Embodying the Goddess: Divine Pulsation with Cynthia Abulafia

Name: Embodying the Goddess: Divine Pulsation with Cynthia Abulafia
Start: 2026-01-24T10:30:00-08:00
Location: The Alembic

Schedule

Sat, 24 Jan, 2026 at 10:30 am

UTC-08:00

Location

The Alembic | Berkeley, CA

In this workshop, inspired by her book Embodying the Goddess, Cynthia Abulafia provides an experiential encounter with the nondual divine feminine through natural breathing, tantric breathwork, and guided meditation. This offering weaves together yoga therapy and tantra, harmonizing physiology, subtle energy, and direct recognition of the sacred within the body.
From yoga therapy, we explore skillful access to the ribcage, the physiology of breathing, and the intimate relationship between breath, heart, diaphragm, and pelvic floor. From tantra, we explore the direct experience of breath as goddess. In nondual tantra, the breath is the very body of the divine, pulsing as expansion and contraction, continually returning to the self-reflexive heart of being.
We are often taught that rest happens in stillness, yet this reflects a deeper “transcendence bias” that fuels an avoidant “let it go” spirituality. True rest arises through pulsation. We feel it when holding a loved one, an animal, or a young child against our skin and listening to the heartbeat. We feel it in the rhythm of ocean waves, or when powerful musical beats bring the nervous system into deep regulation. Rest does not just live in transcendent stillness, but in the rhythmic pulsing that reveals the deep heart.
This workshop invites us to counter the transcendence bias by experiencing radical embodiment as sacred. Breath becomes the ever-present gift of being itself, offering rest, intimacy, and divine presence simply through the act of breathing.
Cynthia Abulafia is an educator, author, and yoga teacher devoted to giving language to the divine feminine. As the author of Embodying the Goddess: How to Cultivate Curiosity and Reverence on the Spiritual Path, she works from the belief that words matter. Naming and mapping the divine feminine can awaken curiosity in the heart and invite rebalancing in the body.
Cynthia is committed to examining and dismantling the conditioning of patriarchal spirituality, which she calls the transcendence bias. For her, embodied experience is itself the teacher. Following a series of kundalini awakenings, she dedicated herself to the Goddess, whom she describes as breath itself. In her workshops, trauma-informed yoga teacher trainings, retreats, and writing, Cynthia presents the breath as a living map of experience and offers natural breathing practices to engage this map directly.
Cynthia holds the highest credentials in yoga and yoga therapy, has a master’s degree in nutrition, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Yogic Studies. She is part of a Shakta Tantra lineage, works with students navigating kundalini awakening and spiritual crisis, and is a longtime student and teacher of multiple nondual traditions, with over 20 years of practice and teaching experience.