The Power Of Walking Our Personal Paths On This Planet & A Summer Refresher Drink Recipe!
The Native Americans use the term Medicine Path to describe our personal path on this planet; the gifts we have to offer to all life on this planet. What a strong message this sends: when we do what we are personally meant to be doing on our life walk it is healing to our body, mind, and spirit and healing medicine to those we share our gifts with. Each of us has a purpose, a story to tell, a gift to share with the world to make this place a better place for all. When we listen, truly listen to our heart-spirit, we know our special gift(s) to share.
Are you connected with your purpose here, the gift you need to be sharing with others?
In my young teenage years I knew I wanted to be a health teacher. Going to RN school, right after high school, seemed to me a great place to start (When I look at my life in retrospect... I was not consciously thinking this out at the time!). Nursing school taught me that our medical field works to decrease and cover the symptoms of ill health but really does very little, if anything, to get to the root cause of ill health and heal it. Health Education was my answer to get on prevention end and help people understand what causes disease, what promotes healthy bodies, and how to best make that happen in their lives. The road of life led me to my own practice, supporting other's desire to return to health is my medicine walk on this earth.
Finding your path in life means creating space to listen, truly listen to your heart and spirit talking to you:
- take walks in nature, relax and listen to what comes up without creating actual thoughts
- speak positive words about yourself and the world around you, your words create your reality and ripple out to the reality of the whole universe
- practice some form of mind-body-spirit activity, daily, that leads you back to you: yoga, tai chi, qigong, meditation, prayer...
- surround yourself with positive people, positive media, positive energy... positive food for mind-body-spirit
- eat whole foods so your body cells vibrate at their highest nutritional frequency
- discover what makes you happy and color your world happy!
All of these actions help you, your whole being, vibrate at your highest life force energy frequency. This is your medicine path in the making!
In my quest to do the best I can with what I do... I have devised a questionnaire for new clients to determine if I am the right choice for them on their healing path. This questionnaire also helps me to determine if a client is the right fit for me and what I have to offer. The right fit, on both sides, creates happy clients who desire to be successful in this healing walk with me! We work together to color each other's worlds happy!
Summer Citrus Cooling Drink
- 1 lime
- 2 cups water
- 6 or so ice cubes
- optional: fresh herbs from the garden: mint, basil, tarragon, cilantro are all good choices; use one or two at a time
- Wash off the lime and quarter it, put in blender (yes, skins & all as the skin contains amazing anti-oxidants... anti-cancer properties!)
- add water & ice cubes
- blend into a frenzy
- pour into tall sipping glasses, add herbs, and enjoy (wide mouth pint canning jars work well)
- PS add a touch of whole food sweetener if too tart for your taste buds but go very easy as sugar is not a cell enhancing food
I have made this with fresh lemons, oranges, peach & nectarines, berries, etc. Use your imagination and let the seasonal fruit offerings guide your choices.
Traditional Foods, Traditional Movement
Eating whole foods, real foods, the foods that are traditional to one's area of living and thriving on this planet is one key to healing personal (and global) health. I praise the cell enhancing and body healing benefits of a 100% whole food diet all the time.
I now want to introduce you to traditional movement, the act of simply moving your body in flexing and strengthening ways, the time honored ways people on this planet have always moved their bodies. This is moving the body in the simple acts of daily living tasks that involve using the body not auto door openers and mechanized, labor saving devices.
The farmers of Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY going about their daily tasks: moving, flexing, and strengthening their bodies all while creating something tangible... whole foods! Explore Birdsfoot Farm's website to see what they are up to and what they have to offer towards your healing plan!
We are a culture that simply needs to move more. Movement creates all sorts of healing effects in the body and creates an upward spiraling ripple effect to entice us to make other healing changes in our lives. When we move and then feel better... we naturally want to make even more changes to feel even "More Better!" (My kids used to use this grammatically incorrect more better making the term very endearing to me.)
We are told by the media, scientific sources, and all sorts of exercise specialists that we need to get our butts in gear, dramatically increase our heart rates for at least 20 minutes daily, lift weights to keep our muscles and bones strong, etc., etc., etc. I am not going to tell you to not engage in such activities if you are so inclined to do so. What I am going to tell you (if you are not one inclined towards hard core, butt hauling, sweat inducing, heart pumping, serious shit at the gym exercise...) is that simply getting up and moving your body, several times daily, has huge benefits for your whole body, and yes for your each and every beloved body cell!
As I grow older, I like to think common sense and wisdom is growing with me. I am one who has run miles daily (getting those miles in at 6 1/2 minutes or less was imperative), rode my bike for long and hard miles, lifted my body weight in all sorts of ways (bench presses, squats, lunges, etc.), and swam laps across rivers and lakes... I think you get the picture. In comes the wisdom (I am glad I did those things as I have always had too much energy that I needed to burn but my wisdom also tells me that some of it wore hard on my body parts)... all 4 of my grandparents lived to be just months shy of 89 years old. Not one of them ever did hard core, sweat inducing running, biking, weight lifting, swimming, etc. They simply worked hard in their tasks of daily living, moving their bodies constantly throughout the day to take care of farm animals, gardens, orchards, wood for winter fires, hay for winter feed, etc. Their exercise and weight lifting was part of life and survival from year to year.
Lifestyle Hints: walk away from the computers (Yup, me too) go for walks, even short ones, several times daily. Walk up the stairs to use your upstairs bathroom every time you need to go (Or do laps about the house, even outside, if you only have a down stairs bathroom). Drop and do some push-ups before peeing, drop and do some crunches or V-seats (boat pose) when you are finished on the pot. Stack wood (I have 4 more cords needing stacking if anyone is interested in assisting with some free movement, no gym membership fee required and I might even make you lunch!) Walk more, do work by hand instead of using machinery, i.e.: push that lawn mower instead of sitting on it (do push-ups and pull-ups before and after mowing), split wood by hand, hoe-rake-shovel-weed, do everything you need to by hand using those glorious muscles and save the drive, and membership fee, to the gym.
I am off now to do some muscle flexing-strengthening-balancing yoga, push-ups, and a walk in the woods with my dog. I will contemplate the wood stacking and lawn mowing!
Create some Movement Magic in your own life!
Sean Corn, Yoga Teacher. Image from Yoga Journal August 2015, page 23, Rainbow Light Nutritional Supplements ad.
This chilly, wet weather on June 28th has me looking for something to do in my oven. With a hankering for yummy granola and my local yogurt, the timing seems perfect to whip up a batch of...
Gratifying Granola
Please feel free to assume that all ingredients are whole (unrefined), organic, non-GMO, pasture raised animal products, and as local as I can get.
- 2 1/4 cup oats
- 1/2 cup spelt or amaranth flour
- 1/2 cup corn meal
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/3 cup water or milk of choice
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- pinch of unrefined sea salt
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 250 F.
- Blend dry ingredients together in large mixing bowl.
- Beat eggs in a separate bowl.
- Add other wet ingredients to beaten eggs and mix well. If batter is seemingly too "wet" add tiny amounts of flour and meal to create a damp batter.
- Drizzle wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend well.
- Spread granola batter in a thin even layer in baking pan(s).
- Bake for 2 hours at 250 F. Set a timer for every 20 to 30 minutes and stir granola well and redistribute into a thin layer on the pan(s).
- When granola seems crunchy and well baked (not burned) remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
- Transfer cooled granola to air tight containers. I prefer wide mouth quart canning jars with the 2 piece metal lids.
- Enjoy in any and every way you enjoy granola!
Spring Fling with Nettles
Stinging nettles poking out of the ground, 4/16/15.
I grow nettles in the "flower" bed up against my home. I have been asked on many occasions: "What person in their right mind would plant nettles in any flower bed and the bed right up against the house?" The answer is obvious to me; I am not in my right mind and who wouldn't plant nettles so close to the house? They are oh so close when I need them for soups. stews, stir fries, pesto, tinctures, medicinal infusions, etc.
Now here is the double edged sword with this situation: they are close at hand but these 'lil buggers like to run and take over the world just like mints. They create this under soil runner that, well, just runs, and runs, and runs spiraling out of control. I spend the spring pulling the renegade nettles out of the rest of the flower bed in front of my home. When I planted them, 5 years ago, I politely asked them to stay in their space on the side of the house. I even dug down into the soil and planted sandstone pieces to deter them from running. They out smarted me.
As aggravating as this can be, I do have a steady supply of spring nettles that I do not feel guilty about pulling. I snip the leaves to eat and plant the runners along the yard's edge hoping for yet more nettles to eat and make medicine with.
My bowl of nettle tops and leaves.
A close up of 2 nettle tops ready for dinner.
Nettles in the pan, a gentle saute' in butter is all that is needed.
The stems that I gently cooked first; why waste the nutrients?
Cooked nettles waiting for me to consciously devour them.
The finished salad with nettles scattered across the top.
I have made mention of my Spring difficulties around food. All winter I graciously and gratefully eat local cabbage, root veggies, and squash. I save my frozen local summer veggies to tide me over when I can no longer stand the thought of a root veggie and cabbage slaw. Yes, it does happen. (My winter leftovers are waiting to be made into sauerkraut when I can dig enough wild leeks to enhance this kraut batch.)
I yearn for local food: asparagus, greens, fiddle heads, peas, strawberries...
To survive until the local food is bountiful once again, I buy food from California. There, I confessed. The above salad is Romaine lettuce, celery, carrots, and juicy red peppers from California. I also buy non-local fruits: mango, banana, kiwi, citrus, and canned organic pineapple. I am desperate for neatly gift packaged sunshine to tide me over to the local food scene. A ripe mango has a serious amount of sun waiting to burst out of its skin. I bow my head in gratitude to the people, the trees, and the soil that brings me these gems to keep me happy.
I plopped the above salad down in front of my kids, minus the nettles of course. They would have flipped had I expected them to eat Nettles! (They did each have a small spoonful that they chucked into their mouths and barely chewed before swallowing. Someday they will appreciate the things I have exposed them to...) Here was my salad response:
"Finally, a real salad. No more nasty cabbage - root veggie slaw! Yay!"
Poor kids, they suffer so.
"Wow, Mom broke down and bought something that didn't grow within 20 miles of our home."
When do they learn to not harass the person keeping them in food?
Tip for the day: Get outside. Snip some nettles. Hey, dig some wild leeks and saute' them together, ever so gently. Enjoy the taste sensation, the local wild food, and the spring nourishment for your body. Oh yeah, don't bother sharing with the kids!
To create your own female energy spring fling:
Join the Female ♀ Moon Cycle Wisdom Training
Tuition, this year, stays at $72 Bucks in honor of My Mom,
an awesome female, & her Birthday (April 17th)!
Longing for the Wild Ones: Nature's Medicine!
Every year I find myself in this same space: longing for the wild foods of spring. Above I am digging leeks on 4/16/13 and the field of leeks and box of leeks pictures are from 2014. I am anxiously waiting for the leeks to pop their 'lil green heads up again this year.
The return of the leeks means many things to me:
- spring IS here,
- summer will follow sooner than the wait from winter to spring (so grateful for this!),
- more wild foods and flowers will be popping out of the ground daily, and
- my body is in sync with nature!
Wild leeks are nature's medicine. (Who am I kidding? All wild plants are nature's medicine!) They have similar healing qualities of garlic: immune boosting, good for blood pressure, a blood and spring tonic, cold and flu remedy, and the leaf and bulb juice is good for ear aches and infections.
Wild foods are the gifts that our bodies need after a long cold winter. They provide green food, vitamin C (and so many more vitamins and minerals), stimulation of the liver to open and cleanse the heaviness of winter out of our digestive tract and ultimately our body cells, and vital life force energy to up our internal level of vibrancy.
Soon to look for:
Violet leaves and flowers
Violets are rich in vitamin C, a much needed vitamin after a long winter. Vitamin C helps in the spring detox and the upward movement of life force energy. Violets are rich in enzymes, chlorophyll, vitamin A, carotenes, rutin (helps maintain blood vessel strength and integrity), and many more nutrients.
Young Nettles
Nettles are, by far, my favorite plant (and I love all the plants!). It is one herb I would add to every herbal healing blend for its nutritive properties. Nettles nourishes each and every body cell, helps to build strong bones, nourishes the glandular system, aid the reproductive tract (pms, migraines, prostate, libido builder), great for allergies and asthma, and just about any and every ailment I can think of. This is because of nettles high nutritional value; when the body is nourished the body heals!
Young Dandelion
Um, Um Yum... dandelion greens and think liver. Dandelion is a bitter tonic for the liver helping with digestion and helping with the spring cleanse out of winter heaviness in our cells and life force energy. Dandelion is very high in nutrients (again, good for cellular health and build bones), is a mild laxative, and is good for skin conditions to name but a few of dandelion's virtues. Spring brings us this flower and the leaves to eat at just the time our body needs it. Nature is so wise!
Sorrels: Sheep and Wood sorrels
Sorrels are from the genus Oxalis. Oxalis means "sour" and is named due to its high oxalic acid content. Oxalic acid is considered "toxic" when consumed in large quantities because oxalic inhibits the absorption of calcium. Oxalic acid is not considered a problem when consumed moderately and with a varied diet. Many domesticated vegetables, including spinach and broccoli, also contain oxalic. People who are challenged by gout, rheumatism, and gallbladder and kidney stones should avoid it.
Sorrel is rich in vitamin C (the sour and vitamin C again contributes to the spring cleanse of winter's stagnation in the body). Traditionally it has been used to treat scurvy, fevers, urinary infections, mouth sores, nausea, and sore throats.
If you have never been one to grass your front lawn or the fields and woods near your home... I encourage you to find a good guide book with pictures, descriptions, and healing information and get foraging.
Remember the forager's ethical principle: take only what you need and make certain to leave plenty of plants so they can reproduce and repopulate the area you are wild harvesting from. If you take all the plants you are creating a micro-extinction in that area.
Examining Fertility
No, no, this article has nothing to do with sex, reproductive issues, and human fertility (well, not human egg and sperm fertility, per se).
Fertile fields at Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY
What are these two farmers sitting and squatting on?
Come on, guess....
It is soil. Fertile soil makes the world go round. Dirt is one of the earth's most precious resources, period.
How so you ask?
Read on my friend!
Fertile soil grows food that is intact, whole. I am always talking about how important it is to eat a 100% whole food diet. That whole food diet starts in whole soil; soil that is rich in nutrients and life, loamy, and fertile.
The fertility of the soil is the fertility of your body... and not just your reproductive fertility. Your body cells reproduce every day. Cellular health in reproducing vibrant, new cells is dependent on what feeds the parent cell. Read on for some soil and cell enhancing wisdom.
Soil is one of the foundations of all food, life, on this earth.
Healthy Soil = Healthy Food!
Soil + Sun + Water (and a seed or two!) = Food / Life!
Gratitude to: http://www.lappolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Sun-Soil-Water.jpg
When we pay attention to soil, maybe that plot of garden where we grow herbs or veggies, we see a microcosm that is teeming with life. Healthy soil is a living, breathing, dynamic organism: sand, silt, clay, air, water, minerals and organic matter crawling with earthworms, moles, grubs, centipedes, millipedes, snails, slugs, beetles, ants, fungi, insect larvae, bacteria, mushrooms, and many other organisms and micro-organisms. The sum of the whole, all parts working in synergy, is a well-orchestrated symphony. Nature is truly poetry in motion and that very poetry is what contributes to the heath and wholesomeness of the food you eat.
Your food is only as healthy as the soil it grows in. Your animal based foods? Only as healthy as the soil supporting the plants that the animals are free-range grazing on.
Farmers who understand and live / work in harmony with this soil symphony are amazing people contributing to your whole health.
I have always loved dirt: playing in it, smelling it (dirt in your yard smells different than dirt in the woods...), smelling dirt after a warm summer rain. You know... when you go outside and all you smell is that damp, musky, wet dirt smell? That is a smell that always makes me smile.
Learn more about the dirt that grows your food.
Know your soil.
Know your farmer.
How does your farmer(s) interact with the soil they grow food in and on? Do they compost, rotate crops and animal in the fields, use cover crops to feed the soil... what are the soil nourishing habits your farmer uses to grow your food?
Rich soil, teeming with life and inorganic matter, grows food rich in vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, and anti-oxidants. Get into your dirt. Study the dirt that supports your health and life! Find a farmer who makes soil care a top priority. (Consumer demand for good farmers, real farmers, will create better food, better soil, and a better world!) Thank your farmer for caring for the soil.
Please, share your dirt loving stories below!
Looking for some interesting reading on Dirt? This is one of my favorite books. I read it when it first was published and it is a book I keep in my "loved" book collection.
The below kid's book on dirt was one of my favorites to read to my kids. Not sure they were so enamored with the life in our soil but I was!
De-Mystifying Detox Diets
Information on detox diets, detoxing the body, and all the lingo and hoop-la around this issue tends to be confusing as well as misconstrued; depending on who is sharing the information. But seriously, is that not the case with anything? Everything?
The biggest confusion, in my eyes, lies in the modern medicine vs. traditional - holistic healing's views around detoxing.
Teaching people the power of supporting their body's detox process is teaching them to take their healing into their own hands; creating an independence from the health care industry. Which please, do not be misled. Our country predominantly has a disease care system. It is a system that flourishes if your disease symptoms are only suppressed not healed. This means you are a patient, a customer, in this system for life; dependent on the health care professionals and their prescription drugs.
Understanding detox efforts in healing requires a quick look at human biology. Our bodies are built for detoxing. We are detoxing every minute of every day. Your liver is the main organ of detox; constantly filtering your blood and eliminating the "toxins" via the colon. Your colon, obviously, is an organ of detox as it eliminates solid wastes and the products of metabolic breakdown (liver) from the body. Your kidneys keep themselves busy filtering the blood and eliminating waste products down through the ureters, into your bladder, and out through the urethra.
Your lungs eliminate waste, toxins, through your breath. Your skin eliminates waste through the process of sweating. Your lymphatic system moves fluids around your body and helps to eliminate waste, toxins, as well.
Gratefully borrowed from: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/273241902367567074/
So what does "detox dieting" do for all these bodily processes?
The medical profession, our health care system, debunks detox diets from many angles and for many reasons. For example: Detox is a term used by medical personnel to label the process of cleansing drugs or alcohol from a person's system that has been imbibing in excess and/or for long periods of time. For western medicine trained professional to think about detox in different terms means stepping into a realm they were not trained in, natural healing, and thinking from a space that most western medical training scoffs at and actually teaches practitioners is quackery. This is not the important thing here; so let us not focus on it any longer. (For a little history lesson, scroll down to "suppression and decline:" http://www.mygenerationsclinic.com/about-naturopathic-medicine.htm. Another history lesson: http://www.healingmountainpublishing.com/articles/NPmedicine.html )
Instead, lets us focus on what natural, holistic detox is! It is simply assisting and supporting your body in what it does every minute of everyday: detoxes itself and heals itself. When a natural healer (Naturopathic Physician, Herbalist, Holistic Nutrition Professional, etc.) prescribes a detox plan, the detox foods and herbs are simply to nourish and support the organs that do the detox work in the body.
The misconception lies in that people think these herbs and foods are doing something detox special... like scrubbing dirt from the body. These foods and herbs are not a dust buster, vacuum cleaner, or scrubbing bubbles of any type. They are simply foods (herbs are whole foods too!) that are high in nutrients that build cellular health and support healthy body organs. If your body organs are well nourished from whole food eating; they do their jobs better. This is truly simple nutritional physiology. The body is beautiful; poetry in motion in every way.
Now, I will admit, any opportunity some people and corporations have to market and profit from an idea, they will. If there are profits to be made, someone(s) will create scams to go along with it. This happens with everything around health. Let me give you several examples of the recent over marketing of reasonably healthy concepts but the concepts get taken to an extreme or used out of context for someone's profit:
- kale being made into every marketable food possible. I am not against kale chips but seriously... they are now the national health food?
- coconut in everything... we need to eat it, drink it in milk and water form, slather it on our bodies, etc.
- blueberries as the amazing superfood... do NOT go a day without eating them or your health will be in jeopardy.
- quinoa... we just cannot survive, nutritionally speaking without it. What did we do for 100s of years without this powerhouse of food from the Andes Mountains?
- any food, spice, or herb that is shown to up the metabolic rate and it is quickly slapped into capsule forms and sold as the latest "get skinny quickly" scheme.
My point? Plenty of health claims out there for all sorts of supposed healing products.
The wise thing to do is use your common sense in these situations. Products, especially expensive and exclusive products, are not needed!
Human beings have been supporting and assisting their organs of detox from time beginning. The natural cycles of life support this detox action: wild leeks and dandelion greens in the spring open our winter congested digestive tract and get things moving. The liver is stimulated more than it has been all winter, from these traditional spring foods, and aids in moving shit out of the body, literally and figuratively! Traditionally what did people do in the spring? Why they reveled in the wild leeks and dandelion greens, waiting anxiously and happily for their arrival in the spring. Time to dig wild leeks, time to gather dandelion greens and guess what... you are naturally, with the cycles of life, supporting your organs of detox.
Next in the seasonal flow of plants comes stinging nettles; another fine green plant that supports the body's natural detox systems and contributes amazing nutritional support to each and every body cell.
We can follow the seasonal appearance and growth of plants all growing season to discover the very plants people have traditionally used for supporting their organs of detox. In the winter, non-growing seasons, people prepared for this. Roots, barks, leaves, and berries of medicinal plants were gathered and dried for the long winter months. These foods were used when needed to support detox: when ill health symptoms arise or true microbial sicknesses.
Have you ever been constipated for 3 or 4 days in a row? How about a week or more? Remember how you felt? The colon is an organ of detox. Supporting detox (in just one example) is supporting colon health. Who wouldn't want this? Sure beats chronic constipation and the yucky, whole body feelings of ill health that result. Use this "constipated" thought process for all your pathways of detox: sweating, urinating, exhaling respiratory waste, lymphatic movement, and bile production and release into the small intestine. All of these detox mechanisms work more smoothly and efficiently when we support whole body detox.
Detox is not a hoax. Your body is doing it in every second of your life! How it is presented, promoted, and sold for profit may be what can get a bit shaky. Your body has always detoxed and will continue to do so until your life force energy is finished in your physical body. That is life and death here on this planet.
I am, right now whipping up a pot of nettle, peppermint, and rosemary tea. All of these herbs support circulation, cell nourishment, and ultimately detoxification. Simple 'lil pot 'O tea!
Cream of Spinach Soup:
This was an easy pot of soup to whip up last eve. Then I let it sit in the refrigerator for the next day's dinner; all the flavors meld together better this way. All veggies came from the Kent Family Farm and the milk is from local, loved, and well cared for goats.
- Saute' a medium purple onion.
- Add a medium potato and carrot or two to this saute'. Cook them just long enough to slightly soften but still have some crispness. They will cook a bit more when you re-heat the soup the next day so you do not want to create mushy veggies.
- Clean up spinach and steam in a tiny bit of water. I had about a pound of fresh, local spinach and it only takes a few minutes to steam it gently.
- Put spinach and 2 1/2 to 3 cups milk into your blender.
- Add a clove or two of garlic.
- Blend well and pour back into the steam pot. Add the saute' veggies.
- Add any herbs you like the taste of (rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, curry mix, etc.) or not!
- Voila' a pot of soup that is loaded with whole foods for detoxing!
