5 top healing plants to forage from the hedgerow in Autumn

The hedgerows are arguably at their prettiest right now. Beaded with ruby hips and haws, brambles drooping under the weight of shiny blackberries, leaves starting to turn fiery hues as the days lose heat and the nights and dawns gain chill; they are abundant. Often abundant enough for you to stock up your natural medicine cabinet whilst still leaving plenty for birds and other wildlife*. And for fellow admirers of these Autumn treasures and their healing potential.

Image thanks to Rita and Mit via Pixabay

By Cicely Mary Barker

Elderberries

Most Septembers, I take a walk around the lanes and fields near where I live, and follow Glennie Kindred’s delicious recipe for elderberry syrup. Not only is it packed with vitamin-rich, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory goodness, but this cough-and-cold remedy has a sweet, fruity taste that my sensory-sensitive kids will tolerate. The addition of warming spices supports that Ayurvedic belief that, in early Autumn, we enter the vata-dominant season where we may encounter problems from cold, dryness and wind. Warming spices and sweet flavours balance vata, so help to optimise health at this time of year.

Elderberry has a centuries-long reputation as a versatile healer – it’s often found in parks and other urban environments as well as the more rural. Although it can seem like a bit of a messy faff separating those little jewel-like berries from their stalks, you might find a meditative peace through the process; the atmosphere that the medicine is created in forming another nurturing ingredient for the storage jar. Elderberries can also be made into jam, cordial, gin, teas, popsicles, sweets and baked into muffins and pies – but shouldn’t be eaten raw.

Image thanks to Hans Benn via Pixabay

Rosehips

Rosehips are another antioxidant-laden gift that the early Autumn offers just before the season where viruses become more prevalent. (They may be sweeter when picked after the first frosts, although this seems too late for harvesting them most years my mild part of the UK). Reputed to also benefit osteoarthritic symptoms and hold anti-aging properties, you can take rosehips as a tea or syrup much like elderberries. They have a heap of culinary uses too, although eating them raw isn’t advised due to the tiny irritant hairs (apparently an early source of itching powder: not what you want in your throat!)

Image by Manfred Richter via Pixabay

Haws (hawthorn berries)

Similarly high in Vitamin-C to protect you from winter coughs and colds, haws also have a history of use in folk medicine for heart and circulatory disorders. For this reason, you are recommended to seek medical advice before taking hawthorn therapeutically if you take medication to treat blood pressure, blood thinning, blood clotting or coronary disorders. I made some haw ketchup a couple of years ago, and enjoyed the deeper, smokier flavour than I’m used to from its better-known tomato counterpart. However, what seemed like a lot of haws and a lot of prep removing stalks gave me a pretty tiny amount of ketchup – perhaps not one for the time-poor forager!

Image thanks to Andrea via Pixabay

Dandelion root

I confess that whilst I’ve often included the leaves my late-spring salads (and the stems and flowers in my kids’ art and science activities), I’ve never actually consumed dandelion root. However, these earthy, nutrient-dense treasures are said to be potent detoxifiers, with anti-inflammatory and skin-healing properties too. Said to be best harvested in autumn for medicinal purposes – and spring for culinary use – dandelion roots can be made into tinctures, teas, vinegars, poultices and decoctions. This post talks you through harvesting, drying and preparing them, as well as medical contraindications.

Image thanks to Rebekka D via Pixabay

Apples

The apple’s medicinal, and nutritional, reputation needs no introduction; this article and this one suggest the healthiest varieties. In our household, apple crumble is the ultimate cold-day comfort food; a potent nurturer on gloomy afternoons. Windfalls are perfect for baking with (and so plentiful right now) that your future tired, poorly or busy self will thank you for popping an extra crumble in your freezer for a winter day when your heart (and tummy) need warming.

Do you have any hedgerow remedies or Autumn healing tips to share in the comments below? Make sure you’re subscribed for future seasonal living ideas and inspiration )O(

Spin Your Circle Bright this week:

Mind ~ I’ve mentioned Glennie Kindred’s works of beauty and wisdom before on this blog, and I’ve learned so much from her about pagan traditions, natural healing and plant lore that I’ll share the link to her website again. Glennie is also one of the founding members of the lovely Earth Pathways Diary. I’d also recommend The Hedgerow Handbook, by Adele Nozedar.

Body ~ Pears and plums might also be found available for foraging right now, along with vitamin-packed hedgerow classic: blackberries.

Heart ~ This beautiful, peace-inspiring creation.

Spirit ~ An area of development in my own spiritual practice is around exploring animism, and growing relationships between myself and the non-human world. This involves seeking permission when harvesting, from acting from a place of respect and dignity consciousness. Read more here and here.

Sharing ~ * a suggested foraging rule is to take no more than 30% of the crop that is there – and to follow this foraging code in the UK.

How to still be magical when it feels like life isn’t

(CW: Mental health/distress, birth trauma).

We all have times when life can lose its magic a bit (or a lot). For those who follow a spiritual path of nature celebration, with frequent festivals, beliefs in soul and spirit – and perhaps a magical practice – this can feel painfully jarring. Possibly even verging on hypocritical.

Perhaps your current situation feels lacking in things to celebrate – and in other themes associated with pagan holidays (abundance, potential, achievement, renewal, growth, fertility, power).

Perhaps you worry that people might sneer at why you can’t just sort out your troubles with a little spell.

Perhaps you find it easy to see and love nature’s beauty. You go for a walk, smell and smile at the flowers, feel calm and connected, find peace in your heart. But, back in the mundane, the magic unravels and you’re in the thick of your struggles again.

You’re not alone

Believing – and connecting with – the supernatural doesn’t make us superhuman. No-one’s life is totally charmed, and everyone’s has seasons that change – or at least change ebb. Bear in mind that those who might wonder why you haven’t magicked your woes away may have in mind “magic” as it’s often depicted in fairytale and fantasy: instant, dramatic and literal!

In Maggie O’Farrell’s brilliant bestseller, Hamnet, Agnes is considered by some to be a witch of sorts. She has a way of “seeing things” about people, is a locally-renowned healer, grows plants to make remedies and has a certain magic about her. Nevertheless her son dies, heartwrenchingly, despite her medicines and her usually-powerful will. Bad things happen to good witches.

According to this theses, pagans may be additionally vulnerable to mental ill health through experiencing marginalisation, negative stereotyping and discrimination. For those with clinical depression, there are others on a similar path with similar struggles and one blessing of the internet is the scope it offers for finding support. For example, this Facebook group or via reddit threads.

Light and dark

“Ladies spin your circle bright, weave your web of dark and light…..” The day, the moon and the year each have their dark and light times which are necessary, interdependent and hold their own gifts and mysteries. Our lives do too. However, capitalism operates on a mentality of eternal growth, youth, expansion and gain. In nature (which we are or course part of, not separate from), the darker and quieter times enable rest, renewal, releasing what is no longer needed and creating space for dreaming. For many who follow an earth-centred spirituality, this recognition and celebration of the dark is an important part of that nature-based spiritual path.

Duality

My first child’s birth put his life in danger and was traumatic for his dad and I, deeply affecting how I entered motherhood. I adored my son and was so happy that he’d arrived, yet had a lot of painful feelings around how he did so. Guilt and shame followed that his birth was not the “happiest day of my life” – as many mums describe their firstborn’s arrival. If I spoke about it, people typically said, “well at least he got here safely in the end”: it felt like I should just feel grateful, not all the other things.

I was lucky enough to work with a counsellor. She helped me see that I could feel all the difficult feelings AND feel grateful and happy for my son being here. That I could love being his mum AND find it extremely hard. That it didn’t have to be a black-and-white choice between positive and less-so emotions: it was valid for me to be experiencing them all.

Similarly, you might feel grateful for the abundance of the land around us at Lammas whilst acknowledging your abundant challenges, too. You can celebrate personal growth in one area your life whilst others seem stagnant or difficult. You can, of course, enjoy some things whilst really struggling with others. There’s no rule for it to be either/or. You can have a sense of the spiritual, hold awe at Earth’s beauty and experience the magical realm whilst also knowing the worldly experience of suffering.

The seasons around us each hold potential for suffering. Whilst its natural to look forward to the warmth and long days of summer, draught and heatstroke can be as fatal as the cold of winter. We likewise have our own shadow sides, or possible dangers of our own inner seasons. Just as outwardly we seek the support and protection of central heating, air con, importing food or various other measures, we sometimes need comfort, help or physical refuge via our friends and community, from professionals, from natural or pharmaceutical medicines, or from other helpful interventions.

Support and healing tools

As well as reaching out, reach in: into your own resources. What’s helped you through hard times before? If yours is a situation that can’t be changed much, what can give comfort and strength to help you cope with it? As a very niche example, I have a particular same 2-3 weeks of the calendar that are difficult every year. There’s been liberation in accepting that and planning for it. I lower my expectations of myself in terms of cleaning, socialising, “achieving”. I batch-cook food for the freezer before the tricky fortnight arrives, and buy in ready-made food as well. I ring-fence time for things I find relaxing: knitting, yoga, journaling. If I can’t switch off enough to meditate, nevermind; that magic will come back to me soon enough. I remind myself that this time comes along every year, and is so hard but won’t last forever. It’s a season.

What gently inspires your sense of magic, super-nature and your personal spiritual journey? If you don’t feel the strength or appetite for usual aspects of your spiritual practice, perhaps dipping into a book that first opened that path to you, or browsing artwork that captures what you love and feel, can keep a little flame burning in that part of your life whilst others need to take up the full hearth. For me, it’s often pottering in the garden: a bit of light tidying with no particular intention will connect my body and senses to the season, nourish my heart and reawaken my spirit.

Even if you’re struggling to connect with what you know to be your true spiritual path, taking a break doesn’t erase it as part of you. Your magic is still there within you. If blue’s your favourite colour hands down, that can still be so on days you just want to wear red.

Don’t suffer alone though. Riding out a tricky time – even if you know how temporary it might be – doesn’t need to be something you do on your own. Strengthen your own strength. Know the magic in that.

Spinning my circle bright; spin your circle bright

Mind – I’m currently ready Kissing the Hag by Emma Restell-Orr, where she talks more about the idea of our modern Western discomfort with – and avoidance of – the dark.

Body – grounding exercises, and being around big trees like beeches and oaks, can help to give a sense of tethering, stability and being more rooted when other things feel rocky and adrift.

Heart – this quote may not be able to be true for every not-feeling-the-magic life season. But, for many, it’s food for thought.

Spirit – for those whose spiritual practice involves working with deities or fae, engaging with them in your meditations, journeying, ritual and/or prayer may also keep connection to the magical and be an additional source of strength, guidance and clarity.

Sharing – This coming week is UK Mental Health Awareness Week. I’m sure that social media, and other print and online platforms, will host a rich range of moving stories and ideas for supporting amazing organisations like Mind, Rethink, BEAT, We Are With You (formerly Addaction), Samaritans and Mental Health First Aid training to name just a few.

Click the subscribe link to make sure you get every Spin Your Circle Bright

post

Rainbow image by Kanenori, image of girl sat in leaves by DanaTentis, image of man on beach by Lukas_Rychvalsky all from Pixabay

Fairy image from pinterest

Towards winter, and stoking fires

Obviously, the days are less bright and more cold now. Night comes sooner, leaves later and has a depth that echoes the secrets of many souls. Ours, our ancestors, the land. Although where I live is unlikely to get a frost yet, I feel frost linger on the fringes of each morning, waiting for when the land is finally too tired to fight it back anymore. Then it will pounce, victorious, and tell us “now it has ended. Now the time for growth and for harvest is over. What isn’t done must be left; goodbyes must be said to it. Take my icy hand and I will show you the rich rest and magical dreaming of winter”.

From last winter, near the Forest of Dean.

If I’m outside in the evenings now, I smell the odd wood-stove. (With a little envy, I confess; all of us in this house have a wish for a wood-burner of our own). Of course the lighting of these fires holds a practical home-heating purpose. For me it’s also symbolic of bringing flame inward; the warmth and glow of the sun and the land is weakened now, so we ignite an indoor fire – we kind of substitute the sun with these flames. Recently I learnt that the connection of dragons with the two equinoxes – and with Michaelmas and St Georges Day in the Christian calendar – is because the dragons’ fire is the symbol of the warmth of the sun and the earth. At the Autumn Equinox, the dragons retreat underground for their winter rest, taking their fire with them (ie: we enter the dark half of the year). At the spring equinox they return, bringing back their fire as well (ie: the warmer earth, longer days and stronger sun).

With both the dragons and the wood-stoves, there’s symbolism not only for stoking the fires in our homes but for tending our own inner hearths too: for using this time of year to shine the light inside ourselves and do some self-development, spiritual development and/or some magical work or journeying. To nourish our own inner light.

Rethinking midsummer associations – fire and water.

Our garden is all planted, and too full for anything more. It just begs for water, water, water. And it’s water that I’ve been thinking more about this midsummer than other years. I’ve always associated summer, and Litha (the summer solstice) with fire; the time where the weather is hot and we celebrate the sun being at its strongest. It seems obvious. However, it was whilst learning about Ayurveda that I first considered the water aspect to summertime. Pitta, the dominant dosha right now, is comprised of fire and water. Water is liquid and Ayurveda connects this to the melting power of heat. Water is heavy and I guess Ayurveda would attribute the heaviness we tend to feel now to the presence of water in this season’s Pitta energy.

Of course water has a balancing effect to heat too and I think that this is where the association of water with midsummer from a pagan perspective rings true for me; we associate summer with the seaside and with boats and shells and pebbles and fish, we think paddling pools and water-play for our children, we know we need to drink plenty of the stuff. The association is also relevant to the story of the year as told in the analogy of the goddess reproductive cycle; she is heavily pregnant and waiting for labour to start – the first sign of which is often the waters breaking. Fluids – and fluidity – are then quite symbolic of the birth process, including the fluidity of time and perhaps reality that many women report experiencing when they are in labour. Indeed, such fluidity seems quite pertinent to summertime itself, for our usual routines, activities and times that we do things warp a little with the long hazy, dreamy days (or if we are on holiday). Midsummer has long been associated with the fairy world and their magic and mischief: further blurring and dissolving of reality, time, space, form, and boundaries of possibility.

This theme of fluidity – ie: motion – is kind of incongruent with the call for stillness and slowing down that I also feel at this time of year. That the word solstice comes from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still) impresses this for me. I guess this contrast gives me more food for thought and discoveries to make as my journey with my own spirituality continues – or is maybe a call to not get too hung up on associations at all, but to take each year for what it is and where I’m at, listening to the unique messages that year brings.

Vata

Cold and dry like the wind, Vata dosha is dominant during Autumn and early winter. In our bodies, the falling temperatures and blustery winds can aggravate Vata, particularly for those of us who are Vata types. The elements space and air comprise Vata and movement is a strong theme; falling leaves, the seasonal shift and other changes such as the academic year all add to this feeling and the potential for being out of balance.

Aggravated Vata may present in various ways – IBS, dry cracked skin or lips, restlessness, anxiety and insomnia among them. Suggestions for balancing Vata include use of warming spices (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin etc) to balance against the cold – as well as wrapping up warm of course! I find chai to be a delicious and beneficial drink at this time of the year (like I don’t drink it during the other seasons, haha!) You can buy a lovely ready-made mix (as well as other Vata-balancing products) from Ayurveda Pura or make your own (AyurvedicYogi has a recipe).

Warm, nourishing food and drink are recommended at this time of the year and raw foods advised against as they are can be harder to digest (particularly for us IBS-prone Vata tyoes!). Massage – ideally daily – with warm sesame oil (or, if unavailable, almond) and gentle yoga both relax and ground aggravated Vata, as well as having numerous physical benefits. A good night’s sleep each night will help with this too, as well as aid the immune system in staying strong enough to tackle any bugs that come your way! As a Vata-dominant type, I find that a good sense of rhythm throughout my day and in my life helps ground me too, as does going easy on stimulants like caffeine. Sweet tastes balance vata (although it’s best to try to avoid refined sugar for providing this: honey is a better substitute. Sweet tasting foods like carrot, potato,parsnip, cinnamon and sweet fruits are good options too). Dairy is also said to be vata-balancing but is something I personally try to minimise in my diet, mainly due to ethical and environmental reasons. it’s also worth noting that many people find dairy hard to digest and/or quite mucous-forming in the body – not ideal when colds are abundant!

Vata can be utilised positively: artistic and musical creativity, dance and the ability to dream up fresh ideas and start new projects are said to be Vata qualities and so this energy could be harnessed now. To me, this seems kind of fitting with November marking the start of the new year although, like a typical Vata-type, I can struggle to sustain projects. Luckily, kapha dosha becomes dominant in late winter and early spring, bringing with it more vibes of loyalty and stamina!

November blessings ♥Mo

Pitta

Ayurveda teaches that the pitta dosha rises during late spring and through the summer; in this season we’re now at in the northern hemisphere, it’s easy to see that the long warm days increase heat and light. These increase the pitta energy in nature around us and in our bodies too:in nature within us. Formed of the elements fire and water, Pitta is generally described as being hot, fast, sharp, liquid, oily and fiery. Irritability, anger, passion, and competitiveness are considered pitta characteristics and those with pitta as their dominant dosha are said to be prone to being critical, driven, short-fused, charismatic, analytical, argumentative and sharp-minded too. They tend to be of average height and build with fair skin and hair (or red hair), sharp eyes and often freckles or moles. In physical health, they have a tendency towards inflammation-related conditions, rashes, heartburn, acidity but good energy levels. The pitta time of life is considered to be early adulthood to late middle-age (50-ish). Pitta tastes are sour, salty and pungent. Its colours are red, yellow and orange.

Balancing pitta

In summer, the elevated pitta energy can make us more prone to some of the pitta-associated problems. This may be particularly so for pitta-dominant types and during the middle of the day (and middle of the night) – when pitta energy is more abundant still. However, we can take steps to balance this. Some are things that we’re probably naturally drawn to doing out of common sense, such as staying out the sun in the middle of the day, eating salads and fruit, and drinking cool drinks. Ayurveda advises avoiding or at least reducing things that are heating in the body – for example, alcohol and red meat (if we partake of them anyway), salty, sour and pungent flavours and very hot spices.

Sweetness balances pitta by increasing kapha. I also see it that at this time of year our bodies and digestions are likely to be strong (if we are generally looking after them!) and so a little more tolerant of a bit of sugar – although unrefined sugars such as honey, dried fruit and maple syrup are best. Other sweet tastes like red lentils, almonds, coconut, sweet potatoes and similar sweet vegetables are also good. Coconut oil is cooling when used both inside the body and on it; try a foot massage with it, particularly in the evening. Aaaahh….

Sebastian Pole of Pukka Herbs recommends peppermint, liquorice and fennel as being beneficial herbs for summer. He also advises rose for its cooling, calming properties; it’s a flower that I associate with midsummer, and also full moon (the corresponding point in the lunar cycle when, like summer, things can get a little heady and over-powering) and therefore the mother aspect of the goddess. I’m currently enjoying wearing a little dab of rose oil on my third eye area each day. 

Staying grounded and making time for stillness also balances pitta by increasing kapha, as does being by water. Right now I’m drawn to floor-based yoga asanas, (particularly the mermaid pose, probably to assist me in pretending that really I’m at the seaside!). The heat actually helps me with making time for stillness as I feel like doing very little in hot weather. Lately, my toddler and I have often spent the early afternoon indoors with the curtains partly drawn, then later ventured outside for  knitting and water play, or gently pottering in the garden sniffing the calming lavender and valerian that we’ve got in flower right now….mmmm yes please.

Yet as well as balancing pitta so that it doesn’t get all out of hand reek havoc, we might want to harness and utilise it too: to stoke our creativity and our passions, to bring into our hearts the warmth of the social gatherings and celebrations that the long days facilitate, to energise, to direct, to radiate love into ourselves and out to the world. to take some time to analyse, evaluate and gently critique where we are and what we’re doing in our lives. To just bask and enjoy. ♥

PS I wrote more about balancing pitta in this post last year.

Moon phase yoga

Something I’m trying to work on at the moment is my yoga practice – specifically, to actually have a daily yoga practice. I know I feel good when I do. Good in so many ways. The stability of rhythm and routine grounds – and the relaxing nature of the hatha yoga practice balances – what Ayurveda describes as my vata tendencies. Plus there’s the myriad well-known physical benefits of regular yoga and, if considering that I’m sure it makes me a better person to be around, social benefits too!

Something else that I’m loving is for yoga to be part of my connection and celebration of solar and lunar cycles – particularly the moon’s phases. For example, there’s a special little sequence that I’ve practised for a while now at each full moon, first learned at a womb yoga class. I like to practise the half-moon pose and new moon pose at those respective days too.

This morning, with the luxurious peace of having my in-laws’ rural house to myself, I was finding my mind focussing a lot on the moon’s current phase. I call the waning crescent the “vanishing moon”; she is old, at the end of her life, winding down, resting and reflecting. Images kept coming into my mind of a wise but tired hag, of late Autumn as the solar calendar equivalent; the end of the harvest when the plants and crops that are left start to rot back into the earth. I felt drawn to poses that seemed to focus on the ground. Gazing at it in cat/dog, having so much of my body in contact with it in cobra, likewise extended child’s pose and seated forward bends. And then the side-reclining leg lift (anantasana) because it reminded me a little of this image:

(image via http://www.pinterest.com/source/lightworkers.org/ with thanks).

A strong invitation that came to me as I walked my thirtieth birthday labyrinth a few weeks ago was to connect more deeply with Earth goddess figures. Today I felt that relationship deepen through the poses I was drawn to and the images and messages I received whilst in them. As we enter the dark moon in the next few days – the phase that represents, barrenness, insight, transformation and rebirth to me – I’m intrigued to see if my yoga practice and nature-based spirituality continue to draw from each other in this way. Now that I’m giving them a bit more time to have the opportunity to. ♥

Kapha

According to Ayurveda, in the late winter and early spring, the Kapha dosha is dominant. The qualities of Kapha are wet, cold and heavy (like snow; like earth sodden from the all the rain that there has not been sufficient sun to evaporate away). This heaviness makes for slowness, for lethargy, for sleeping more. Longer evenings invite us to sit more; dark, chilly mornings tempt us to linger in bed. The earth sleeps during winter and there is much less agricultural activity to do. Many find that it is easier to gain weight – through cravings for comfort food, through Yuletide excesses or through primitive desire for a little extra insulation!

Of the different tastes, sweetness resembles kapha. Those with kapha personality traits are caring, loyal, patient, stable, supportive, loving types. Kapha people also have good long-term memory; so the time of year where this quality is dominant is likely to be good for studying and learning! This is one way that we can welcome, celebrate and be in harmony with Kapha at its ruling time in the calendar. To go with it. However, we may also want to balance it; the feeling of heaviness and sluggishness in our bodies is generally not so welcome! Soon nature will be helping us with this; the days of sunlight are increasing to give us more warmth and light to balance Kapha’s coolness and dark; the energy of spring’s planting time invites us to get up off that sofa, leave the stack of books and get busy outside (or have a bit of a house cleaning session inside!!) Also, lovely purifying plants like wild garlic, dandelion, nettles, cleavers and chickweed will soon be abundant; I’m looking forward to making some salads and smoothies with them as part of a gentle spring detox sometime next month.

Kapha can also be balanced through using spices in foods, through drinking lemon and ginger tea or other spiced teas, through making sure you have some gentle activity in your day, through firm back massage with warm oil or dry powder and through incorporating pungent, bitter and astringent tastes into meals. And, naturally, through reducing consumption of cold or very sweet foods and drinks, particularly those that tend to be mucous-forming, like dairy. Personally, I’m feeling pretty turned off the thought of ice-cream right now, and of salad, but I am really enjoying the coffee-substitute Barleycup (and a restrained amount of strong dark coffee) as well as a little chilli powder on my dinner most evenings and the odd nibble of dark (usually raw) chocolate. I really notice it in my body at the moment if I go more than a couple of days without any green leafy veg, or without a good walk! In my yoga practice, I’m feeling drawn to sun salutations – something I’ve never really got the hang of and have a silly little nervousness about that I can’t quite explain even to myself. But as nature puts on a pretty frock of things all fresh and new, maybe I need to connect with and draw down that energy.

If you’re drawn to learning more about Ayurveda, I’d always recommend finding out more from people with loads more experience, practice and learning than me. My personal favourites are:

www.ayurvedicyogi.com

www.ayurvedapura.com

http://alexayurveda.wordpress.com/

http://yogabynature.wordpress.com/

http://ayurveda-foryou.com/

Shanti, shanti! ♥

Autumn equinox: stillness

I am rarely still. A naturally fidgety, restless person who, in a single waking hour is likely to be busy juggling many activities, I am very much vata (space and air) dominant in my Ayurvedic constitution. Furthermore, my mind skips about from one dream, memory, worry, idea or opinion to another. I also spend every day with my go-go-go toddler. As i realised when I recently did a course and found three hour stints of sitting and learning unfamiliarly challenging, i am rarely still.

At least I’m not alone, for nature is in constant motion too. Today is one of just two days annually where we have equal light and dark. The moon, too, has only two days of equilibrium in her cycle and arguably the actual points of balance are mere seconds, for our Earth is of course constantly turning.

Yet there are so many reasons to make time for stillness; the benefits of meditation, pranayama (yogic breathing), relaxation and a good night’s sleep are all well=documented. At this change-ful time of year where the leaves are falling, the winds are dancing, the temperature is dropping (in fluctuations) and many of us have been so busy gathering and preserving our material and inner harvests, a little stillness today would be a good idea. I’ve got a ban on housework (and, after this, screen time!). We’re planning a gentle walk, and celebrations involving yesterday’s bakings of apple cake and pumpkin and pecan bread, plus a stew that combines seasonal local veg and eastern falvours. Having enjoyed starting my day with some outdoor pranayama and stillness, I hope that towards the end of the day I will make time for some meditation too.

Happy equinox ♥

midsummer healing part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, activities involving the feet can be beautifully grounding at this heady, busy, hot time of year. I like walking barefoot on the earth, giving myself (or have someone else give me!) a foot massage or reflexology, and using visualisations of roots sinking from my soles through the earth and deep, deep down. These simple indulgences all bring the focus to my feet and away from my head – the part of us nearest to where the sun blazes and burns away at the time of year that finds it at its strongest. These things direct energy to the base, the foundation, of my body that connects with, if you like, the physical foundation of nature. The earth feeds the plants that grow from it (many of which we eat), supports the oceans that lie on it and buildings we have made on it, is our base to walk and live on. Like a mother feeds her child; I guess hence the name “Mother Earth!”

For those that don’t like their feet being touched – and I know some don’t – a massage around the base of the spine or a hand massage could also be grounding for these areas also connect us to the physical world through sitting, doing and touching. Or gently massage above the ankles. (massaging your ankles is best avoided if there’s any chance you could be pregnant, and go gently if on your period). Spend time outside standing or walking, feeling your connection to the earth. One of my husband’s favourite things in summer is walking barefoot over a patio on a sunny day!

Of course, summer can be very hot. I write this sheltering inside from the UK’s current heatwave! Many of my health practises come from Ayurveda’s teachings, which operate on a principle of balance. Ayurveda categorises things into 3 doshas: vata (cold, light and dry like the air), pitta (hot, sharp and fluid like fire) and kapha (cool, heavy and wet, like the earth). So in summer, pitta is dominant and this can cause unwanted affects such as over-drying things (the soil around my plants, that bread I left out on the side), melting wetter things (butter!) and over-heating things (tempers, metal, car engines).

To balance hot, fiery pitta, I bring in things with cool, damp kapha qualities; eating sweet foods (naturally sweet – not sweetened with lots of refined sugar!), drinking enough water, eating salads and yoghurt, playing with water with my toddler, staying in the shade, moisturising my skin. I reduce heating foods (chilis, black pepper, coffee, chocolate) and, where possible, heating activities (vacuuming – any excuse! – computer use, strenuous activity). I try to focus the housework on activities involving water and to make time for gentle, grounding yoga and meditation.

“What exactly do people mean by grounding?” someone once asked me. Although at the time I probably waffled something vague, I’ve since thought of it like this: imagine you were selling many, many balloons held on strings on a windy day. You’re all over the place, you’re having to turn this way and that, it’s hard to get one balloon out of the bunch without letting the rest go, your arms are probably tired from holding onto all those balloons and you’re a bit overwhelmed. Then someone helps you to hold the balloon strings against the ground. You’re also holding the strings much nearer the top. You now feel more stable, supported, secure and in control. You can think straight and realise you can both use your feet to keep the balloons where they are, which is more comfortable. You feel a sense of relief, as well as awareness of yourself and your surroundings. Like a plane landing on the runway, you’re on safe ground. ♥

 

Strawberry lassi image thanks to Schleicher, (sxc.hu)