The Goddess Temple of Orange County

Two weeks ago, I entered the doorway of the beautiful Goddess Temple of Orange County, California. I heard about the temple the week before from a lovely woman, Vajra Ma, sitting next to me on the last day at the Woman of Wisdom Conference in Seattle.

She had also presented at the conference and as we discussed our love of dance and where we were traveling to next we discovered we would both be in Southern California. She told me about the Goddess Temple and her presentation about the Natural Spiritual Authority of Woman. I was thrilled when I realized I could be there.

As I toured the temple, the thing that impacted me the most was the beauty everywhere. There were lovely Goddess meditation rooms, luscious places to sit, and visual representations of the Goddess all around. The temple is a sensual feast for the eyes and soul.

The temple was not only exquisite, it was also well organized and professionally well run.  It is supported by local volunteer temple priestesses who assist with events and temple duties. They have a weekly Sunday service and many other special dances and events.

The temple founder and centerholder, Ava, manages the temple with grace, clarity, and purpose. I was able to spend a few moments talking with her afterwords. One of the things she shared was that she had three different marketing companies take a look at the feasibility of a temple like this being supported in the area and all of them came back with no the area couldn’t support it. However, after their first year they had to move to a larger location, and now after four need more space again.

Clearly the Goddess needs room to spread out, grow, expand, and flourish.

Vajra Ma’s talk was filled with insight, wisdom, and reminders of the innate power woman holds in her creational womb center. She and her  husband Wolfgang founded the Southern Oregon Temple of the Goddess in Grants Pass, (southern) Oregon in spring 2007. It is inspired by and modeled in many ways after Ava’s GTOC.

I came away from the evening so excited and uplifted to see what these amazing women have created. It forms a powerful model for any city.

If you go to the Los Angeles area, you owe it to yourself to take the time to visit this lovely place, The Goddess Temple of Orange County. They have a wonderful list of Other Temples on their website if you are traveling and want to see what else might be in the area.

Last night, as I began writing this blog on the Goddess Temple I opened Iris Stewart’s fabulous book Sacred Woman Sacred Dance right to this paragraph…

“Dances of Goddess energy can be done by anyone of any faith. These dances are not “religious,” as we know the word. They are a method of getting in touch with the flow of grace; they are a movement meditation and opportunity to share in community.”

The Goddess Temple of Orange County embodies this flow of grace and is an inspirational model and a feast for the heart & soul.