Alchemical Alignment 101
TM
An Introduction, in Portland, Maine
NB, AlchAlmt Adjunct classes are supplemental series that harmonize with our main training program. The Foundation Program consists of the First and Second Year trainings. The teachers of Adjunct classes are Graduates, Assistants, or, like Kimberly, are Foundation Training Teachers as well.
Three-Session Small Group Course Live near Portland Maine
Dates: Sept 28th, Nov 2nd, Jan 11th.
Times: 9 am - 1 pm Eastern Time
Location: Spa Tech Inst, 100 Larrabee Rd, Ste 200, Westbrook, ME
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 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
Class 1A: Safety
Being within our Range of Reguation is a dynamic state of safety. Explore what slow, medium and fast regulation feel like while learning how to resource for stabilization.
Class 1B: 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.
Class 2A: Trauma
Unmet traumatic experiences imprint onto our inherent blueprint of health. Learn about how to pendulate between safety and threat when navigating triggering subjects.
Class 2B: 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.
Class 3A: 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.
Class 3B: 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.
*These categories are general and not meant to describe the nuances of each person's experience with money and privilege.
Please follow your aligned guidance in self-determining what tuition category fits best.
Scholarship Tuition
$350 USD upfront
*$117 USD X 3 months
The Scholarship Tuition is discounted. Consider if this price is for you if paying standard tuition would be significant or stressful because you have difficulty accessing resources and meeting basic needs takes up most of your budget. This is especially for people who are of the global majority (POC), LGBTQIA+, working class, disabled, neurodivergent, or immigrants.
Standard Tuition
$500 USD upfront
*$167 USD X 3 months
The Standard Tuition is the actual cost of the course. Consider this price if you are able to meet your basic needs and have little-to-no expendable income. Paying for this class may qualify as a sacrifice but it would not create hardship.
Redistribution Tuition
$750 USD upfront
$250 USD x 3 months
The Redistribution Tuition allows you to help cover the tuition cost of your peers who have less. Consider if this price is for you if you are comfortably able to meet all of your basic needs and have expendable income. This is especially for property-owners/high-end renters, white, cis, able-bodied, settler, university educated people, or if you have investments / a retirement-fund.
Course Details
Format: Classes will combine experiential lessons, drawn maps of nervous system function (including the Map of 7 Realms), guided somatic practice, and whole/small group discussions.
Recordings: An audio recording of each class will be made available after class, so you can catch up if you miss a time. Or so you can attend asynchronously, aka watch on your own timeline.
CE’s: 12 from NCBTMB pending.
Meet Your Instructor: Kimberly Clark OTR/L, RCST®
Kimberly Clark graduated from the University of New England in 1992 with a Bachelors of Science in Occupational Therapy. While working as an OT at Brighton Medical Center, she completed a certified training program in Massage and Polarity Therapy in 1994. She began her private practice in Southern Maine to better address her patients’ needs for skilled manual therapies for pain relief and an improved quality of life.
Kimberly has received advanced training in manual techniques including Myofascial Release, Neuromuscular Re-education, and she is a certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist® as well as a MNRI® Core Specialist and former Instructor with the Svetlana Masgutova Educational Institute. She is a graduate of Alchemical Alignment, as well as a First Year Teacher and Second Year Teaching Assistant. She created and started teaching her signature Alchemical Somatic Reflex class in 2022. Visit her website here.
Student feedback:
"This class is the planting of seeds that have the potential to change your life."
"This course gave me the language to understand my nervous system in a whole new way. I cannot recommend it enough."
(Varia Erochina teaching)
“What I most liked was to experience real space and freedom to come as I am, to be me without having to do or be something else. This felt vulnerable, but with space to give myself what I need for that vulnerability. It made a learning environment where authentic / natural learning is possible. This is something that personally moved me deeply, and that I since the classes am more consciously taking into my work as a practitioner and my being a mom for my toddler. I also loved how everything seemed to come together in the last class. This felt like a full circle. Having Varia as a teacher was a great experience as well, she brought many helpful an relatable examples for the theory, and it was really nice to feel her humanity, not a teacher on a pedestal somewhere above, but a equal human being sharing knowledge and space.”
“Having spent a few years immersed in the Polyvagal Theory, and learning about trauma resolution through various teachers, there seemed to be something missing in how to support myself with a Hypoarousal response that limited me from being able to fully express my potential. From the 6 weeks in Alchemical Alignment 101, I reconnected with my health blueprint through the teachings. I remembered my deep connection with the natural world, my environment and my intuition. Much of what I was trying to move beyond has transformed into an entirely new experience for me, one I am embracing and actually enjoying rather than resisting against. I have felt so more embodied, more spiritually alive and more connected to present moment awareness than I have in a long time. I feel as though I am dancing with life now, which feels so much more me than who I'd been trying to be.”
(Varia Erochina teaching)
“I loved this class and what I internalized about right timing, choicefullness, and allowing myself to be slow. Something I learned from AA that has had a transformative impact on my life. Varia is an incredibly skilled teacher. They were able to explain the content clearly and in ways that made sense for different learners. But they also were able to show us, and guide us towards experiencing the content ourselves. I don't think I've ever done a training that had a more direct impact on my system, my day-to-day life (both personally and in my practice as a therapist with clients). I especially loved how Varia took the time to explain what we could expect each day, and with the course as a whole. I always felt oriented, which was very grounding and helped me to be more fully present. I appreciated the space that Varia and the assistants created for vulnerability, while also containing it enough that it was still professional and focused. The balance of theory and practice worked very well for me. What a meaningful six weeks. I am so grateful to have been part of it.”