My blog will focus more on ayurveda concepts and less on personal stories about my life and family, but if you want to read that stuff you can find me on Facebook and check in with my notes.  Thank you so much for all of your support.  Hope to see you at the new site!

Between my last post and this one, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath.  Valley Ayurveda has opened, to an amazing success.  Last week couldn’t have been more exhilarating, terrifying, hilarious, and profound than it was.  I feel incredibly humbled and grateful to be able to perform these ayurvedic treatments for people, and I truly believe the ancient oil techniques have a deeply healing effect on the body and spirit.

A few years ago with my life coach Peggy, I did a visualization of meeting my future self.  We sat on the beach together as the waves gently lapped at our feet.  She looked pretty cool, if I do say so myself.  She said I could wade out into the ocean of my life path and dive in.  Or I could sit quietly on the beach and let the tide come in around me.  Either way, she said, I was going in the water.  When I inquired about how all of this was going to happen, my future self smiled with a lovely wrinkled face and told me it was going to be more amazing than I could possibly imagine.  At that point in my life, I stopped asking how and just started imagining what I wanted to happen in my life.

I saw myself sitting with clients and watched them nodding with excitement as something dawned on them.  I imagined standing in front of a group of people describing some ayurvedic concept while they chuckled with understanding.  I visualized standing by clients on the massage table and chanting a mantra, then pouring the warm oil on their bodies as if they were kings and queens.  Ayurveda does not lack for beautiful visuals!

I never could have predicted the last six months of my life, or made Valley Ayurveda happen in any deliberate way.  My own dream was way more humble, and to be realized at least ten years from where I am now.  But last week, all of my dreams came true, and they were more amazing that I could ever have imagined. The ocean has rushed in around me, strong and sure.  I am swimming in it!

Hi folks!  So we are in the season of pitta now, and I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain what that means from an ayurvedic perspective.  Pitta is made of the elements fire and water so it has qualities that are hot and moist, like a tropical rainforest.  You can google ‘pitta dosha’ and get a whole host of adjectives describing pitta, but I want to talk about it from more of a personality perspective, and give you some ideas about how I manage this dosha in the hot weather.  My disclaimer is that I am mostly writing about what I have observed in myself, and not necessarily what I have noticed in other people.  Oh who am I kidding?  I have had many clients with a pitta imbalance, and we can ALL see ourselves and other people in the traits I will express below.

On a great day, the sun is shining and there is a mild breeze in the air.  The pitta person wakes up and greets the morning with purpose and calm.  After some exercises and a healthy breakfast, she takes a few minutes to organize her day, feeling clear-minded and keen to engage with the world.  Flowing with natural charisma, she jokes and chats with everyone from the bagel guy to colleagues at work, and lends a compassionate ear to anyone going through a struggle at the moment.  The image is of a benevolent and beloved queen, lovingly and efficiently ruling her realm.

Problem-solving and debating are enjoyable activities to the pitta man, and he really shines in areas where his authority is clear.   He is the go-to guy when there is something tangible to tackle.  He is industrious, quick-witted, and effusive to those whose work he appreciates.  Between noon and one he is sure to eat a big lunch which fuels him for the rest of the afternoon. He asks sharp and pointed questions, and loves to get to the heart of the matter.  After work, he takes a moment to note his accomplishments for the day and switch gears back to family mode.  This is the dad to whom the children squeal and run, requesting play time and jokes.  He accommodates, after lovingly acknowledging his partner, and launches into “dad mode”.  This is playing with young kids, or inquiring and engaging with older children about their day.  A light fresh dinner is served, with friendly, calm conversation at the table.  The evening is spent with the family playing games, reading something enjoyable, or watching a favorite show or sporting event on t.v.  All in all, for a healthy balanced pitta, life is very very good.

Now for the inevitable: pitta on a bad day.  After a restless sleep a pitta-imbalanced woman may wake moody and volatile.   She might forgo a healthier morning regimen, citing some physical complaint, and reach straight for the coffee.  She is unnecessarily annoyed by little things her family does, and finds nothing is working well for her.  She spills the milks; the stupid drawer won’t close; and where the hell is that other shoe!?

People are less than friendly when encountering the brooding pitta at the coffee shop or office.  His terse greetings can be called civil and no more.  What has annoyed him? no one knows.  While still able to get things done at work, he is vaguely disengaged and has trouble focusing.  Lunch may not sit well, causing heartburn, headaches, or loose bowels in the afternoon.  This physical discomfort lends a self-righteous air to his attitude and may cause him to lash out at a subordinate.

Home life brings no relief, and the daily needs of life seem oppressive and unyielding.  Stress causes tension at home, and unless there is conversation about it, family may be walking on eggshells.  Dinner is a morose affair and the evening may be spent alone doing more work, or sulking in the recliner.  For a pitta imbalanced individual and their family, life is pretty miserable.

It may seem far-fetched that a few little ayurvedic suggestions can make any difference in the temperament of a whacked-out pitta, but they really can have an effect.  Keep in mind that being a balanced person means keeping all of the doshas in balance, and sometimes that may feel like a full time job!

When pitta is aggravated I always reach for aloe juice first.  It’s cooling on such a deep level I feel that it literally “cools my blood”.  Next I reach for some rose or sandalwood essential oil and sniff it.  This instantly reminds me to stay calm and compassionate, and that my bad mood doesn’t give me the right to punish everyone else.

Make coconut, watermelon, and cucumbers your friends in this season.  I use coconut oil on my body after my shower every day, and have cans of cold coconut water in the fridge. Mmmmmm!  Bitter leafy greens like kale and spinach are SO good for balancing pitta, and vegetables like carrots, cauliflower and broccoli too.  Smoothies and fruit shakes are perfect for this season, so stock up and play around with the blender.  Your body will thank you for it.

I live a block from the river, and there is nothing like taking a quick dip on a really hot day.  For you pittas who work in an office or don’t live near a river, give yourself permission to take a quick cool shower when you get home from work.  It will do wonders for helping you separate from the job, and help you proiritize the next hours of the day.  So refreshing!

Keep your mealtimes regular and follow a pitta-pacifying diet.  Pittas get cranky if they are hungry or late in eating.

Pittas are often on the receiving end of their own very worst criticism.  Find some ways to remind yourself that self-love is valuable and important.  It can simply be a mantra, a meditation practice, or a workout routine, but accept the fact that even the most productive, successful person has to take time out for themselves- every day!  What makes you feel happy and free?  Answer that question, and you are halfway balanced already.

For more details and summer tips, visit valleyayurveda.com and read up on Pitta.  Good luck this summer!

There is a compelling concept in ayurveda called prabhava /pra-BHAV/.  I have come to understand it as meaning, “a special, unexplainable quality”.  Most often it is used to refer to herbs, and identifies a specific power or quality that is unique to itself and not connected to its taste, heating, or cooling effect.  One example is that honey, which is sweet, has a heating effect on the body. Normally sweet tastes are cooling to the body, but strangely, honey has a prabhav which makes it heating.

For some reason when I think of prabhav, I always go back to a karate class I used to take when I lived in Oakland, CA.  Sensei Guzman would teach Shaolin Kempo techniques through the week, and on Saturdays we would spar with each other.  I always had to psych myself up because I was pretty awkward and got hit a lot.  Not to mention that it was a grueling workout.  The top level belts formed a line on one half of the room and the lower belts would line up facing them, 1:1.  After each matchup, the lower belts would bow and shift down one to face their next opponents.  I got schooled every single time I stepped on the mat, but at least I kept showing up, right?  I felt like such a masochist and often dreaded those Saturdays.  Still, at the end of each class I would feel SO good and leave soaring on endorphins and pride.

Through the years I moved up in rank and stood on the other side with the upper belts.  By then I could notice how the lower belts brought different emotions, strategies, and personality into the sparring bout.  A lot of newbies came in using brute force and you had to take them down a few notches before you could have an acutal bout- a conversation- with them.  Others had a meekness about hitting and getting hit where you had to build up their confidence by leaving yourself open for a shot.  Most remarkably, each person had a very different style of fighting.

One night after an especially tough sparring class Sensei sat us all down on the mat and talked to us about the psychology of sparring.  He said that each person brings a unique and remarkable cluster of qualities into a sparring bout.  This is what allows the good guy to beat the bad guy at the end of blockbuster movies.  You know how even though the villain has more ammo, or newer technology, or is not injured, the hero has more heart, creativity, or personal stake, and always prevails?  Sensei called this quality their “you-ness”, or the thing that makes you, YOU.  ”When you tap into your you-ness,” he would say, “you become unbeatable.”  For some reason upon hearing that term I had this spinning moment of clarity:  the world fell away and I could feel my essence, my ME-ness, in a bright diamond at the core of my being.

From that night on I came to believe that everyone has their own ”you-ness”, and as an ayurvedic practitioner I strive to uncover what it is.  Every person has some unexplainable magical quality that makes them unique in all the world.  Their  prabhav. Opposites attract, we surprise even ourselves, and sometimes we just don’t know why we have the potencies we do.   Some people you meet have an unexplainable effect on you right away, and folks may have reactions to you that you could never expect.

So what makes you unique in all the world?  What is your you-ness?  I mean, if you can discover the thing that is the distilled essence of YOU, then you have discovered something extraordinary.

In the sparring ring of life, I still feel like a white belt just showing up and letting the universe have it’s way with me.  But it has been a journey of joy to discover where I feel my strengths lay, my unexplainable prabhav, and the resulting insight is a worthy trophy.

First, let me update about Valley Ayurveda.  Work inside is moving apace after lots of fits and starts.  The walls are up (for the most part), and wired.  The floors have been sanded the ceiling is almost fully painted.  We have picked out and ordered sconces and chairs, vanities, the shower, and all of the treatment equipment.  All of the paint has arrived.   I have been going back and forth about the colors for my office.  The overall space is a beautiful palette of sages and creams, but I wanted something with a little punch in my office.

No!  I’m not keeping the two-tone wall, even though it looks cool.  I still have more colors to try out!

Here’s a pic from reception looking at our two offices, and one from the upstairs yoga/workshop room:

I’ll update with pictures of the treatment rooms as I get more, but you’ve got to see this:  My partner Ann spent some time writing- in sankrit- healing mantras ON THE STUDS OF OUR WALLS!!  These walls will get covered over so no one will see the hundreds of mantras that she lovingly and tirelessly (?) wrote to bring healing consciousness and peaceful energy into the space.  If that’s not a labor of love- for YOU, and our CLIENTS- I don’t know what is.  And by the way, that blue insulation is recycled denim jeans.

98 Main Street Noho

Friends, for the past several years I have had a business called Eat Consciously, which was my platform for seeing clients and talking about Ayurveda.  I’ve had a healthy little practice out of my home office which was perfect for these early years with my little kids.  But now something wonderful has happened.  Providence/the Universe/God/and whoever else may have had a hand in it has conspired to bring me a business partner, Ann Podlozny.  She brings so many of the great qualities I lack.  (You can use your imagination on that one.) She came with the dream and the name of Valley Ayurveda, I’ve been setting a metaphorical banquet table for some hoped-for feast.  It feels like the perfect match!

Together, we are opening Valley Ayurveda in downtown Northampton, MA.  We have a big beautiful space in the two floors above Breugger’s Bagels and plan to see clients, hold workshops and cooking classes, teach yoga, and perform all of the various Ayurvedic treatments you’ve heard about.  I am beyond thrilled!  Right now the space is still being developed, but we should be up and running (God willing) in June.  If anyone ever doubted that magic exists, this is proof that it does.  Here I was on my little Eat Consciously branch thinking of how I could make the flowers bloom, and then I look behind me, and my branch is on this huge Valley Ayurveda tree!

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I hope you’ll join me on this exciting journey as I embark on a bold new venture!  I could be off my nut, but I have every confidence that this business will succeed, and bring profound health to the people who partake of Ayurveda’s gifts.

If you have any inclination this weekend, April 17 + 18, come out to see us at the Whole Health Expo at the Clarion Hotel in Northampton Ma.  C’mon- it’s supposed to be rainy anyway!  I know those Expos can be a little over-the-top sometimes, but I plan to just enter the zone;  maybe I’ll get my aura read, chakras aligned and everything.  I’ll be at booth #713 with all sorts of yummy oils, rejuvenating herbs, and tongue-reading charts.  Come by and say hello!

Last week when the weather was warmer, I felt like a jack-in-the-box who finally hits his note.  I was like, “HelllloooooooOOOOOO!” I was outside as much as possible, delighting in the tiny shoots of crocus and tulip that are poking through the ground, and remembering the aches and pains that accompany unexpected yard work.  This weekend, working in a long-sleeved shirt and a vest, I could feel the rightness of this cool season, the Kapha season, and decided to take stock of how to keep myself balanced through the shifting weather.

Kapha is moist, cold, smooth, and heavy.  I always think of the redwood forests of Muir Woods, where even during summer you walk in a chilly, wet, and heavy environment.  Take a look around you right now;  this is Kapha.

Right now is a great time to re-commit to your health.  That means a diet of light foods- the more leafy greens the better.  Imagine a deer pawing at the earth and nibbling those first bitter shoots.  Those bitters really jump start the agni, which is our digestive fire.  If you eat meat, cut back right now, and limit your dairy too.  Kapha season makes us susceptible to allergies, asthma, and congestion.  I drink some water with lemon juice in it if I get drippy-nosed because lemon tells the body to stop making mucus.  If I’m not careful, I can get a little mopey and lethargic.  Onward and upward Kaphas!!  We better roll ourselves out of bed, get our butts to the gym, and get cracking!

Enough with those salty fatty foods that I told myself were okay because it was winter and I “needed the extra fat for warmth”.  Time to start popping those pumpkin seeds, nuts, and grapefruit slices, and learning some spicy Indian dishes.  Step it up with the greens and and grains.  I like to cook some grains (like quinoa or wild rice) and then throw some salad greens over it.  Top it with sunflower seeds, raisins, hard-boiled egg, and a little of your favorite dressing. Voilà!  Entree salad.  For those of you Vata and Pitta types out there, try this chard and sweet potato gratin if you want a way to get more greens in your diet.

One saving grace of this season is honey.  It has a special property that burns up and dry out mucus and congestion.  Never cook honey- it is best in it’s raw form.  Here’s a GREAT kapha-cold-busting tea:  Hot water with a 1/2 tsp of dry ginger (or ginger tea), juice of 1/2 lemon, a pinch of cayenne, and some raw honey.  It’s delicious and so helpful.

Now is also a time to start getting your heart rate up.  Everything in nature is buzzing, and you should be a bit too.  Park farther away from your destination for a brisk walk, and take those dogs out too while you’re at it.  Find ways to get active earlier in the day and avoid sleepy post-lunch situations like the plague.  It also helps to get mentally stimulated by something.  What is cool to you?  Research it!

All in all this is the time to WAKE UP and GET MOVING.  No more excuses.  If you’re like me, you want to be in good shape for summer, and that means sloughing off winter’s excesses, taking an honest look at yourself, and pushing yourself to DO IT.

Several weeks ago things were reaching a breaking point for me.  Stresses were mounting and having two young kids was pushing my mind to uknowable places.  I couldn’t get anything done, even though both kids are in school three days each week.  At one point, my husband asked me if I wanted him to take the kids out for a few hours.  That offer is like GOLD in our house, but in that moment I had a flash:  it’s not the kids, or work, or money stress that I needed a break from, it was my own mind!  I suddenly felt claustrophobic in my brain and knew I needed to GET OUT.

Luckily, I didn’t immediately get drunk and stoned, but rather, silently committed to meditating the next chance I got.  I used to have a regular practice but haven’t done a formal sit in ages.   Just making that decision gave me some breathing room.  Of course, when I sat down to actually do it, I found it wasn’t like riding a bike;  I had to go back to square one.  I don’t know if you’ve ever meditated, but it’s hard!  When I’m rusty, I literally have to sit there breathing and saying, “I am breathing in.  I am breathing out” in my mind.  Or I try to take 10 breaths thinking nothing more than the number breath I’m on.  I almost never make it to ten the first few times, and I make myself start over.

Sometimes doing energy work goes better for me.  I imagine grounding my energy and then doing all sorts of energetic tasks with my mind.  I learned this from my friend Eileen, an amazing and truly psychic person.  She would say something like, “Imagine a ball of energy spinning in a ball at the base of your spine”, and I would, but would have a golf ball size in my head.  She’d go, “no a little bigger… bigger…  yes!  That’s it, keep it that size”.  Like she could see exactly what I pictured in my mind.  I always felt noticeably different after a session.

Here is one of my favorites:

I picture my aura- a golden light out about 18″ from my body.  I start to notice a gossamer web all around it.  In the web I can see (imagine) all the debris that other peoples’ sloughed-off energy has stuck in it.  Sometimes it is really mucked up, and sometimes it’s just a few pieces of random litter.  I imagine taking it off like a poncho and shaking it out, then letting a cool cleansing breeze blow through it.  I throw it on again (again, like a poncho) and let it settle over my aura again.  I always feel great after I do this.

As for a truly meditative state, I’m lazy.  I like to get a Shirodhara treatment- one if the Ayurvedic therapies I’ve talked about. You get warm oil poured over your forhead for roughly 35 minutes.  It may sound simple but it’s incredibly profound.  According to Ayurveda, our thoughts are the most subtle form of matter, and can be physically manipulated.   We talk about them racing or churning or perseverating, suggesting that they can move, and be moved.  The oil is poured on your third eye, and the activity center of your brain.  Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you can’t stir a thought.  It’s crazy:  you’re awake but you’re not thinking about anything!  All sorts of questions arise, but of course, you can’t think them until after the treatment.  And at the end when you get up, you’re like, ….what the…?  …where?  …and how long was I…?  It’s pretty awesome.  For most people with a brain, the shiro-induced meditative states are deeply healing.  And they are particularly good for anyone who as any kind of anxiety, insomnia, and stress-related issues.

All this is to report the good news:  I no longer feel like I am teetering on the edge, but thanks to meditation and all the other changes I’m making, I feel much better.  I’ve ben trying to sit for at least 5 minutes every day.  It really is a gift to take 5, or 20 minutes out of your day to clean your aura, take some deep breaths, and get out of your own brain.

For most of my adult life I have worked as a sign language interpreter.  It’s been a great job, allowing me to move to any city in the country and have an automatic freelancing job, and giving me a fly-on-the-wall view of dozens of situations I’d never be privy to.  I’ve worked at the Secret Service in D.C, had the honor of interpreting for President Clinton, the Grateful Dead, Gloria Steinem, the Dalai Lama, and soon will interpret for Rachel Maddow at Smith’s commencement this year.  It’s so cool!  One of the problems, though, is that I can only remember about 40% of what is said.  I am busy interpreting concepts and words into sign, and while I remember interesting tidbits and emotional content, I have a swiss cheese account of what actually went down.  The end result is that in many social situations I try to relay some fact and it comes out sounding like this:  ”Oh you guys, it’s so cool!  This one guy whose name I don’t remember said this thing about something relating to what you were just saying.  No, I don’t remember when he said it, but it totally revolutionized the thinking in his field.”  Uh great Brooks, thanks.

Unfortunately, I have had about the same retention rate when I have been a student, so what does that say about my brain?  Mostly that I am a Vata learner, who finds many things fascinating, and then has trouble remembering specifics like dates, statistics, and exact quotes.  Vatas have great emotional perception, and are sometimes more tuned in to the social dynamics of a classroom than the content of the lecture.  Pitta people are great with facts and figures and have reasonable recall when they need to impress a client or teacher.  Kaphas, while they may struggle to get the information into their long-term memory have excellent recall once it’s there.

All of this is preamble to tell you about this one guy, Lino Stanchich, who came to speak to speak to my class when I was at IIN.  Now I don’t remember the specifics, but he told us this story about a Russian doctor who worked in the prisons of Siberia.  It doesn’t get more remote than that, eh?  They had no resources, no money, terrible food, and no hospital facility.  Basically he had nothing to work with.  The only thing he could  prescribe for all the inmates who got sick was water.  And guess what, 90% of his patients improved significantly with that treatment!  He realized that most people he knew were seriously dehydrated.  I wish so much that I could tell you the compelling evidence and specifics that made such an impression on me, but alas, Vata strikes again.  (And it was 5 years ago, c’mon!) Still, I’m telling you this because no matter what your eating habits and exercise regimen and basic health are, I’m betting you could stand to drink more water.  Especially in winter, when dry air sucks moisture out of your skin, and hot drinks are the norm.  Water carries nutrients into all of our cells, and helps flush toxins out.  Often when we think we are hungry, we are really thirsty.  I have talked about how helpful it is to put oil on your skin every day, but you can’t underestimate internal hydration for helping with clear fresh skin, clear sharp thinking, smoothly running organs, decreased snacking impulse, and a million more other benefits that I can’t remember, but will happily direct you to.

Pour yourself a glass right now!

Since I AM feeling sensitive about it, but I still need to clean up my life a little, it helps me to think in Ayurvedic terms.  I’ve talked about Vata, Pitta, and Kapha as the doshas, but there’s also something called the gunas, which are the subtle or mental forms of the doshas.  They are Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.

Sattva is the state of being that is the best possible manifestation of what Vata can be:  clear thinking, peaceful acceptance, connection with true spirit, health and vitality.  Rajas is the subtle form of Pitta, which is movement, change, activity, spark.  You know when rajas is engaged that there is something going on.  Tamas is the energy of non-energy, or inertia.  It is darkness, heaviness, passivity.  There’s a lot of couch-surfing going on when you’re in a tamasic state.  According to Ayurveda, these three energies are what caused the world to come into being, and it is through their constant interactions that anything and everything continues to be made.

Okay, now back to ME.  So I haven’t been out working in the world much these days, and been hitting the Hulu pretty hard.  And I have basically been at home either with Mz or by myself.  The cold of winter has forced much of my natural activity all into my mind, and my thoughts won’t shut up.  It’s made me irritable, unfocused, and not interested being productive.  I’ve gradually gotten myself into a tamasic state where I feel a torpor and lack of motivation to do just about anything.  It’s okay though, because through the eyes of the gunas, being totally unproductive is the first step to being totally productive!  I’ve have finally gotten so sick of my own self, that I WANT to get up and do something- anything- as long as it’s not sitting at home putzing around.

A healthy way to get the rajasic energy moving right now is to get moving physically- like at a gym or yoga class.  I’ve been toying with the idea of joining the YMCA for a while, and now I’ve decided to go ahead and do it.  I finally WANT to.  That’s the beautiful thing about tamas.  If you have to, you can just wait it out, or even go deeper into it.   By embracing the hibernation, I can just let myself move through it.

Being healthy is a choice we have to make, not once, but over and over again.  How many times have you struggled over the decision to go work out ?  What about what you’re going to make for dinner tonight, or even put in your cart at the grocery store?!  If you’re unhealthy and want to change, you have to really WANT to do it, or there will be a break down on any one of those levels.  The deck is stacked against us if we’re not excited about doing it.  But if we can find that thing inside us that makes us really WANT to change, then at least we have a shot.  For my clients, I have found that can be a whole multitude of different things.  Each dosha responds to a different prompt.  Vata people are like delicate flowers and you have to treat them with compassion and love;  Pitta folks like straightforward and direct actions with measurable results;  and Kapha constitutions will take a slow but enduring progression, once given a swift kick in the butt.  I’m sorry guys, but kaphas respond well to fear.

I am taking a tri-doshic approach to my problem.  To scare myself a little, I have to try on those jeans that should fit but don’t; for the pitta I have made appointments with all my health peeps- from the GYN to the dentist. I am also signing up at the gym and setting up actual days that I will go.  And for my vata I am telling myself that I am a wonderful and courageous person for taking this step.  So all of this is to say that I am now lovingly, eagerly and enjoyably getting ready to kick my own ass.

Stay tuned!