Descent & Rising
Women's Stories & the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth
Signed by the author
€13.99
AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW.
Descent & Rising explores real stories of women’s descents into the underworld of the psyche – journeys of dissolution, grief and breakdown precipitated by trauma, fertility issues, loss of loved ones, mental health struggles, FGM, sexual abuse, birthing experiences, illness, war, burnout…
This is territory that Carly Mountain, psychotherapist and women’s initiatory guide, knows intimately, and guides us through with exquisite care and insight, using the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna as a blueprint. She maps not only the descent but the rising and familiarises us with a process of female psycho-spiritual growth overlooked in patriarchal culture.
— Pre-orders ship March 13, 2023. Other items in the same order will ship together with your pre-order. Official launch on March 24, 2023.
93 in stock (can be backordered)
“The heroine is one who has remembered, reclaimed and reconnected with her unfettered red thread. She has been initiated into the spirit of the depths by her dark sister, and walks with newfound, embodied authority into the upperworld.”
When our lives fall apart, we often feel broken, ashamed and deeply alone. But what if you knew, as you experienced this descent, that it was mapped out in a myth thousands of years old? What if, despite the uniqueness of your own life and experiences, each stage of the process was universal? The journey of descent and rising is the core initiation of the feminine – the heroine’s journey – one travelled by billions of women before you.
Descent & Rising explores real stories of women’s descents into the underworld of the psyche – journeys of dissolution, grief and breakdown precipitated by trauma, fertility issues, loss of loved ones, mental health struggles, FGM, sexual abuse, birthing experiences, illness, war, burnout…
This is territory that Carly Mountain, psychotherapist and women’s initiatory guide, knows intimately, and guides us through with exquisite care and insight, using the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna as a blueprint. She maps not only the descent but the rising and familiarises us with a process of female psycho-spiritual growth overlooked in patriarchal culture.
“The heroine’s journey is an erotic, mystical initiation that revivifies our place in the shape of things… The fodder of our descents provides the compost from which the richest fruits of our lives can grow. If only we can turn towards our pain and let it work in us.”
Additional information
Weight | 0.45 kg |
---|---|
Dimensions | 229 × 152 mm |
Author | Carly Mountain |
eBook ISBN | 978-1-910559-83-3 |
ISBN | 978-1-910559-84-0 |
Pages | 264 |
Release date | March 2023 |
Signed? | Signed by the author |
Sub-title | Women's Stories & the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth |
PRE-ORDER BONUSES!
EXCLUSIVE OFFER FOR PRE-ORDERS…
Carly’s Compendium of Practices
This compendium of practices explores how the Inanna myth is embodied in different practices and sacred containers. It looks at the sacred anatomy of poetry, breathwork, yoga asana and nidra, menstruality, circle work and therapy as soulful supports that can offer holding and insight as we descend and rise.
…And if you pre-order before the Winter Solstice (by midnight GMT Dec 20) you will receive an extra gift from Carly of an Inanna Yoga Nidra…
Created especially for the book, this nidra audio recording takes us down through the seven gates of the body into the underworld’s fertile dark where we can rest and release, and then traces the pathway back up as we rise renewed.
Yoga nidra was a saving grace for Carly’s own underworld journey providing deep nourishment and sacred rest. She created this nidra in the hope that it might offer you the same. Exclusively available as a download for those who order by winter solstice as a nourishing practice for the darker days of winter.
All pre-orders will be signed by Carly and come with an exclusive bookmark.
Sample
Meet the author: Carly Mountain

is a women’s initiatory guide, a psychotherapist, a psychosexual somatic therapist, yoga teacher, breathworker and writer. For the last twenty years she has worked with sacred embodied practices. Carly stumbled across the Inanna story during her own descent to the underworld and was astonished by the symmetry it held with her own lived experience. Since then she has devoted to working with the myth and specialises in beholding others as they traverse the depths of initiation; both in therapy, breathwork and within courses that support women’s awakening and unfolding.
In 2019 Carly self-published her first poetry pamphlet Jouissance: Poetry of the Deep Feminine. Descent & Rising: Women’s Stories and the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth is Carly’s debut non-fiction book. She lives in Sheffield, England with her husband and two daughters.
You may also like…
Meet the artist: Meike Hakkaart
Womancraft Publishing is proud to celebrate not just the words, but the images of talented women too.
