#7 Inside the Temple Nights of Berlin 🪭

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Gili Jala (they/that weirdo) spent about 15 years nomading before making an unplanned landing in Berlin in 2021 - opening up a juicy web of connections, and a space to root, dream, and build. A natural-born misfit with a taste for the sacred and the sideways, Gili plays in the spaces between presence and performance, surrender and choice, identity and dissolution. A student of Classical Tantra and a longtime facilitator, they create through intuition, precision, and a deep trust in the wisdom of what’s already here. They don’t treat healing as having something to fix or pleasure as something to chase. They invite a kind of radical companionship with whatever shows up: grief, desire, awkwardness, numbness, joy... as a way into deeper contact: with self, with others, and with the spaces in between. Everything belongs. Gili has been hosting Conscious Play Temple in Berlin since 2022.

What is Conscious Play Temple and what inspired the creation of this project? What’s your intention behind?

Conscious Play Temple is a body positive, sex positive, kink & spirituality positive Space of Permission. 
It was born in Chiang Mai (Thailand) in 2019, conceived from a longing for a spiritually grounded event that includes sexuality - while celebrating the magic that arises when playful cuties of all bodies and genders, pleasure spectrums and relating styles, ranges of experience, intentions, and views arrive together in a shared field of permission and play.
In other events I’ve attended, I noticed that I was missing on the one hand a deeper dive into presence and conscious practice, and on the other - my queer weirdo friends. And so, much of the intention was to blend these missing ingredients in one space that also celebrates all the classic highlights of conscious play nights. And more :) 

What is a Temple Night, and how would you describe the experience to someone who’s never attended one?

Okay I wanna get real here. SO many events use the title “Temple Night” while offering highly various experiences - which makes it difficult to describe what a temple night is, realistically. 
Most Temple events nowadays invite conscious intimacy and embodied practice, often inspired by (mostly Neo-) Tantra. 
For someone who’s never attended one, I’d say this: it’s a space that may challenge and provoke you. You may meet yourself again and again  - your desires and longings, your fears and insecurities, your cultural conditioning, your secrets and shame… and right there, alongside all of it, you may also meet your incredible capacity for pleasure, fantasy, creativity, connection, expression, juiciness… your beauty, your treasures, your magic.

How did you build your community? What’s your advice for holding safe space in vulnerable settings like Temple nights?

I’ve been profoundly humbled to witness a community form around my offerings. I do my best to practice gratitude and honesty, to deliver on what I offer and name clearly what you can expect… and to stay humble. 
During the “free flow” portion of events when there’s 3 hours when I’m not facilitating and folks are following their own impulses of exploration, I roam around and check in with people, ask about their hows and whys, drop in to some weirdness, share bits of myself they might not see when I address them as part of a group. 
My advice for holding safe space? Become and stay aware of your own power and the influence of your intentions, your words, your choices and actions as an organizer and facilitator. I believe that when we’re in transparency with ourselves and integrity with our community, everything else follows. 

How has living in Berlin influenced your relationship with intimacy?

Berlin reminds me that, like many things that become popular and cool, intimacy can sometimes get a bit diluted… but also amplified. More people are inquiring, experimenting, creating, and playing - there’s so much energy flowing through the pathways of intimacy here, and I love it. 

What challenges have you faced while living in Berlin, and how have they helped you grow?

#PoorButSexy! The hardest thing in Berlin has been making those coins add up and ends meet. Being continuously “poor” over the past few years had dropped me to my knees many times, bringing along an ever deepening creative and spiritual connection to my work. 

What do you wish people understood about play spaces like Conscious Play Temple?

That the biggest threshold is often internal. I think many folks imagine they need to arrive feeling confident, open, “ready,” “sexy” (whatever that means)... but actually, just showing up is already a huge thing.
Nothing has to happen. At all. Ever.
There’s nothing to prove and no one to be in this space - not how conscious or sexy or experienced or spiritual or kinky you are. You get to be your real, weird, unsure, curious self - and be held and witnessed in how that plays out with a bunch of other creatures, navigating the same weird waters. 

What’s your approach to consent, and how do you hold that in your spaces?

I think of consent as a living practice - an ongoing exploration of desires, capacities, body, pleasure, need, oneself and one another.. a practice that requires attention, enthusiasm and curiosity. I don’t think we’re ever done learning or understanding what consent means and how it plays out. Because more and more nuances arise as we look closer and stay interested. 

At Play Temple and other spaces I hold, I like to highlight and practice these nuances, rather than “teaching consent” I like to invite folks to encounter the complexities and find their own authentic way to move with them. 

What are your top 3 favorite spots in Berlin, and what makes them special to you?

1) Thai Park - Thai food was the first food I learned and practiced to eat mindfully, taking conscious pleasure with every bite… Thai Park takes me there :) 

2) Maha Yoga Centrum - a sister school of my spiritual beginnings. I don’t attend classes there anymore but I’m so happy it’s there. 

3) Haus Lebenskunst - current home of Conscious Play Temple in Berlin and the space that allows all of it to happen

Are there any exciting new projects or collaborations on the horizon for you?

After three years of holding single-day play spaces and weekend retreats in Berlin, I’m co-creating a full-on festival. Multiple facilitators, rituals, play spaces, live music - and all the creaturing your heart desires - over a Thu–Sun weekend just outside the city.

I’m super excited to be co-creating it with close friends and longtime collaborators, relationships that have been built and cultivated over here as our “Creature Collective” expands…

Connect with Gili:
Follow Gili on Instagram here
Join the Telegram channel Portals of Permission by Mx. Gili
Conscious Play Temple here
Play Temple Immersion Weekend here

This gathering is an invitation to feel what's most alive, and honor of the erotic potential that exists in every moment through pleasure, challenge, connection, conflict, touch, movement... and all the juice inbetwix! 🦄

Workshops, Playspaces, Soundscapes and Rituals by a Collective of Creators in the fields of intimacy, dance, sexuality, relating and expansive humaning.

Tickets · Program · FAQ · Instagram

Meet AME.DGD.ART a multidisciplinary artist in Berlin. Their bold, high-contrast works make the invisible visible—exploring emotions, relationships, and the role of the individual in urban spaces. With a background in psychiatry, AME's creations spark a psychological dialogue between color, form, and the viewer’s inner world, while also fostering exchange through workshops and group shows.
Her works and prints can be viewed and are on sale at Workstadt everyday during business opening times:

Follow her work on Instagram
Check out her website

Saturn has just entered Aries, striving to master the self – yet you’re still the fool staring into the void. Can you learn to trust life by trusting yourself? When you are dedicated and act accordingly, results will flow. Remember that having a beginner’s mindset is sometimes the best approach to learning. Listen to the impulse & understand what is the long-term focus of intention + action.
Mercury conjuncts the Sun and later Jupiter in Gemini. (30.05 & 01.06). Communication in the social sphere may explode. What may be fun at first might be blown out of proportion. Notice where there is pressure and avoid trying to fix everything all at once, but perhaps one thing at a time. Notice where you want to do more than you can handle. If you have placements in Gemini, Virgo, Scorpio and Sagittarius: remember to regularly pause, breathe, and ground yourself.
As Chiron conjuncts Venus on June 1^st and trines Mars on June 10^th it's a critical moment to make sure you strengthen your confidence, courage and self-love. All of which is needed to guide the fool along the journey. What do you really need to take the step? And with that I mean: what do you need from yourself?! Focus on self-empowerment, not in a narcissistic way, but from understanding your own soul. Then you can interact with the world with more honesty and less drama.

Explore, awaken & connect with Jen:
🔮 Website & Booking 💫 Instagram 🎬 YouTube 🌿 Telegram

We often hear the advice, “You just have to let it go”… but what does that really mean?

One day, I read online, “Letting go is like letting God.” I understood this to mean surrendering control over the future and choosing to trust in life itself, trusting that we are not separate from the Universe, but a part of its vast, intelligent flow.

Letting go is a practice, it is an ongoing process we return to again and again. It’s not about forgetting, suppressing, or forcing ourselves to “move on” (that’s control). It’s about softening into acceptance and loosening the grip on expectations, outcomes, identities, or people we’ve wrapped our sense of self around…

It’s the moment we release the need to know how it ends, and instead, come back to the present, where life is actually happening.

Letting go is ultimately about trusting ourselves—because if “I trust life more than I trust my fear,” it also means, “I trust myself more than I trust my fear,” since I am life itself in motion.

I feel we all understand the concept of letting go with our minds, yes… but I find myself asking: how does one actually practice letting go?

It’s natural to resist and release what feels familiar, even when that familiarity causes a big discomfort. After all, holding on can feel like control, protection, and hope. Letting go is not about losing yourself. Paradoxically, it’s about finding your true self beyond the roles, fears, and attachments that have weighed you down. It’s a courageous act of self-love and liberation.

Journaling questions / Exercices:

If you’re ready to shift old patterns and let go of the past, I’d love to guide you on your journey to be more authentic and have more energy. If you’re ready to transform and embrace responsibility for your well-being, feel free to book a free discovery call here.

📣 Join my next Women’s Circle here

Thank you for being part of the tribe! 🪶

💌 Love from Berlin,
Sabrina Jeblaoui