Events

The Pleasure Prayer

on September 15, 2022 No comments

The Pleasure Prayer is a 8 week journey into pleasure and female sexuality it is an invitation to deepen relationship with yourself and YOUR pleasure.

Over 3 x 2.5 hour sessions from the comfort of your own home, we will ease into sensual movement, breath, expression, exploration, listening and sharing.

Dates of the live calls are

Thursday 22nd Sept 7-9.30pm
Thursday 20th October 7-9.30pm
Thursday 17th November 7-9.30pm

What does a call look like?
First we will meet orientate and connect.
Then move into first guided movement to music and then free movement and exploration.
The last hour of all three calls will be devoted to sharing, questions and being together in what’s arising. If you simply want to listen you can, if you want to speak you can. The invitation is to be with your own unfolding in the sanctuary of your own home, but with the online holding of the group. Together we can learn from and support each other to deepen intimacy with ourselves.

Bring all of you: your struggles and your delight, your pleasure and your resistance. All is welcome.

What is included?

3 live calls if you can’t make the live call, the first part of each session will be recorded and available to watch for 72 hours after the session via a Dropbox link. Please note: that for confidentiality the sharing part of the calls will NOT be recorded. Plus weekly email inspiration over the 8 weeks to support your self pleasure prayer.

How much does it cost?
The course is donation based, suggested donation is £59. I will send my bank details out with the confirmation email for those who are able to donate.

Will there be nudity on the course?
No. There will be no nudity. You are welcome to be naked in the privacy of your own space but if you chose that, I ask that you to turn your camera off and make sure you have something on if you want to join the group sharing in the last hour.

If you have any questions please email info@carlymountain.com and I will get back to you.

Please note: I am a qualified psychotherapist but this course is not therapy. In this course I am holding the space as a women’s initiatory guide and I trust that if you chose to attend that you are in a safe space in yourself and your life to work with anything that comes up.

Working with sexuality can bring deep feelings to the surface. If you are currently suffering with mental health issues I do not recommend this course. By signing up you agree to take full responsibility for yourself on the calls. If in doubt please email me to check in.

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Carly MountainThe Pleasure Prayer

Encounters with Angels

on October 10, 2018 No comments

“Even if I don’t ever see it again — or ever feel it,
I know that it is — and that if once it hailed me
it ever does –” ~ Marie Howe

How do we experience Angels? What names do we give for those presences in our lives that we cannot see but can on some level feel?

To end the year, we have a very special candlelit Poetry Dive on Angels. The poems will explore encounters with that which is beyond and a part of the mystery of our lives and will also explore, the very varied ways in which poets depict and refer to angels.

I am delighted to welcome guest speaker, John Hillman my Teacher, Guide and Friend who first introduced me to poetry.

We hope this will be a unique and atmospheric dive to enliven your senses and nourish your being.

Advanced booking click here to book £16 per person. There is one assisted place at £8 if anyone is struggling with money and would like a reduction please email me info@carlymountain.com.

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Carly MountainEncounters with Angels

Moving From the Heart – Yoga based workshop at Yoga Kula Leeds

on May 10, 2018 No comments


I enjoyed teaching this workshop so much earlier this year I am offering it again. This time at Yoga Kula in Leeds you can book here. So come and nourish yourself with an afternoon of heart lead hatha flow yoga, poetry and yoga nidra. Both yoga and poetry can be practices of intimacy which can lead us into the unknown or unheard realms of our being. When we uncover these less familiar aspects of ourselves we can start to feel and re-member them as a part of us.

In this workshop we will dive into the heart center as the doorway to this listening. We will work with a fluid yoga sequence that moves from the heart into relationship with the whole body. Inviting us to open and close, reach out and draw inwards, exploring the landscapes of the heart and the wisdom held within.

So often yoga workshops prioritise opening the heart, but there is a maturity in recognising that the close is equally as valuable as the open. This sequence lends itself to both of these polarities the reaching out and the turning inwards as well. The sequence includes balances, backbends, forward bends and twists and is combined with a beautiful soundscape to evoke your emotional and physical bodies. Thereby inviting you to feel how they interweave into expansion and return until eventually winding down to a heart lead yoga nidra to finish.

Booking via Mindbody here

“Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralysed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as birdwings.”

~ Rumi translated Coleman Barks

 

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Carly MountainMoving From the Heart – Yoga based workshop at Yoga Kula Leeds

Verse Matters Wednesday 7th March In Celebration of International Womens Day

on March 5, 2018 No comments

I am excited to be speaking some of my own poetry at Verse Matters this Wednesday 7th March at the Theatre Deli Sheffield.

This is the description from their website –

Verse Matters is an intersectional feminist arts collective based in Sheffield, founded by Rachel Bower. Verse Matters runs events at The Moor Theatre Deli in Sheffield and provides a supportive space for poetry, spoken word, storytelling, music and comedy, showcasing the work of talented people in a friendly, safe environment. Each event has a mix of experienced and new performers.

Events are always open to all. Each night includes two featured artists, and an open mic session with six performers (five minutes each). The structure is non-hierarchical, and door profits are split between performers.

Verse Matters was set up to attest to the structural inequalities in society and the arts. To remember that ‘women’s rights’ are diminished without racial equality and economic justice. To bring people together in solidarity. To create a forum for debate, challenge and pleasure.

Some of our performers tell stories that have been erased by society: refugees, detainees, prisoners. Others might read a page of their favourite book, speaking in public for the first time. Others are experienced poets, puppeteers, dramatists and performers. All are respected and appreciated.

These times call for solidarity and for resistance. We need outlets through which to articulate our anger, our sadness, our joy. Verse Matters exists to provide this space.

This is a special Verse Matters in collaboration with SHE Fest a fringe festival in Sheffield that celebrates International Women’s Day and I am delighted to be involved.

Come down and bring your friends.

 

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Carly MountainVerse Matters Wednesday 7th March In Celebration of International Womens Day

Leading from the Heart – Poetry Dive

on December 21, 2017 No comments

 

If your heart had a voice what would it set as an intention or hearts prayer for 2018? This poetry dive will centre around the heart, listening to the wisdom of the heart, your hearts longings and losses, desires and strength. This is an opportunity to set time aside to turn towards whatever is arising for you at the start of the year in conscious transition into 2018.We will move, dance, sound and dive into poetry, music, writing and sharing.

Whilst I continue to feel into and hone the craft of offering poetry dives this event will once again be donation based. All proceeds will go to the SHE College Fund www.shecollegefund.org a wonderful charity set up by my Teacher Kim Rosen.

Pre booking essential, to book please email me info@carlymountain.com. I would be delighted if you can join me.

 

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Carly MountainLeading from the Heart – Poetry Dive

Women’s Full Moon Retreat Day

on October 26, 2017 No comments

Join me on Sunday 3rd December for the last Full Moon of 2017 to consciously welcome in the end of the year and reflect on the months gone by…..

Once upon a time it was commonplace for people to have parties, hold rituals, make love and dance under the light of the full moon. The moon offers a different kind of light to the sun, a light that can illuminate deep feelings, longings and directions that are not always visible in the bright light of day. This Women’s Retreat day will give space to stir the cauldron of your inner being, to uncover, nourish and behold whatever needs to be felt, celebrated and released as we journey towards the end of the year. Through yoga, dance, poetry and creative reflection we can liberate our inner most expression and evoke and nourish the inner landscapes of our being.

We will begin the day with meditation and yoga followed by lunch and a sumptuous and restful yoga nidra. In the afternoon, we will work with dance, poetry and reflective work in partners and in circle. You do not have to have any knowledge or experience of working with poetry before. Like movement practices, poetry is a form which can cut through to the heart of things, thereby taking us beyond our habitual patterns and awaken us to fresh experience and perspectives.

“At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face into mine.
Breathe into me.

Close the language-door,
and open the love-window.

The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.

– Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

A wonderful way to spend the last full moon of the year, clearing a pathway towards 2018.

Date: Sunday 3rd December

At: Instinctive Health, Kelham Island, Sheffield

Time: 10.30 – 5.30pm

Cost: £28 early bird if booked by November 5th £35 thereafter.

To book click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page

Note: Anyone interested in signing up for the new Year 1 Butterfly group starting in January, this retreat will have a flavour of the butterfly work and would be a good opportunity for you to experience the space I hold and feel into if it is the course for you. You can find out about Butterfly course dates and content on the Butterfly page. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get intouch. 

 

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Carly MountainWomen’s Full Moon Retreat Day

An Introduction To The Butterfly Work

on October 12, 2017 No comments

A new Year 1 Group is constellating for January 2018 and will be held monthly from January – July. I am holding an Introductory Day on October 21st at Yoga Kula Leeds. Below is a piece I wrote about my personal journey into the Butterfly work and how it has emerged into the course it is today.

I came to the Butterfly work shortly after having my second child. I was exhausted and out of practice, but craving some time to connect to myself and a way to nourish and enjoy my body. I started to practice just 10 minutes a day and quite quickly I found that that time for myself had become integrated into my daily life.

It took three years before the full practice moved through me. At this time, I emerged from a yoga school from which I had learnt a tremendous amount, but whose structures were masculine and hierarchical. I had been teaching yoga for 10 years and the desire to share this work with my students and other women in my life became louder and louder. But I felt instinctively that this feminine work needed a feminine way of holding. The terms masculine and feminine are fraught with often unhelpful connotations and I want to underline that this is not about gender. There are men who have the capacity to hold a feminine space and women who lead with a predominantly masculine energy, which is great. What I am referring to is difficult to name in definitive language, but essentially, what I was seeking to offer was a space that reached beyond the hierarchy of guru and student. A space that could include emotional expression, a space to be nourished and accepted in shadow and in light, and a place where sacred feminine energy could be free to emerge and be felt through each woman.

In Butterfly we sit in circle, the circle connotes a sense of equality. Within that circle, I may take the role of teacher, but I continually hold within my view that the relationship is always reciprocal. There is some teaching through the form of yoga sequences, mudra and poetry. But, both me as the teacher, and the form as the teacher meets what is naturally arising from within you. As my Teacher Kim Rosen illustrates so beautifully, “I cannot teach you anything that you don’t already know. But if I am lucky, I will say it in such a way that you know, that you know it”. Therefore, I would say that the Butterfly work is place where we can remember what we have forgotten, lost or denied. Form can be a beautiful, sacred expression of what is underneath our layers, just as words create a form through which we can reach towards mutual understanding. As a guide, I can facilitate, watch, intuit and create a container within which you can explore, but the rest is up to you.

Likewise, we cannot “do” this work. So many women come to the practice thinking they can muscle through it. But this is a truly yin practice, so what is required is a deep listening and surrender to what lies beneath the waves. We live in such an active world, which can be seen in our obsession with asana. This collection of practices are a powerful antidote to all the doing. I often compare it to orgasm, you cannot muscle your way to an orgasm. All we can do is indulge ourselves to the place where the pulsations of pleasure carry us over into orgasm. We allow ourselves to be taken beyond our will. The practice of yoga is similar. The place where form meets what is spontaneously arising is the union, and when we are taken by that meeting we enter yoga. And like orgasm, it can be a delightful, immersive sometimes even transcendent experience.

Many yoga schools prioritise calm over other emotional experiences as a sort of preordained tick box that we have achieved union. I am not saying that finding stillness and peace is not a desirable aspect of practice, it is very beneficial. But, I have no desire to be permanently calm, anymore than I desire to be permanently in rage. I was craving a space that would embrace and honour the wisdom of my emotional body as much as any other facet of my being. So much of my learning has come through relationships, engaging in them, the breakdown of them and the joyful and often messy interaction that true intimacy can bring. Behind our masks, there are many weather systems and it feels as though rather than always reaching for the light aspects of ourselves through practice, it is time to own and embrace the shadows as equally valuable as well. After all, emotional being is a flow in itself, and when we allow emotional expression to happen at some point we can guarantee that that energy will transform and find it’s onward flow. It evolves, just like a yoga sequence. The more we allow, the more we begin to realise that even the strongest feelings flow into other states. And they can be a vehicle to awakening and absolute presence.

All this creates a delicious cauldron, made even juicier by the unique gifts that each woman brings. One of the benefits of this work is the space it creates for you to spend time with other women. This is often one of the most nourishing and enjoyable aspects of the Butterfly course. In fact, all the ingredients I have named above are about intimate relationship; relationship to practice, relationship to support, relationship to ourselves, relationship to other women and underlying all that, relationship to the mystery that guides and weaves it all.

The Introduction Day at Yoga Kula in Leeds will take place on Saturday 21st October. I cannot teach the Butterfly mudra in one day it takes time and investment. But what this introduction day will offer is a flavour of the work that accompanies the mudra practice, a feel for the space I hold and a chance for us to meet. So, if any of this resonates with you, come along! I am really looking forward to it and would love to see you there. You can book the Intro Day here.

 

 

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Carly MountainAn Introduction To The Butterfly Work

Embracing Autumn – Poetry & Yoga Nidra Evening Saturday October 7th 2017

on September 16, 2017 No comments

The transition into Autumn is a perfect time to stoke the inner fires of your creativity with this evening of Poetry & Movement. We will begin with Dancing (5 rhythms-esque) through to a Poetry Dive, which is a really simple and evocative way of experiencing poetry, followed by time to write and possibly share. Finally settling down to a sumptious Yoga Nidra to finish off.

You don’t need to know, like or even particularly enjoy poetry to take part, this is a really delicious way of releasing your creativity through a cocktail of movement and words so if you feel intrigued, I encourage you to come along and give it a go.

As part of my thrid year working with Kim Rosen, she asked me to create a Poetry based event and this is the result. It is donation based evening in aid of the SHE College Fund which helps young women at the VDay Safe House in Kenya (after fleeing FGM) go onto get a College Education. It’s great work and I am pleased to be able to support it in any small way that I can, but I can only do it with your help. So please come along and bring your friends!

Booking essential please email info@carlymountain.com to book your space. Hope to see you there.

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Carly MountainEmbracing Autumn – Poetry & Yoga Nidra Evening Saturday October 7th 2017

Butterfly Introduction Day Autumn on 21st October 2017

on June 9, 2017 No comments

Full Moon Love on this beautiful Rose Moon.

I have already had enquiries about the next Butterfly intake. So I am planning a new Year 1 group to start January 2018. Dates will soon to follow. There will be a taster day at Yoga Kula in Leeds on 21st October 2017 and it is now open for booking. For more information and to book please click here.

Love Carly

 

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Carly MountainButterfly Introduction Day Autumn on 21st October 2017