How is your winter holiday unfolding? If you’ve participated enthusiastically in the bacchanal this year, it’s not too late to hop on a little holiday health recovery.
This year, I tried something that felt a little like swimming against the current – improving my level of fitness through the early winter and holidays. I always have a special place in my heart for people who take Kripalu nutrition programs like Detox, Mindful Table/Nutrition & Cooking Immersion, or Integrative Weight Loss between Thanksgiving and the winter holidays – something about it seems brilliantly counterintuitive, but people who do take these programs later say their holidays are more mindful, less stressful and less filled with candy and rich food & drink.
My holiday fitness plan involved a “Get Fit” program at my local community center that met twice weekly until last week. Calisthenics! Running and skipping and lifting weights was the order of the day, and while I may or may not have lost a little weight (while partaking in holiday cheer), I certainly feel stronger, have more energy and feel better. I recommend launching health and fitness right before or in the middle of the holidays if that appeals to you in the least. Just keep your expectations in check. I find it manages the stress of the season, and I just feel good doing it.
Holiday health recovery ideas:
Focus on moving more. Take a walk with someone in your family or a friend, or put on your favorite music and have a disco break.
Begin your sugar sabbatical (too soon? OK, you can wait till the New Year).
Add good food with an extra vegetable or two.
Drinking a bit more good clean warm water can move things in a good direction.
Treat yourself to daily morning warm oil massage. The Ayurveda abhyanga oil massage calms and feeds frazzled nerves and is a great way to begin your recovery.
As the holiday season winds down, remember to savor the magic of this special time of year. This is the week to take stock of your hits and misses in the game that was 2016, and visioning and dreaming the year to come. May your 2017 be filled with health, happiness, and basking in the brilliant light of your own true self.
Would you like a recipe that can, in one fell swoop, transition you joyfully to a more plant-based diet? Cashew cream just might be that recipe. It is a fantastic vegan substitute for dairy cream and creamy cheeses like ricotta or cream cheese. It makes a killer alfredo sauce for over vegetables. It is absolutely divine in a lasagna, as a whole or partial substitute for ricotta. Best of all, it is very very easy to make (though you do need to soak the nuts overnight).
Whip up a batch and you’ll see what I mean.
Cashew Cream Recipe
Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews
water for soaking
1/2-3/4 c additional water
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper
Directions
Soak cashews in water overnight. Drain and rinse. Place all ingredients in a blender, and process until smooth and the desired consistency is reached. Use less water if you are aiming for a thicker cheesier consistency, and more water if you are aiming for a creamier consistency.
Variations: add garlic, ginger, scallions or other herbs and spices to taste.
Enjoy!
Not MDMA (though I do understand that when used skillfully, it can be a healer). I’m talking about life. Transcendent moments are our birthright. Moments of everyday ecstasy and wonder.
Everyday ecstasy is why I do yoga. It’s why I meditate and why I enjoy/suffer through the ups and downs of these long-term contemplative practices as my body ages, coming back over and over and over again. To taste that nectar of a momentary unitive state. The sweetness, the soma that is our birthright. Mind-body practices like yoga build resilience, in part because of how good a moment of unitive consciousness feels.
It’s why I’m studying plant spirit healing and plant initiations. I learn about how plants heal through (in addition to the regular study of plant medicine) non-ordinary conscious connection. My apprenticeship in plant spirits taught me how to listen deeply to plants and nature. To find and follow the golden thread that connects us.
Mindful Transcending
One definition of mindfulness is focusing on something (almost anything) to the point of complete absorption. We fall into deep wonder with whatever we are focusing on, allowing ourselves a moment of ecstatic clarity. When we practice mindfulness or communion with a moment, it gives us the ability to transcend. We can transcend the muddy muck of the day and see things in a different light. Transcending is excellent for supporting healthy behavior change. And it’s fun. Ken Wilber says altered states become permanent traits through repetition and integration. I have journeyed in alchemical divinations and I have journeyed with the breath and music, with shaman and with plants. Each route is sweet and lovely and challenging and took me face to face with the wonder of this one wackily precious and miraculous life. No polluting drugs are necessary, and that’s a bit of a secret. You have everything you need to transcend right inside your own sweet little body. In fact, I find as I get older that I’m so sensitive to substances in general, that it’s just easier to go au natural.
Plant Spirit Healing
My shamanic study with plant spirit healing has been key to a certain awakening. Through this work, I’ve gotten to know a number of plants personally. To me, Tulsi is a red-haired woman with flowing green robes, a sister I go shopping with at the celestial power object store. To me, she is the full pantheon of goddesses of the yoga tradition. Yes, she’s Durga AND Lakshmi AND Kali and everyone else wrapped into one beautiful mega-goddess that if we give half a chance, might just save the entire planet, or show us the way. St. John’s Wort is golden light. If light could be a food, it would be St. John’s Wort for me. I can use the nourishment of this ally, particularly in the dark months of winter. Please be advised that what each of these plants is for me is not what they will be for you. I am not recommending them for all. This type of experience, however, getting to know a plant on a personal energetic level, bestows a different type of healing. It is a type of healing much needed today: earth-centric energy healing.
If this sounds a little “out there” to you, yes it is a bit. For many of you, sensation seekers and those who already talk to plants, for example, it’s not at all. There is a growing body of science to support the healing power of everyday ecstasy.
Later this year I will be offering an opportunity for you take a taste – to experience this work more deeply and see for yourself how it supports health and healing…stay tuned.
Happy Holidays and remember to fall into reverie whenever you get the chance!
My Ayurvedic brothers and sisters may balk at a raw lemony kale salad (though acid in lemons does “cook”) in winter, but how much I love this salad in this season reminds me that we do need to hold food rules more lightly than hard-and-fast. In Ayurveda, winter is the time of warming stews and cooked vegetables, which makes perfect sense. I have found, in my own experimentation of Ayurveda, that tending my constitution with food works best when I enjoy the whole foods I’m drawn to and then use spices to address my constitution.
For all nutritional guidance, each of us is one point on a spectrum for any particular tenet; we will each react a little differently. Ultimately, to find what works for you, when you encounter a guideline that gives you that ping of recognition “this might be good for me!” see how you feel when you really practice it. You might use a food journal to connect what you eat with how you are feeling and reacting. If you are puzzled by the process, happily there is an army of professionals who can help you out (including me).
This salad always bursts with life, color, and nutrition. In this season of sugar, here’s an antidote!
Lemony Kale Salad Recipe
Ingredients
1 bunch lacinata kale, sliced thin
1/2 orange or red pepper, cubed
2 scallions, sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, diced
For the dressing
Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp thyme
1 small clove garlic
salt & pepper to taste
Directions
Place all the ingredients for the dressing in a small jar and shake to blend. Place the sliced kale in a bowl, add a few Tbsp of dressing and yes! MASSAGE. Give it a good rub, a good toss. Or, let it sit in the dressing while you do the dishes, draw a bath or otherwise occupy yourself. Then add remaining salad ingredients and the rest of the dressing. Toss and serve.
Enjoy.
Annie
Sometimes you want something a little bit more or a little bit different than peanut butter on your apple. Here’s a spread that is sweet and gingery and delicious – Peanut Ginger Coconut Spread. Use it on fruit, with raw or blanched vegetables, or spread it on your sprouted grain bread in the morning.
Sometimes you want something a little bit more or a little bit different than peanut butter on your apple. Here’s a spread that is sweet and gingery and delicious. Use it on fruit, with raw or blanched vegetables, or spread it on your sprouted grain bread in the morning.
Course Appetizer, Breakfast, Snack
Equipment
1 Medium Mixing Bowl
Ingredients
1/2cupgood quality organic peanut butter - smooth or chunky, your choice
6 or 7ouncesPlain Greek yogurt - I used 2%
1Tbsphoney
1tspvanilla
2Tbspfresh gingerdiced
1tspturmeric
1/4cupgrated coconutunsweetened
Instructions
Blend all ingredients together in a bowl. Spread on things. Eat.
