Awakening My Inner Goddess
Three years ago I traveled to the island of Ibiza, Spain. My intention was to live there for awhile, retreat and rejuvenate during my divorce. My healing journey in Ibiza happened when I decided to unleash my wild sacred self. To rewild the tamed woman I had become. I was ready to release the tigress, priestess, and dancer within; the wild woman who ran with wolves, and danced in ancient temples amongst tigers and forests.
This was the woman who was buried deep inside of me. The woman I needed to uncover once again, to honor my authentic self.
Through the Goddess and dance, the spirit of Ibiza awakened me.
I arrived in Ibiza on a warm spring day in March. The island was green with rain and I could feel her thawing, opening, blossoming. I was one with her heart, round hills, electric skies and playful breezes.
During my first week I was introduced to the island’s longest living resident dancer, Zorah LeDuc. She was a beautiful, sensual belly dancer and lover of gypsy music.
In my first dance class, I felt the awkwardness of my body while watching young, beautiful and supple belly dancers shimmying and sashaying through the room. I was terrified of the feelings bubbling up inside of me. There was an old voice shaming me, “who do you think you are?” Shame, self-disgust, fear and judgment flooded in. Why had I stopped dancing? Why wasn’t I slim, healthy and radiant like these women? How had I allowed myself to become fat? I cried when I got home and promised myself I would dance again.
My wish came true. As I trained, ran, got in shape and practiced dance, I received an invitation from a Dutch woman I met in San Josep. She asked me if I would dance at her restaurant opening. I agreed without hesitation. I thought I was ready.
The day of the performance, there were few people at the restaurant. I was crippled with fear. I hadn’t choreographed anything. I was just going to move with the music. But my body could not move. My heart was frozen. Thankfully, the music system didn’t work either and I could not dance that day. My friends who had come to support me consoled me and said, “Its okay, you’ll dance another time.”
That night I dreamt I was dancing inside a red temple. There was a blazing fire in the middle. I was dancing around the fire, waving my arms in ecstasy, swaying my hips in sacred circles and offering my heart as a prayer to the sky. A tiger came to dance beside me. She whispered something in my ear and afterwards I was able to dance with great force and devotion.
My hair fell along my back like a river of dusk and in the red ray of light my spine opened to the fire. I felt part of me hiding in the cocoon of my skin, until my heart began beating, and drumming began. I heard ancient chanting, sacred sounds floating on red steps. The sounds opened me. Orange flames rose from my heart as I danced in spirals with a red hibiscus in my mouth. A flame whispered inside of me.
Even the heat had music.
I burst wide open. I broke loose like a snake uncoiling across the hills into a fierce old woman with round eyes and crimson plumes flying in all directions.
I felt my heart desiring and longing to express the fullness of my talents.
That night, I vowed to honor the truth flowing inside of me. Layer by layer, I unfolded my story. I followed my inner child, my little girl who was full of talents and gifts to share with the world. I listened and held her as she revealed her pain. I listened to her stories of shame, abuse, humiliation. I held her close so she felt protected, loved and cherished. I reassured her it was safe to be vulnerable and express her gifts again.
One month later, I returned to the restaurant in San Josep and danced my heart out in three choreographed performances and spontaneous ecstatic dances. Then I continued to dance at weddings, healing festivals and opened concerts for famous musicians like Prem Joshua and the Sunny Singh Bollywood Dance Academy. I lead workshops and created a dance movement called Sacred Dance – Shakti Flow and Dance of the Kama Sutra. I danced for three years in Ibiza and Greece.
No longer frozen, I learned to whirl in the joy and existence of my body. This feminine power that flows deep from within me was the courage of a new beginning that set me free. The voice of courage was wiser and deeper than the ancient voice of shame. And she roared. The fire of that inner courage fully awakened me.
In Ibiza, I unleashed every wild, waking moment inside of me. I set my inner soul free. I danced on cliffs, sang with stars, swam nude in the midnight ocean with the lunar light upon me. I did everything my wild soul wanted. I drank in Ibiza. I continued my journey wide awake, alive and open to all the strength that lives inside of me.
The gift of the journey was to reclaim my truth and the divine vision of myself. To no longer believe any stories of a broken, damaged, less than perfect woman.
Now when the ego voice asks me “who you do think you are?” I am vulnerable to it. I do not hide from it or let it control me. I open up and meet it, shake loose my hips and reply, “I am a Goddess, dancing my truth. Join me.”
Hidden Tigress, Dancing Dragon
I stood at the edge of the cliff. Hundreds of feet below, the ocean was pounding the shore. Above, strikes of lightning torching the night sky.
I felt electric. Dancing on the edge of the cliff to feel alive again. To hear my heart beat below the stars in the crash of waves, to feel my body burn in the summer wind.
The divorce had left me angry and I had come to the island of Ibiza, Spain to heal. I had so much pent up hurt, resentment, rage and frustration inside. How could I express it all? My anger felt like a dangerous fire to keep pouring water on, rather than a powerful flame of embodied passion that could be channeled in healthy ways.
There was a tigress inside me roaring to come out. She was angry I played so small and stuck to the confining roles of wife, daughter, friend and worker. “There’s so much more of who you are. You’re going to be happy,” she said. “But first I’m going to make you strong.”
I pivoted off my toes, slowed down spinning and caught my breath. I fell to my knees in the red earth, tears pouring out and lay my heart on the ground. My whole body pulsed and vibrated, convulsed and spontaneously orgasmed for what felt like hours.
When I woke up, all was a blur. The cobalt blue ocean crashed with waves in a vast night of lightning. My body was still humming with heat. I had one desire. To channel this fierce fire I was feeling. Use the anger. Stop the bleeding.
I began training. Running 12 km on a long ocean road along the shimmering ocean, sand dunes and salt flats. Every day, four days a week, I ran towards the setting sun and absorbed his tiger fierce rays.
Running wasn’t enough. My body wanted another kind of movement. I wanted to dance again. I was ready to take my passion and whirl it into the sky like comet.
Every day I listened and experimented with new music: Balearic chill out, downtempo, jungle house, fusion, Oriental, Bellydance, Egyptian, Turkish, Sufi, Indian Classical and tribal. I studied various Goddesses of the world, their roles and ancient dances danced long ago to revere and worship sacred feminine power. I filled my home with music, dance, Egyptian tambourines, red veils and jewelry. I took belly dancing classes and studied hundreds of dance videos entranced with women who moved in the ways of the serpent, snaking, charming, spinning and hypnotizing.
When I danced, the heat I had first felt on the cliffs continued pulsing up my spine and through my body, bursting from my hips and breasts. The sensual energy carrying electrical currents all the way up into the crown of my head and then the miracle.
My mouth opened to the sky, opened to my own nectar and sweetness. I opened to taste the light of my ecstasy.
This was the gift. To taste my own light again. To revel in ancient Kundalini, dragon energy; fierce feminine, sexual and sacred power.
As I prepared my body, rehearsed and promoted myself, the word spread around the region. There was a new dancer in town. Soon I was invited by experimental musicians and DJ’s to dance to their sacred music. Some nights I performed as the sensual Goddess Saraswati, dancing like a swan in her golden temple garden filled with oranges and the scent of Neroli.
Other nights I would channel Salome and breathe seduction, moving like a serpent; soft and slow through black silk, veils and golden coins. Many times I would dance along side of the fierce Kali, on my tiger, dressed in red, beating my feet in the ground with thunderous strokes, flying through the air, cutting through illusion with my warrior arms.
I danced the dances of the forbidden Goddesses – Lilith and Mary Magdalene and I set their ancient stories free within me.
Through all of this creative exploration, I felt my creativity grow and my sacred sensual power touch my heart. My feminine wisdom soared to new heights.
I channeled the dancing into a brand and anointed my creation with the name Sacred Dance Ibiza. I created holistic beauty events and partnered with luxury hotels and villas to create beautiful events and oriental concepts. Once such concept was 1001 Nights at the Balinese sanctuary in the heart of Ibiza called Atzaro.
Every Monday night, I curated a collective of dancers, musicians, tablaists, hookah lounge, fashion and jewelry souk all beneath the twinkling stars. And this time I spun magical tales as the storyteller, Shcerezade.
It was crucial for me to dance the stories of these great women who came from grand histories of ancient power. I learned it was okay to be angry, scared and betrayed from losing a marriage a husband, but I had to get out there again, open up, love, make mistakes, get strong and start all over.
When I danced with these Goddesses, I danced with my Shadow and with loss.
I danced with my sister, the one I forgot but who never let me forget my power. She held all my primal memories, instincts and strength within her. When I connected with that forbidden part of myself, I set her free with my sweet embrace.
The more I danced with her, the more I opened. I kissed my own heart and hurts. No more fear, denial and shame. This is what was holding me back, The loss of a home, a career, a marriage, a city, a lifestyle, a circle of friends, everything I had built. Deep loss. It was time to let it all go.
Through doing what I loved most, through dance and honoring the wild woman within, I healed my wounded feminine from the shackles of shame. She had been denied her birthright of joy and abundance. I held her, loved her and accepted her. I released old patterns of victimhood and stayed in my feminine flow to feel the woman buried within.
Shakti asked me to destroy all that was no longer serving me. Shakti asked me to bring the ancient woman back and honor her in the modern world. She asked me to dance with all my power and create a new temple within my body. To create a new world through art, beauty, grace and abundance.
In channeling the stories of the Goddess, their majesty, grace, beauty and power, I learned who I really was.
I am many things – woman, lover, warrior, priestess, daughter, friend, healer, dancer, author, entrepreneur, teacher, business woman, Queen of my desires and Creatrix of my life.
Sometimes, when I look back on that star-filled night and a girl who wanted to dive off the cliffs like a supernova, I smile. She is the part of me who will never let me forget my magic, power and magnificence. She will always push me past the edge into an ocean of fire. She will set the tiger loose, she will unleash the dragon. She will fly into the unknown and taste the light of her own ecstasy.
The Return of Shakti
“Gather the priestesses.”
These three words shimmered over the cerulean waves as I meditated by the sea cave. It was a sacred calling.
I had been living on the Goddess Island of Ibiza, an ancient Mediterranean island in Spain. I was there to retreat and rejuvenate while healing from a divorce. I knew I had the medicine woman archetype deep inside my bones. I am from the Shakti lineage in India. My mother is Shakti. My aunt is Shakti. My grandmother, great-grandmother, great great-grandmother—they were all priestesses of Shakti. The voice of India’s ancient river flows through our bloodline.
Images flashed in front of me. I saw the women in my family performing their sacred feminine rituals of Anjali in the morning, and arati in the evening. I saw my grandmother, freshly bathed, anointing herself in jasmine oil. With her wet, black hair, she stepped up to her altar: Goddess Kali was waiting, along with Dhurga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. All the faces of Shakti. My grandmother lit incense and chanted sacred mantras to the paintings of the Goddesses. She rang a brass bell to clear the air. She offered flowers and a copper jar of water, and blew a white conch towards the sky.
My grandmother often took me to the temples of Kali, and to Dhakineshwar, a famous pilgrimage site along the River Ganges.
I held my grandmother’s teachings close to my heart. However, growing up in the United States, I could not express these teachings to the wider world. The messages I received at school, from the men in my family, and on television, were very different from the feminine power of Shakti. I was taught to be ashamed of my body and my gifts from a young age. At school, I was laughed at, and humiliated in public by friends who thought I was “weird.” Boyfriends rejected me, saying I was “too much” and “too intense.” Family members constantly told me to cover my body. I began to believe that my beauty was dangerous, and that my voice didn’t matter. I had an inner urge to step forward and be a powerful, visible, pioneering woman—but I believed that if I did so I would lose the love of my mother and father, as well as my closest relationships. And so, I stayed small. I didn’t speak. I didn’t express my power.
The voice rose from the ocean, calling me: “Gather the priestesses.”
For months, I healed through layers of victim mindset. I was a woman with little access to resources, no idea how to generate wealth, weak boundaries, and a sense of powerlessness over my life’s purpose. I prayed every day to the spirit of the island to show me the way.
In September, I received an invitation to join a workshop for feminine magic. I had no idea what to expect. I was a practitioner of Tarot, had studied Hermetic and Egyptian texts, and had made pilgrimages to sacred Goddess sites around the world, but I had no idea what would be taught at this workshop. I went anyway.
The day of the gathering, the sun rose smiling through the East, and warm yellow light sparkled through my window. I bathed, and anointed myself with oils. I chanted the holy Shakti mantra and blessed the day.
One by one, the women arrived. We were in an old, Spanish-style building with mosaic floors, wide verandas, and green-shuttered windows. The workshop leader, Susannah, introduced herself and led us through the material. We sat in a circle, passing around sage, burning away unnecessary energy. By the time afternoon came, we were all bonding, chatting, and sharing stories with one another.
Later, we each drew a star: one triangle in gold to represent the male solar principle, and the other in silver to represent the female receptive principle. We were guided to write the qualities we most wanted to manifest in the next six to twelve months. I wrote “courage, wildness, abundance, instinct, and prosperity”—and then, I wrote “priestess” at the crown of the star.
Susannah took the paper in her hands and smiled as if she knew a secret. “You are meant to mentor young women, beautiful one.”
“Me?” My voice cracked. “What would I teach? Why would they listen to me?”
“Give it time. It will come to you.”
After the workshop, I went home and placed the star on my altar. I lit a white candle every day for twenty-one days to complete the wish.
And I waited.
I started dancing on the island, teaching women how to unlock their bodies and flow with music and energy. I meditated every day. I wrote in my journal and channeled the voices coming to me―empowering, loving voices reminding me what power was and where true, authentic power came from. They asked, “Are you willing to be powerful? Are you wiling to use your gifts, to be in your power? Can you see how to use your power and purpose in a meaningful way? Are you willing to shine your light?”
One year later, I met Diana, a shamanic healer who also went by the name of White Horse Spirit. I was still in need of deep, soul-level healing, and she helped me open up to my shadows and the pain of betrayal, loss, uncertainty, and doubt. She helped my see where I had lost power and joy in my magical, sacred center: my womb. We worked together, shedding and healing, until I was gaining power and momentum in my life again.
In one of our healing sessions I asked, “Where do I belong? What is my purpose in life?” The channeling that came through expressed that Shakti would be a great guide for me. I also had to let go of my previous identity as a disempowered woman in order to step into my power for the entire world to see and cherish. I was being asked to accept my spiritual heritage and identity as a priestess and oracle, and as one who has deep wisdom to share with the world.
Diana said, “On this island, if you stand in your power and sing your truth, she will sing back to you.”
I made Ibiza my temple.
For three years I danced and became a celebrant, anointing women’s circles as well as sacred Equinox and Solstice days with Shakti mantras, fire dances, and group rituals. I worked with women to bring Shakti into their lives through chanting, prayer, dance, and presence in their bodies. I even traveled to other Goddess islands along the Mediterranean like Santorini and Crete. Every year, I grew more able to hold space as a priestess. Every year I claimed my power.
Then, there came a moment of shining grace.
Many women from the island circled up in sacred ceremony on Es Vedra, the Temple of Light, a magical and magnetic rock that shot out from the ocean. It was the island’s sacred landmark. For me, it was a point of no return. Whatever I spoke out loud here, I would manifest.
I prayed, Mother, grant me your strength. You are the Earth who nurtured and nourished me. Through you all life is renewed. I pray you, Mother, shower me with your Divine Light. Please, let me be worthy. Thank you. I love you.
I opened the circle with a fire dance, spinning and swirling and receiving visions. In my vision, a woman on a lion rode towards me, and stood so close I could feel her fiery breath on my face. The lion roared like thunder. I was electrified and shaken.
I kept dancing.
I saw my ancestors walk into the temple with red hibiscus in their hands. I heard them speak, “You are the one. This is your time. You are worthy.”
I saw young women passing through the fire with small flames in their hands.
I saw the shackles which had bound me for all of my life fall to the ground.
I asked for women to be in their power. I asked for my own activation of power.
I asked for women to speak their truth. I asked that I could finally speak the truth.
In that moment I faced my power, and was unafraid. I was transformed. I began to believe in myself, and in the possibilities of spreading Shakti not only in Ibiza, but to the whole world.
That was the moment I chose myself and stopped waiting for anyone else to choose me. I chose to become the greatest version of myself—it was time to share my message with the world.
Eventually, I left Ibiza, and moved to New York City. There, I founded Shakti Priestess, and became a five-time best-seller by sharing the stories of my Kundalini awakening with Shakti. My own book, Messages of Shakti, found a global audience and community. Soon I was holding sacred circles for women, hosting my own podcast, creating guided meditations, and teaching my signature system called Shakti Power.
By reclaiming my voice, vision, power and truth, I stepped into my sacred feminine power as a spiritual leader and priestess.
The ritual on the cliffs, singing to Es Vedra, was a reflection of the woman I had become. In my journey from victim to vibrant, visionary woman, I had created a foundation of power, and no one could take that away from me ever again. In my heart, in my blood and bones, I heard drums beating, and women chanting all around me. I felt the rivers of ancient India flowing through me. The power and the sound grew louder and louder. As I danced and sang with my heart open to the sky, my voice burst into a fiery roar. Truth was calling, the Goddess was calling, women around the world aching to be heard were calling.
And all over the sky, a sacred voice was calling …