Pleasure as Prayer: Embracing Fear & Sacred Sexuality in the Navarātri Online Festival with Sharada Devi | Ep 33
Pleasure as Prayer.
These words have been moving through my heart as the living theme for this year’s Navarātri Online Festival.
The choice is not accidental. For many of us, prayer has been tied to duty, to fear, to heaviness. And pleasure has often been hidden in the shadows, wrapped in shame or secrecy.
Yet what if both prayer and pleasure were never meant to be separate.
In this new episode of Born to Be Free, I place myself in the seat of the guest, while my dear sister and longtime student, Amanda Devi, steps in as hostess.
Amanda’s own journey began years ago when she first joined Navarātri, a doorway that opened her into the teachings of devotion and sacred sexuality, into women’s circles, priestess initiations, and into her own path as a therapist and guide. So it feels deeply precious that she is the one guiding this conversation.
Together we enter a very human and sacred inquiry: fear, prayer, and pleasure.
Fear is something we all know.
The fear of not being enough.
The fear of judgment.
The fear of being misunderstood.
My own teacher once gave me a mantra that changed everything: “Oh fear, I welcome you, you are my best friend.” Over time I learned to walk with fear instead of fighting it. To breathe it in, to give it space, to let it soften me. When I could do that, fear itself became a kind of prayer… a doorway into freedom.
And then there is pleasure. Not the kind clouded by shame or pressure, but the simple pleasure of being alive. The breath moving through the body. The warmth of touch. The joy of intimacy with life itself. When held in reverence, pleasure too becomes prayer — a way of offering our humanity back to the Goddess.
From September 22 to October 1, our Free Navarātri Online Festival will gather seekers from across the world. This year is especially precious because instead of inviting dozens of outside teachers, we will be guided by the very faculty of The Muse, The Golden Womb. What you will taste in Navarātri is a glimpse into the deeper Muse journey — a weaving of trauma-informed healing, sacred sexuality, and embodied devotion, offered in the spirit of the Goddess.
If you have ever carried fear in your body, if you have longed to feel your devotion alive in every breath, these nine nights are for you.
Come as you are.
Bring your fear, bring your longing, bring your joy.
Together we will remember.
Together we will pray.
Together we will celebrate that pleasure too belongs to the sacred.
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KEYNOTES
-Amanda’s journey as longtime student & priestess began when she first joined the Navarātri Festival
-Welcoming Fear as a Teacher
-Self-Knowledge as the Solution to Fear
-Tools for Emotional Healing
-Use of breath, sound, movement, and touch to process and release emotions
-Navarātrī theme of the year is "Pleasure as Prayer”
-Invitation for all to join The Navarātrī Free Online Festival -Celebration of the Goddess
-The festival and programs are for anyone seeking meaning, self-acceptance, harmony, and true happiness
-The Muse, The Golden Womb Program: a 13-month journey focusing on embodiment, sacred sexuality, and self-healing. -The program is structured in trimesters: personal healing, learning to coach others, and understanding relationships.
-Ritualizing Life and Reclaiming Power
-Universal Values
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ABOUT Amanda Roth
Amanda Roth is a 500-hour certified yoga teacher, yoga massage therapist, and ACT/CBT therapist who weaves together somatic awareness, breathwork, Advaita Vedānta, and poetic movement to guide others home to themselves. With years of experience teaching yoga, leading retreats, women’s circles, and therapeutic groups, she developed Moving Conversations—an integrative approach that blends somatic movement, embodied dialogue, and conscious sharing. Her offerings span breathwork journeys, sensual embodiment practices, and eco-somatic explorations rooted in nature, poetry, and myth.
Deeply immersed in feminine and tantric teachings, Amanda has completed and assisted in all of Sharada’s programs and retreats. Now part of Sharada’s team, she supports social media and serves as emotional support and therapist on call for The Muse: Golden Womb
Follow Amanda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/movewithroots
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Follow Sharada Devi's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharada_devi_school/
Website: https://www.devischool.info/
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Join the Free Navaratri Online Festival: https://www.devischool.info/navaratri-online-goddess-festival-2025
The Muse (The Golden Womb): https://www.devischool.info/the-muse-online-group-coaching
The Permission (Free Mistress Class aka Master Class): https://www.devischool.info/the-permission
Join the Devi Temple Membership, a one of a kind journey to the sanctuary of your magnificent being where you discover that all you have ever wanted is already here: https://www.devischool.info/devi-temple
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Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/born-to-be-free/id1732123169
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1KLIoHKxifsUo7odfFSV
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