Welcome to Dakini Kali’s Body of Love.
Please make yourself comfortable; feel right at home.
Relax, slow down.
We have all the time in the world.
Let's invite our hearts to become acquainted.
Namasté​.
Kali Satyagraha grew up in Africa, a continent of immense beauty, continuous turmoil, cultural diversity and wild extremes, mirroring her rich inner world of intensity and duality. She excelled academically, and was financially independent of her parents by the time she left school. After graduating with Honours in the arts/humanities, she travelled Europe, returning home 18 months later to work for a 'Freedom Struggle Publisher' in South Africa (David Phillip Publisher), dodging tear gas and bullets whilst promoting Liberation Literature in townships under siege by the Apartheid regime. She also worked for the renowned independent newspaper, The Mail & Guardian, before taking up a Strategic Planning position in advertising, rising to the position of Board Director of several top agencies, both in South Africa and the UK.
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Growing weary of promoting shallow, disembodied unconsciousness, she transitioned to exploring spiritually embodied consciousness and healing through an unquenchable thirst for Truth. Until then her personal life had been plagued by physical and mental dis-ease, characterised by a splitting – or polarity – in her psyche and physical body. She determined to heal herself of endometrial infertility and bipolar disorder, while reclaiming her feminine agency within a patriarchal paradigm. Recognising everything in life is perfect, and happens for a reason, Kali's lived challenges have included childhood scarcity, two divorces, solo parenting, the tragic death of her child’s Kenyan father, revealing family secrets, and so-called ‘incurable’ mental and physical dis-ease.
Of enormous importance to her was the discovery of her Khoi and Bantu bloodlines from her mother’s matriarchal lineage, which had been hidden because of the ramifications of separation and prosecution under the Apartheid Colour Bar and Group Areas Acts, which criminalised white and black people being in any form of sexual relationship together, or even living side by side. The discovery of this ancestral line helped her to appreciate why her soul has always been so passionately in love with Mama Afrika and Her people. Furthermore, on her father’s side, she uncovered the origins of her surname, Widd – which comes from the Celtic word Drus-widd, meaning Druid. So on both sides, she arose from a long line of medicine ancestors.
Kali’s story is an archetypical hero’s journey of truth seeking, challenge, initiation and triumph; of a determination to return home to Self, whole, healed and awakened. Through trust and serendipity she was able to heal ‘an incurable’ medical condition – endometriosis – and although being diagnosed with ‘severe bipolar disorder’ – today manages the condition entirely medication-free through embodiment consciousness practices.
Kali is currently writing a memoir entitled LOST & PROFOUND, where she shares her personal pilgrimage as a gift of love and compassion for all beings.
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Today Kali is the mother of a beautiful daughter, and respected facilitator of True Totality Tantra, incorporating the embodied practices of meditation, conscious dance (BlissDance & Shamanic Ecstatic Dance), movement meditation, somatic enactments, intuitive channelling, ancestral reverence, plant medicine and breath-work.
She believes Loving Compassion for all Beings is the Greatest Revolution we can embody for the flowering of Universal Peace and Harmony on the planet today.
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Dakini Kali is honoured and privileged to have sat with many leading-edge spiritual teachers, including Isaac Shapiro, Meike Schütt, Dr Shakti Malan (Shakti Shiva Academy), Swami Rahasya, Andrew Barnes, the teachers of the School of Biodanza, and the teachers of Cuddle Party™ Workshops.
Whilst acknowledging a huge debt of gratitude to her teachers, everything Dakini Kali transmits originates from her own direct, embodied experience:
If Kali hasn’t embodied something herself, she doesn’t transmit it
"I just had a client who was at your SpiritFest class – I hear from many it was very powerful – I feel so humbled and honoured that I got to be there with you – now I’m going to cry – she was transformed that day, and is now getting married, and I spoke about Kali (the goddess) and I say how she’s fierce, she’s terrifying and she says, yes, yes she is terrifying, and I say Kali the goddess, and she says, no Kali from SpiritFest, she’s terrifying, and I say Kali with the long blonde hair is not terrifying, and she says yes, she’s scary I’m completely intimidated by her. Why? I ask. Because when she looks at me, it feels like she can see straight through me, and it’s unnerving, and I can’t hide anything. The truth! And I thought yeah, Kaliji – this is guru-woman-ship, so I told her, this is true guru, because the guru sees your truth, and when you prevent seeing your own truth, in the presence of the guru you can’t do that anymore, because she’s so free, liberated, she doesn’t hook into your contraction, but she sees your freedom that you still don’t recognise yet. I was very moved how she spoke about you. I love you so profoundly."
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VALENTINA LEO
~ Founder Tantra School of Fascinating Wonderment ~
SpiritFest, June 2018
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Photo Credits:
Sally Berg, Nicky Newman, Keshia Lee Codron, Dakini Kali Satyagraha
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Teachers & Influences
DISCLAIMER
Are any of the above teachers or practices perfect, including myself? Absolutely not!
We 're all human, we each have our blind spots, as well as our strengths & weaknesses.
Please don't project perfection onto any facilitator or practice, nor give away your personal power.
No-one can fix you, solve your life challenges or heal you.
That's your responsibility alone, & teachers can provide support & illumination, together with useful embodied practices.
The task of each Lover of Truth is to discover relative & absolute Truth for themselves, & to develop healthy boundaries, inner knowing & discernment by keeping the bullshit detector turned on high, & noticing & tracking sensations in the body.
Ultimately, I learnt as much by discovering ,''No, that's not true for me in this moment", as much as learning "Yes! That resonates with my own knowing, according to my current capacity."
Fuck all control, radical responsibility.
~ Video Tribute to Beloved Shakti ~
The Deep Feminine
'I wasn’t always drawn to working with women. In fact, until the age of 35 I was suspicious of women and could count the number of authentic female friends on one hand. If I’m honest with myself, at that time I was a man’s woman. I loved the company of men, sought out their approval, and valued myself by how much they valued me (which was pretty much based upon looks and sex appeal).
Upon falling pregnant and giving birth to a beautiful girl at the age of 38, I realised I needed to go deeper. It dawned on me I was objectifying myself for the approbation of the male gaze, and I certainly didn’t want to model this to my daughter.'
'In my forties, after a few intense crises, I began seeking Truth the way a pig searches for truffles – that is, with great determination! I was drawn to study with beloved Advait teacher, Isaac Shapiro, where I met the divine Shakti Malan. We were roommates!
It was Shakti who kissed-awake the dormant Deep Feminine within, who enlightened me with regards to sacred sexuality and the Women’s Union versus True Sisterhood. The former keeps women disembodied, small, divided and competing (thereby supporting the sustenance of patriarchy), the latter recognises the unique flowering of every woman, inviting us to co-create in unity consciousness, together with the deep masculine.'
'With this fragrant awakening, I was still unaware my purpose would lead me to facilitating women’s work myself. In hindsight I can pinpoint the exact moment the path opened to me: we were training in BlissDance with Shakti, and just before lunch, myself and 3 other women spontaneously formed a womb circle on the rolling lawns of the retreat centre and began chanting hitherto unknown names of goddesses from the ancient lineages. We were speaking in tongues. It was completely unplanned, and we were not ‘doing’ it. Perhaps dancing for long hours in a state of altered consciousness facilitated the channelling of the sacred feminine through our bodies and throats? I will never know. I was aware of energy surging powerfully through my body from the ground up, of no separation between myself, the earth and my sisters, and of being sung and danced by existence. I was also aware of a tangible ripple spreading from our womb centre out into the world, and I sensed it would not only change me forever, but thousands of other women too.
And so, I was drawn inexorably into the vortex of The Red Tent mysteries, where I remembered the sacred rites of passage of the mature feminine, from birth to death, forgotten over the passage of time, but never lost to me. The more I immersed myself in this informal feminine mystery school, the more I remembered who I truly was, and what my dharma on this earth was. I began holding Red Tents at my home, Villa Kali, in Cape Town, and song spread. '
'Two sisters and myself felt drawn to offer a Red Tent at AfrikaBurn (a subsidiary of Burning Man), and what transpired was so deeply magical and mysterious I still find it difficult to talk about it, even now. What I can say is I felt the permanent ‘landing’ of sacred feminine consciousness into the bodies of humankind on that desert playa all those years ago.
Since then, I’ve been invited to establish Red Tents at festivals such as Learning Clan, SpiritFest and Retreat Yourself, and today spaces for the sacred feminine are expected at every festival. '
'Furthermore, three highly respected crones and I seeded The RED Retreat in 2019, a long-standing dream where awakened, embodied, wild women gather for a week to dance, trance, shake and drum around the sacred fire. We dissolve in the liquid waters of the Breede River and together we celebrate the intensity of being alive in these bodies of love on this blue green earth, from whom we are not separate, and whose nervous system is so much greater than our own. Unravelling our contractions, we plug into HER, rewiring and resetting ourselves. The RED Retreat has been held annually in October since 2019 alongside the breathtaking Breede River, embraced by rolling mountains under the sparkling Milky Way, where we camp out in the elements, and journey under a sumptuous Red Tent.
In 2022 we dream of 100 women from all over the world joining us.
You are invited!
Today, I support women through rites of passage from the archetypal maiden to mother (not dependent on having children), and from mother to crone / menopause.
Having healed myself of endometriosis, and given birth naturally, I also support women to heal trauma, abuse, imbalances, and outdated belief systems causing dis-ease in the body.'
For more, go to TheREDRetreat
The Red Tent Tradition
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The Red Tent has been known by different names in different indigenous cultures, but in essence, its purpose has been the same the world over, since time immemorial.
The Red Tent originated as an enclosed, ceremonial womb-space - a giant drop of blood if you will - where women living communally gathered together during moon-synchronised menstruation - not because they were considered unclean, this is a patriarchal overlay - but to journey inwards, to connect with one another, to share in the deep mysteries of the feminine, to honour the womb, the blood, and Her natural cycles, as well as to perform rites of passage such as initiating pre-pubescent girls into their sacred sexuality, and women into motherhood, birthing and crone-dom.
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Today Red Tents are springing up around the world to re-dress the imbalance of patriarchy, and to remind us of the importance of the sacred feminine in all aspects of life. It’s a world-wide movement by womxn (all those who orientate or identify as being in a womxn’s body) to re-claim and re-embody the deep feminine in our daily lives.
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The mature feminine is universal and has 100,000 faces, so we welcome womxn from all creeds & cultures with an interest / curiosity in the She Who Is – whether She goes by the name of Shakti, Mary Magdalen, Sekhmet, Kali, Isis, St Clare, Gaia, Pacha Mama, Athena, Nemanja, Yámana, Venus, Asherah, or Rhiannon.
It’s a sanctuary space not so much about teaching, but about sharing; not so much about learning, but about remembering; not so much about doing, but about being. In today’s fast-paced, goal-oriented world, women truly appreciate a space to rest, connect, pray, play, dance, sing and co-create.
Time in The Red Tent is both a luxury and a necessity. For it’s here where we give ourselves full permission to relax & enjoy pleasurably; where the restoration of forgotten feminine wisdom traditions are celebrated through the conscious embodiment of her natural lore’s by womxn as her natural guardians, ensuring sustained abundance & balance for humanity, the planet, & all of creation into the future.
Within the held womb-space of The Red Tent, we take time to take care of ourselves, and one another. It is a place of not knowing, where we can tell our stories and be heard without judgement; a space where our ancient wounds can find wholeness in healing; and where true sisterhood is re-awakened.
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Here womxn in their moon time offer up their blood to the earth, to consecrate the soil with life-giving energy and to offer up thanks. The LORE OF THE LAND says when all women offer up their menstrual blood to the MOTHER EARTH, there will be no more need of bloodletting through war.
We drop into feminine time (the Greeks call this Kairos vs linear Chronos time), where an hour may pass like a second, and a second like a year. It is the time between time, it is multi-focused and it is magical!
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It’s also an empty place to simply be, to escape perpetual doing; of seeing what happens when we don’t have a plan, or an agenda, or a mission to survive. Are we keeping ourselves busy so we don’t feel, or taking time to slow down so our hearts and wombs can whisper guidance to us? And most importantly, as the consensus reality around us crumbles, wise womxn are growing a firm foundation of inter-connectedness from the grassroots up, so that a new consciousness can be birthed on the planet co-conceiving with LOVER NATURE, her seasons and cycles, and directing all action from her deep wisdom; where life is perpetually held in healthy balance through the life, death, rebirth cycle.​
'In our RED Retreat tradition, this friendship and support has become known as the Circle of Elephants: a circle we can call on whenever we need our sisters to have our back. It comes from the wild, where female elephants form a protective circle around a birthing mother elephant to give her protection, standing with their backs to her for privacy.
In December 2020 I experienced a very frightening energetic purge at 3am in the morning. It felt like a 'mild' heart attack: unbearable pressure on the heart, combined with a sharp piercing pain arising from the sternum. I was all on my own, and I realised I had to call on my knowledge of embodiment practices to survive this crisis. So first I started breathing deeply from the ocean of the belly. Then I sat up and stretched open the heart space to ease the pressure. I listened to what my body wanted, and she said, 'Start moving gently and slowly.' So I got up and walked around the house in the dead of night. After an hour, I felt nauseous and ran to the bathroom where I purged violently out both ends. It was a MASSIVE release. Had I abandoned my body and given in to fear, I'm not sure I'd be here today: it was that serious. It was my own personal Kali Yuga!'
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'I sensed its roots were not based in biology, but in the energetics of the work I do, and from my own healing processes. The body needed defragging, and as long as I trusted its wisdom, I would emerge out the other side expanded, spacious and renewed. (Out of sense of responsibility as a mother, I did have myself checked out medically, and everything was completely normal, other than heightened hereditary cholesterol, for which I'm now on medication for the next 5 months). Because it was so big, and because it was important, I shared my experience with my Circle of Elephants. My call was met with a tsunami of love, support and generosity beyond my wildest dreams. Everything from a powerful fundraiser to support any medical emergencies, to a pot plant left on my front doorstep, to an offer of a sister driving from Stellenbosch to cook meals for me. This is true, rich, authentic, life-affirming sisterhood, and it's available right now, to all of us.'
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You can hold your own Red Tent & call on a Circle of Elephants
For more information on this year's gathering of wild women, and to book your place, please go to our Facebook page, or to our website: www.theredretreat.com
