For thousands of years people have sought personal transformation by coming to the highest hills or mountains. There, shamans, teachers, and healers would help them transcend pain, seek happiness, feel more connected or closer to spirit. Now, West Seattle has it's own such place in the form of two businesses located near the highest point in Seattle.

Inner Alchemy and Sacred Growing Space, the first already open and the second opening in January serve allied purposes. Both are about being places where those seeking positive change, growth, healing or a deeper understanding can come and find people and resources to move them toward their goals.

Located at the corner of Webster Street and 35th SW they are next door to each other very near the 510 foot high hill, the highest in Seattle.

Inner Alchemy

Inner Alchemy Treasures and Transformations is a combination spiritual resource center, meeting space, and space for practitioners from massage therapists to counselors and more. Run by Maari Falsetto, the rooms inside express intent and openness while serving mixed purposes. Falsetto herself has a remarkable story of her path to this space. Born in Seattle she attended Kennedy High School and she went through a stage in her youth where she rejected religion, becoming an atheist. She later graduated from the UW. Her early work experience was in the coffee industry first for Nordstrom, then for Monorail Espresso and after college began consulting leading her to travel the world. She lived in Paris for two years and often for reasons she is still unclear about, would visit churches. She later came to work with a British company ironically called The Seattle Coffee Company, which was eventually acquired by Starbucks. "In my past my energy came from caffeine, now it comes from a whole different source." She married, had two children and took time off to raise them. "I think after raising children, the most important thing we can do in life, you look out and ask, what else can I bring to the world?"  Working with her sister she worked on clinical nutrition, taking classes and preparing for that phase. As that began sadly her marriage faltered, leaving her life in complete disarray. "That experience kicked me into this whole other journey, this spiritual path. I call it the Tunnel of Transformation." But a remarkable moment, would come to be the light at the end of the tunnel three years later. She was in Ecuador, working with a Shaman who spoke no English. In the process of still dealing with her grief, of feeling disconnected and apart, "My heart had been broken open," she said tearfully the Shaman "stepped into my heart, and I understood that I was not alone." That epiphany propelled her into the journey of a four year course of study to become a licensed Spiritual Practitioner (RScP).  The idea of creating community in a highly visible location for all who work in unique healing modalities became her mission and lead to Inner Alchemy.

Inner Alchemy provides spaces for practictioners of Spiritual Coaching, Massage, Sound Healing, Holistic Health Coaching, Reiki, Acupuncture, Healing Mediumship, Kundalini Yoga and Energy Work. The retail section includes Reiki infused soaps and life&shift sprays, Abundance Pots, essential oil infused epsom salt bath soak, incense, malas (spiritual prayer beads), local jewelry, and greeting cards all mostly sourced from West Seattle suppliers.  The rooms are called The Freedom room, The Heart Room, The Flow Room, and The Oasis Room.

What has Falsetto learned through her own transformation?

"This is a benevolent universe and even when it doesn't look or feel good there is some good in it somewhere. It's all part of our soul's evolution." 

"Inner Alchemy, Treasures and Transformation is a dream come alive for me.  Simply the process of having made this dream manifest into a real, live, tangible, brick and mortar business, with a community of people both as the Tribe and the community who are showing up and sharing and receiving, it is one of the most powerful experiences outside of childbirth!

Her message is  "Live from your heart.  So simple and yet so incredibly challenging for most of us.  I would like to invite people to come to Inner Alchemy to be curious about this, to explore more and  be supported in doing so and to embrace the experience of living in harmony with your heart.  I know it has totally and profoundly changed the experience of my life."

Hours:

Open 10-4pm Monday-Friday

Classes and workshops times are as listed on their Events page on www.inneralchemytt.com

Kundalini Yoga is every Wednesday 6:45-8:30pm.

Tibetan and Crystal Sound Baths will begin every Sunday from 4-5:15 in January.  Please see the Events page for the many Sound Baths offered in December.

Practitioners work 7 days a week and are available for appointments. Call (206) 932-3461 for more information or visit them online at https://www.inneralchemytt.com

They are located at 7354 35th SW.

Sacred Growing Space

Sacred Growing Space came about because owners Jesse Goldmark and Heidi Gribble kept running out of spaces where they could offer their massage and energy work services. "Our last space was in the University District and it was taken over for development," said Goldmark

In many ways the 800 square foot room, with new Koa Wood floors, tile entry way and tree trunk, will come to define itself over time as people come to use the space. But the business partners have their own story.

Goldmark grew up in Okanogan County on a 9000 acre wheat and cattle ranch, that is still owned by his family. "It was a great place to grow up and a visceral experience of how you nourish the earth and how the earth nourishes you," He said. He's comfortable in nature since he had such a strong connection to it and explained, "My journey has been learning how to feel that same kind of connection no matter where I am or what I'm in the middle of."

He went to college in Philadelphia and came back to Seattle for graduate studies where he earned a Phd is Molecular and Cellular Biology then went on to work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center with Cellular Biologist Mark Roth studying suspended animation. "In the midst of all that I became really aware of the limits of western medicine in terms of its ability to treat many chronic or systemic illnesses. I got interested in Alternative Medicine and Bodywork and started studying it." Bodywork is a catchall phrase for many modalities that engage the body's natural ability to heal itself, with some assistance. But it would take a personal encounter with a practitioner to really alter his life's work. An athlete all his life he was playing frisbee and it got stuck in a tree. Climbing to retrieve it he slipped and his foot and ankle became wedged so forcefully between a branch and trunk that someone else had to free him. Still suffering, on crutches on woman from San Francisco who was staying at his home said she did "Berry Work"  a kind of physical manipulation invented by a man named Lauren Berry whom she had studied with. She said she could help him walk normally. Looking at his swollen ankle, black and blue he at first said no.

"Get over here!" she said so forcefully it shocked him, and he complied. Some 15 minutes later he looked down, the swelling was gone, the black and blue had disappeared. She told him, "Try walking on it," and when he did he realized he had encountered something he knew nothing about. Thus began his own studies with her and his continuing integration of western medicine and Body Work. 

Heidi Gribble is a Licensed Massage Practitioner who has a degree in NeuroPhysiology met Goldmark first as a quasi-client when his girlfriend at the time needed some massage work done. That led to their friendship and business partnership. The both took a class in Understanding Personal Energy which they both now also teach. It's a two year class, meeting once a month. It starts in October but they collect those interested all year long.

Both of them say that their scientific background has given them the perspective on these alternative modalities, some of which have been taught for centuries. "I would almost say science is now catching up in some areas with the ideas expressed in these methods," said Gribble, "certain streams of information are dovetailing in support. They are consistent in overlap and now we're getting a way to scientifically quantify the physical energetic field of the body.

The space is available for rent for $40 per hour with a four hour minimum. Catered food can be brought in if required.

The primary purpose of the space is for classes for seven or eight days a month but a digital lock means it can be a community space as well."We'd love to be able to have this space be available to people to do workshops," said Gribble. "We hope to be what the name implies," said Goldmark,"a large umbrella space that will foster and nourish other like minded modalities and events where people can come and engage in any kind of self growth, healing and expansive process. This is a space that supports that."

Not open until January the business will have some kind of opening event. A website, Facebook page and other social media are still being planned.

Hours:

Open seven days a week, hours are unlimited.

Contact Jesse Goldmark via email JesseGoldmark@Gmail.com

Call 510-421-3990 for more information.

They are located at 7356 35th SW.