Join Katalin Koda and ceremonialists bringing love, beauty and sanctity to honor the power of Self~Marriage. Last fall Katalin journeyed to east India to commit vows to herself and honor her path on earth in an Ancient Yogini~Dakini Temple. From this experience came an even deeper connection to her work with Fire of the Goddess and the Sacred Feminine.

This is the launch and first public screening of Katalin’s ten minute short documentary, Fire of the Goddess: A Ceremony of Self~Marriage. The night willalso include a short presentation on ‘Why Self-Marriage?’ and the Dakini, an ancient sacred feminine goddess form.

Attending this event is an opportunity for you to experience what Katalin holds most dear about Mother India: the merging of art~sacred~ceremony with the everyday~ mundane~ordinary. Katalin and the extraordinary Dakini goddesses, dancers, singers and musicians are creating a space that connects us to the ancient Dakini~Yogini temple, to forge a bridge between a time of honoring the Goddess, the sacred feminine and now, a time of full Rebirth.

Here you will be able to make offerings from your heart, experience sacred chanting, participate in ceremonial expression and beauty and find the quality of transcendence in creating and stating your own personal self~marriage vows.

featured:

~Interactive Dakini Goddesses
~Tribal Fusion Bellydancers: Starfire Flame Sisters
~Kirtan with Robinette & Friends
~Inner Shrine to Write, Speak Vows to Self
~Indian Delights Including Raw Foods, Elixirs and Chai

Saturday, April 27th, 7 PM, $10
at 12 MileMarker, Route 130,
Pahoa, Big Island HAWAII

www.katalinkoda.com
www.earthweaver.blogspot.com

Fire of the Goddess: Embodying the Sacred Feminine

Fire of the Goddess celebrates Summer Solstice on the Big Island of Hawaii

Join us in this special women’s retreat to honor Midsummer, a time of celebration, joy and activation.  On the Big Island, we are ignited by the power and magic of Pele, the goddess of fire and the volcano.  As the year turns toward the dark, this is the moment to take a leap of faith into the unknown and find our wildest potential, supported by love, beauty and strength in a circle of women.

Summer Solstice is the moment when the sun reaches its furthest point from the equator and is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  This is considered a potent magical time to assist us on our life’s paths.

This course is appropriate for any woman who is yearning to activate and deepen her connection to her own infinite potential.  

Fire of the Goddess uses the sacred art of circling and ceremony, explorations of goddess mythology and the ancient practice of Yoga to connect deeply with our inner love, power and wisdom.  Anusara, flowing with Grace,  Yoga aligns us directly with the divine and empowers us as women to embody our divinity in feminine form.  Inspired by the Big Island’s natural landscapes of ocean, volcano, caves and jungles we integrate the wonder of nature and transform our lives into wholeness and fulfillment.

Fire of the Goddess:  Celebrate Summer Solstice includes:

~Daily Anusara Yoga and Women’s Circles

~Goddess Mythology

~Shamanic Journeywork

~Healing Practices and Sacred Space Work

~Initiations into Personal Power

~Bonfire Ceremony

~Opportunities to Explore the Coast of the Big Island

Fire of the Goddess retreat is located at Kalani Honua on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Check out more here! This special Summer Solstice retreat will be held at the Ocean Cottages, a secluded area of Kalani’s grounds giving us the quiet serenity to dive deep into our work with the sacred feminine.  Accommodation at Kalani is eco-village style, simple and comfortable with low impact living.  Cost includes three gourmet meals a day on the open air lanai and access to all of Kalani facilities. There will be free time to use the services including the pool, sauna, jacuzzi, traditional Hawaiian massage and various healing treatments.

Reserve your space now, email Katalin at katalinkoda@gmail.com

an event to

Celebrate the Sacred Feminine
be blessed, be healed, be touched

Fire of the Goddess Book Release by Katalin Koda, local Puna author

Featuring musical performances by:

Lizae Reyes:  healing arts ritualist inspired by Ancestral Philippine Tradtions

Mary Isis ~ Iris Eve ~ Sarah B

plus Sacred Feminine Kirtan with Sita Devi and Kelley

~books for sale and signing~

~Goddess invocations and multidimensional interactions~

~health treats and elixers available for purchase~

$10–15 love donation

www.katalinkoda.com

www.sustainable-hawaii.org

808-769-7645

Pele, the fire goddess that dwells on the Big Island of Hawai’i is back in action, once again.  Check out this video for latest incredible lava

Fire of the Goddess

flows!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eOPLYa7hng

Below is the myth of how Pele came to live on the island, adapted from Linda Ching’s Hawaiian Goddesses and retold in my book, Fire of the Goddess published by Llewellyn Worldwide, July 2011.

How Pele Came to Live on Hawai’i

Pele was born with long flowing red hair, different from all the rest of her brothers and sisters.  Her temper was quite fierce, another trait that set her apart from her family.  Pele’s mother was the Earth Goddess Haumea and her father, Wākea, ruler of the sky. She had many brothers and sisters, all who are guardians of the elements of nature.  Pele inspired love and devotion in all of her family except for one sister, Nāmakaokaha’i, or Nāmaka, the goddess of water who was threatened by Pele’s fiery nature.

As a child, Pele loved to lick the fire and dance with the flames.  This sickened her sister, Nāmaka who would watch from the outskirts as Pele’s scarlet hair caught fire and she inhaled cinders delightedly.  Nāmakaokaha’i knew Pele carried immense power, holding the potential to burn bigger and brighter than any fire.  Once, when Pele realized Nāmaka was watching her, Pele shrugged and said it was merely child’s play, but Nāmaka knew better.  The two sisters stared at each other with an intense dislike until the moment was broken by Hi’iaka, Pele’s favorite sister.

Hi’iaka was the youngest and most loved of Pele’s family and would soon join Pele on her journey.  Hi’iaka was born in a special way, in the form of an egg and was nurtured by Pele until she became a goddess.  Together, the two formed a deep, loving friendship and sisterhood.

One day, Nāmaka returned from her travels through the waters of nearby islands.  When she arrived home, she found much of the land burned and scalded by Pele’s searing fiery work.  Because of Pele’s unquenchable desire and formidable power to change the land, Nāmaka convinced their mother, Haumea that Pele should be banished from the homeland.  Haumea, earth mother and guardian of the sacred homeland, listened closely to Nāmaka.  Finally, her heart heavy with sorrow, she decided that Nāmaka was right, that Pele must find a new place to work her powerful magic, one that would not destroy their home or ohana (family).

Pele did not fight against her dear mother’s wishes.  She took only two things with her:
her magic firestick which enabled her to connect with the inner fire of the land, and her beloved sister Hi’iaka. Other loyal attendants joined them including several brothers and sisters who decided they wanted to live with Pele once she found a suitable place to reside.  The group left their homeland, in a sacred canoe and followed the stars across the Pacific.

Finally she reached the chain of Hawai’ian islands.  But the first island in the chain was still too close to the water and Nāmaka’s wrath.  Similarly her fire was too close to the water on the island of O’ahu.  She moved on to Maui, leaving behind a trail of smoke and volcanic glow that rose up from the craters.  This infuriated Nāmaka who set out to destroy Pele once and for all.   Before they fought, Pele made a deal with Nāmaka, that they would fight on their own terms, using their personal powers.

The destructive, wrathful fires of Pele rose up to meet the powerful waves of Nāmaka.  They fought an entire day, masses of steam rising up between the wall of water and fountain of fire.  Finally, Nāmaka, in her weariness, dishonored the fight and called Haui, the sea serpent to her.  Reinforced by his strength, Nāmaka and Haui defeated Pele and tore her body apart, scattering her bones on the island of Maui.  Nāmaka gloated to the others of her victory for a short time, before one of the gods, Kāne, pointed to the sky above Hawai’i.  There, over Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, the mountains on Hawai’i, the heavens were ablaze as if they had been set on fire.  The spirit of Pele glowed in the skies, reborn in the ethers.

Pele again assumed human form and reunited with her family.  They sailed to Hawai’i, the last island on the chain.  As she climbed upon the new land, she felt a shudder of beauty and feeling of home move through her.  She climbed up Kilauea and struck the earth a final time with her firestick.  At that moment, she heard the ‘elepaio bird sing and felt it was a favorable omen.  She laughed with delight as she realized the site was perfect, far enough away from the wrath of Nāmaka.  Pele worked with her stick, forming the crater and filling it with the boiling, molten lava and joyfully sending it down the slope, into the sea.  The work of the Fire Bearer could finally flourish.  There, at the pit of Halema’uma’u, Pele took up residence with her family.  She can be seen there to this day, still happily sending fiery lava destroying and creating land as is her wondrous passion.  Pele brought her power of fire to the islands, a gift that reminds of continuous creation and destruction and inspires us to seek our own Fire Bearer within.

Big Island, Hawaii. Only a few spots left! Learn More >

Explore the limitless power of the Sacred Feminine, nourished by the practice of Anusara Yoga on the stunning Big Island of Hawaii. The goddess Pele is honored here, as the keeper of living land where lava meets the ocean. Inspired by her magical work, we transform our pain and life obstacles into power, recover inner passion and reclaim our lives. With the lava flowing into the ocean less than ten miles from Kalani, we learn to create our lives anew.

This women’s retreat will use the sacred technology of shamanism, goddess archetypes and the ancient practice of Yoga to connect deeply with our inner love, power and wisdom. Anusara “flowing with Grace” yoga aims to align us directly with the divine and empowers us as women to embody our divinity in feminine form.

Using shamanic work such as creating ceremony and journey work, alongside the restorative and powerful practice of Anusara Yoga, we will uncover our personal connections to the Sacred Feminine and how to apply this to our everyday reality. Inspired by the Big Island’s natural landscapes of ocean, volcano, caves and jungles we can integrate the power and beauty of nature to transform our lives into ones of wholeness and fulfillment. This course is appropriate for any woman who is yearning to activate and deepen her connection to her sacredness as a woman on earth today.

Imagine yourself:

~Immersing in daily Anusara Yoga, Meditation and Chanting
~Focusing on the Goddess Archetypes
~Re-ingniting your passion with a Bonfire Ceremony
~Shamanic Journeywork
~Watsu Water Healing Session
~Healing Practices and Sacred Space Work
~Initiations into Personal Power
~Excursion to Sacred Hawaiian Site
~Opportunities to Explore the Coast of the Big Island

The retreat is located at Kalani on the Big Island of Hawaii. Accommodation at Kalani is eco-village style, simple and comfortable with low impact living and includes three gourmet meals a day on the open air lanai and access to all of Kalani facilities. There will be free time to use the services including the pool, sauna, jacuzzi, traditional Hawaiian massage and various healing treatments.

See here for more details.

I’ve been bitten by the travel bug once again and am excitedly packing up our house in preparation for our imminent three month journey to Thailand, Laos and Nepal.  This will be our first trip to Asia where we are not returning home, but visiting, playing and delighting in the wonders of the East, knowing all the while that will come back to Hawai’i.  This makes the trip altogether different and I have many plans to engage with the beauty, wildness, dharma, suffering, passions that are Asia…to do all the things I never made time for before (even in seven years of living in India, visiting Thailand countless times, spending two months in Nepal in 2003…)  Like, taking a Thai cooking class, photographing the people and sites with more attention, visiting places new to me: Chiang Mai in Thailand, Laos, and the emerging rock Tara in Pharping and shamans of Pokhara in Nepal.  Yet, as those of us Asia travelers know, its best to leave some wide open room in our days to allow the magic, the unknown, the beauty of traveling to arise…and see or do things we couldn’t have thought of.  That is how traveling, and especially the intensely magic spots of the world work…

But before we depart this unique and magical Big Island of Hawai’i, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to all the blessings from the ‘aina (land) of this place: flowing lava, the ocean waters, the neverending jungly growth, the people who swirl and dance, create and destroy reflecting Pele’s passions…

I’ve been meaning to make a list to remind me of the specific culture that resides in the wondrous, eclectic nutness that is Puna, and now is the perfect opportunity…’you know you’ve been in Puna a while when…’

~seeing rainbows, swimming with dolphins and watching lava flow become ‘normal activities’
~you primarily drink out of mason jars (even wine) and know that every gathering you go to requires bringing food to share…the eternal ‘Puna potluck’
~singing, chanting, circling and dancing open and close most events
~Kona side seems awfully far away…even thought its only a couple hours!
~smell whiffs of green medicine on a regular basis, check out land where people brew vast vats of ayahuasca and  many people communicate as if they are already on the magical mystery tour…
~the five year olds have a complete understanding of meditation, yoga, gurus, raw foods and ecstatic dance
~greeting and saying goodbye to people involves long hugs, spontaenous healings and even contact dance moves
~children have feet so tough they can walk, run even, on a’a and this is far more heroic than any designer clothes
~if you don’t know what the ‘natch’ is, you seriously are not living in the Punaverse
~fashionable clothing consists of rips, tears, thoughtful cutting, poetry painted fabric, and surge seams

And many more things too… and living in each person who chooses to reside here (whether a week, a month or ten years) is that incredible love for the wild nature and beauty that is Puna.  Puna means ‘Spring’ in Hawaiian as in the fresh, clear waters of this vivid jungle island spot named for the gorgeous springs of hot, warm, and cool waters collecting in lava rock pools…the rugged black lava that smacks up against the indigo blue of the endless Pacific…she is in my heart, the spirit of this place and I hold her close as we offer flowers for our return…

This Big Island of Hawai’i is continuously growing and birthing new land…destroying the old in it’s wake.  We have been recently blessed with the imminent presence of Pele in the last weeks, as the flow has returned in full force to the Kalapana, just down the road from where we live (about 6 miles away).  Going out early in the morning, still dark, the moon lighting the sea and owls flying overhead is so magical and mysterious…then to park the car, walk two minutes and see brand new lava flowing, brilliant orange-red, glowing, creating new earth is stunning, breathtaking.. and leaves me without many words… The pictures speak for themselves in those moment, and I can only say a deep and reverent Mahalo me ke Aloha la to all the spirits for showing their earthly powers…

As I finish up my final rewrite… I feel I have come full circle.  Arriving on this Island with the smoky memories of India and karmic offerings to Pele, finding our way and place in this community, beginning to write a book that starts with Pele’s arrival to this island…and now finishing as a witness to the creation of new land.. surely a more fitting blessing could not be found!  This island…this life…this earth is so wondrous .. .

The past two weeks have been a wondrous stream of ceremonial activity. I feel I have deeply shifted from one level of creating Ceremony to a whole new and wondrous place of deep trust, connectedness and immense feminine power. A very real power that is inherently united with love and wisdom, a trio of themes that interconnect all aspects of Life. As my co-teacher and I led our womyn students through a path of Power, Love, Wisdom and Integration we found these qualities reverberating through our own lives…

This past month, the month of Wisdom, I created much Ceremony. The turning point, though, was no doubt the Seven Directions Mystic Alchemy journey on March 1st. Seven gorgeous, loving, divine womyn and I began our voyage on the eastern side of the Big Island in Kaimu.  We ventured into the dawn where Shaella Noella called in the East and we were met with a full rainbow arching in the rising sun, the promise of a sublime day. We made our first synergetic essence, my first making of a flower essence ever, and it felt so natural and lovely to pluck fresh flowers in new day’s light and cast them into the shimmering water of a crystal bowl. Blessed by the rainbow, our prayers, songs and intentions to create a series of essences in each direction, we then bottled the essence and carried on to our next destination.

We worked our way around the island, traipsing from place to place in our wild gypsy clothes, aboard the comfortable Tsunami blue van resting, singing, chanting and loving…as only a group of womyn can do. We made our way to the steam vents where we called in the depth of Below guided by Angela and the passion of Pele breathing her way into our bodies shining in the new morning. We filled the crystal bowl with the surrounding flowers and rocks, creating an essence of strength and beauty. After the steam vents came Kilauea Crater where our group sat in silence, honoring the center, quietly celebrating Pele and her power, her magic; creating an essence from the peculiar plants that grow alongside the crater of Hale Ma’u Ma’u.

Priestess Amy called in the South with brilliance, fire and power at South Point, overlooking the endless Pacific blue.  As we drove around the island to the West, our journey was accompanied by the vibrations of the shruti, chanting, escaping nipples and raucous womyn laughter. At Kua Bay I called in the West and drummed over our glass bowl of coral, sand, beach plants and flowers, the essence of Kanaloa and Yemaya. We completed our journey on Mauna Kea where Suzanne Breeze called the North, after plucking geranium blossoms from a bush on the mountain. As the scent of the flowers filled the van, she told us it was her Grandmother’s favorite flower, a  connection to her ancestors and the wisdom of the Grandmothers. At last, TreeStar called the above, using the sacred skullcap bowl, inviting in the Sky beings and crystalline airs. In the night, the foggy air swirled around us, casting an enchanting mystical resonance through our bones and blood as we completed our incredible journey of creating essences.

Returning home, I slept soundly then awoke and spent the next four days teaching Reiki. I made my own first synergy flower essence with my Reiki class, blessed by the attunements. Steeped in wisdom I have since created a lot of ceremony since: Reiki One and Two attunements, walking the Labyrinth with our Sacred Feminine Intensive class, visiting the Yoni cave and recently, performing a handfasting for  friends.

I have certainly been filling my role as Priestess! My ceremony work has become increasingly more magical, more spontaneous and so wondrously blessed by this incredible island. In the Yoni cave I met an intense medicine, a powerful imprint of Pele and am slowly beginning to integrate the full meanings of such Power, Love and Wisdom.

>In Hawai’i, I am finding that we are exposed to a variety of teachers and masters who come through to give offerings to Pele of Hawai’i and share their wisdom with locals and guests alike. This past weekend I received a wonderful healing and blessing from two Inkan Master Healers in the south district of Ka’u on the Big Island, Hawai’i.

I drove down with a friend and Yoko, leaving the lush, humid Puna coast, climbing up Kilauea mountain where the active volcano is continuously pouring lava out onto the mountain, down the slopes into the sea. This island is famous for its micro climates and it really is stunning how you can flow from wet to dry, lush to desolate, ocean to mountaintop in a matter of minutes.

We stopped at Punalu’u beach where sea turtles, or Honu, make their home munching endlessly on the tasty seaweed that grows on black lava rocks. The black sand is hot and clings to your skin here, shining in the sun as the locals swim in the freezing cold Pacific indigo water, counting turles. Yoko hopped around amongst yellow sea butterflies, digging trails in the sand. Seeing the massive turtles pull themselves up onto the beach is amazing to me, even if it is commonplace for Hawai’i!

Anyway, we arrived in at the orchards where the ceremony was held, a despacho or offering, made to Mother Earth known as Panchamama by these extraordinary Master Healers. They came from the Andes mountains in Peru, brought by their faithful student who resides in Hawai’i, to share their knowledge with others and co-mingle spiritual energy with Hawai’i. The couple, who have been together for over fifty years, practicing healing and spiritual work, hail from the Q’ero Nation of Peru, some of the last pure descendants of the Inkan people. Their village is only 400 people and we were told that these two, who must be in their 70s, are of the last of the elders still living!

Indeed, I felt very blessed to be a part of the ceremony. We were given cocoa leaves while the couple built a beautiful mandala-like offering with flowers, candles, seeds, leaves, grain and candies, blowing their spirit breath continously into the offerings. Several pairs of red and white objects were laid into the despacho, the red symbolizing Mother Earth, Panchamama and her Spirit and the white symbolizing the Masculine, male spirits of the Mountains. They were assisted by two Hawai’ians, one woman and one man, effectively weaving the traditional flowers of this place and the colors of the two countries flags together. This was moving, to say the least. After we blew our own dedication to Mother Earth into the cocoa leaves, we gave them to the Healers to put in the offering. We were then given maize to blow our desires or wishes and put them ourselves into the despacho, alongside two crisp hundred dollar bills. Practical wishes of business going well, along with the spiritual, amused me and seemed just right!

Finally, after an hour or more of this, with lots of breath and connectedness, the despacho was filled. Yoko had fallen completely asleep and I carried her to the fire that was made to receive the offering. As it was thrown in and burning, our circle of people, mostly from Ka’u, I suppose, and the Peruvian couple hugged one another other in joy. He played the flute and the Hawai’ian man played the conch shell as we let our offering sing itself back to Mother Earth.

I am so thankful to be living in this incredibly rich, interesting place, a place abundant with beautiful nature and wondrous people drifting onto and off this magical island. If you want to know more about these lovely Peruvians and their work, please visit
http://www.inka-online.com/

Aloha…