DURGA MANDALA
12-Day Navaratri Sadhana Retreat + 2 Month Online Preparation
April 5-16, 2027
Applications open September 1, 2026.
Before sunrise we gather around the fire. We chant. We tend a yantra. We walk through cedar forests and mountain temples. We bathe in Himalayan rivers. We return each evening to mantra, ritual, song, and silence. Slowly, the pace of ordinary life gives way to an older rhythm.
Beginning on the new moon, Navaratri is a sacred period of renewal and transformation - a liminal threshold when dormant life begins to stir and the earth moves through her own passage of rebirth. For centuries, this festival has honored the many faces of Shakti, the living force of creation, inviting us to participate more consciously in the rhythms that move through both the natural world and our own lives.
We are living through a time when many of the systems and stories that once seemed stable no longer feel capable of holding the forces moving through the world. Ecological realities, technologies, identities, communities, and spiritual assumptions are shifting beneath our feet. For many of us, this creates a deep sense of uncertainty. Destabilization becomes especially difficult when it is not accompanied by a deepening into rhythm, beauty, embodiment, and care.
Many contemporary spiritual approaches emphasize extraordinary experiences, altered states, or transcendence. Yet intensity alone is not wisdom. The deeper questions are quieter:
Can we return to balance? Can we remain relational? Can we embody what we discover?
Traditional Tantra offers a different response. Rather than seeking certainty, it cultivates the capacity to remain present within transformation itself. It understands reality as participatory, relational, and alive—and offers practices that deepen our intimacy with that living world.
In Indian mythology, Durga appears precisely when existing forms can no longer contain the forces moving through creation. The sixty-four Yoginis, who form a mandala around the Great Goddess, remind us that wisdom does not emerge by overcoming wildness, but by learning to participate in it with courage, humility, discernment, and devotion.
This retreat is an invitation into that practice.
Traditional Tantra is earthy, relational, ecological, sensuous, beautiful, and at times deeply challenging. It demands precision. At the same time, it asks something profoundly simple of us.
We sit upon the earth.
We feed the fire.
We breathe. We chant together. We learn to listen. We respond.
Over twelve days of shared practice, pilgrimage, ritual, yoga, and devotion, a different rhythm begins to emerge. Many participants discover a renewed intimacy with beauty, mystery, and the quiet aliveness that has always existed beneath the noise of modern life.
Our retreat is rooted in traditional Tantrik practice while remaining accessible to sincere beginners. No previous experience is required.
Highlights of the Retreat:
Rather than presenting a contemporary interpretation of tantra, we practice within a living lineage, sharing teachings and practices received through our years of devoted sadhana, discipleship and direct guidance from our teachers.
Yantra Creation
Create and tend a sacred yantra throughout Navaratri—a living field of attention through which we cultivate perception, devotion, and relationship with the subtle geometries of the Goddess.
Daily Sadhana & Mantra Initiation
Receive mantras from the traditional tantric lineage and establish a daily rhythm of practice, meditating around the yantra. Through repetition, contemplation, and devotion, we attune the body and mind to the living presence of the Goddess.
Tantrik Rituals & Yagnas
Participate in traditional tantric rituals, kriyas, and fire ceremonies. Through the act of offering, we remember our place within the cycles of creation, dissolution, and renewal.
Guided Meditation & Pranayama
Develop steadiness through breath and meditation practices that help the nervous system meet intensity with greater presence, sensitivity, and care.
Morning Chanting & Sun Salutations
Begin each day with movement, mantra, breath, and sacred sound, attuning body and mind to the unfolding rhythms of the day.
Yoga & Energy Body Teachings
Explore the subtle body through daily yoga and teachings on the chakras and nāḍīs, approaching the body as a living instrument of perception and transformation.
Music & Bhakti
Open the heart through sound healing, kirtan, chanting, and devotional song, discovering the power of collective voice to cultivate joy, beauty, and belonging.
Temple Pilgrimage
Visit Chamundi Devi Temple and other sacred sites around Dharamshala, participating in living traditions of devotion while encountering the cultural and spiritual landscape from which these practices emerge.
River Bathing & Rituals
Gather beside the Khanyara Khad River for contemplation, devotional song and ritual offerings, before bathing in its cool waters. Through bathing, prayer and shared ritual practice, we deepen our relationship recwith water as purifier, teacher and living presence.
Earth Altars
Create temporary altars from natural materials, honoring beauty, impermanence, and the intelligence woven through the elemental world.
Hiking & Forest Walks
Walk mountain trails, visit waterfalls, and spend time slowly walking through the cedar forests surrounding the retreat center. Allow the living landscape itself to become part of the practice.
Throughout the retreat, tantric practice becomes a way of meeting vastness without fragmenting. We cultivate sensitivity without overwhelm, devotion without dogma, and discernment without withdrawal. The aim is not to master reality, but to participate more consciously within it.
Rhythm. Mantra. Attention. Ritual. Earth. Voice. Practice. Repeat.
Together we return to the questions at the heart of the tantric path:
How do we become intimate enough with reality to remain awake within transformation without either collapsing or hardening?
How do we remain sensorially, ritually, emotionally, and ethically present within a world that cannot be fully stabilized?
As ordinary rhythms soften, another rhythm becomes audible.
This retreat is an invitation into that remembering.
This retreat is a sacred space for transformation, open to all levels of practitioners. Whether you seek spiritual renewal, a deeper connection to the Divine Feminine, or an immersion in traditional Tantrik practice and ritual, this is a unique and powerful opportunity.
Spaces are limited. Reserve your place today !
ONLINE PREPARATION
February – March 2027
The retreat begins eight weeks before we arrive in India. Participants are invited into a guided, 8-week online preparatory journey beginning on the February 2027 New Moon.
The Online Journey Includes:
30+ Hours of Guided Preparation
Four live 2.5-hour online gatherings held on each New Moon and Full Moon throughout February and March.
Weekly 1-hour guided practice (yoga āsana, prāṇāyāma, chanting, and/or meditation).
Approximately 2 hours of recorded teachings each week, exploring the philosophy, mythology, ritual, and core practices of Traditional Tantra.
Study & Practice Resources
Curated readings to deepen your understanding of the themes explored throughout the retreat.
New Moon and Full Moon playlists to accompany your practice and cultivate the atmosphere of each lunar cycle.
Personal Practice
Daily home sādhanā, adapted to fit the rhythms of everyday life, helping establish a steady practice before we gather in the Himalayas.
Personal ritual practices, including the creation of a simple home altar and guided lunar rituals that cultivate attention, devotion, and continuity between our online gatherings.
Mantra, contemplation, and journaling practices to support the integration of each week's teachings into daily life.
By the time we arrive in Dharamshala, we will already have spent eight weeks practicing together, allowing us to begin the retreat with greater depth, familiarity, and a shared field of attention.
SADHANA RETREAT FACILITATORS
This retreat is lovingly guided by Sulochana and Mischa, each bringing their unique gifts and deep dedication to the Tantrik path:
Sulochana is a tantrik practitioner and facilitator who has spent the past seven years in discipleship and initiatory sadhana within the Shivoham Tantra lineage under Guruji Maharaj. Her work explores the intersection of ritual, embodiment, ecology, devotion, and the animate dimensions of lived experience. Drawing from years of training and practice in tantra, yoga, and sound healing, alongside studies of herbalism, nature-based spirituality, and contemplative inquiry, she is particularly interested in how ancient practices help us cultivate intimacy with beauuty, mystery, and transformation while remaining grounded in ordinary life. Through sadhana, ritual and song, she creates spaces that invite participants into deeper presence, participation, and belonging within a living world.
Mischa Durgawati is a devoted yoga teacher, tantrik sadhak and facilitator, and transpersonal coach who has been teaching and facilitating transformative spaces since 2012. Her work is rooted in deep practice, devotion, and the living traditions of yoga and tantra. Since 2018, she has undertaken dedicated discipleship within the Bhairavanand Tantra lineage under Guruji Maharaj and is empowered to steward traditional tantric sādhanas and guide practitioners in the integration of these teachings. Grounded in years of yoga, ritual, pilgrimage, mythology, and tantrik sadhana, she weaves together embodied movement, mantra, sacred ritual, and inquiry to create transformative and deeply nourishing experiences. Her work invites participants into a living relationship with the teachings, supporting the integration of their wisdom into the fabric of everyday life.
Additionally, GuruMaa Dipti Baswar, the wife and Shakti of our Shivoham Tantrik Master Gurujii, who carries and serves to bridge the teachings of the Bhairavanand lineage will be joining the retreat as our Guest Teacher during part of the Traditional Tantra Sadhana.
Together, they hold a sacred container to explore the alchemy of Tantra and honour the Divine Feminine during the sacred time of Navaratri.
THE VENUE & ACCOMMODATION
We’ve arranged a beautiful retreat venue in Himachal Pradesh, a mixture of stunning tented rooms and cabins nestled in nature by wild rivers dotted with waterfalls and pools for bathing waters. Our retreat is only a short drive to the vibrant and loved temple town of Dharamshala.
WHAT'S INCLUDED:
Breakfast + Chai
All Tantra materials for rituals + ceremony
Yantra Building
Mantra Initiation
Asan (meditation mat)
Yoga Sessions
Fire Ceremony
Kirtan
Talks on Tantra/Alchemy/Navaratri
Forest bathing
Earth altars
Hikes
Waterfall bathing
Chamundi Devi Temple
Dalai Temple Excursion
ADDITIONAL OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES (Price TBD)
Additional excursions
What's Not Included:
International flights and travel
Transport to and from the venue
Meals outside of the retreat venue
Temple donations
Personal shopping
A final note: Traditional Tantric sadhana is a unique and extraordinary path, rich with ritual, devotion and deep inner practices which alchemise our being from the core.
We invite you to come with a curious and open heart and mind!