nature Archives - Carly Mountain

I want to give myself utterly….

on February 18, 2016 No comments

Lake and Maple

I want to give myself utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf;
as this lake that,
 no matter what comes
 to its green-blue depths, 
both takes and returns it. 
In the still heart,
 that refuses nothing, 
the world is twice-born– 
two earths wheeling,
 two heavens,
 two egrets reaching
 down into subtraction; 
even the fish  for an instant doubled,
 before it is gone. 
I want the fish.
 I want the losing it all 
when it rains and I want
 the returning transparence. 
I want the place 
by the edge-flowers where 
the shallow sand is deceptive,
 where whatever 
steps in must plunge,
 and I want that plunging. 
I want the ones
 who come in secret to drink 
only in early darkness,
 and I want the ones
 who are swallowed.
 I want the way
 the water sees without eyes,
 hears without ears, 
shivers without will or fear
 at the gentlest touch.
 I want the way it 
accepts the cold moonlight
 and lets it pass, 
the way it lets
 all of it pass 
without judgment or comment. 
There is a lake,
 Lalla Dad sang, no larger 
than one seed of mustard,
 that all things return to.
 O heart, if you
will not, cannot,
give me the lake 
then give me the song.

Jane Hirshfield

The beauty of a shell

on March 1, 2014 No comments

The natural beauty of a shell. My daughter was looking at this this morning and she said thoughtfully, “Sometimes I look at shells and think they are so beautiful that they can just have appeared, they must be ‘man-made'”.

To which I instinctively replied, “But the most beautiful things in life cannot be made by humans…they all come from nature. Natural things are the most beautiful of all”.

What we show speaks as loudly as what we say. Society values human made objects so highly and often to the detriment of nature. The so-called beauty industry sells the idea, primarily to girls and women that we must do so much to ourselves in order to become beautiful. So many Mums in the playground with eye lash extensions that on a timeline at my little ones preschool a child had included “put her eyelashes on” as part of her morning routine. Our children absorb everything and it subconsciously shapes them.

I dye my hair, I shave my legs…..there are some things that I cannot yet relinquish. But more and more, I see that we are being sold an empty shell of what a woman can be. And I wonder what could be more beautiful than letting nature shine through us? That women could once again be valued, protected and cherished as an expression of mother earth. That perhaps would be the most beautiful union, respect and liberation.

Yoga is a process of becoming more intimate with yourself. Taking the time to spend with yourself, as you would with someone you love. Turning towards all that you are with compassion, so that you can embrace wholeheartedly the fullness of your being. Leading us towards naturalness, no pushing no holding back. Letting the notion of perfection repeatedly give way to love. What are we cultivating? Love.

The Why

Yoga – the whole picture

on December 20, 2013 No comments

Sometimes I get a bit weary of all the “look at how great my body and my life” yoga pictures and quotes that are out there. Mainly because I think they don’t show the whole picture. I love positivity and beautiful pictures, it’s great to celebrate as long as we are still honest. Some days practice is tough, some days I just feel sad, some days feel dark. Practice can be both celebration and joy. But true joy encompasses the dark and the light. And isn’t practice about being present with what’s there, rather than looking to be calm or balanced or some other ideal that is not truly where we are at? If we are not careful, yoga can become a stick to beat yourself with. A search for an ideal and within that is a pressure to pretend that we are supremely sorted, calm and in control; rather than honest, real, people.

When darker emotions rise, anger, desire, frustration, grief, its great to be able to recognize it mindfully and know that it will pass. But, if we do not ever allow it, and give in to its messiness then I feel that we do not fully embrace what it is to be human. Take belly laughing…impossible to do mindfully, it just wouldn’t happen if you were being mindful about it. And we all know how delightfully close laughing is to crying. Sometimes it’s okay to break into a million little pieces. Infact, this is the process of yoga.…..

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction” Cynthia Occeli.

We need to break in order to be visible and shed some light on what needs to be seen.

“The world is like a dropped pie most of the time. Don’t kill yourself trying to put it back together. Just grab a fork and eat some of it off the floor. The carry on.” Elizabeth Gilbert.

We always employ the 3 second rule in our house.

Surely, being human is about experiencing the full spectrum of our emotional life. We can feel totally raw and still be grateful and reach beyond to those around us and our practice and our life. Yoga is not about what a strong beautiful body we have and what a ‘together’ person we must be to achieve that.

“Although there are many physical places one can go to feel her way back home. The physical plane itself is not home; it is only the vehicle that rocks the ego to sleep” Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

I can honestly say, my greatest challenges and joys come from allowing my most vulnerable self to show…be that out of necessity, celebration or despair. I am learning that the messy parts of me, that I feel scared to show are not my weakness but the parts that hold my deepest strength.

So today I feel quiet and tired and sad. I still practiced. And I am still totally grateful for my life. I am human and I am alive.

And day always follows night.

Celebrating and Honouring natural cycles….Happy Spring Equinox.

on November 14, 2013 No comments

With Full Moon at the beginning of this week and Spring Equinox today this weeks classes have been all about honouring natural cycles.

Modern life is not geared around natural cycles instead we are encouraged to prioritise other things. Take a flu remedy, work through it, be more productive. But in this disconnection we lose something.

In nature there are clear cycles, the waxing and waning of the moon, the seasons, the life/death/life cycles are with us all the time on micro and macro scales. Yoga is union. Through practice we can tune into ourselves and others becoming increasingly wakeful to life. Which brings pain and beauty. Light and dark.

Have courage, embrace change and move with the cycles. Trusting and reaching into the vastness of your existence with love.

I chose these photos because they were taken on one of the last golden days of last year. And I am now welcoming in the golden days of this year.

Wishing you a wonder filled Spring Equinox.

With love Carly xx

Pink is for girls, blue is for boys.

on November 1, 2013 No comments

Pink is for girls, blue is for boys.

You would hope that in 2013 we had progressed beyond such obvious stereotypes. But no—walk into any large toy shop and pink is still for girls and blue for boys. And colour is just the tip of the iceberg.

Open a kids book and still the characters are predominantly “he”. Hats off to the Julia Donaldsons of this world who have female and male characters in her books. Sadly, she is in the minority. I constantly change characters when I read our children books so that female characters feature as much as males.

Simple observations you might say, but why then do we still take it for granted?

Meanwhile in a conversation sometime ago at my house…

My daughter, Aurora, age three: ”Look at my rabbit.”
Friend: “What’s his name?”
Aurora: “Its a she and her name is big rabbit.”

I was thrilled when this conversation first happened as our naming all the toys “she” had worked. But when friends and family come around to visit 99% do not think twice about about presuming all the toys are male. Pah, you may say its a toy it means nothing; but I disagree.

It’s the little things that mount up to a big message and this is the insidious way that the patriarchy in which we live perpetuates itself.

I am a feminist—not because of the number of books I have read, but because I am a woman living in the world. A world where, on a micro scale, I still get post from women of my own generation addressing me Mrs James Mountain (my jaw drops every time). Am I a possession of my husband? I ask myself.

And on a macro scale, a world where, “603 million women still live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime, and 2.6 billion have no criminal legal protection from marital rape.” Taken from the 2011-2012 Annual Report from UN Women.

Astonishing.

Feminism is not something that just concerns women – it concerns us all. When one suffers, we all suffer. The whole basis of yoga is union, union of Ida and Pingala, of masculine and feminine on a micro scale of the body and on a macro scale of the universe.

This does not depend on sexuality, gay, straight, black, white we all have masculine and feminine within us. Union is the only route to liberation. But there is no use cultivating union on a yoga mat if it does not translate into daily life.

It’s about humanism and equality; we all deserve love and respect.

According to both UN Women and the World Bank, countries where women have the same rights as men also enjoy greater financial and social prosperity.

There are fundamental differences between males and females and these are to be celebrated—but also numerous studies have shown that a lot of our behaviour is learned not innate. And there is still not enough balance.

My concern as a woman and mother is that whilst ever the simple daily expressions and experiences of our children are so male dominated, regardless of what we do at home these inequalities will continue.

I love men – my husband is one of the biggest feminists I know! Only through education and awareness of those tiny things that mold and shape our children can we change society.

I don’t want to live in a female dominated society but I would like to see equality.

True equality—and it has to start with the kids.