The Living Goddess Podcast

Chameli sits down with psychologist and writer, Ailey Jolie to explore how the culture we live in shapes our nervous systems, and why simply regulating ourselves isn’t enough when systems themselves dysregulate us. 

They discuss the relief and healing that can come when the systemic abuse of the female body is named, and how symptoms like anxiety and hypervigilance can be healthy signals signaling deeper truths. 

The conversation unveils how women have sometimes betrayed one another in the pursuit of power within a patriarchal system, and why finding healing in circle—where bodies and stories can mend together—holds transformative power.

** Before you dive into this episode, we want to make you aware that we will speaking about sexual abuse and sexual violence. Please take care of yourself and listen if you feel resourced or feel into if you may want to skip this episode.**

Connect with Ailey Jolie

 

Chameli speaks with Dr. Gertrude Lyons about her book Rewrite the Mother Code and her passionate invitation to expand what it means to mother.

Dr Lyons shares practices and insights from her own journey of motherhood, and from decades of coaching others, and together they explore what steps one can take to shift out of oppressive belief systems around mothering, and rewrite outdated mother codes to more creative and sustainable ones.

To learn more about Rewriting the Mother Code book

Twenty years ago, Chameli and Helena Montelius came together for the first Women’s Temple, to remember the sacred within the body, to listen, to breathe, to pray in movement and stillness.

In this special anniversary conversation, Chameli and Helena reflect on what has sustained their Temple group through all the changes of life, the births and endings, the ebbs and flows, the laughter and the tears. They speak about the nourishment of being in Temple together, about friendship, and about the power showing up again and again to remember what truly matters.

Join us in celebrating the new year with this popular episode from our archives. The three giant goddesses, the Norns, from Norse mythology guide us in co-creating with Living Goddess. Through the practice of presence, we can root our visions and desires in the original instructions, so that the future can unfold from wisdom instead of being a carrot on a stick that keeps us leaning out of the intimacy with the goddess, and into an endless chase of never-yet-there.

Chameli sits down with Ellen Dee Davidson, author of Sacred Forest Bathing, to explore the ancient art of listening to the trees. With decades of practice in sitting, listening, and communing with the forest, Ellen shares her lived experience of how trees speak to us, through presence, sensation, and subtle messages.

Together, they explore how each of us can enter into a more intimate relationship with the natural world, learning to receive the guidance, healing, and companionship that trees so generously offer. This episode invites you to slow down, tune in, and discover how the forest can become a teacher, ally, and sanctuary.

To learn more about Ellen and her book Sacred Forest Bathing www.ellendeedavidson.com>

In this intimate conversation, Chameli sits with her dear sister Kim Rose Keller, a Sex and Intimacy Coach whose life and work have been devoted to love and the beauty of human connection. Together they explore the landscapes of intimacy, grief, and the gift of community, and what begins to matter most when the illusion of “later” falls away.

Kim speaks with exquisite honesty about her journey of living with a terminal cancer diagnosis, and how this encounter with mortality has opened her even more fully to life, to pleasure, to humor, to friendship, and to the sacredness of every ordinary day. This is not only a conversation about dying, but about living with nothing held back, about the courage to stay open to the full range of feelings, to keep loving, and to find grace in the mystery that holds us all.

Chameli shares an update on where she is in her life and practice, about being in a season of ebbing, energy turning inward, about shedding and slowing down. She speaks about the courage it takes to become honest, to listen deeply, and to center the desire of the soul. What happens when we create space for simple beingness? Is it selfish to honor what the soul longs for, or is it, in truth, an act of service to our collective healing in its deepest sense?

Like a pre-programmed car radio automatically playing the same handful of familiar stations, we tend to run on repeat a few familiar, but not always beneficial, thought loops and habitual activities. Chameli shares how the animals she lives with help her in her practice of cultivating senses below the senses, which allows for a more fine-tuned ability to perceive the often subtle signals from the soul.

Chameli shares a different way of setting intentions for the new year, and every day, by asking ourselves the question: what is essential?

She tells the story of Shiva and the Dasha MahaVidyas (Ten Wisdom Goddesses), a story reminding us that trying to escape parts of ourselves, and clinging to others, will keep us stuck in the realm of appearances and disconnected from the union at the Source of all forms.

In this meditative episode that is inspired by Dr. Estes’ lecture series “The Dangerous Old Woman”, Chameli shares about the shift of priorities that happens when our lives are guided by “She who guards the soul”. The Dangerous Old Woman is an aspect of our being that operates in much vaster timelines than our habitual hurry, and reminds us that we are more free and powerful than we usually take ourselves to be.

We have our very first guest on the Living Goddess podcast! Cynthia Jurs is the author of the book and in this episode, she shares about the Earth Treasure Vase practice, her reckoning with the patriarchal aspects of Buddhism, and how a pilgrimage to Delphi revealed her seat in the lineage of Gaia’s priestesses. 

For more about Cynthia’s work:

Gaiamandala.net
Summonedbytheearth.org

Chameli speaks about her experience meeting Parvathy Baul, a master practitioner on the path of devotional song. You will hear the story about the epic love affair between Radha and Krishna, and how surrender and devotion can be portals to divine union. Chameli also speaks on the hesitation and wounding we carry around spiritual devotion, how the purity of our longing and devotion have been taken advantage of and misused, and on the importance of reclaiming devotion as a portal to a sovereignty that we don’t have to cling to, or make up, but that naturally arises once we surrender.

Chameli speaks about her daily practice, and how to create a relationship of mutual support with our seat of practice. She shares about Adhara Shakti, the goddess that is the frequency of support, taking so many forms in our lives. She also shares about the Three Mother Goddess practice that takes embodied spirituality from a nice sounding concept, into an actualized and lived way of life, a practice that has been one of the most life-changing Shakti Keys for her and the many women she has shared it with, on this wild and holy path of embodying Source.

Chameli speaks about dharma, life purpose, how we can get confused in comparison and in looking outside ourselves for “how to be”, plus how the path of dharma invites us into the vulnerability and risk of being ourselves. She also shares about her own dharma journey and commitment to live in intimacy with Goddess.

In this bonus episode of Living Goddess, Chameli shares information about the 18th annual Summer Ashram Retreat that she hosts in Greece. She shares the focus and mythology for each week, about the practices of dance, chanting, embodied mythology, and temple touch..

For more information about the Goddess Summer Ashram
www.corfuretreat.com

Today we call upon Vishnu, the Hindu God, and consort to Lakshmi the Goddess of Abundance. It may be easy to say yes to the beautiful and abundant flow of Lakshmi, but as many of us have overdosed on the suffocating structures of the patriarchy, we often resist creating the sacred structures needed for the qualities of Lakshmi to truly flourish in our life. Inviting the noble integrity and loving commitment of Vishnu into our lives can help us reframe our associations of structure as limitations, and instead recognize it as love in action.

Today we call upon the Lakshmi, the hindu Goddess of Abundance. Chameli shares about the four arms of the Goddess, and how they give us a powerful map for a spirituality that is balanced and embodied, and ultimately leads us into heart of abundance.

As she is preparing for a pilgrimage, Chameli reflects on the Buddhist terms Windhorse and Drip, and on how clearing clutter and being in integrity with your hearts wisdom, not only creates more flow, ease, and abundance in your life but ultimately brings you into union with your deepest self.

The three giant goddesses, the Norns, from Norse mythology guide us in co- creating with Living Goddess. Through the practice of presence we can root our visions and desires in the original instructions, so that the future can unfold from wisdom instead of being a carrot on a stick that keeps us leaning out of the intimacy with the goddess, and into an endless chase of never-yet-there.

Chameli continues the exploration of the journey home to our essential nature, by sharing a story from Norse mythology about the Goddess hidden behind the armor of forgetfulness and the journey to wake her and unite with her wisdom. We will explore the importance of cultivating and guarding intuition, the willingness to face the unwanted parts of ourselves, and to risk coming into an ‘isness’ with ourselves and the world, so that we can retrieve our roots in wisdom and creative life force energy.

Chameli tells the story about the grieving Buddha and how two potent goddesses of love and protection came into form through his broken heart. In this myth we find potent guidance on how to stay with our hearts open and take enlightened action when faced with the horrendous suffering in the world.

Chameli tells the story about the grieving Buddha and how two potent goddesses of love and protection came into form through his broken heart. In this myth we find potent guidance on how to stay with our hearts open and take enlightened action when faced with the horrendous suffering in the world.

Chameli tells the story of the great Indian Goddess Durga and illuminates keys for how we can stay rooted in a place of peace and clarity while engaging in a world so full of suffering, war, and division. Durga mirrors to us a power within us that arises out of a fierce commitment to love, a power that unifies instead of divides us.

Chameli explores how Hestia from Greek mythology and Gunnveig from Norse mythology both guide us home to the light within that never dies; the hearth, our home, our source. She also shares about the challenges and gifts from her practice with the circle, and how the circle itself is a wisdom keeper we all can receive guidance and enlightenment from.

Episode 3: Attachment sets you free

Continuing the exploration of the Gaia/Uranus myth, Chameli speaks about how creating a secure attachment to body, earth and Goddess will liberate us, instead of entrapping us as we have been told for thousands of years. As most patriarchal religions and spiritual paths are Uranus-centered we may be looking at basic avoidance or insecure attachment styles playing themselves out.

No matter how shiny and bright our spirituality feels, if it is dependent on us pushing parts of ourselves down into the basement, our experience of ourselves and Goddess will be partial, and we will cheat ourselves of the peace and belonging in her wholeness. In the myth about Gaia and Uranus, we learn about the root and pain of such fragmentation, and Chameli also shares a turning point in her path when she was forced to become brutally honest with herself about how these dynamics plaid out in her life, and what it would take to come into integrity with her deeper knowing.

In the premiere of the Living Goddess podcast, Chameli brings the oftentimes lofty ideas of Goddess, into a felt intimacy that is made possible when we stay close in, receptive, and explore the very first step that is before us. The story about VasaLisa and the doll in her pocket points us to a place many of us encounter in our inner journey where we cannot any longer “do it”, and that through the practice of receptivity, this place becomes a potent portal for grace and love to take the steering wheel.