• 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 critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

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

– Groucho Marx

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”

– Alfred Adler

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

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

– Martha Beck

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

– Victor Kiam

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

Tolerance and patience should not be read as signs of weakness. They are signs of strength.”

– The Dalai Lama

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

Look at everything as though you were
seeing it either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”

– Betty Smith

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

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

– Virginia Woolf

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

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

– Aristotle

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

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

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

– Lao Tzu

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison