Womans Temple – Sacred Practices for Women

We spend so much time in our daily lives oriented to our outside life that we get caught up in the busy-ness of our ‘to do’ lists, looking after others, working and managing a household. Through the Women’s Temple, Temple practice is an opportunity to turn our focus inward and pay attention to what’s happening on the inside.
What is a Women’s Temple?
A Women’s Temple is a place where women gather to reconnect with themselves and with each other. Sometimes it’s easier to explain what a Women’s Temple isn’t than what it is. It’s like a Women’s Circle, but it’s not a support group. It’s not a therapy group. It’s not a place for women to sit and chat and tell stories. It’s a place where we slow down. We reach and feel into what’s underneath the stories we carry with us.
My inspiration for the Women’s Temple comes from the Awakening Women community built by Chameli Ardagh. Her work is all about exploring, reviving the feminine aspects of consciousness and I bring this inspiration to the Women’s Temple I host.
What will we do during the Women’s Temple?

We perform sacred rituals in the temple group that support our inward journey. These practices help us to go inward and awaken what’s inside us, giving you a deeper contact and connection with yourself and with other women.
Some of the sacred practices we do include:

• Meditation
• Lighting a candle and setting an intention
• Movement practices
• Respectful touch practices
• Experiencing silence
• Inquiring – our own inner inquiry or partner inquiry

The Women’s Temple doesn’t require us to believe in anything or adopt a new set of beliefs as part of the Temple practice. It’s not associated with any religious group.
 

What to expect after attending the Women’s Temple
After the session, you’ll feel more present and connected within yourself. You’ll feel more connected to other women.
You can expect to experience yourself differently. Through the Temple practices, we get to experience transparency and vulnerability and a deeper connection to ourselves. We get to experience ourselves in the eyes of another and be held.
Healing is a by-product of the practices. We take the approach that we are not broken nor do we need fixing. Every woman is whole and complete as she is. If there are wounds inside someone, those wounds heal naturally as by-product of Temple practices. We don’t go to the Women’s Temple with the intention to heal, though there is space for that. We already meet in our wholeness. We replenish and nourish ourselves.
When women come together, we can create a community to support empowerment and shared trust and understanding.
The science behind the Women’s Temple

When women are stressed, we seek each other to reduce our stress. When men are stressed, they also seek the calming presence of women.
During the Women’s Temple, we tap into the forgotten language of the feminine through silence and touch. We communicate by touch. We are so accustomed to using our heads and our brains to speak that we often feel disconnected from the heart of who we are. The Temple practices allow us to return to communication by touch.
Respectful touch practices such as massage and the simple act of hair stroking support the release of oxytocin, the feel-good hormone.