Reclaiming the Sensual Woman/Taurus New Moon • Second Spring • Surfing the Exhale

In this episode of The Vital Goddess Podcast, we explore the Taurus New Moon as an invitation into deeper embodiment, sensuality, beauty, nourishment, and feminine aliveness.

This deeply Venusian lunation arrives alongside a powerful question:

What if midlife is not the end of sensuality…
but the beginning of a more embodied relationship with it?

Inspired by the Taoist concept of Second Spring, this episode explores the possibility that the most alive, connected, radiant chapter of a woman’s life may not be behind her…
but emerging through a new relationship with her body.

We also explore:

• why so many women feel exhausted trying to “do feminine energy correctly”
• the difference between performative femininity and embodied sensuality
• pleasure as nourishment rather than indulgence
• beauty as nervous system medicine
• the body as a source of wisdom
• sensuality as intimacy with life itself
• relationship → remembrance → reclamation
• a re-education of the feminine mind through the wisdom of the body

You’ll also be guided through a gentle embodied breath practice I call Surfing the Exhale —
a soft ocean-inspired breathing meditation designed to help the nervous system release pressure, soften, and receive more fully.

Because breath is not just a technique…

it’s permission.

This episode is ultimately an invitation to slow down…
to savor…
to soften…
and to begin remember the sensual woman who was never truly lost.

When we breathe like the ocean we remember. 🌊

Download Surfing the Exhale here.

In This Episode

• Taurus New Moon themes
• Venusian embodiment
• Second Spring & feminine rebirth
• Pleasure as participation in life
• Sensuality beyond performance
• Nervous system nourishment
• Surfing the Exhale breath practice
• Embodied feminine wisdom
• Daily embodiment & Venusian living

Go deeper:

If this work resonates, this is the kind of space we open inside the Vital Goddess Temple—

where your relationship with your body is nurtured gently and consistently over time.

✨ Book an Aligned Embodiment Call here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

These are no ordinary times, and you, my friend, are no ordinary woman. The feminine is rising, and a new way of being human is emerging on the planet. It's time for a return to the body, where truth lives, pleasure flows, and love leads the way. Hello, beautiful soul, and welcome to the Vital Goddess Podcast. This is a space for what I call the Venusian Revolution, a return to the body, where truth lives, pleasure flows, and love leads the way. Here we explore what it means to live as a woman who is rooted in her truth, guided by her pleasure, and led by love. And for many women, midlife becomes a powerful threshold for this journey, a moment when something deeper begins to call her forward. The path of the feminine is rooted in the temple of the body. Here we root to rise. Embodiment is the reclamation. Welcome to the Venusian Revolution. I'm your host, Diane Shepard, and I'm so glad you're here. Always a pleasure. And if you are brand new, maybe just found the show and tuning in for the first time, well, I am so thrilled that you're here. And I hope you find something here that really serves you, something that you are looking for, something that is really supportive. I'm just, again, really honored to have you here giving it a try. I always think of the women who tune into my podcast, and it's so cool to look at the map of where you are tuning in from around the globe. I like to think of it as like, yeah, you're just coming in to my place for a cup of tea, and we're just hanging and talking. So I so appreciate you. Welcome, welcome. So in today's episode, I want to dive in to reclaiming the sensual woman, especially at midlife. So I'm Diane, again, in case you're new around here, and I run a sacred feminine mystery school or a goddess school, and we focus a lot on the archetype of Venus Aphrodite. So it is a lot about our pleasure, our reclaiming our sensuality, reclaiming our erotic power and the sacredness of that, the sacredness of our bodies, all the things really that were, I think, really shoved underground and almost lost in um in the patriarchal systems. But we are remembering the goddess is on the rise, the feminine is on the rise, and it's it's coming back. And the thing that is so important to understand that is this um feminine reclamation doesn't happen through the mind alone. This is an embodiment journey. And so I've devoted the rest of my life to supporting women who really want to go on that journey. And um, it is a journey indeed, but really it's about getting in a deeper relationship with yourself, with your body. And from that relational space, you remember, we start to remember our body's wisdom, wakes up. Your body's a genius, and she's got a lot to say. So when you start to, again, really get in relationship with her through the various practices that we do in my world, um, which you know runs the gamut. I am a certified Tantra coach, I'm a certified Tao Tantra Arts teacher, um, have a lot of other things under my belt, as I'm sure you do. So many women in my world have had so many different interests and lots of certifications and are very, very interested in, you know, learning more about the body. How do we really become embodied? How do we heal? How do we really step into this version of ourselves that we know is there, we know is possible. And I always like to remind women, yes, that goddess part of you, that Venus part of you, she's there. She's right there. And so my work is devoted to helping you remember. And we remember again through getting in relationship with our bodies, with our breath, with our sensuality, with our erotic power. And that again stirs that remembrance and it's personal and collective. There's this really deep um remembering that can happen. And it's it's beautiful. I think this is the foundation of what a lot of people call new earth and a new way of being human on the planet. And it's so essential that we really invite in Venus, that we invite in the goddess of love and all of her almost lost arts, because that has been, I think, the number one thing that has taken humanity out more than anything else, has been the degradation of the Venusian arts. And the result has been a lot of violence and a lot of so many things, suffering. Um, and I don't want to make this podcast episode about that because we're about the solution, right? We want to really start to really put our energy and time into the world we want to live in, the body we want to live in, the world we want to create. And um, you know, I don't I don't think we need to spend a lot of time fighting the patriarchy or destroying the patriarchy at this point. It's doing a really damn good job of destroying itself. I say that often, but seriously, I think what really is worth our time is placing our attention, time, resources, energy on reclaiming our bodies. And that's again what my work is all about. And we are just heading into the last week of our spring 2026 semester of the Vital Goddess Mastery Program. It has been such an amazing semester. Oh my gosh, we're a small but mighty group of global goddesses. It's really cool to see the women from around the globe who say yes to this journey. Brings tears to my eyes and melts my heart in the best kind of way. And um anyway, it's been such an incredible semester. And we go through this whole arc of a journey, different um themes that we explore, which have everything to do with what I said about reclaiming our relationship to our bodies, sensuality, erotic power. We have a whole archetypal journey that we go on. So there's a lot that we that we explore in this container. And what I what I want to bring that up for right now to you is that if you're listening and you've been following along, especially for a while, you most likely are really ready for this journey. And the doors are going to open soon, and there's going to be a super early bird special that I'm running. There's so much value to getting in super early, even though we start our next semester last week of August. Starting in the beginning of the summer is such a smart move because you will get access to all of our replays for this past semester, which is it's going to be so much fun for you to really craft a whole Venusian summer for yourself to start to play with these practices and have access to me as well. You can ask me questions, any technical questions and support and all of those things, you know, if you're in there. So that'll really support you in having an incredible summer. So then when the semester begins, you'll be so ready. The benefit of being again in the semester with me is that you get to be guided live. I have two live stream options. Um, one is 1 p.m. uh US E S T and one is 6 30 p.m. Again, I'm in upstate New York, so my time zone, but I wanted to create two live stream options for my global goddesses, and that that was the best option I could come up with to invite women to come to the live sessions. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like this out there. We literally turned my Zoom room into a Venus temple once a week. And so you get to be guided. And that's um the way I learned a lot of these practices was being guided by a seasoned woman who had a lot of experience. And I've been in this world and deeply devoted to my own practice around these things for many years, um, over 20 years now. So I one of my greatest joys is to guide women on this journey and bring you through this whole experience. But again, Early Bird, Super Early Bird Special will not only give you an incredible discount financially, it will give you a beautiful opportunity to make this summer the summer that you say yes to your pleasure. Yeah, to really make this your Venusian summer, your summer to reclaim the sensual woman within you. So uh there'll be links in the show notes to explore more. Uh, you can hop on a call with me. That is the doors are not open yet to actually join the program, but schedule your call with me for sure, because I would love to meet you. And so you can ask me anything. You can really get a feel for what it's like to be in my Zoom room with me. And uh I can answer any questions, concerns you might have. I I love those meet and greets. I just love meeting the women who listen to the podcast or in my community. It's just really what a joy to hop on a call with you, about a half an hour or so. And I like to think of it as again having a cup of tea together and just chilling. And um, you know, it's not a sales call. It's just like, let me just, let me just really get you clear on what this is about and if this feels right for you, you know, at this at this point in your life. I I would absolutely love for you to join us. It's just an incredible group of women. So you'll find a link to book the aligned embodiment call with me, and you will be the first to know when the door is actually open. So you can join, hop in there. The spaces are limited. I like to keep this group pretty cozy because um it the work is intimate, and I like to keep it pretty small where women feel like they're seen. So this is not just a course, this is not one of those huge programs. I've been in lots of those spaces, and there's value in that for sure. But I really wanted to create something different again so that you feel like you're stepping into a Venus temple and that you feel held and that you feel supported on this journey. Okay, so let's talk about reclaiming the sensual woman. And this is inspired by our upcoming Taurus New Moon happening on the 16th of May. It's such a beautiful new moon. Now, new moons in general are an opportunity, an invitation for a reset or a new beginning, turning turning a new page. And being in Taurus, a very Venusian new moon ruled by Venus, has everything to do with our sensuality, our pleasure, our um our self-worth too. It has to do with abundance and self-worth, how we value ourselves. This is also deeply tied to our erotic connection to nature, which is something that I feel is in deep need of a reclamation. This is something the ancients knew and practiced, and there's so much vitality, aliveness, creativity that can come alive in the human body when we are again connected to the sensuality of the earth. So I'm feeling this very alive under this new moon in Taurus in a very personal way. It's a reclamation of you as a sensual woman. And it's so easy, through no fault of your own, to feel disconnected from your body, from your sensuality, from your arrows, from the beauty of nature around you, which is really a reflection of the beauty within you as well. Really easy in the world we live in to feel numb to that, to feel disconnected from that. And so if you do have that experience right now, please know it's not your fault. And you can absolutely change it. And this new moon is an invitation to do exactly that. And it's also an invitation to change your mindset around those themes. We have Mercury right next to this new moon. And we also have the dwarf planet Ceres, who represents the great mother conjunct this new moon, the very same degree. So basically dancing cheek to cheek. And what that brings in is the importance of safety and nourishment and how that's woven in to truly embodying our sensuality. You see, reclaiming your sensuality is not about adding more stimulation and excitement and peak experiences. If you followed me for a bit, you've probably heard me speak to this. It's the opposite. It's about slowing down. That's very Torian, slowing down and really allowing ourselves to regulate the nervous system so that we can come in to a safer place in the body, where we are actually available to be present, where we actually are available to receive pleasure and are available to see and experience the beauty in the world around us. And again, for modern women, that can be a real challenge. And I think this reclamation is especially important when a woman enters the midlife chapter or third chapter of her life. In the Taoist philosophy, there's a beautiful phrase or reframe for this season of life called second spring. It's not considered to be an ending like we often hear in the Western world, but a rebirth and really creating a new relationship with our bodies. And that the old ways aren't working anymore for a reason. And perhaps they never really did work for our bodies. The way we were relating to our bodies, if we were very mechanistic and disconnected from our truer, deeper needs and disregarding and overriding our safety, then this is an opportunity to again rebirth that, come into a new relationship with your body, with pleasure, with even your creativity, your beauty, and your feminine aliveness. So so much of my work could be encapsulated into like three words really relationship, remembrance, and reclamation. Because this work is not about becoming someone new or fixing yourself. And it's not about finding your femininity somewhere out there, like finding, like I have to be more feminine. That's not the approach that I take at all. Um, I hear language online like that a lot of women trying to find their feminine or trying to kind of bend themselves into a pretzel of trying to be more feminine. And the thing I want you to really hear is that true femininity, your sacred feminine essence or the goddess within you, your inner Venus, I'm gonna get really clear on that, um, is not something outside of you. It's always been with you. And what's been missing is your relationship again with your body in this way, your relationship with your breath in a way that really supports your sensuality and safety and relationship again with your pleasure, with your beauty, your unique radiance, your relationship with slowing down, your relationship with receiving. I know that could be a scary one, but your relationship with life itself. And again, this is about creating the conditions where you can get into relationship with yourself in this way, and that requires again safety. So femininity is not just a mindset, it's a lived bodily relationship. And I think so many women, um, when they hit midlife, they they feel exhausted because they're trying to figure it out from the mind and understand femininity, and it's kind of running them in circles, right? While all the while remaining disconnected from the very place the femininity truly lives. The feminine cannot be mastered mentally, but the mind, we can train the mind to learn to trust the body again. So we certainly want to incorporate our mind, our imagination, using our mind in ways that support the body rather than override the body and run her into the ground. So I feel like this new moon is inviting us into a re-education, right? With this conjunction with Mercury. Mercury is about education, there's a teaching there. So a re-education of the feminine mind through the wisdom of the body, and perhaps a dissolving of that top-down kind of dominator approach of how we've been taught to engage with our bodies. So many of us have been conditioned into a hierarchy that places mind above body, logic above sensation, productivity above all else, but definitely above pleasure, efficiency above presence. Oh, you see that a lot, right? Performance above relationship. And over time, many women become highly functional, but feel a lot less inhabited. They start to go numb. They feel like I I don't even feel like I'm in ownership of my body. And they could be capable, productive, successful, which is all beautiful stuff. But that disconnect from their own aliveness costs a lot. And I think many women, when they hit midlife, they start to really wake up to this and be like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I know there's more. And if you're a woman who has said those exact words, I think there is more. I have a hunch there's more. Yeah, you're my people. And I think this is one of the hidden griefs that many women carry at midlife. They know how to perform life, know how to like do all these roles that they've been handed and gotten really good at, but they've forgotten how to really inhabit their lives and their bodies. So second spring invites us into something radically different. Bold, really. There's a quote from that old poem by Ovid, Venus favors the bold. I like to quote that one a lot, but it is a bold move to reclaim your body in this way. And I want to make sure that, you know, we're not talking about abandoning the mind, but allowing the mind to learn to listen and to trust the body again. And that takes practice and that takes support, I find, because it's really easy. The world is not going to support you in this. That's why we have a temple for this. This is why we, you know, um turn the Zoom room into a Venus temple so we have that space to come back home again and again. This work takes repetition to remember that the body is not merely something to manage or optimize or a machine that we perform in, but a source of deep and priceless wisdom. So I firmly believe that midlife is not the end of our sensuality, but actually the beginning. It was for me when I went through menopause. I that's when my sensual life truly began. And it starts the moment that we stop abandoning ourselves in order to perform life correctly. I think many women today are trying to think themselves into softness, think themselves into receptivity, think themselves into feminine energy, and it just doesn't work that way. The body has to lead. The breath flows, our emotions flow, pleasure flows, creativity flows, life flows, you know, through the body. And when the body has spent years of bracing against stress, trauma, pressure, productivity, overfunctioning, feeling trapped in a world that you didn't make, self-monitoring, perfectionism, survival, it can go on and on. That natural current of our body becomes very constricted. We become very armored. So even the breath, something so organic, becomes mechanical. And this is why the breath practices that I teach in in um in my world do feel so different for women because we do weave in a lot of sensuality and flow. Because breath is not just a technique, it's a permission field, a permission field to soften, to receive, to feel, to stop that need of needing to hold everything so tightly. And flow, right? Flow is, I think, something all of us are craving, and it's not something that. We achieve it's something that is remembered in the body when we get in relationship with the body, when we get in relationship with the breath. I like to think of you know, think of your breath as a lover, that kind of relationship of really receiving the breath. And when we start to experience the breath in that way, it does feel different in the body. Our body no longer feels that pressure to brace against life and to start to learn how to open to life. So Taurus, Taurus New Moon, teaches us to savor. Let's talk about that for a moment, to savor, to linger, to soften, to receive. Again, very Venusian, to luxuriate in being alive, to curate your life, to be an Epicurean of your life, and to really celebrate that nature is inherently sensual, right? She blooms without apology, ripens in her own time, receives and creates simultaneously and lets go when it's time to let go. And perhaps the feminine body was never meant to live disconnected from that rhythm. I believe deeply that sensuality is not frivolous, it's nourishment, it's essential. And pleasure is not indulgence, it's again, it's essential, it's life force. And when a woman starts to reconnect to her sensuality in this deeper way, she often starts to just embody that sense of abundance naturally, embodied abundance, just she just feels that sense of fullness, ripeness. There's so many words you can use to describe it. And it's such a beautiful thing, that kind of radiance that comes from embodying your sensuality. So the sensual woman is not a woman who is performing femininity, she is inhabiting herself. And for many women at midlife, this might be the first opportunity that you've been able to give that to yourself. And what a beautiful gift that is. So I want to guide you into a micro practice that I call surfing the exhale. So we'll go into a sensual breathwork practice where we focus on oh, just riding that exhale a little bit longer. We're not going to count, we're just going to breathe in that more extended exhale way, which is so beautifully nourishing for your nervous system. And this is something that you could easily weave into your daily life. It doesn't have to be super dramatic unless you want it to be. This is something you could do at your desk, something you could do when you're taking a walk, you know, on your lunch hour, something you could do over your morning coffee. But it's just, again, just a beautiful tidal ocean breath that will serve you deeply and help you to again create that sense of deeper safety in the body, which is foundational to everything. All right, so let's dive into surfing the exhale. So find a comfortable seat, clearing space for your base, or reaching down and take a hold of your sit bones, the bones you sit on, and urge them east to west, and settling into your space. You might want to close your eyes as we begin to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Imagining your favorite scent. So breathing to receive that scent. Allowing your face to soften, your jaw to soften, the backs of your eyes to soften, and even your sinuses. So exhale as if a wave going to shore. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth or nose. But again, that image of a wave going to shore, crawling along the beach, and allowing that image to extend your exhale. And as we dive deeper into this, allowing the inhale to take care of itself again, just focusing more on that deep, sweet release of the exhale, wave to shore. Smiling into your body. So just becoming more aware of your breath in general, so valuable. Really getting good at that soft belly inhale, that diaphragmatic breath, so valuable. And learning to, on occasion, extend that exhale, surf that exhale. It can really do wonders for your nervous system, really, really support you massively in coming into a deeper embodiment of you. So thank you so much for joining me in this episode today. And have a beautiful new moon in Taurus. Take care. Thank you, my love, for joining me in today's episode. And if something true stirred within you, that's the wisdom of your feminine speaking. Lean into that, trust that. And until next time, soften, breathe, and let love lead.