Monarch Highlight: Mara Veltman of Spiritually Boujee
Mara Veltman of Spiritually Boujee, formerly Zion Sand and Stone, began her journey to mindfulness as a young teen. A mother of one of Veltman’s schoolmates introduced the students to yoga during gym class, and she was hooked. “Even though I didn’t know what it was other than stretching to Enya at the time, I noticed how it made me feel,” she says.
Veltman says that being the youngest of seven kids, with four brothers and two sisters, and being adopted made her feel out of place and very out-of-touch with her femininity. She attributes yoga to helping her get in touch with her feminine side, even though she wasn’t even conscious of it.
Veltman practiced yoga secretly in her room for five years, and then at age 18, she moved to Georgia and took every class she could find. She gained friends and mentors, and started her teaching journey, but says there was still a disconnect.
Her next move was to a farm in Idaho, where she lived alone in the middle of nowhere. There, Veltman’s yoga practice became consistent and essential, and her diet was comprised of clean food she was growing herself. “One day,” Veltman says, “I was doing my dishes while doing Asana (a type of yoga) and dancing while listening to music, and I had a major energy release and instant download from some big asana/dance movement I had just done — I was in the zone, and I realized that this was yoga. This zone I was in was the union — yoga!”
Veltman says she immediately moved from Idaho to Utah and completed 200 hours of training to become a registered yoga teacher. She then began an internship. “[I] studied, practiced, and taught what took me 17 years to click!” Veltman says her experience is quite common. “[People] know yoga feels good but they think it’s because they’re just stretching their body. I am here to break it all down!” And she loves doing it.
Unfortunately, when COVID-19 hit, Veltman stopped teaching in-studio and tried online classes, but the lack of connection got to her. That’s when she says she hit the trails and found the connection between nature and yoga easier than ever before. “I found that for me, personally, the purest form of yoga was on the trail, getting pranayama breath in easier. Nature seemed to be much more alive,” she says. (According to Wikipedia, “Pranayama is the yogic practice of focusing on breath. In Sanskrit, ‘prana’ means “vital life force,” and ‘yama’ means to gain control. In yoga, breath is associated with the prana, thus, pranayama is a means to elevate the prana shakti, or life energies.”)
Veltman says she started bringing the sand from the deserts and trails where she mediated home with her to lift her mood, and she started giving some to friends too; thus her business began, selling Energy Terrariums and locally excavated stones. People wanted more, and they wanted classes too. That’s when she decided it was time to teach again. “But with the focus on mindfulness, not just touching your toes,” she quips. “Just like almost everyone else during that time, my mental health was not doing well,” she says. “I took solitude in the desert and on the trails, and was finding deeper connection and mindfulness. I realized if I needed that kind of mindfulness practice, a seasoned veteran of yoga, that other people would be starving for it!”
Veltman opened her studio at The Monarch in Studio 31 this month. Classes and events will start both on the mat and on the trails. You can also buy mindfulness attire, herbal burning bouquets made from her own or ethically sourced herbs, or energy terrariums. She also creates adorable micro terrariums “to take mindfulness on the go.”
Veltman says she’s excited to teach spirituality basics and more mindful energy to the Ogden community. “[Ogden is] growing in such a beautiful way, and I am thrilled to be a small representative of this community of badass artists and local creatives. I hope that people join the mindful community that I am trying to add to and see me and my yoga studio as a safe space. I want people to know they have a little corner where they can go to reset, slow down a little. The more people we can share this with, the more mindful we will become,” says Veltman.
And don’t forget to join Veltman for a Witches’ Tea, where you can learn about and create herbal burning wands. You will be setting intentions and sipping on a magical witches’ brew while eating a light snack, all in witchy good company.
