Planning for Valentine’s Day can be painful for the single and paired up alike. Couples often find themselves at odds, as Valentine’s Day may prompt the discovery that your significant other isn’t into flowers or quite suddenly and mysteriously, holidays in general. Petty battles ensue, which may betray the very sentiment the holiday purportedly supports. Singles might feel left out, suddenly aware of their aloneness, something they may not question at other times of the year. Many take over-the-top measures to compensate, such as drinking too much and posting silly e-cards on Facebook to explain to the world that they just don’t care.
Ignoring the holiday doesn’t make it go away.
Enter the “Month of Love” by The Alchemist’s Kitchen and Evolver New York City. The monthlong event series (apparently Valentine’s got jealous of Christmas’ 12 days) caters to those looking for something deeper and unconventional. The event also acts as a preview to the future home of The Alchemist’s Kitchen Tonic Bar, which will be housed in the same space downtown.
Managing Director of The Alchemist Kitchen Stephanie Wang Walter hopes the event will help New Yorkers will dive deeper into their conception of love. With a focus on the senses, events such as a heart-opening Kundalini Workshop are geared towards helping the busy, left-and-right-swiping population of New York slow down. “We’ve also realized a lot of people especially in a very hectic, mind-driven city like New York tend to be so busy. They don’t have time for themselves, let alone the time to relate to what’s happening in their own body, and sometimes in a deeper way with each other,” she explains.
Ms. Wong Walter and The Evolver New York team noticed a demand for unique, less traditional ways to celebrate the holiday, “One of the things that inspired us was having gone to a Halloween event that was about creating a ‘Sensorium.’ So, last year we created something called the Valentine’s Sensorium which was about about igniting the senses,” Ms. Wong Walter explains. This sounds much sexier than a heart-shaped box of mass-produced chocolate.
The series also brings attention to the commercialism that defines and plagues our holidays. “We live in a very transactional society. We’re consumption based, so it’s like ‘ok I’ll pay for this, and you give me that.’ Unfortunately, that’s permeated into our relationships,” Ms. Wong Walter explains. That sentiment hits home: Do you want to be taken to dinner if the motivation is appeasement? If couples or singles want to celebrate their respective bonds or singledom, adhering to or scoffing at tradition doesn’t accomplish much. “The point is the connection itself,” Wong asserts, “we don’t really connect to our intuition and our hearts as much which is really what’s necessary today.”
Visit The Alchemist Kitchen any time. Noteworthy Month of Love events include a meditation with renowned sound therapist Alexandre Tannous, non-alcoholic Happy Hour hosted by Tribe Tats, Sensual Tasting with Shoots and Roots bitters, and Love Across Lifetimes, a past life regression workshop to help you connect with soulmates past and present.
