About Soul Alchemy
Soul Alchemy was created to offer a safe, intimate and deeply personalized space for meaningful inner transformation. Our purpose is not simply to provide a psychedelic experience, but to support the complete therapeutic journey — from preparation and intention to the experience itself and its integration into everyday life.
Each retreat is held by a small, dedicated team whose work is rooted in psychotherapy, the body, the mind and the breath. We bring together clinical care, contemplative practices and compassionate human support to meet each guest exactly where they are.
Our home in Valle de Bravo is an essential part of the experience. Surrounded by mountains, ancient forests, waterfalls, rivers and the lake, it offers a peaceful sanctuary away from the noise and demands of everyday life. This immersion in nature helps calm the nervous system, deepen connection and create the spaciousness needed for reflection, grounding and integration.
Our mission is to help people reconnect with themselves, move through emotional patterns and create lasting change — not through a single experience, but through a carefully held process designed around their individual needs.
My journey into health and healing began long before I became a detox specialist, holistic health coach and natural chef.
I was born and raised in Spain to artist parents, surrounded by creativity, nature and a deep appreciation for food, beauty and the way we live. Since then, I have built a life across several cultures—spending ten years in San Francisco, two years in Cairo, four years in Tulum and many years in San Miguel de Allende before making my home in the forests of Valle de Bravo.
While living in San Francisco, I completed my Bachelor of Arts at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)—a pioneering university known for its progressive approach to psychology, consciousness, spirituality and human transformation. Its intellectual lineage includes influential thinkers such as Stanislav Grof, whose groundbreaking work helped shape transpersonal psychology, consciousness research and the modern field of psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Studying within this environment introduced me to ways of understanding health that extended far beyond the conventional model. It deepened my belief that genuine healing must consider the whole person—the physical body, emotional world, nervous system, environment, relationships and inner life.
Alongside my academic studies, I trained in Natural Chef Training and Holistic Nutrition at Bauman College in Berkeley. I later worked at Café Gratitude, one of San Francisco’s pioneering raw-food and conscious-living restaurants.
I continued my education as a Certified Detox Specialist through the Natalia Rose Institute and trained in spiritual nutrition and living foods at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center with Dr. Gabriel Cousens. Over the years, my work expanded to include cellular detoxification, therapeutic nutrition, ozone therapy, nervous-system regulation and integrative approaches to emotional and mental well-being.
My work has taken me around the world—from launching a detox meal-delivery service and supper club in Cairo, Egypt, to creating juice bars, raw-food restaurants, cleanse programmes and wellness businesses throughout Mexico.
For more than 15 years, I have helped people reconnect with their bodies through nourishment, detoxification, nature, ritual and personalized wellness practices. My approach brings together everything I have studied and lived: nutritional therapy, natural healing, conscious food, emotional well-being, plant medicines and the understanding that lasting transformation must involve the body, mind and spirit.
Today, as the founder of Soul Alchemy, I create personalized wellness experiences, therapeutic intensives and private retreats from my home in Valle de Bravo. My work is rooted in the belief that healing does not need to feel clinical or impersonal. It can be beautiful, nurturing, deeply human and held with genuine care.
With love,
Alicia Rutherford
Founder of Soul Alchemy
Leonardo Ayivé Amkaal is a transpersonal psychotherapist, neuro coach, clinical hypnotherapist and international facilitator of ancestral medicine experiences. He is the founder of ENTEO Therapy Awareness, an innovative approach that integrates psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with clinical hypnosis, mental reprogramming and expanded states of consciousness.
His psychological training includes transpersonal psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, neuro-linguistic programming and cognitive behavioural approaches. His ceremonial path includes initiation and training with Wixárika medicine practitioners, together with decades of study in energetic, holistic and shamanic traditions.
With nearly 30 years of experience supporting individual and group transformation—including 18 years facilitating personalized psychedelic processes across five different medicines—Leonardo brings together psychological depth and ancestral wisdom within a grounded, highly individualized approach.
He specializes in designing and guiding private experiences focused on emotional healing, expanded awareness and meaningful integration. His work helps each person move beyond the experience itself, translating insight into lasting changes in the way they relate to themselves, their lives and the world around them.
Jorge Espinosa is one of the teachers who has contributed most significantly to the growth and dissemination of yoga in Mexico. A martial arts practitioner from an early age, he immersed himself in yoga in 1996, inspired by his teachers Rosemary Atri and Baptiste Marceau.
He is the founder of Centro Kiai, which has several locations in Mexico City, and the Latin American Association of Yoga Instructors (LAIYLA). He has been training yoga instructors since 2008.
Kai Schoenhals is a multidisciplinary designer, filmmaker, and strategist whose practice operates at the intersection of story, environment, and human care. From establishing educational media initiatives across the former Soviet Bloc to serving as a first responder and logistics strategist in international crisis zones, his work is rooted in building trust and shaping spaces where hospitality becomes a medium for restoration and connection.
Collaborating with Soul Alchemy, Kai extends the containers of retreat beyond traditional frameworks, curating deeply bespoke itineraries for individuals, private groups, and organizations. Rather than a simple schedule or destination shuttle, each voyage is treated as an intentional arc—incorporating thoughtful onboarding before departure, immersive regional exploration, and grounded post-experience integration.
Kai tailors every journey around the guest’s underlying intentions, weaving together regional culinary narratives, local cultural lineages, contemporary art, architecture, and discovery across Valle de Bravo and beyond.
To honour and preserve the journey, he also offers discreet, professional still photography and cinematic documentary storytelling, capturing the subtle transformations of the experience as a lasting personal record.