31/07 - 04/08 AYUR DEVI Retreat

AYUR DEVI

Between tantra, ayurveda, and the divine embodied in a woman’s body

31 July – 4 August | Madre Selva, Tuscany

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The retreat

These five days at Madre Selva offer a tangible, embodied opportunity to enter a space at the heart of divine love as it lives through the body of a woman.

For this love to truly inhabit the body, women are invited to reconnect with their inner cycles in resonance with the seasons, the moon, and the elements.

This is Shakti: alive, shifting, and ever-changing.

Not something to control or endure, but something to meet.

To learn how to remain present within her movement and her transformation.

That becomes possible when another polarity also awakens within: the presence of Shiva.

An inner verticality, steady and grounded, moving through the spine — what yogic traditions call the Inner Lingam.

This presence makes it possible not to be swept away by the storms of cyclicity, nor to suppress them.

Instead, it allows each woman to observe what the Divine Mother reveals through every cycle, and to stay in relationship without losing herself.

This retreat is a space to cultivate both dimensions:

• the sacredness of movement (Shakti)
• the stability of presence (Shiva)

so they may meet in the body.

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Who will guide you

Throughout these days, Nadeshwari Joythimayananda will share practices, rituals, and teachings shaped by years of experience and transmission across Asia and around the world.

What she offers is not theoretical, but embodied.

Through yoga, dance, ritual, and presence, participants will enter into frequencies that cannot be learned by the mind, only recognized through the body.

These methods were passed on to her by her teachers within a path rooted in yoga, ayurveda, and shamanic traditions from different parts of the world.

Raised in a home where these disciplines were part of daily life — with an ayurvedic physician and yoga teacher as a father and a mother who was a spice healer — Nadeshwari has spent more than 13 years bringing this work to women in the West, accompanying thousands through journeys, trainings, and retreats.

Her approach integrates:

• Traditional yoga
• Ayurveda
• Tantric practices for the feminine
• A trauma-informed approach

Each offering is shaped by a balance between activation and containment.

That containment is supported by the embrace of the Divine Mother and the presence of the Inner Lingam.

The work is also deeply informed by an understanding of the autonomic nervous system: the approach is careful not to push beyond what the system can hold, but to create the conditions for the body to feel safe enough to soften and release.

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What we will experience

There is nothing to achieve.

And nothing new to learn.

Through carefully designed practices, the body is guided to:

• step out of habitual patterns and automatic responses
• release deep tension
• return to a more natural rhythm
• reopen subtler perception

Within this space, a quality of sisterhood also begins to emerge.

Not constructed.

Not directed in a conventional way.

But arising naturally.

A subtle coherence among women, born from the field itself.

A play of reflections, recognitions, and mirrors.

Each woman meets something of herself through the other, without this becoming a burden or a dynamic to carry.

The field is opened with precision.

And it is also closed with care.

So that what has emerged can integrate, without remaining attached.

Without carrying the projections of others.

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What we will do

The work brings together several layers:

• Yoga (slow, somatic, and dynamic practices)
• Tantric practices for the feminine (Shakti)
• Breathwork and nervous system support
• Presence and verticality development (Shiva / Inner Lingam)
• Intuitive movement and dance
• Rituals and ceremonies
• Ayurveda, with the possibility of personalized treatments and consultations

These are interwoven with specific teachings and practices, including:

• The circle and its power for systemic self-healing
• Work with Lalita Devi Tripura Sundari as the Shakti of the three planes: subtle, material, and causal
• The meeting of erotic energy and spiritual aspiration
• Lunar weaving
• The waxing and waning moon
• The 12 archetypes of lunar femininity
• Slowing down to feel pleasure
• Welcoming needs and emotions
• Reopening the channels of sensuality in the body
• Feminine spirituality
• Reframing the meaning of prayer
• Rediscovering sacredness through the body as the “ritual body of the earth”
• Yoni Yoga
• Tantric and Taoist practices to connect with the energy of the Yoni
• The Yoni as the “gateway of the temple”
• Yoni Nidra
• The “sleep of the yoginis”
• Exploration of feminine intimacy in the space between sleep and wakefulness
• Integration of the energy awakened during the day

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Elements and ritual

During the retreat, we will also work with the elements, especially:

• fire, through Agni (Yagna) rituals for purification and transformation
• water, through Jala Puja blessing ceremonies

These elements support the movement of Shakti, while presence in the body sustains the quality of Shiva.

Transformation happens in the meeting of these two poles.

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Ayurveda and nourishment

During the retreat, it will be possible to receive:

• Ayurvedic treatments
• personalized guidance

The food will also follow a rhythm connected to cyclicity and purification.

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Program

31 July – Arrival and opening

• Arrival by 16:00
• 17:00 – 19:00 Opening circle in Lalita Devi Tripura Sundari
• Welcome
• Creating the space
• Landing in the body
• First listening to the nervous system
• 19:15 Dinner
• 21:30 The first evening opens with the concert “Riforesta la tua mente,” also open to the public.
• A participatory sound journey in which Nadeshwari’s voice creates a vibrational weave between inner and outer forests: a first entry into the field of the work, through frequencies that will later be crossed, recognized, and integrated during the retreat.

1 – 2 – 3 August

• 7:30 Detox herbal tea
• 8:00 – 11:00 Morning practices
• Yoga and breath
• Developing presence along the spine
• Nervous system regulation
• 11:15 Brunch
• 13:00 – 14:00 Shared theory
• 14:00 – 17:00 Break
• 17:00 – 19:00 Afternoon practices
• Dance and movement
• Tantric practices
• Shiva/Shakti integration
• Fire or Water ceremony
• 19:15 Dinner

4 August – Integration and closing

• 7:30 Detox herbal tea
• 8:00 – 11:00 Final practice
• Integration
• Closing
• 11:15 Brunch and farewells

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Nadeshwari Joythimayananda

Born in Sri Lanka into a Tamil family originally from India, she moved to Italy with her family at the age of three due to the genocide in Sri Lanka. This marked the beginning of her boundless dance between East and West, which has shaped her entire life.

She holds a degree in Herbal Techniques and lives among the forests of the Ligurian mountains, where she lovingly and joyfully dedicates herself to the magic of flowers and the moon. She teaches yoga from a tradition open to the feminine, oriented toward cyclicity, strength, and receptivity, through original and spontaneous tools rooted in traditions from Asia, Europe, and Central America. She is co-founder and author of the free online transcultural magazine Matrika–Consciousness Development.

She collaborates with La Grande Via, founded by Dr. Franco Berrino, and with Science and Nonduality, an international community inspired by timeless wisdom and informed by cutting-edge science. After more than a decade in Europe transmitting circle-based mindfulness practices, she created the Italian training Yogini Shakti and various online courses dedicated to the many shades of feminine cyclicity, for women and with women, in service of a shared feminine maturity. She is co-author of the book for daughters, women, and grandmothers: Lunatika, viaggio nell'universo femminile (Macro Edizioni).