White candles surround a dimly lit room, cushions are scattered in a circle on the floor as ambient music fills the room. Women begin circling the room, forming a seated circle.
They have come to discuss femininity and sexuality.
“The Omni Yoni evenings started at the beginning of the year,” Amy Roux said.
The evenings normally include yoga, meditation, a sharing circle, food and music.
What the women refer to as “work” is framed around women’s masculine and feminine sides and bringing them into union and balance with each other.
Roux, who is on a sexual awakening for women retreat with her teacher, said she began her experience of sexual awakening about two years ago.
A group of women assemble for an Omni Yoni evening.Picture: Facebook
“Since then, I have been doing my apprenticeship with the guidance of my teacher. The transformation into my divine sexual feminine essence, my true nature, that I have felt within me inspires me to share it with as many women as possible because it is such a gift to yourself and to the world around you,” she said.
“Sexuality is our divine nature... our life force energy. When we connect with it and let it flow through our bodies, we come home into ourselves, into love.”
Roux’s partner, Vida Schiff, whose experience of healing mediums began when she was 19, said the sexual awakening evenings had been most effective for her .
The evenings, which the pair host in Cape Town monthly, claim to give insight into how humans function and “allow us to access our past, in order to come fully into our present so we may connect to our deepest desires to create our future,” said Schiff.
A group of women assemble for an Omni Yoni evening.Picture: Facebook
Roux said: “Today, I feel the word ‘sexuality’ and what it means has been so conditioned through media, schools, religion, parents and institutions. We are taught about our sexuality through these ‘lenses’, much of which has caused our sexuality to be shut down. Mine was.
“Most women have learnt about sex and their sexuality through men, who have been taught about their sexuality through pornography, which is not a true reflection of what intimacy or sexuality is.
“Thousands of years ago women were taught about their sexuality by the elders in sacred circles. So, coming together in sisterhood, we learn about ourselves and our sexuality with women. This has been one of the greatest gifts I have received - learning about my sexuality with women in sisterhood.”
The women who come to the circles are seeking more to life, Roux added. One woman, Sheila (who asked to remain anonymous), said: “Omni Yoni events are a truly beautiful experience. They are profound in a way that is difficult to describe as they tap into something intangible - human connection. That is how one feels walking away from an Omni Yoni evening - connected. To yourself and your body, to other women and people, to Mother Earth and to the present moment in a way I never thought possible.”
The group puts details of the next meeting on its Facebook page.