Tantric Cancer full Moon - The Temple as retreat

The Cancer Full Moon asks a simple question: where do you go when you need to come home to yourself?

Where do you go when you need to feel held and to remember what it feels like to simply be?

For centuries, humans have created temples for exactly this reason: sacred spaces intentionally set apart from the ordinary world and held with devotion and care. Places where you could retreat from the demands of daily life and tend to your inner self. 

In ancient times, temples were thresholds between the inner and the outer. You crossed from the chaos of the marketplace into a space of quiet, presence, ritual. A place where time moved differently and where you could feel differently. 

This is what I wanted to create with Kama Temple in sydney Maroubra.

A physical sanctuary by the sea where you can retreat from the world and come home to yourself.

Here we use breath, sound, movement, and ritual to create a container where your body can feel safe enough to slow down and release what’s been stuck.

The space itself is designed for this:

Soft lighting. Candles everywhere. The sound of the ocean just outside. Rose petals and sheepskin and sacred smoke and warmth. A true sanctuary that you can return to again and again when you need to come home to yourself. A space of rest and reflection and processing.

We attend the temple when we need to step away from the noise of the world and tend to ourselves. 

Your body will tell you when you need retreat

When you are feeling so exhausted that not even deep sleep can fix it. When you’re feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed or alternatively, like you’re numb to sensation - you can’t feel anything.

These are all invitations from the body that it’s time to retreat and return to yourself in a space that can hold you.

Cancer energy teaches us that there's a season for everything: time to be out in the world, and a time to withdraw, a time to give, and a time to receive.

Honouring both is how we stay steady within our own sense of self.

And while not everyone can come to Kama Temple in sydney Maroubra (I will be taking Kama Temple on the road this year) in the meantime you can create a threshold practice in your own home. When you need to come back to yourself, create small daily rituals that signal to your body that this is retreat time.

Light a candle. Take off your day clothes. Put your phone in another room. Rinse your hands and face with water. Have a long steamy shower. Sit in silence for a moment or longer.

Let your body and your mind know its time to let go.

And this Cancer Full Moon, I'm inviting you to ask:

• When do I know it’s time to retreat?

• What does retreat look like to me?

• How do I want to be held?

• What space - physical or energetic - do I need to create for myself in my life?  

With love,

Pauline