Kama of Kali
Kama of Kali is a women’s retreat. It is a space dedicated to deep healing, sisterhood, and women’s empowerment. This retreat is about returning to the truest, most embodied version of yourself. After multiple yoga retreats and I can honestly say this was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was the most transformative week of my life.
Kama of Kali changed me. It completely transformed the way I see myself and the way I interact with the world. It helped me shake off years of shame and become the woman I was always meant to be. And the crazy thing is, I didn’t even intend on going. I was on the road with Ray, we were making our way back from Newfoundland towards the states when I saw a post from a photographer that I had been following and inspired by for years, Ana, that she was going to be involved in this retreat. I knew the retreat was only a few weeks away and I wouldn’t be able to attend, but I followed the page thinking I might be able to attend one of their future events. Turns out the retreat creator, Javi, had a recent cancellation and was able to offer me a spot on the retreat for half the price! I thought… well now this seems meant to be. Even better, I was able to secure airline tickets just using points!
Day 1 Ether
I could tell the retreat was going to be special from the moment we walked into the opening ceremony and gathered together in a circle. I had chills. I didn’t know why at the time, but I could feel it. That evening Javi opened the space, and shared the reason for creating Kama of Kali, and the power of women gathering together. She guided us through a somatic practice and it was the first time that I was cracked open during the week. I didn’t expect it but that practice took me back to when I was 11 years old, younger than everyone else in my class, but the first to go through puberty. It brought me back to the shame I experienced as a child and carried with me all these years—and how something that should be celebrated like entering womanhood was instead mocked and taken advantage of. This brought up so much rage, sadness, grief, and tenderness for my 11 year old self. While it was painful to relive, this was the first practice of the week that brought me one step closer to healing.
That night after dinner, we had our first fire initiation. It was a beautiful way to transmute the feelings and emotions that came up during the somatic practice from the opening ceremony. I had never danced with fire before, and having 5 planets in Aries, I’ve got a lot of fire in me! Although I had a bit of hesitation and was nervous at first, it was incredibly empowering and was beautiful to hear the sound of the fire blowing in the wind.
Day 2 Earth
The next day began with a grounding yoga class and breakfast. In the afternoon we had two dance classes, a twerking style class with Berenice, and a sensual floor work class with Abigail.
Berenice’s class was first. She gave a beautiful background to how dance has always been her medicine and how healing it is. When we don’t process emotions or feelings, the body stores it. We store trauma, we store stress, we store tension. If we don’t release it, it stays. The body that we carry with us everywhere day to day, is holding so much. Yet we have the power, the capability to let go, to release, to alchemize. And this is possible through dance. One of the practices we did with Berenice was shaking. Shaking is a tremendous a somatic and therapeutic way to release stored up energy and tension. During the practice I felt I was shaking off years of shame, releasing old stories and narratives, and coming back to a more empowered self. Then Abigail taught us techniques of sensual floor work, something I had never done before. And while I think I can be easily sensual in private, it’s much more challenging— at least for me, to do in a room full of people, even a room where I felt safe, and comfortable, I still felt shy and embarrassed to be seen. Clearly I still hadn’t completely vanquished my 11 year old’s shame and need to feel invisible. There was a part of the class where we performed a short choreography that Abigail taught to us, and I almost had a minor panic attack. But with the support and encouragement of all the girls, I did it. Even though it was way out of my comfort zone!
Day 3 Water
On this day I was scheduled to have a 1-1 photoshoot with Ana! Ana and I had made a plan the day before to meet up a supermarket and from there we would head to the location for the shoot. Logistically this made the most sense, until her car broke down—(unfortunately we couldn’t plan for that)! So I was at the grocery store in not the best area of town, early in the morning, in a low cut dress, and a full face of makeup. Honestly it felt like a cosmic joke or like a test from the universe, like are you empowered yet? On day one of the retreat I revealed how insecure I felt about my breasts to the point that by age 19 I got a breast reduction, and then here I was 3 days later in a low cut dress with nowhere to hide. During the 30 minutes that I was waiting for Ana while she had to wait for an uber— I created a new instagram “Wandering Wild Soul”. The funny thing is that back in 2022 I started an instagram called Wandering Wild Soul, but ended up changing the name because I thought “that’s not really me”… I guess it turns out I just had to grow into it… I didn’t know what I was going to use this new instagram for but I just had this gut feeling to make it, so I did.
After the photo shoot with Ana, the rest of the girls arrived to the waterfall to participate in the most beautiful ceremony. Javi had prepared different water blessing activities and each of us picked one at a time to complete this ritual with each other. For example one of them was to make a flower crown! Another was to shower one of the girls with compliments and love. I can’t remember them all but it was beautiful to participate in. Mine was to dance and roar like a wild woman! hahahah Very apt for the week I was having. I also felt incredibly inspired after my photo shoot with Ana, and began photographing the other girls. I had never taken portraits before but was just overcome with excitement and passion and couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to capture the moment, the feeling of being there— and the emotion.
Later that day Shannon led us through a belly dancing class, to stay with the theme of fluidity and connecting to our sensuality. I had fun bellydancing but also trying to capture some photos of the practice as well! I never knew how rewarding it would feel to photograph people as I had only ever photographed wildlife. But trying to really capture someone’s unique essence, or really capture the feeling of a moment made me feel truly so alive and sparked so much passion in my heart, just like when I had first discovered wildlife photography, but in a whole new way.
Day 4 Fire
On this day I was feeling the fire of my new passion. Photographing people! I never would’ve imagined, but I couldn’t deny it! And what a blessing and a joy to have 10 stunning muses with me to practice with and play and explore this new passion. We headed to a local beach, hiked a short trail through some beautiful trees, and maybe this day should have been “air” because boy was it windy!
Day 5 Air
On this day we were all feeling a bit airy! Floating around, in our feminine energy. I missed one of the scheduled activities in the morning, which was Silk Fans, led by Javi, because I really wanted to get a tattoo ! Normally I wouldn’t want to leave a retreat and miss activities but I didn't have any time after the retreat and had planned on leaving the same day the retreat was ending. A local tattoo artist kept showing up in my instagram feed as “People You May Know” or “Someone You Should Follow” so I asked the local girls— and they all recommended her, Lau Bloom! I was able to secure an appointment, and it just felt right. Tattoos are, or should I say can be very ritualistic. I know for some people they can just be a spur of the moment impulsive action as well, but they can have a lot of meaning and be quite healing. In this case mine was the latter. Natalie, one of the girls on the retreat escorted me on her moped to Ambar Tattoo Space. I had some ideas of Lau’s flash tattoos that I might like to get. And then I had the idea that she might be able to add some magic to a tattoo that an ex had done years ago. Every time I looked at the tattoo, which happened to be on my wrist, I felt shame about the relationship. When she arrived I asked if she could “add a little magic to it”. Turns out she absolutely could. She freehanded a beautiful design around my forearm and now when I look down I feel adorned with magic! And the whole tattoo felt like a beautiful healing ritual— repairing the scars of that relationship and any negative feelings I had towards myself surrounding the past. I also got one of Lau’s flash tattoos, an Ocelot, native to Costa Rica.
After the tattoo, I joined the rest of the girls on the beach. After the sunset, we played with fire! I stayed back and just recorded some videos because I was hesitant to play with fire around my new tattoos! It was a lovely evening under the moonlight.
I left Costa Rica with a new goup of soul sisters, a new passion and with a renewed spark for life. More in touch with my feminine side. More in touch with my sensual self. More comfortable expressing myself. More embodied. More empowered. More Me.
And a few weeks later, I signed up to attend the next Kama of Kali ;)