~ ~ ~

You are warmly welcome to join us in Sanctuary, a series of weekly Goddess-centered meditation sessions starting this Sunday, July 12th. All sessions will be recorded and sent to you, so you can practice at your own pace and revisit the teachings anytime.

>> Learn all about it and register here

Welcome to a gentle, nourishing journey into Goddess-centered meditation; to rest and rejuvenate in stillness, breath, and presence. We will practice meditations that are soft, somatic, and deeply replenishing. We will explore breath, awareness of the senses, and rest deeply into the nourishing pres...

07/04/2026

We start next Sunday

In the upcoming July Sanctuary meditation series, we will be guided by the Buddhist Goddess PrajnaParamita, the luminous Mother of Wisdom.

She is the embodiment of wisdom that sees through all forms, not as a rejection of the world, but as an intimate recognition of its fluid, dreamlike nature.

Goddess-centered meditation guides us into a terrain of breath, sensation, somatic intelligence and intuition, into a spirituality of wholeness, where spirit is no longer separate from our embodied reality but is arising from within us and within all things.

Prajna Paramita teaches us to loosen our hold on conclusions, to rest in the fertile pause before the mind rushes to name and grasp. She shows us that our true nature is vast, and that every contraction and tension we feel is held within a field of immeasurable spaciousness.

If you long for space to soften and return to what is true within you, we welcome you into the warmth of meditation, stillness, and the vast embrace of Prajna ParaMita. You can reserve your place below.

>>> Join Sanctuary: The Living Goddess Meditation Series