Clay Play: A Somatic Pottery Experience

Get ready to dive into clay like never before! This in-person event invites you to explore pottery through a somatic lens – meaning you’ll connect deeply with your body and senses while molding your creation. No experience needed, just bring your curiosity and hands. It’s all about feeling, playing, and making art that’s as unique as you are. Come loosen up, get messy, and have a blast with clay!

Clay Play is transmutation in a safe space. A place where energy in motion—emotion—finds somewhere to go.

In a world of constant go-go-going, always thinking about what's next, Clay Play offers permission to just BE. To let go and relax. To tune into the body, feel, be present, and express.

We create not to perform, not to produce, not to have an outcome—but for the sheer act of creating. To allow what wants to be poured and expressed through the body.

Each session has a theme and prompts to guide curiosity, but participation is always optional. You can engage with the collective conversation or simply be in the room, doing your own thing, held by the presence of others.

Our sessions are held within three overlapping containers:

We gather in circle, share what's alive for us, and witness each other's creative unfolding. Connection through shared presence, not performance.

Working with clay invites us back into the body. The weight, texture, and responsiveness of the material grounds us in sensation and regulates the nervous system.

Curiosity, experimentation, and permission to play. Create for the sheer act of creating, no outcome required.

Working with clay is a form of somatic therapy that engages the body's natural capacity for regulation and healing:

• Bottom-Up Regulation: Clay work bypasses verbal processing and directly recalibrates the autonomic nervous system through sensory engagement
• Nervous System Reset: Rhythmic, kinesthetic movement helps transition from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest states naturally
• Haptic Healing: Touch-based healing stimulates receptors, providing instant feedback to the brain through tactile sensation
• Emotional Transmutation: Energy in motion needs a place to go. Clay allows safe discharge of tension, making abstract emotions concrete
• Presence Practice: The hands connect with ancient parts of the brain, inviting a meditative state of focused attention and embodied awareness

Clay Play welcomes anyone seeking a grounding, creative practice in community:

• ❤️ Those Carrying Tension – If you hold stress, anxiety, or emotional weight in your body and need a physical outlet for release and expression
• ⚡ Emotional Processors – If you process feelings through doing rather than talking—this gives your emotions somewhere to go
• 🌿 Seekers of Slowness – For anyone exhausted by the constant go-go-go and craving permission to just be, create, and breathe
• 👥 Community Cravers – For those who want to be held by others without the pressure of performance or constant conversation
• 🧠 Neurodivergent Folks – Perfect for parallel play—social connection through shared activity without direct demand. Be in community while doing your own thing
• ✨ Curious Beginners – No experience needed. Just bring willingness to get your hands dirty and explore what wants to emerge

1. Opening Circle – Ground, connect, set intentions together
2. Guided Exploration – Theme-based prompts to spark creativity
3. Creative Flow – Uninterrupted time to play with the clay
4. Closing Circle & Sharemony – Reflect, share, witness

• 📅 Frequency: Every Other Thursday (Bi-weekly)
• ⏰ Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Doors open at 5:30 PM)
• 📍 Location: Monty's Creative Studio, 1380 Queen Street East, Toronto, ON
• 🎨 Materials: All included (clay, tools, glazes, firing)

What to Bring:

• 💧 Water bottle
• 📓 Journal
• ❤️ Open heart
• ✨ Creative juices

All materials included: clay, tools, glazes & firing

If you’d like to avoid Eventbrite service fees or book a multi-session bundle at a discounted rate, please register directly through my website:
👉 https://simurghbysaena.com/workshops/clay-play

💡 SAVE ON FEES + BUNDLE & SAVE

Sliding scale available on my website as weel, pay what reflects your capacity.

• Community Supported: For those who need accessibility
• Standard: The suggested exchange
• Community Funded: Funds spots for others

Bundle options:

• 3-Session Bundle: $145 +tax (Save $20)
• 6-Session Bundle: $280 +tax (Save $50)
• 9-Session Bundle: $400 +tax (Save $95)

👉 https://simurghbysaena.com/workshops/clay-play

For the past six years, clay has been my sanctuary. What began as a distant childhood memory, the joy of first touching clay in kindergarten, became my saving grace during one of life's most challenging chapters.

When the world paused during Covid, I finally had space to explore this longing I'd carried through seven years of academia. I bought my first 20 kilos of clay, found a wheel on Kijiji, and with the help of friends, drove two hours to pick up a kiln.

Those endless hours at the wheel, day and night, became my meditation, my therapy, my remembrance.

“Creating without pressure to perform, without expectation, without audience—this is where my creativity finally had freedom to be & breathe!”

It wasn't until I began studying somatic therapy that I understood WHY pottery felt so healing. The hands connect to ancient parts of the brain. The rhythmic movement regulates the nervous system. The clay becomes a container for what cannot be spoken.

Now, after a year of facilitating immersive workshops weaving together psychology, embodiment, and creative imagination, it felt natural to marry these worlds. Because the most potent medicine I've come to discover is rooted in community, in being witnessed, and the power of combined presence.

“What one cannot transmute alone. melts like butter in the presence of the many.”

If you have any questions, please reach out to me at:
✉️ [email protected]

I look forward to creating with you! 🦅✨

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Monty Creative Studio - Pottery classes, 1380 Queen Street East, Toronto, Canada

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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