Showing posts with label ayurveda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ayurveda. Show all posts

Monday, August 13, 2012

Green Juicing

A couple weeks ago, I started paying more attention again to what I eat ... and how much I eat (once more trying to focus upon quality rather than quantity). I love food, so I find myself 'falling off the wagon' repeatedly. I started focusing on healthy eating habits about 7 or 8 years ago (before that, don't ask), but have to repeatedly bring myself back to an aware state. Like many people, after I hit my 40s the weight gain was more rapid, and the subsequent weight loss much slower. After being stick-thin most of my life, this was a shock! Egads, you mean I have to actually pay attention to what I'm eating?! Crap.

Anyway, I have a healthy system established for losing the weight at a moderate pace, and it works well for me. But there was something that I had been wanting to try for a couple years to see if it would assist in healthy weight loss. And that would be Green Juicing. Not Fruit Juicing, although fruits can be a percentage of the juice, but rather maximizing the source of tremendous nutrients we can obtain through green foods. I like vegetables both raw and cooked, but with our soils depleted of nutrients, I wondered if juicing might not be a good way to obtain significant amounts of micronutrients. Because of my training, I was pleased to find that many Ayurveda practitioners were supportive of juicing within boundaries--like knowing your body type, your tendencies, and how to maintain balance within them. See Juicing in Ayurveda.

Enter our new Breville Juice Plus, as seen on the inspirational movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (I highly recommend this movie and it's available through Netflix); a friend had suggested the movie and shared her recent experiences with juicing on her blog - Annette's Asylum.

Now, Ron and I didn't want to go to the extremes that the two men in the movie did. But we did want to try a 3-day juice fast to kick-start healthier eating habits, and get us on our way with some inspiring results up front. And it provided that this weekend. Yay! We don't intend to get obsessive about juicing, but we are very pleased we bought a juicer. Every bit helps, don't you think? :-)

Here's to happy, healthy eating along with compassionate, peaceful lifestyle!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A Sheen of Oil

SoulCards(c) Deborah Koff-Chapin
Seeing the goal...and the present.


To know the Source of strength, of fulfillment, is within, guiding.
To move forward into the changes that have begun. 
To step into movement, into the flow, from where I am right now, from birth, from renewal. 
To seek and yet be fully here and now during the journey. 


I feel the heat, liquid light coursing through me like the oil warming in a porcelain dish, waiting for the moment when the thickness lightens, when it is warmed and thin, moving easily. A sheen of oil that lubricates the journey in love of Self and nourishes in its softness. 


The goals may change yet purpose remains. Location shifting, the sands upon which I move are changing color and texture, the rainfall begins and the desert gives way to a different view. Small steps, gentle in their transition so that I don't become overwhelmed by the goal and lose sight of Self, journey and purpose. So that I don't lose sight of the Whole. So that love remains steady and healing is ever near. 


I feel the heat increase, driving, inspiring, teaching a pace that can be sustained rather than burn out in a single bright flare of passion that is exciting but carries no substance, no reserve. I feel tremors of stimulation, tiny electrical sparks that fire up in sequence. And I dream in the moment of each step, grateful for the forward motion, at peace with the rebirth and the path before me. A warmth surrounds me, and encourages me toward awareness of both infinite possibility and limitations of what is. 


For this moment, a fire burns and the gentle simmer warms the flowing oil of transformation within and without...welcome.


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dedicated to a dear, sweet friend known affectionately by some as the Oil Queen - love you, Lisa! (of Aislinn and Sama Tal Ayurveda for any readers who may live near New Boston, NH) - and remembering all the wonderful souls I met at Kripalu during my Ayurvedic training

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