SPIRITUAL... SEXUAL... SHAMANIC... each of these three areas alone carries enormous potential for liberation, freedom, love, and joy, as well as charge for shadow and misuse of power.
If you are ready to transform your life, this experiential 7-day training is for you!
Thousands of people on 5 continents in over 50 countries have attended ISTA trainings over the past 10 years.
Many have been radically changed by uncovering reactive patterns and transforming them into conscious and more loving ways of being.
What does SSSex involve?
In Level 1 (SSSEx), a team of skilled Temple Arts Faculty will share, inspire, guide and support you to bring light to the shadows where your power awaits to be reclaimed.
You will receive information, guidance and lots of experiential practice around:
self-love
boundaries and consent
emotional release
voice dialogue
shamanic tools
shadow work
the ability to manifest
accessing your inner gender opposite
conscious communication
transformational breathwork
ancient rituals of healing/initiation and powerful sexual clearing/activation processes
Who is ISTA for?
ISTA welcomes all who feel the call. Over the years, we’ve been honored to share this work with people aged 18 to 80 across 50 countries from a wide range of backgrounds—across professions, cultures, races, spiritual traditions, sexual orientations, gender identities, and relationship constellations.
The training is designed to meet you wherever you are on your path, and no prior experience with sacred sexuality or shamanism is required.
However, ISTA is not for everyone.
This is a deep, individual journey held in a group setting. It requires a capacity for emotional self-responsibility, nervous system regulation, and respectful participation in an intensive transformational field.
We have learned that:
Those currently navigating acute or unintegrated trauma,
Individuals with serious mental health conditions, or
Those with certain forms of neurodivergence that impact group relational dynamics or sensory processing may not be best served by the intensity and pace of this container.
We encourage such individuals to seek one-on-one support with a trained practitioner before entering group work of this nature. If you have a therapist or support person, we recommend discussing your interest in ISTA with them.
If you're unsure whether this is the right step for you, please reach out to the event organizer directly. We are happy to support you in making an informed and empowered decision.
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Every whenua reveals a mystery.
Aotearoa (NZ) revealed itself beneath the long white cloud.
The Manawatū (Palmerston North ) reveals another. Mana speaks of the living force, dignity and spiritual authority that resides within all things. Manawa is the heart, the breath, the living centre from which life is experienced. Tū is to stand still. Together they reveal a place where the heart stands still; where breath is suspended, not by fear, but by awe in the presence of something greater than the self.
This is more than the name of a geographic location. It is the first act of initiation. Before a practice is offered, before a circle is formed, before one body encounters another, the whenua (land) creates the field. The ancient awa (rivers) carved its way through this landscape for longer than memory, moving through the body of the land as blood moves through our own. Neither announces itself. Neither seeks recognition. Both sustain life. Both shape everything that follows.
To our takatāpui and queer pilgrims.
This gathering marks a rare moment in the unfolding story of ISTA the International School of Temple Arts. Across its history, only three trainings have been devoted entirely to queer people and finds its home upon the ancient whenua (Land) of Aotearoa. This is more than geography. It is relationship. The land upon which we gather is not the backdrop to this work. It is the first participant within it.
ISTA, The International School of Temple Arts stands at the meeting place of three ancient forces: Spirit, Sexuality and the Shamanic. Throughout history they have inspired devotion and division, liberation and oppression, creation and destruction. They are neither benevolent nor dangerous in themselves. They reveal, without compromise, the consciousness of those who enter them.
Here, upon the Manawatū, the whenua creates the field before a single practice begins. We enter these Mysteries recognising that the greatest power has never belonged to the forces themselves, but to the way we choose to walk with them.
If you have answered this call, let the Whenua (Land) be your first encounter. Before any teaching, before any practice, before any revelation, allow this whenua to speak in the only way it knows—through wild and raw stillness, through presence, and through the quiet authority of a place that has carried its mystery long before our arrival.
Haere mai.