Alchemical Alignment 101
An introduction with Varia Erochina
Six Week Virtual Small Group Course
Mondays, May 6th - June 10th, 2024
1:30 - 3:30pm ET live and recorded
Alchemical Alignment is a somatic modality that combines the science of nervous system healing with the magic of nature and mystery of spirit.
In this 6 week course, you will be introduced to the foundational principles and practices that make up Alchemical Alignment. You will learn how to track and map nervous systems responses in a nuanced way and be invited to practice both foundational and more advanced somatic skills. Classes combine experiential learning, small group discussion and somatic sitting and movement practices.
This course is for anyone with some somatic experience interested in learning from a more spiritual, intuitive perspective as well as for practitioners curious about the modality but not yet ready to apply for our training program.
In this course you will learn:
How to use The Map of 7 Realms to develop a more robust and health-oriented understanding of the nervous system.
Somatic practices including the alignment movement sequence, stabilization, orienting, containment, pendulation, feeling for tides, attuning to the blueprint of health and more.
How an approach rooted in Alchemical Alignment principles holds one of the keys when working with early, chronic and ancestral trauma, double binds and freeze.
Course Curriculum
Week One: Safety
Being within our Window of Tolerance is a dynamic state of safety. Explore what slow, medium and fast regulation feel like while learning how to resource for stabilization.
Week Two: Stress
Our body’s security system uses stress as a healthy response to help us avoid, mitigate and avoid danger. Learn how to track your stress physiology, and re-orient to safety.
Week Three: Trauma
Unmet traumatic experiences imprint onto our inherent blueprint of health. Learn about how to pendulate between safety and threat when navigating triggering subjects.
Week Four: Layers of Support to Stabilize, Soothe and Distract
In order to repair our nervous systems, we must learn how to meet and match the activation in our bodies with appropriate support and containment.
Week Five: Epic Imprints and Tidal Health
When trauma is early, chronic or ancestral, it requires early, consistent and ancestral resources in order to be met. Learn how to access larger fields of support, starting with tidal health.
Week Six: Creating Conditions for Health
Life force offers an inherent treatment plan that lies within each organism. As we learn to listen to this blueprint of health, we create conditions to heal and thrive.
Tuition and Registration:
Alchemical Alignment 101 tuition is on sliding scale pricing which offers financial accessibility to those who need it and a chance for those with financial stability to practice redistribution. A great big thanks to Alexis J. Cunningfolk for their writing on sliding scale pricing .
Scholarship Tuition
$350 USD upfront
*$117 USD X 3 months
The Scholarship Tuition is for you if meeting basic needs takes up your budget and paying for this class would be significant or stressful. BIPOC, queer & trans, working class, disabled, neurodivergent and immigrant folks to the front please.
Standard Tuition
$500 USD upfront
*$167 USD X 3 months
The Standard Tuition is the actual cost of the course. It’s for you if you have some financial stability and limited expendable income. Paying for this class will likely mean prioritizing this above other non-essential spending.
Redistribution Tuition
$750 USD upfront
$250 USD x 3 months
The Redistribution Tuition is for those with financial security who can afford to help cover the tuition costs of your peers who have less. Home-owners, white, cis, able-bodied, settler, university educated folks - this is your price.
Registration is now full.
Sign up below to be notified when we announce the next cohort!
Course Details
Format: Class will combine experiential lessons, drawing maps of nervous system function (including the map of 7 realms), guided somatic practice and whole/small group discussions.
Class Size: 16- 18 students total, with small groups of 4 - 5 people.
Recordings: A recording of each class will be made available within 24 hours after class, so you can catch up if you miss a week.
Meet Your Instructor:
Varia Erochina
Varia Erochina (they/them) is a somatic teacher and practitioner dedicated to personal and collective healing. Queerness, immigration, class struggle, and lived experience of healing complex trauma orient their work towards healing and justice for all. Varia takes an integrated approach to long term healing combining their training in Alchemical Alignment trauma resolution, Gestalt psychotherapy, spiritual care and somatic parts work. Their popular course How to Feel offers practical education and embodied practice for feeling your feelings. They are the creator of Cards for Self-Care, offers 1-1 and group support, leads workshops, retreats, classes and more. Varia lives with their wife and their cat as a settler on Dish With One Spoon treaty territory, and spends their free time making ceramics, taking road trips, walking in nature, and pulling tarot cards. Learn more at their website.
Meet Your Course Assistants:
Kevin Platt
Kevin (he/him) is a bodyworker, movement teacher and human experience enthusiast. He weaves his years of experience in somatic practices and time spent in movement/healing communities to bring loving curiosity and conciousness to individuals and groups. In the last 5 years, he has deepened his learning within breathwork, dance therapy, and trauma informed somatic inquiry. He began studying with the Alchemical Alignment community in January 2020 and has been assisting in the teach team since September 2022.
Tele Darden
Tele Darden (she/her) is a bodyworker, teacher and coach who guides visionary healers as they become more empowered and embodied forces for change in the world. In practice since 2007, she offers her wide range of skills and experience in somatic and intuitive healing to create deep and nourishing containers of transformation for her clients, both in the US and internationally. Tele has been teaching with Alchemical Alignment since 2022.
Tele lives with her husband, teenager, and pets, including Pickle the ball python on traditional Susquehannock, Nentego (Nanticoke) & Piscataway lands in Maryland.
Alice Wikström
Alice Wikström (she/her) is an emotional resilience coach, mindfulness and meditation teacher who works with ambitious women to help them understand and regulate their emotions to combat stress and overwhelm.
Drawing from her own deep practice and extensive study of mindfulness and Buddhist psychology she offers a wide range of skills and tools to enhance awareness and transform the way we relate to stress and overwhelm. She works internationally and in 2022 Alice moved back to her homeland Sweden where she now lives in Stockholm together with her husband, two teenage daughters and a dog named Gracie. Alice has been studying Alchemical Alignment since 2022.
Student feedback about
learning with Varia:
“Varvara is so gentle and kind. I’ve learned about somatics before from another teacher, but Varvara teaches it in a more digestible way that I was able to use immediately after practicing once with her recorded audios. The practices have built my capacity to stay in my body during difficult moments. I also really appreciate her social justice and equity lens that she brings into her classes; her commitment and continued growth here are clear.”
Student feedback about
Alchemical Alignment:
“I feel different. I am very aware that the Alchemical Alignment class is first and foremost about MY alchemical process, rather than simply (or only) learning about techniques to bring home to my professional work. I am the work, the process..… the transformation. I feel like I have radically yet subtly changed. There is a different and significant feeling of peace, joy and embodiment that I am experiencing. Gratitude is filling my heart.