Offerings
WEEKLY CLASS
WEEKLY CLASS
Sacred Rest Community Sessions
Thursdays on Zoom
5:30-6:30 pm (PST)
Meeting ID: 977 6411 9321
Passcode: time4rest
Join somatic facilitator Stacy Carleton as we disrupt hustle culture through collective rest.
We will check in with our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits through somatic inquiry, engage in gentle movement to settle our energy, read and reflect on excerpts from Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance, and embody radical community care with a closing guided rest practice. This class weaves together inspiration from meditation, yoga, qigong, mutual aid networks, and community organizing.
In a society that demands hyperproductivity and nonstop busyness, explore what happens when we reclaim our birthright of rest and make space for slowness, tenderness, and the inherent wisdom of our divine bodies.
Please bring (optional):
Yoga mat + pillow + blanket
Sliding scale donation of $10-30 for Zoom sessions
Sacred Rest Workshops & Retreats
Sacred Rest workshops and retreats feature a somatic check-in, gentle movement, readings, individual and group reflection, and a closing guided rest practice.
We practice creating a rest-affirming culture within a larger culture that is actively hostile to rest. We rewire our past experiences with care and rest, and practice living the future we want and deserve of a well-rested world together right now.
In sessions ranging from 60 minutes to 2 hours, we explore our experiences of being human in a human body through our stories of rest and unrest, and practice the power of embodiment as radical community care.
Participants are asked to bring their own blanket, pillow, yoga mat, and water if possible.
Sessions take place over Zoom or in person at various locations in Portland, OR.
Sacred Rest is for people who are:
Burnt out, exhausted, and seeking to restore their innate resilience and vitality
Feeling deeply disillusioned by productivity culture and late-stage capitalism
Needing some help creating regular time and space for rest in their lives
Looking for accountability and structure in creating a rest practice
Desiring the solidarity and support of community as they explore their relationship to rest
Wanting to develop courage and self-compassion as they navigate the challenges of choosing rest in a rest-hostile culture
“Our liberation is deeply connected to the portal of healing we can tap into when we rest. Wherever our bodies are, we can find rest, ease, and liberation. Part of our decolonizing resides in deprogramming from our brainwashing about rest as our divine right. We are divine. Our bodies are divine and a site of liberation. Wherever our bodies are, we can find, snatch, and center rest.”
Participants with the Leaven Community Fall Rest Retreat at Menucha Retreat Center on Kalapuya and Multnomah Lands (Columbia Gorge), November 2024
Grief Rituals & Ceremonies
Grief rituals and ceremonies feature movement, readings, music, storytelling, group reflection, and somatic integration. Each individual or group experience is a creative process and partnership between Stacy and the participant(s), inviting each member to explore their own relationship to grief in the contexts of personal transition and collective transformation. Every gathering is tailored to the individual or group’s needs and goals, centered around the honoring of what we love, have lost, and are longing for.
In sessions ranging from 60 minutes to 3 hours, we explore our experiences of being human in a human body through the lenses of grief, love, and rage. We experiment with cultivating the power of embodiment as radical community care and liberation.
Participants are asked to bring their own blanket, pillow, yoga mat, and water if possible.
Sessions take place over Zoom or in person at various locations in Portland, OR.
Grief Ritual is for people who are:
Navigating a physical, emotional, psychic, and/or spiritual response to loss, transition, deprivation, or trauma
Feeling overwhelmed by change within and/or change in the wider world
Moving through either “traditional” grief (such as the death of a loved one) and/or ambiguous grief (such as a painful and ongoing relationship with a person that you cannot change, or a longing for love or care that you never got)
Looking for realistic ways to make space for grief in the midst of life
Desiring the solidarity and support of community as they explore their relationship to grief
Wanting to develop courage and self-compassion as they navigate the challenges of exploring grief in a grief-phobic culture
“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close...My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.”
Past Workshops:
Somatic Book Club
Workshop at Atrium in the Breathe Building
2305 SE 50th Ave, Portland, OR 97215
March 1, 8, and 15
10:30 am PST
We are living in a time of incredible transformation, and incredible burnout. How can we keep showing up to do the work of creating the world we want, in a way that sustains us?
Join somatic facilitator Stacy Carleton as we explore these questions and disrupt grind culture in this three-week experiential workshop and book club. In each 90-minute session, we will check in with our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits through somatic inquiry, engage in gentle movement to settle our energy, read and reflect on excerpts from Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance, share our stories of rest and unrest, and embody radical community care with a closing guided rest practice. This workshop weaves together inspiration from meditation, yoga, qigong, mutual aid networks, and community organizing.
Each week features a different passage from Tricia Hersey’s book. This is a book club where no pre-reading is required and you are encouraged to relax while the facilitator Stacy reads to you. (If you would like to read ahead on your own and support Tricia Hersey’s work, please pick up a copy at your favorite local bookstore.) Following the reading, you are invited to reflect through writing, drawing, or quiet contemplation, with an opportunity to share your experiences with the group in a supportive container.
Cozy clothes are recommended to keep you warm and comfortable during our guided rest practice—I recommend wearing layers. Blankets will be provided, or feel free to bring your own, along with a pillow if you choose. Props are available for you to set up your own rest nest during our time together.
Explore what happens to your capacity for navigating and creating social change when you reclaim your birthright of rest and make space for slowness, tenderness, and the inherent wisdom of your divine body.
PART 1 SCHEDULE
Week 1 (March 1): ~p. 27-34 (The idea of rest as resistance and rest as reparations)
Week 2 (March 8): ~p. 61-67 (Why we are not resting)
Week 3 (March 15): ~p. 82-89 (Who is resting for)
Past Workshops: Community Resilience
This workshop will explore the ideas I shared in my blog post: You Choose How To Meet the Moment
We will engage with Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem Map as a framework for anchoring our values and organizing our social change roles. Individually and together, we will explore ways to reset, rejuvenate, and renew our commitments with a different mindset in order to build more sustainable movements.
Wednesday, October 29
7:00-8:30 pm
Leaven Community Sanctuary
5431 NE 20th Ave, Portland, OR, 97211
