Episode 24: Being a Fully Alive Human Being Through Movement, Poetry, Rest and Cyclical Living with Carly Mountain

“All emotion is welcome, all emotion is valuable”

Carly Mountain is a teacher and writer who works with poetry, yoga, breathwork and voice as transformational practice that can liberate us in ways we never anticipated. She is the creatrix of the Butterfly Mystery School which is home to circles of women who wish to deepen relationship with themselves and their natural abundant expression. Carly is also author of Jouissance ~ poetry of the deep feminine. She is based in Sheffield, UK where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

In this episode:

Carly started dancing at 4 years old. She trained at the Laban Centre
She pursued yoga and went from her first class to teaching within 18 months
Graham technique had helped to release stuckness in the pelvis. Created by Martha Graham, the approach was inspired by Kundalini yoga, moving energy through the body
Yoga is very much about the practice, compared with dance as a performance
Pregnancy yoga with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli
The Butterfly School includes yoga, poetry, breathwork and creative enquiry
Butterfly - mudra practice
Searching for a place where emotional work could exist alongside the physical expression
Craving female support and recognising other women must be craving it too
The perception that we “should be looking for a calm place inside ourselves”
Kim Rosen uses free movement, breathwork, poetry and freeing the voice to give rise to whatever is there
Being able to be with all the realms of expression
Without fully expressing, we’re lidding an essential part of our being
All emotion is welcome, all emotion is valuable
Grief and rage are huge connectors
Saying yes and no from the body
Consent ripples through our lives - being programmed to respond quickly. Taking a pause
Permission to rest
Listening to our cyclical wisdom
The Autumn (less tolerance for putting up with things) and Winter (hibernating and resting, going inwards) phases of the cycle. How easy it is to push these phases away, but there’s a renewal that comes from dropping in to resting
Women supporting women is nourishing
Often we don’t know we’re safe until we’ve taken a risk
Remembering who you are and letting go of what you’re not
Oxytocin is released when sitting with other women in circle
Poetry as a powerful tool
Intimacy as “going into the unknown together”
‘Blurt write’ to allow the pen to flow on the page
Moonbox for a young girl before she has her menarche to celebrate and share this stage instead of shame and fear
Jouissance, Carly’s book of poetry to celebrate the fullness of womanhood
Extinction Rebellion is calling people into their eldership
A new intake of The Butterfly School starts in January 2020 http://carlymountain.com/sheffield-yoga/womens-health-sheffield/