About
Carly Forest (she/her) is an educator and facilitator who has led thousands of students through foundational embodiment practices over the past 24 years. As an Embodied Experiential Dreamwork facilitator, accredited Enneagram teacher, and endorsed Insight Yoga teacher, she guides others through the delicate work of self-inquiry toward a life infused with curiosity, courage, and care.
Her work constellates around a central task: supporting others to wholly inhabit their lives, embracing the full spectrum of their humanity, and skillfully greeting the paradox of life. This is the heart of her Seasonal School, a school of gnosis, designed to nourish a soulful and embodied life through seasonal attunement, rhythm, routine, and direct experiential insight.
Currently in the final year of her Master’s Degree in Environmental Education and Communication, Carly’s research sits at the intersection of Ecopsychology and Animism. She explores dreamwork and intuitive, imaginative ways of knowing as essential skills in times of descent—both personal and collective. Her work challenges the boundary between the human psyche and the living Earth, offering that our dreams are not just internal experiences, but vital communication from the more-than-human world. Through her Seasonal School, she teaches participants how to re-establish a reciprocal relationship with seen and unseen dimensions of reality forging a resilient, embodied response to our world in crisis.
Carly’s teachings are deeply informed by her reverence for poetry, her relationship with the natural world, and her studies in spiritual psychology. Her work is influenced by the teachings of Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Sandra Maitri, Marion Woodman, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Cynthia Bourgeault, Sarah Powers and Jennifer Welwood, with whom she studied integrated spiritual/psychological work for seven years.
For over 25 years, Carly has practiced in both the Vipassana and Tantric Buddhist traditions. She has completed extensive training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Insight Yoga Institute, and studied with the International Institute of Medical Qigong. She is a certified Enneagram teacher through the Canadian Institute of Enneagram Studies and completed her Embodied Experiential Dreamwork training with Dr. Leslie Ellis.
Beyond her private practice and seasonal offerings, Carly served as the Yin Yoga and Mindfulness instructor to the Canadian National Women’s 7s Rugby Team, Bronze Medal winners of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Carly is deeply grateful to live as a guest on Treaty 6 territory, the traditional gathering place and home to the Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Métis, Dene, and Nakota Sioux. With deep ancestral roots in the Irish and British Isles, her work is a continuous inquiry into what it means to live in right relationship with this land while honouring the ancient, animist lineages of her own ancestors.
Photography and website created by Berkley Vopnfjord
My Approach
Lit From Within: Practices that support a life infused with courage, wonder and care
Our outer circumstances and conditions are always in flux. Impermanence is the only certainty we are granted. Yet sitting in the immensity of change and how it manifests in our lives can feel overwhelming and, at times, incredibly frightening and disorienting. Learning how to find our deep inner ground and take refuge, again and again, in this ultimate homecoming is the task of our lives; a mark of true adulthood and an ennobling rite of passage for us all.
My offerings are the practices that have helped me stay illuminated when the world around me has darkened. These practices have increased my sensitivity, empowered my capacity for self-healing, strengthened my inner resolve, softened my heart and ultimately helped deepen my trust in the mysterious unfolding of my life. I offer these practices not as a panacea or a cure but as balm for the aching heart. I ultimately hope that you too will meet your challenges and triumphs with inclusion and curiosity.
I offer these practices and perspectives in the form of contemplative retreats, teacher training, through my online seasonal school and in my private practice. I draw from the unique sparks and inspirations that have kindled my heart and lit my soul from within. I weave together embodiment practices that balance and enliven the subtle body while strengthening and nourishing the physical body; psycho- spiritual inquiry and education; and, nature-based practices that encourage living seasonally and simply. These practices are not meant to emphasize perfection or achievement but instead remind us how to lovingly come home to who we are right now, reminding us how to rekindle our inner fire, again and again, and share our radiance and warmth where we can.