A Poem on the Elements

Seven years ago I wrote my first poem, prompted by an assignment at a retreat. The only instruction was to reference the five life elements of Ayurveda. And so I wrote a tribute to my favorite place: the mountains I grew up in and still visit once or twice a year. I’m here now and in the quiet of a morning on the lake, the poem found its way to the surface of my memory.

Nothing is sacred, he said
Not even this place.
A sad ache seeps from my heart on into my bones
My experience of the world so different
And I wait days for words to form some sort of reply.

We live separate lives
But here is where we gather.
We set aside our differences and play
Here is where the dirt has soaked up ourselves
Year after year after year
And pulses with our memories, sustains us.

Summers spent one with the water (winters with snow)
No need for shoes, our feet crave the bare earth.
Fireworks enjoyed from the boat
Thin mountain air hot, then suddenly cool with thunderstorms
Backs against the dock, lake calm
Stars burst from the dark ether.

This place is nothing but sacred, she finally said
Knowing words would never convince him.
And so she released it all
Earth, water, fire, air and ether
Trusting the sacred to find her own way to him.

-RDP

The Scent of Light

THE SCENT OF LIGHT
Hafez

Like a great starving beast
My body is quivering
Fixed
On the scent
of
Light.

We’re two weeks past the darkest point in our year, but I’m still feeling the weight of the long nights. I’m longing for light and spring is a long way off. Any chance I get to stick my face in a patch of sun, I take it. Rituals of the season help dispel the gloom - move my body, get plenty of sleep, stay warm, remember it’s ok to feel a little down, and enjoy the tastes of winter (pungent, bitter, astringent). Mostly, I just keep chasing light.

Accessible Ayurveda - The Longest Days

Summer is here!  Following a multi-day heat wave in the PNW, we’re back to the usual June gloom, but there's no doubt that spring is officially behind us.

In Ayurvedic terms, summer is "pitta" season.  Pitta is a blend of fire and water elements - think long, hot days melded with juicy melons and refreshing swims.  If we keep these elements in balance, then we are able to thrive in this season and beyond.  Ayurveda approaches disease from a standpoint of imbalance.  To maintain health and well-being, we try and live in harmony with various cycles of nature, like the seasons.  The idea is that "like increases like," so imbalance in summer looks like adding fire to a fiery season (going for a run in the full sun at the hottest point of the day). Balance is an afternoon siesta or a slow flow yoga class during lunch hour instead of power vinyasa.  

To maintain optimal health, find ways to nurture yourself this summer so you are ready to greet fall with a healthy, energetic mind and body. Your instincts to play, take a vacation, and be near water are spot on for the next few months. 

Which foods best nourish us in summer?  Let’s start with what’s fresh - Mother Earth usually proves a trustworthy partner in wellness.  I’m visiting multiple farmers markets each week, along with visits out to Ecolibrium Farms, and the offerings are abundant.  Enormous lettuce heads, bright carrots and radishes, sweet cherries, various apricot blends, juicy strawberries and raspberries, leafy greens, summer squash, fava beans…  Menu planning this time of year, for me, is a breeze.

I start with Ayurvedic tastes as my guide.  We’re coming from spring, a season which is best suited to bitter, astringent, and pungent tastes.  For summer, we maintain bitter and astringent and decrease pungent, while also increasing sweet.  This helps us stay cool in the season’s heat.  Below are some seasonal expressions of these tastes.

Bitter Foods - kale, arugula, collards, leafy greens

Astringent Foods - quinoa, beans, fava beans, pasta, raw carrots, peas, parsley

Sweet Foods - fresh berries, mint, squash, basil, meat, rice, corn, beets, cooked carrots, olives, fresh dairy, eggs, nuts, fennel

During the week, I’m usually pressed for time in the kitchen.  Some days I head straight from work to preschool to pick up my toddler and we arrive home just before dinnertime.  Other days we have a few hours together in the afternoon between nap and dinner, but my son usually wants to be outside with other kids -  a 2 year old running around the courtyard we share with our neighbors means I need to supervise.  Neither scenario is conducive to leisurely preparing our evening meal.  So I keep it simple.  

Step One - set out a little bowl of olives to pacify hungry tummies

Step Two - pick a grain (usually quinoa, rice, or millet) and cook it on the stove

Step Three - slice some vegetables (carrots and radishes)

Step Four - toss some peas and fava beans on the table to shell as we eat

Step Five - Dish up grain bowls, top with slices veggies and pumpkin seeds, and serve!

When the season encourages us to decrease stress, it makes sense to keep things easy.  Spend your time outside and at the table and take advantage of a season that invites us to enjoy fresh, light foods.  Happy Solstice!

Accessible Ayurveda - Spring Forward

Spring!  Like a breath of fresh air, spring sailed in today and lightened my step. 

In Ayurveda, spring is kapha season, same as winter, but while winter's kapha is informed by the cold vata of autumn, spring's kapha is influenced by the coming pitta fire of summer.  Confused?  Let's break it down a little more.  Kapha is a blend of water and earth elements.  In winter, water and earth are cold, frozen, and solid.  As in nature, kapha begins to thaw in spring as the longer days bring warmth.  Spring's kapha is full of movement, like melting snow and runny noses.  It's time to shed excess accumulation and stagnation.

Balance is key.  Ayurveda approaches disease from a standpoint of imbalance.  To maintain health and wellbeing, we try and live in harmony with various cycles of nature, like the seasons.  The idea is that "like increases like," so imbalance in spring looks like an accumulation of kapha from winter - excess weight and mucus, sluggishness, stagnation, water retention.  Balance is found through breaking habits, making space in our minds and living spaces, seeking dry heat (like a sauna), and moving the body a lot to increase circulation and release toxins.

Your instincts to cleanse, purge, start new projects are exactly right.  Think like a gardener - now is the time to plan, clean out the beds, add new soil, and plant seeds.  If you rested like the earth throughout winter, you should feel a burst of energy now.

A healthy diet will be similar to winter - lots of bitter (greens, nettles), pungent (ginger, radishes, spice), and astringent (grapefruit, pears, quinoa) tastes, while taking care to decrease heavy foods and oils.  Limiting sweet (breads, meat, desserts), sour (dairy), and salty (olives, cured meats) will help the body shed excess weight put on during the cold months.

Daily rituals for spring include waking up early (5-5:30am), vigorous exercise, and exfoliating skin.

Yoga poses that help the transition to spring include sun salutations, twists, and inversions.

I think many of us anticipate this season more than any other.  We made it through another winter.  Hello spring, you're here just in time!

Farwell to Fall and Welcome Winter

Tomorrow (Dec 21) we welcome winter!  Winter is kapha season -a blend of earth and water elements. To understand its qualities, we look to nature.  Think of frozen earth and lakes, snowfall, ice.  Land and and animals in hibernation.  This is an active resting time of year, when we replenish for busier times.  It’s just as important as the other seasons (afterall, what would a yoga practice be without Savasana?)  If the land didn’t have a fallow period, eventually it will stop producing.  So we let ourselves rest in darkness, as a seed in the soil lies dormant for the winter months.  While the light returns, we wait for something new to grow out of what is.  

In ayurvedic medicine, we aim to keep kapha in balance in wintertime.  Kapha out of balance looks like lethargy, and consuming food and drink that promote weight gain.  Like increases like, so cultivate the opposite.  Think New Year’s resolutions - get moving, plus limit sugar and alcohol.  Keep your internal fire strong by bundling up and eating warm foods.  Rest by going to bed a little earlier and sleeping a little longer (until say, 6-7am instead of getting up at 5am). Promote restful sleep by eating light dinners.  Reduce commitments.

Specifically for diet, winter is a time to decrease sweet, sour, and salty foods.  Stay healthy by increasing your consumption of foods that are pungent (like ginger), bitter (like coffee, turmeric, and greens), and astringent (think chickpeas, apples, and quinoa).

A regular yoga practice will ideally include sun salutations, forward bends and back bends, inversions, and twists.  You might try a more vigorous class than usual, or a simple daily home practice that gets the blood flowing.

Taking time to work with the breath can also help alleviate stagnation associated with kapha.  Surya Bhendana and Kapala Bhati are ideal practices for winter.

Let this season - both the holidays and months of wintertime - be a time of relative rest and self-exploration.  Many of us are looking forward to a celebratory couple of weeks with family and friends and sunny vacations to escape dreary routines at home.  Others of us will just get through this time as best we can - these weeks can feel more lonely and hard than the rest of the year.  The spectrum of our collective experiences during this time are all valid.  Spending quiet moments in reflection are useful whether your thoughts are happy or sad or angry.  Be curious about your responses to what surfaces and how you label them.  What you find in the stillness may not be comfortable.   That’s ok.  

“Healing then becomes a process of re-creation...in other words, the simple act of becoming truly aware of reality can cause miracles.  Maybe we do need to take more time out and allow the shit to compost into rich soil from which new life can emerge. ”

— A. McIntosh, Soil and Soul

Accessible Ayurveda: Autumnal Equinox

And just like that, it's nearly fall.  It certainly feels like autumn in Seattle.  Our season change arrived over the weekend, a few days ahead of schedule.  I bought one more half flat of berries at the farmers market on Sunday, since my calendar says it's summer until Friday.  But mother nature had other plans, and with an onslaught of rain and cool temps, eating blueberries feels a little silly.  Time to find a good muffin recipe.

Actually, bread is an ideal food for fall.  It falls into the sweet taste, which carries over from summer.  But unlike the season we're leaving, during which we pair sweet with bitter and astringent, the foods that keep us nurtured in autumn are sweet, sour, and salty.  And the way we approach sweet changes.  Instead of cooling the body with lots of berries, watermelon, and cucumber, we want to warm the body with breads, rice, dates, meat, and cooked apples.

We can bring in salty with foods like seaweed or cured meets.  Sour tastes belong with citrus, yogurt, cheese, and fermented foods.  Pickling is actually pretty quick and easy, and a great way to preserve much of the abundant produce coming out of the earth right now.  Cucumbers are probably the most familiar to us as pickles, but you can be really creative.  Beets, radishes, carrots, cauliflower, beans...go ahead and chop them up, stuff them in a jar, and add a vinegar mixture!  I tried a cold blend on Sunday, which was even easier than the usual stovetop water and vinegar concoction I usually use. 

Pickled Cucumbers (modified from blessthismessplease.com)

3 cup water

1 cup rice wine vinegar

3 tsp salt

1/3 cup organic sugar

6 cups sliced cucumbers

Stuff cucumbers into a 1/2 gallon mason jar.  Stir water, sugar, vinegar and salt to blend.  Add to cucumbers to cover fully.  Cap your jar and store in the fridge.

The foods we eat are one of the most important ways to shift our approach to wellness throughout the year as seasons change.  I've written before about my favorite kitchari recipe, an ideal food to prepare while transitioning seasons. But there are other ayurvedic concepts beyond food that inform how best to nurture our bodies.  Generally speaking, we want to understand the qualities of the season we're in and find balance in our own bodies.  As we move from the heat of summer to the blustery, cool winds of autumn, we do well when we ground and stabilize our energy, slow down, keep warm, and follow a routine.  If you practice yoga, you can consider shifting your focus to slow flow, long savasanas, and balancing breathing work.

Want to learn more?  I regularly weave seasonal themes into my yoga classes and offer one-on-one wellness sessions.  If you're in the Seattle area tomorrow, join me at the Riveter Capitol Hill for Wellness Wednesday.  In my workshop Accessible Ayurveda - Summer to Fall, I'll be exploring this week's seasonal transition in more depth.  And finally, don't forget to celebrate the autumnal equinox this Friday!  

Accessible Ayurveda: Spring to Summer

Happy summer solstice!  It may be the longest day of the year, but here in Seattle it feels like early spring.  Which sadly makes sense, considering our winter lasted well into May this year.  To celebrate summer, I wore a scarf and boots today (eye roll).  

Energetically however, I know it's time to shift seasons.  I always feel a ramp up in projects, busyness, and just general mayhem and chaos as spring moves towards summer. I usually feel like collapsing a week before the solstice, but if I hang in there until the wave crests, it's a nice ride into July and August.

In Ayurvedic terms, summer is "pitta" season.  Pitta is a blend of fire and water elements - think long, hot days melded with juicy melons and refreshing swims.  If we keep these elements in balance, then we are able to thrive in this season and beyond.  Find ways to nurture yourself this summer so you are ready to greet fall with a healthy, energetic mind and body.

Balance is key.  Ayurveda approaches disease from a standpoint of imbalance.  To maintain health and wellbeing, we try and live in harmony with various cycles of nature, like the seasons.  The idea is that "like increases like," so imbalance in summer looks like adding fire to a fiery season (going for a run in the full sun at the hottest point of the day). Balance is an afternoon siesta or a slow flow yoga class during lunch hour instead of power vinyasa.  

Your instincts to play, take a vacation, and be near water are spot on for this season.  Think of seasons like a gardener - so much planning and effort went into seeds and soil and nurturing bursts of growth throughout spring.  Now all that work pays off with flowers and fruit exploding in abundance.  There's maintenance to be done, sure.  Water, weed, tend.  But you also get to kick back a bit and enjoy ripe red fruit and crunchy veggies.   

Tomorrow I'll be facilitating a collaborative discussion about seasonal ayurveda and health at the Riveter.  Join me at 10am and experience this beautiful new female focused co-working and wellness space in Seattle! Here's a sneak peak at some tips for maintaining your health and building resilience during the summer months:

• yoga poses like forward folds, chandra namaskar (moon salutes) with low lunges, 
• long savanasa
• cooling breath practices like shitali and left-nostril breathing
• meditate on images of water and nature
• wake up at sunrise and exercise outside before the heat of the day
• eat foods that are cooling, sweet, bitter, or astringent in nature

Want to learn more?  Schedule a private yoga session or wellness consultation, or join me for regular yoga classes at the Riveter (Mondays 7am/5pm, Thursdays 7am/12pm).