2-day women’s retreat on 21–22 November 2026

· Awaken Heart Yoga, Colares, Sintra

As winter approaches and darkness settles, we receive an invitation to turn inward and journey into darkness. Not darkness as something to fear, but darkness as the mystery, a place of rest, regeneration, intuition and creation.

Sacred Womban Initiation is a calling to enter the dark.

To rest and surrender into the primordial womb. To lay down the armour.

To slow down.

To listen.

To remember the dark as the feminine principle of creation — the original matrix where ancient creative wisdom lives.

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Inspired by Inanna’s mythic descent through seven gates, this 2-day journey invites you to descend inward through the seven energetic centres of the body.

At each gate, you will be invited to meet the stories, beliefs and patterns you have carried about what it means to be a woman — the ways you have learned to shrink, disconnect, silence, control, distrust or abandon yourself.

It is a descent into the dark so that transformation can happen in its own time.

This is not about becoming someone new. It is about returning to something ancient within you— your body, your intuition, your voice, your sovereignty, your sensuality, your capacity to receive, and your belonging to the Earth.

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THE SEVEN-GATE DESCENT

Over two days, we will move through seven gates, mirroring Inanna’s descent into the underworld.

Each gate offers a different doorway into the reclamation of feminine wisdom.

At each gate, you are invited to loosen your attachment to an old story, belief or way of being — and to reclaim a quality of feminine wisdom that has always lived within you.

The descent is not about leaving anything behind by force.

It is about willing to see what we have been carrying, feel what is ready to move, and surrender it into the dark.

Gate by gate, we shed.
Gate by gate, we remember.
Gate by gate, we surrender.

And once we arrive at the root, we are simply asked to rest in the dark of the womb.

We consciously choose to stay in the mystery with presence, allowing the gifts of the descent to reveal themselves in their own time.

We don’t rush back out. We listen. We allow the dark to hold us.

✧ The Experience

Through ritual, art, movement, sound, voice, sensual journey and meditation, we descend inward — releasing old layers and reconnecting with the feminine wisdom and gifts that have always lived within us. Some of the practices you will experience:

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✧ JOURNEY THROUGH 7 CHAKRAS

CROWN — MYSTERY & CONNECTION

We open the temple and turn toward the sacred, the unseen and our own direct relationship with mystery.

Sound journey · storytelling · somatic descent

THIRD EYE — INTUITION & INNER VISION

We quiet the rational mind and create space for the subtle language of images, sensations and inner knowing.

Intuitive painting

THROAT — VOICE & TRUTH

What wants to be spoken? We explore authentic expression and the courage to let the body’s voice emerge.

Womb voice activation · Sharing circle

HEART — SISTERHOOD & RECEIVING

We make space for the grief of disconnection between women and open toward the experience of being witnessed, supported and held.

Heart puja · Conscious touch & massage exchange

SOLAR PLEXUS — SOVEREIGNTY & INNER FIRE

We return to our centre, exploring personal power, boundaries and the permission to take up space.

Kundalini yoga kriya · Power reclamation dance

SACRAL — SENSUALITY & PLEASURE

Here we slow down enough to listen to the senses and reconnect with the body’s capacity for pleasure — without performance, pressure or shame. Come curious. Come exactly as you are.

Sensual journey & sensory exploration

ROOT — EMBODIMENT & SURRENDER

Finally, we arrive at the root, our animal body, the earth and the primordial dark.

Here, nothing needs to be done.

We surrender into the womb’s darkness and allow ourselves to be held there — listening for the wisdom that lives within the primordial dark.

Yoni gazing · Meditative journey through 7 womb gates

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WE DON’T RUSH TOWARD THE LIGHT

There is a tendency to want every transformation to have a neat ending. To release something and immediately replace it. To descend into the dark and quickly find our way back into the light.

But nature doesn’t work this way. A seed disappears into the darkness of the soil before it emerges. Winter does not apologise for being winter.

The womb does not hurry the life growing inside it.

There is wisdom in staying.

November is an invitation to enter this liminal space together — to let old layers soften and dissolve, and to give the unseen process time.

You don’t need to know what comes next.

You are simply invited to rest in the fertile darkness and allow what is ready to change to change.

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INTEGRATION IN A SACRED WOMBAN CIRCLE

And then we stay connected. The initiation doesn’t end when we close the temple.

After the November retreat, the participants will be invited into an ongoing space of connection and practice through the winter. Between November and May, we will share monthly practices, reflections and journal prompts to support the process of integration and gestation.

A thread will remain alive between us. A gentle invitation to continue listening. To notice what is shifting.

And to remember that transformation often happens quietly, beneath the surface.

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FROM DESCENT TO EMERGENCE IN MAY 2027

In May 2027, we will gather again for a deeper 6-day retreat.

If November is the descent into the womb, May will offer the possibility of beginning to emerge from it.

Six days to deepen the work.

November is the descent. Winter is the gestation. May is the emergence.

More details about the May retreat HERE.

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Or perhaps you simply feel a quiet, inexplicable yes. You don’t have to know exactly why. Sometimes the body knows before the mind does.

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✧ Your Facilitators

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JOIN THE TEMPLE

Location: Awaken Heart Yoga in Colares, Sintra, Portugal

Dates: 21–22 November 2026 from 10h – 19h on both days

Investment: 150€

The retreat price includes the full two-day programme and practices.

Accommodation and food are not included.

There is an option to book a room at the venue separately if you would like to stay on site. A single room 85€ per night / a shared room 55€ per night. Please enquire upon the booking.

Spaces are intentionally limited to keep the circle intimate, grounded and personal.

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COME INTO THE DARK

There is nothing you need to become.

Nothing you need to prove.

There is a place within you that already knows how to rest and receive.

A place that knows how to listen and create.

Come into the dark.

Lay down what you no longer need to carry.

Let yourself be held.

And allow the mystery to do what mystery does.

The dark is not the end of the journey.

It is where something new can begin.

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