VIDEO: A History of the Yoginīs
From earth spirits, to fierce goddesses, to chakras
Where do the yoginīs actually come from? The answer takes us back to the yakṣiṇīs, who are spirits of the trees, waters, and the earth.
Many consider the yakṣiṇīs to be the ancestors of the Tantrik yoginīs. To trace the goddesses back to them is thus to follow a historical thread that runs from the soil, the earth, and our ecology, to the esoteric heart of non-duality.
Learn more about the yoginīs in these two short videos, taken from Embodied Philosophy’s course on the Matsyendrasaṃhitā with Jacob Kyle last year.
1. The Yoginīs Explained
In this video, we look at what some consider the pre-Vedic, Dravidian substrate that is believed by some to be where the yoginīs emerge from. We look at their early, antinomian significance and how they were gradually internalized in Kashmir Śaivism as symbolic, grace-bestowing “flying goddesses.”
The video concludes on a detail that seems quite suggestive: Yakṣiṇī, the name of these ecological earth-spirits reappears as the name of that goddess associated with the crown chakra.
2. Chakras and the Seven Yoginīs
For most of their early history, the yoginīs were feared. The Mātṛkās — the “little mothers” — were narrated as fierce and bloodthirsty: divine feminine forms turned dangerous, the archetypal mother contorted into the inverse of herself. And then, over centuries, the tradition integrated them into various maps of embodiment.
This integrative move of leaving nothing out — treating even our most untamed energies as gateways rather than as obstacles — is an essential aspect of the Tantric worldview. It’s also the subject of our second video on the yoginīs.
In this video, we trace how goddesses of sound and vibration came to inhabit the subtle body: the Saptamātṛkās as the source of mantra; the full range of sensory faculties; and ultimately the iconographic expressions of the seven chakras — where the chakra is no longer a “wheel,” but a divine presence to invoke and inhabit.
Thank you for watching!
If this brief introduction to the yoginīs has resonated with you, this is precisely what we will be exploring this July at Heart of the Yoginīs Meditation Retreat in Taos, New Mexico, or via streaming online.
Across the week, we’ll map seven yoginīs onto the seven chakras, engaging textual study, mantra recitation, and deep meditation.
Rather than pathologizing passion or trying to eliminate it from our lives, we’re exploring how the Tantrik tradition refines and transmutes our intensity into clarity in the Heart of the Yoginīs Meditation Retreat. Over seven days, from July 11th–17th, we’ll be working with the yoginī maṇḍala, mantra, and the aesthetic theory of rasa.
The approach is intended to be both rigorous and deeply experiential. No prior Sanskrit or formal meditation training is required.
We start very soon, on July 11th 2026. Now is the time to join if you have not already!
