I along with my partner named our company Alchemy Tours because of the combined influence of the book The Alchemist and the practice of Yoga. Really Yoga is about taking the personal growth we experience on the mat as a result of this unique alchemy of yoga into making the changes we want in our lives, in our bodies, in our minds, in our hearts. Anytime you want to transform and move beyond your limitations to me this is the Alchemy of Yoga. Every day our chemistry can serve as an example or a warning to everyone else. Chapter 2 verse 1 of the Yoga Sutras sets forth how the Alchemy of Yoga actually works. “Tapas svadhyaya ishvara pranidhana kriya yoga.” Translated to mean that yoga helps us transforms ourselves on three levels:

1. Physical Alchemy – Tapas helps us ignite the changes we want to make in our lives. It is about the getting fired up and passionate. Literally it means heating the body through moving and breathing in the vinyasa

2. Mental Alchemy – Svadhaya. While we are following the discipline of tapas and engaging in physical practice to help move our stuck energy we are watching ourselves. In yoga we study the self to learn about the self. Here the mental alchemy is through self-observation. We witness what is going on in our thoughts, what are we thinking.

3. Spiritual Alchemy – ishvara pranidahana. As we are doing and watching we let go of the ego of judgment. We move beyond wanting life to be different and begin to feel the surrender that allows what is being offered to mix together. We practice ishvara pranidhana as we trust the universal intelligence that hugs us from all directions to know what it’s doing. And once we find this trust we begin to believe that beauty and goodness are within us flowing nonstop and there is no reason to stop this flow for its natural current is to align with the current of grace that is everywhere outisde us. Beauty becomes our way of life. Happiness becomes our natural alchemy.

You see when you get together on a Retreat we are all like the Alchemist in his/her laboratory mixing ingredients. For us as yogis our laboratory is our mat and the ingredients are our bodies, our poses, our breath, our thoughts and the mixing it all together creates a different result every time. A yoga retreat changes your life. You wake up to the power you have to go into the laboratory of your life experience and mix the potions you want to create your best life going forward! May you be the type of Alchemist who brings peace and love into the world. That my friends is the MOST powerful elixir of all! Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia