• 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.

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod

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

– Guy Kawasaki

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

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

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

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

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon

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

– Avenida Margarita

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

– Louisa May Alcott

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

– Albert Einstein

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

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

– J.G. Holland, novelist

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

– Martin Luther King Jr.

If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.”

– Ajahn Chah

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

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

– Alfred Adler

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

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

– Napoleon

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

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

– Woodrow Wilson

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

– Martha Beck

We are not meant to resolve all contradictions, but to live with them and rise above them.”

– William Blake

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

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein