• Columnists

Jill Leslie, Ayurveda Alchemy

COLUMN = HEALTHY LIVING

Jill Leslie is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, herbalist, wellness chef, and yoga teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area who, for more than two decades, has been immersed in the study and practice of natural healing.

The entrepreneur, who has owned her own businesses since graduating from the University of Maryland in 1986, founded the award-winning retail shop Milk & Honey in Sebastapol, CA, in 1999. She sold it in 2006 so that she could dive deeper into her study of yoga and Ayurveda.

As she discovered the life-changing wisdom of these ancient practices, she began sharing her knowledge at wellness retreats, yoga studios, and through cooking classes. Her passion for herbal medicine and nutrition, and her love of sweets, inspired her to found Ayurvedic Alchemy, in 2008.

In addition to hosting classes and events, and providing consultations and dietary advice about Ayurveda, she has created a line of healthy and delicious confections, which are available online at Kitchen Alchemy Treats. “When I learned the adage of Ayurveda, ‘Let your food be your medicine,’ I put on my apron and said, ‘Let your medicine be delicious,’” she says.

Learn more about her services at www.AyurvedaAlchemy.com.

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

– Lao Tzu

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

The best hobbies are the ones that take us furthest from our primary occupation.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”

– Andrew Carnegie

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost