Goddess Gathering is an intimate Spring Equinox festival held on 40 acres of Texas land, created to celebrate inclusivity and the many facets of the Divine Feminine. For four days, women gather beneath ancient oaks and open skies for healing, music, movement, creativity, ceremony, conversation, laughter, rest, nourishment, and celebration.
This is not a gathering created in opposition to something. We are not creating a matriarchy to replace the patriarchy. We are remembering balance: within ourselves, with one another, with nature, and between giving and receiving, action and rest, strength and tenderness, masculine and feminine, grief and joy.
At the Spring Equinox the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading north. Neither hemisphere leans toward it, and day and night are close to equal.
Metaphorically, the Equinox is a threshold of balance. Light and darkness meet as near equals. Neither defeats the other; both belong. From that balanced threshold, the season moves toward warmth, germination, growth, and emergence. The seed does not reject winter. It grows from it.
Light and shadow. Ancestors and descendants. Grief and joy. Masculine and feminine.
Nature and humanity. Self and community. The past and the future.
Balance isn't stagnation. Balance is the fertile point from which new life emerges. This becomes the architecture of the festival itself.
Gates open at 2:00 PM. Arrive slowly, find your accommodations, explore the land, meet one another, and settle. Thursday is intentionally spacious: eat breakfast and lunch before you arrive and bring a simple dinner or snacks for the first evening. Coffee and tea are provided, with fruit on Friday morning before brunch.
After coffee, tea, fruit, and a leisurely morning, we gather for brunch and the official opening. Sonya Sophia leads the first collective EFT experience, Healing What Happened: a sacred time to honor what has been and create space for what is possible. Through tapping, compassionate witnessing, and shared intention, we release traumas carried through our lives, families, and lineages, creating repair so we can meet one another as the women we have become.
At the heart of the Equinox, Sonya leads Right Relationship. When light and darkness stand in balance, healing is not about this versus that; it is about creating right relationship. Through tapping and self-reflection, we explore harmony with ourselves, our lives, our missions, one another, the Earth, our ancestors, and the sacred balance of light and shadow.
The closing experience is Spring Up. Through collective tapping, gratitude, and ceremony, we anchor what we have remembered and prepare to plant it at home. Like spring itself, we rise with renewed purpose, allowing our healing to take root, blossom, and nourish the lives we touch.
Goddess Gathering takes place on 40 acres of open Texas countryside in McDade, about 45 minutes east of Austin, on land Sonya Sophia tends for ceremony, healing and celebration. Everything is within a five-minute walk.
Tap a place on the map to step inside. Locations are approximate.
Music is woven through Goddess Gathering rather than treated as background entertainment. Jade, our Musical Director and Entertainment Coordinator, curates evening music, theater, dance and performance, emcees, and hosts a community talent show.
Sonya hosts at least two hour-long ecstatic dance experiences as DJ and song creator: anchor moments for the whole community, never competing with a workshop.
Leads Healing What Happened on Friday, Right Relationship on Saturday, and Spring Up as part of Sunday's closing ceremony.
A blindfolded Latihan experience exploring surrender, intuition, embodiment, movement, and trust in the unseen.
Has walked the path of mysteries for over 20 years, blending many traditions of healing, ceremony and transformation. Offering details coming soon.
Offering details coming soon.
Offering details coming soon.
Offering details coming soon.
Curates our evening music, theater, dance and performance, and hosts the community talent show.
Another presenter will be announced soon.
More presenters and performers to be announced.
Holds the overarching vision, programming, creative direction, daily collective EFT experiences, ecstatic dance, original music, and ceremonial arc.
Leads the gathering on the ground: volunteers, the gate, parking, and the team that keeps everything flowing.
Holds presenter relations, administration, schedule coordination and guest communications, and contributes as a presenter.
Knows the land best. Holds site readiness, glamping setup, workshop spaces, purchasing and infrastructure.
Curates music, theater, dance, evening entertainment and performers, and emcees the gathering.
Builds the Goddess Gathering website, tickets and gate.
"It was a magical gathering of women/witches/healers/artists in the forest near Tahoe. I unleashed parts of myself I didn't know existed."
"I felt welcomed & embraced the moment I arrived as a solo traveler. I learned powerful techniques to take home and use for the rest of my life."
"I am still basking in the afterglow of Sovereign! 150 women gathered from all over the country in the most magical forest near Lake Tahoe."
"My experience at Sovereign is making me the woman I want to be...the woman I've always known deep down I am."
When you buy your tickets, each person (adults and children alike) chooses one way to be nourished:
Bring or support the Stone Soup. Bring a generous helping of one ingredient for the kitchen (onions, potatoes, celery, tomatoes, salt), or choose the $25 Do-It-For-Me and we'll shop for you. Keep your ingredient with you on Thursday night and bring it to the house on Friday, fresh and in good condition. For everyone's health, our kitchen team can't accept food that's expired, spoiled or past its best.
The food plan, $50. Five meals: Friday brunch and dinner, Saturday brunch and dinner, and Sunday brunch. You'll receive a wooden coin for each meal at the gate: one coin, one meal.
Opt out and bring your own food for the weekend.
A great cauldron honors the Stone Soup tradition at the opening by the pond and dock. At night, that same cauldron bubbles with warm chai over the fire as women share songs, stories, conversation, and the stars.
Everyone brings something. Everyone is nourished.
Community CampingBring your own tent and camp close to the earth. Included with every ticket.
Tent TownPrepared glamping tents with real beds, linens, and thoughtful touches. Arrive with little more than a suitcase.
Care CottageTwo bedrooms, each with a queen bed and a twin bunk above (sleeps 6 in all: 2 queens, 2 twins), plus a full kitchen and two bathrooms. Book a room or the whole cottage. Look inside →
Small MiracleA private retreat for 1 or 2 with a queen bed and its own mini Mermaid Bathhouse.
Time TravelerA vintage bus for 1 or 2 with a queen bed, kitchen, outdoor shower, and outdoor composting toilet. Look inside →
Soul Sanctuary BookedThe main house: four bedrooms, three spa-style bathrooms, the fireplace room and the teal kitchen. Booked this gathering as our staff and artists' green room. Look inside →Add lodging when you buy your tickets below, while it lasts.
Goddess Gathering asks each of us not merely to consume an experience, but to help create one. Stone Soup is one expression. Another is an invitation to bring an item of genuine value for our Silent Auction or Raffle: artwork, jewelry, an experience, a healing session, a retreat stay, an artisan creation, or another offering a woman would be excited to bid on. Proceeds support the Sophia Wisdom Foundation.
Villages aren't built by a few extraordinary people doing everything.
They are created when everyone brings something.
Art, jewelry, a healing session, a retreat stay or an artisan creation. Bring it to the gate and we'll add it to the Silent Auction or Raffle.
Help a woman on a lower income join us. Your gift goes toward reduced-price tickets so every woman who's called can come.
Give toward tickets →Local farm food, recycled water, upcycled buildings and a sanctuary for wildlife. See how the gathering cares for the land.
See our practices →Share your gifts with the gathering. Each application is a short video conversation: answer by video, audio or text.
Offer a workshop under the oaks. Sonya reviews every application.
Apply to lead a workshop
Sing, dance, play, recite: our community talent show welcomes first-timers.
Join the talent showGate, food service, holding space, set-up and cleanup. 10 Work Trade spots, one per person.
Apply to volunteer
Goddess Gathering is ultimately an experiment in remembering how community is made. We gather beneath ancient trees. We honor those who came before us. We bring something for the soup. We feed one another. We dance. We rest. We tell stories around the fire. We listen. We heal what happened. We return to right relationship. And when it is time to leave, we Spring Up.
Not because everything has been solved.
But because something has been remembered.
We are here to remember the balance that allows life to flourish.
Join us this Equinox