Women's Temple Initiations & Retreats In the Temple we practice becoming true women: soft, open, wise, deeply feeling and fierce, ready to speak up for truth, all-seeing and wild. We tap into the space of no-mind, beyond words, where we can let go into the flow happening deeper than our personal stories... worshipping each other as divine love in form…entering our vast true nature …welcome…

• Exploring spiritual practices created by women for women.
• Fully allowing the gift of our deep, wild emotional flow.
• Celebrating and sharing our deepest longing and gifts.
• Embodying all the aspects of the divine feminine essence.
• Learning new ways to connect as women.
• Opening and nourishing our bodies, becoming one feminine body.
• Resting in the deep silence of our hearts.

In this moment imagine that you lie down on some soft pillows with a bowl of small fruit pieces, and make sure you are comfortable. Allow a few soft sighs and let one hand rest on your belly. Relax into whatever is here for you in this moment. Imagine a warm, red field of energy surrounding your body, as if you were wrapped in a silk sarong. Let your hand float up from your belly and gently make its way up your chest, face and hair. Make a few soft sounds. Relax deeply and have a juicy piece of fruit.

Now, imagine a women’s gathering that is a mix of an Indian Temple ceremony with ecstatically dancing women, fully surrendered in devotion, a Bedouin oasis in the desert with fresh figs, cooing doves and huge marble tubs where the women bath and scrub each other clean, a contemporary meditation/inquiry group with practices guiding into the vastness of our true nature and an African grieving ritual where the painful parts of our lives are honored, danced and celebrated. Now, you are starting to get a taste of the kind of women’s work Helena and Chameli share in the Temple groups.

Chameli, Gad, Ardagh, and Helena founded in February 2005 the Nevada City Temple Group, which has grown into a network with over 60 women initiated in Nevada City and active Temple groups in Texas, Sweden and several places in Germany. The N.C. Temple group has met every Monday evening since the start, guided by Helena and Chameli, and is today a living, breathing network, with many active passionate sisters. Chameli is a passionate student and teacher of feminine spiritual practices since many years. Helena practiced with Luna Women’s Network in Stockholm, inspired by the women trained by David Deida, for three years before starting the Temple Network.

The Initiations are open to all women and after an Initiation you can join a Temple group, some meet weekly, some monthly or start your own using our manual (see ordering page). You are welcome to experience our women’s work even if you don’t want to join a group. In the N.C. Temple we don’t require a weekly commitment, you come to Temple when you feel like it.

Check Calendar for Next Initiation.

To read more about the N.C. Temple group and Chameli’s work go to: www.wildlove.org

Sharing from Sarah, Groove Sister Chick (her Temple name), member of N.C. Temple:

“There are things I receive through Temple that I know not how to put into words, but I’ll try:

there is an area of me that is touched,
a way that I am nourished,
a place I find in myself,
a way of being so inside myself and yet so global,
a-a-I could go on with intimations but I would really only want to say:
TRY IT!

Temple supports my opening to my deeper self,
Which strangely enough connects me with YOU!
Temple helps me connect with uncomfortable emotions,
And in so doing, they shift.

When other ask me what Temple is, or what we actually do, I fumble with any explanation. In the Manual the essence of the Temple experience is expressed beautifully, many times and in many ways, such that you can really know what Temple can offer you.”

Inspiring Tele Classes with Helena & Chameli.

As part of the feminine leadership work Helena and Chameli offers they created a series of Tele Classes, you can still join in for the 2 last classes and if you pay for the whole series you will get the recorded first 2 classes as well.

First Class: How to Create Your Sacred Feminine Base Camp.

Second Class: Feminine Antidotes to Stress

Feb 9, 9 am CA-time Bringing the Goddess to Work

Feb. 16, 9 am CA-time Finding Your Gift & Sharing it with the World

Click on the link below to read more about the classes, listen in to our FREE Tele class recording and to sign up:

http://www.wildlove.org/events/femininefaceteleseries.html

 

The Feminine Face of Leadership
An In-depth Training with Chameli Gad Ardagh &
Helena Montelius
April 21-27, 2008
Nevada City, CA

The Leadership Training is for women who wish to:
• Initiate and guide a woman’s group
• Deepen their feminine spiritual practice
• Express the awakened feminine in their family and profession
• Learn practical tools for powerful and compassionate leadership
• Add more depth to their existing work with women
• Step forward as leaders, teachers and initiators

The Earth is calling out for the feminine to step forward to lead and inspire the world. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said our future depends on women, because women are the teachers of compassion in these times of global turmoil. All over the planet women are initiating healing projects and breaking free from limiting patterns like never before.
It is our vision and longing to be part of this feminine healing movement and the Feminine Face of Leadership is our offering for women who are spiritually focused and who wish to step forward in their lives as leaders and initiators. Embodying the deep love and caring of the feminine as well as the Kali aspect; speaking the truth and cutting through delusions.

Contents of the Training:

• Learn the secrets of guiding and sustaining a thriving women’s group
• Explore the balance between structure and flow; ego-less leading and setting clear boundaries
• Share your unique gifts and experience leading the group
• Receive constructive feedback and coaching on your style of leadership
• Get clear guidance on how to move beyond your fears of leadership
• Gain clarity on what your true mission is and in what area you long to share your gift
• Learn meditation practices that nourish the feminine
• Enjoy the mountains, hot springs, forests and rivers of Nevada County
• How to bring the feminine into an all-male workplace

Helena’s Invitation:
During the training Chameli and I share our experience of creating and running a thriving business as we simultaneously are in touch with our heart and feminine bodies. Leading and creating in a feminine way: living in an effortless flow of sharing our inner wisdom, on an organic time schedule. Breathing into the fine balance of using the focus and clarity of our inner male and allowing the natural unfolding of things of the feminine. Staying just in the middle, clear and focused, without pushing things to happen prematurely. When you wait for things to ripen, they are so much sweeter. Still, breaking free of the chronic feminine self-doubt and stepping into creative action when needed.

I have experience from transforming a dying restaurant into an overflowing, blossoming restaurant, we went from 10 to 150 lunch guests under my (and my beloved at the time) management and added hundreds of guests for breakfast and afternoon coffee. I have initiated and been part of leading a retreat center, a spiritual magazine and, in my youth, a successful organic farm. Our farm became a meeting place with seminars, gatherings and many special events. Despite our plans to live outside, what we at the time thought was, the capitalistic money system, we made lot’s of money!

My second book (only available in Swedish, sorry!) is titled Share Your Gift With the World and focuses on how you can find your true calling, the work you were born to do and create and abundant living for yourself and your family. The book were born out of a one-year training with the same name, were I guided up to 40 people at a time to not only get clear on, but also share their deepest gifts and longings into this world. It is a unique opportunity to focus on the specific feminine gifts and the specific feminine challenges, I feel very inspired and honored to work with Chameli.

Chameli is creating a flourishing world-wide network of Temple groups through giving of her wild, abundant heart. As a trained actress, who founded a theater company, she shares her gift of stepping forward “in the spotlight” with love and confidence. She has a special place for teenagers in her heart and has lead a teen-age girls Temple Circle for the past 2 years and created a healing program for sexually abused teenagers in her native Norway. Her deepest passion is her women’s work and the principles that make a women’s circle work, grow and blossom, which we will also explore during the training.
The principles that successfully lay the ground for the women’s circles can be used in any area of leadership. Learning how to lead a woman’s circle is really learning ego-less, compassionate, fun, clear and truthful leadership for the world at large. As the old Lao Tzu said:

“The feminine values are the fountain of bliss. Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine.”

• Learn more about Chameli’s work at: www.wildlove.org
• Read articles on feminine leadership on: articles page

Practical Details
Training Fee: $675 (if you register before Jan.21:st, 2008).
Fee for later registration: $775.
Training fee includes training manual and meditation CDs. Not included: lodging, food and transportation.

Lodging & Food: Out of town guests can get help to rent a room from Nevada City Temple sisters. (E-mail us about that.)
Ananda is a beautiful retreat center within walking distance from the training location with rooms for rent: 1-800-346-5350 or www.expandinglight.org
The training will be held in Helena’s organic home outside of Nevada City, overlooking the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Participants will eat breakfast and dinner on their own and we will make lunch arrangements together.

Prerequisite for Training: Some training with Chameli or Helena in the Temple Women’s Work, either through a weekend seminar, Temple Initiation or Retreat Journey. If you have not worked w. Chameli or Helena, check our websites for the next opportunity or call to book some private sessions w. Helena or Chameli, done in person or over the phone.
Read: Come Closer by Chameli and the Temple Manual by Helena & Chameli.

Training Times: Starts Monday evening at 6.30 with a Temple night with the Nevada City Temple Sisters. Tuesday-Saturday: 9.00-5.00 Completion on Sunday: 9.00-1.00. There will be some evening activities or “home work.”

To request an application for the training:
email us or call 530-292-3723

To secure your place: Send your filled out application with a $150 deposit by check or M.O to Look Within, P.O Box 137, North San Juan, CA 95960
Participants from outside the U.S can pay credit card on our website. Latest registration date is Jan. 21st 2008.
The training is limited to 16 participants and expected to fill up quickly.
The deposit is non-refundable unless the training is cancelled.

For Women  Big Island of Hawaii   May 17-24 2008

Imagine 12 Goddesses

• in an oceanfront villa
• relaxing into beauty
• swimming with wild, playful dolphins
• practicing Sensual Zen Meditations for women
• receiving Pele’s power from the active Volcano
• learning The Work for a sweeter self-image and deeper presence
• cleansing their bodies in natural steam caves
• deeply nourishing each other with Sacred Temple Practices
• undulating in the ocean
• dancing in the sunset
• opening to their true expanded, radiant nature
• being served delicious health food

As women we often struggle with multitasking and overbooked schedules, when our true desire is to just be...

Give yourself this retreat to slooow down, breathe with the ocean, gaze at the sunset, feel your heart again with all it’s longing and open to the soft vastness that waits beneath all the doing. Returning to the present moment. Allowing a new, more real, love for yourself and others. The dolphins help deepen your spiritual practice through their graceful, meditative presence.

The Seminar: We will have daily meditation sessions in the mornings (and other times as well), seminar time with Temple practices and The Work sessions in the afternoons and evenings. Some days will be fieldtrips with meditations and ceremonies at the Volcano, the steam caves and Yoni cave. There will be times of silence to deepen our meditation practice and times of wild dancing, also to deepen our meditation practice!

My deepest awakening occurred when my son died in 2001 and it deeply impacted my meditation practice/teaching. I developed a series of meditations where the feminine heart, deep emotions and natural sensuality are welcome guides into presence, not something to transcend or avoid.

The Work, developed by Byron Katie, is a process where you confront your own mind and take an honest look at the stories and thoughts that shape your life, self-image and ability to live a life based on the inner essence.

The Temple practices teaches women new ways to relate and bond with each other, basing our connection not on our limited story or problems but on our deeper, divine feminine essence, celebrating the gifts we already are, in this moment, without changing anything.

Dolphin Swims: We will be swimming with pods of wild spinner dolphins, hopefully every morning, if they grace us with their presence. We will head out into the ocean at sunrise (sine we will be on mainland time we wake up early anyway) to have some quiet time with the dolphins without a lot of other people. Of course, there are no guaranties that the dolphins will come to be with us since they are wild, but my “track record” and connection with the dolphins are very good. At all my previous retreats the participants have swam with the dolphins, and oftentimes whales also, almost every day. I have held retreats for 10 years in Hawaii and the Red Sea and have spent many months at a time with daily dolphin swims. (The whales are not there is May.)

Lodging: Is a bit of a challenge around Kealakekua Bay (The Dolphin Bay) for retreats since all accommodations are geared towards families and couples. We have 4 bedrooms (3 baths+outdoor shower) for 12 women, some are smaller rooms for 2 women and some bigger for 4 women. There are a variety of beds, a king that 2 women perhaps could share, queens, fulls and some pull-out sofa beds and then some extra futonpads, so I am sure we can work out a solution that meet everyone’s needs. Sometimes women sleep on the lanai to listen to the ocean all night. In the relaxed closeness that naturally occurs during these retreats it kind of feels like a big sleep-over party.

I chose this house because it is right on the ocean in the dolphin bay, it has a hot tub on the ocean’s edge, private garden, end-of-road privacy and is luxuriously beautiful with a big living/gathering room and lanais. You can walk by foot to other swim places, so there will be plenty of space for solitude if needed. If you want a private room, contact us to discuss options, such as the Kealakekua Bed & Breakfast across the street. To make up for the sleeping situation I’ll include kayaks for everyone in the retreat price!

The Food: My dear friend and health food guru Todd & Crew will cook healthy, super yummie vegetarian food with some local fish. Meet Todd at:www.konacatering.com Let us know if you have any special food needs or allergies.

The Dates: I chose these dates because May is low season and have the least people in the whole year. Airfares are lower. The ocean is warm even at sunrise, the dates are right around the full moon when the dolphins are the most active and close to shore. This year my beloved and I spent a week in May around the full moon and we swam and played every morning with the dolphins and sometimes in the afternoon as well!

Price: $1495, includes all teachings with Helena, 2 meditation CDs, all dolphin swims, lodging, all food except one dinner when we go out and eat, all field trips, rental cars, airport pick-up and drop-off (if you arrive and leave on the retreat dates and times). Airfare, insurance, gas for private trips.

$400 deposit to hold you space, pay mail a check made out to Look Within or pay with credit card on the web site. Full balance required Call about payment plan. All practical details upon registration. Please call or e-mail Look Within’s office with any questions!

Registration

To learn more about the Nevada City Temple Group go to web site - www.wildlove.org