We are all performers.
Not in the sense of falseness, but in the ancient, reverent sense; to perform as a way of becoming. Of remembering. Of embodying something greater than the self.
The priestess stepping into trance.
The storyteller evoking her ancestors.
The child roaring through the body of a lion.
Each one is performing, and each one is transmitting.
In my work as a guide, I often speak of the body as an altar, the voice as a channel, the moment as a portal. And lately, I’ve noticed a phrase echoing through spiritual spaces: “this is not a performance.” It’s said to emphasize authenticity, to reject falseness. And yet, something about it misses the depth of what performance truly is.
Because when done consciously, performance is one of the oldest medicines we have - a form of sacred embodiment that bridges the seen and unseen, the performer and the divine.
Performance as Prayer
Ritual is performance.
Birth is performance.
Grief is performance.
Even silence, when held with presence, is a kind of holy enactment.
In many feminine spirituality practices, performance is not about display but about devotion - a remembrance of how energy moves through us when we surrender to presence.
To perform is not to pretend. It is to embody. To let the unseen move through form. To say with our posture, breath, and presence: “I am here. I am willing. I am listening.”
There is nothing false about that.
The real question is not whether you are performing, but whether you are aware of the spirit animating the gesture.
The Ego is a Mask, but the Mask Can Become a Portal
In this reality, we each play a role. You may perform mother, teacher, artist, lover, priestess, wanderer, healer. I perform the shape of Carla - this voice, this rhythm, this mirror for your becoming.
But beneath the layers, we are the same. We are the Great Oneness, wearing temporary names and stories. The sacred game is not to shed the role, but to inhabit it so fully that it becomes transparent - a costume of light through which truth shines.
To embody consciously is to engage in a kind of ceremonial performance - a sacred technology as old as time, now finding its way back through modern spiritual retreats that invite movement, expression, and deep inner work.
A Call to Retreat: Your Body is the Stage, Your Soul the Flame
This is why I’m calling you in.
The Return to the Temple Within Hypno-Yoga Retreat in Bali is not a performance in the hollow sense. It’s a women’s spiritual retreat devoted to embodiment, healing, and remembrance. It is a consecrated stage for your aliveness. A space where the masks drop - not to reveal emptiness, but to reveal something truer, vaster, more mythic than personality. You will dance, pray, speak, remember. And none of it is a show. It is soul in motion.
Come not to impress.
Come to inhabit.
Come to become.
Because the world does not need more curated personas.
It needs more embodied presence.
If your body has been calling for a deeper pause; if you’ve been walking the edge between exhaustion and awakening; you may also be moved by The Soul Cost of Burnout: What Happens When We Ignore the Call to Rest.
Together, these pieces trace the full arc of return: from stillness, to embodiment, to the sacred performance of being fully alive.
And that is the most powerful performance of all.
Return to the Temple Within Retreat - Bali