On Saturday 5th April, something quietly powerful unfolded. A circle of women gathered in the warm embrace of the Yoga Loft at Station Mill in Alresford to participate in Goddess Rising — a day retreat rooted in reconnection, restoration and the sacred feminine. Together, we moved, breathed, shared and rested — a full day devoted to remembering our wholeness. The sun even joined us in shining its light on a space that felt genuinely transformative.

The feedback has been deeply moving. One participant wrote the following the morning after the retreat:

“Morning Emily, I just wanted to say how wonderful the day was yesterday. I feel fantastic!! I am the tightest, most inflexible person and always have hip and back pain and it’s GONE!! Besides the fact I hold all the stress in my body, I am such a knotted-up person generally but my hips feel so fantastic today. I really can’t remember the last time I felt like this! Such good motivation to continue to practice everything I learnt yesterday. Thank you 🙏. Have a wonderful day and enjoy the sun!! Xx”

It is a privilege to hold space where healing like this can happen — not just physical ease but an unravelling of deeply held tension and emotional constriction. This is what yoga, rest and intentional community can offer.

And yet, in the same breath, it feels essential to reflect on something more complex and vital: cultural appropriation — particularly in the context of using and sharing stories, practices and imagery from Hindu traditions and goddess archetypes.

Honouring Lineage - Acknowledging Power

I am not of Indian or Hindu heritage. I am a white, Western woman holding space in traditions that have their roots in cultures and spiritual lineages far from my own ancestry. I share this work with reverence, but I also recognise that intention alone does not absolve the complexity of power dynamics.

There is no denying that across the Western yoga and wellness industries, ancient Indian spiritual teachings have been commodified — sometimes stripped of context, sometimes sanitised or sensationalised. Goddesses like Kali, Durga, Saraswati and Lakshmi are not just symbolic ideas to be cherry-picked for empowerment workshops. They are sacred beings within a vast, intricate cultural and spiritual ecosystem — one that is still alive and actively practised by millions of people, many of whom live in conditions of economic hardship, postcolonial trauma, or cultural marginalisation.

To speak of these goddesses without acknowledging that is to participate — even inadvertently — in a form of cultural erasure.

My Approach and Position

In offering the Goddess Rising retreat, my intention is never to take from another culture but to honour it — carefully, humbly and with clear boundaries around what is mine to share and what is not.

• I do not claim these goddesses as my own.
• I do not teach from Hindu theology or scripture.
• I do not suggest that my understanding of these archetypes is equivalent to the lived religious experience of those who worship them.
• I am clear about the symbolic, psychological and energetic frameworks I work within — informed by yoga philosophy, Jungian archetypes, somatics and women's inner empowerment models.
  

I believe it is possible to work with goddess energy in a way that is archetypal rather than appropriative — but only when this work is done with transparency, education and a constant willingness to question one’s own role within wider systems of privilege and power.

I also actively support the elevation of South Asian voices in yoga — those who hold both ancestral wisdom and lived experience — and I regularly invest in learning from teachers and scholars from within these traditions.

An Ongoing Conversation

There are no perfect answers here. There is only the commitment to remain in honest relationship with the questions.

I do this work because I believe in the healing power of rest, embodiment, feminine awakening, and sacred symbolism. I also believe in accountability. I will continue to interrogate how this work is offered, who it serves and how it can be a force for both personal and collective healing — without reproducing systems of harm.

To all who attended Goddess Rising, thank you. You showed up with such depth, softness and courage. Your feedback is humbling and a reminder that this work is valuable when it’s rooted in love and integrity.

Let this be the beginning of more — more honesty, more healing and more responsibility in how we rise together.

*** In recognition of the origins of the wisdom shared and the global inequalities that persist, I will be donating 10% of profits from next year’s Goddess Rising retreat to charities that support women in need across South Asia — particularly those working at the intersection of poverty, gender-based violence, and access to education and healthcare. This is a small but important step in honouring the roots of the practices I share and redistributing resources towards those whose cultures have so often been commodified without return.