Plant a Garden… Inside and Out

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This spring, plant a garden, both figuratively and literally. Plant a seed, nurture it, watch it grow and harvest its fruits. It doesn’t really matter where you live, you can plant a garden.

For those spatially challenged, roof tops, walls of water, even a single clay pot in a window, can all be your plot of earth to watch the world unfold before you. Some plants that do well indoors in limited space are herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, etc.) and flowers (geraniums, Christmas cactus, African violets, cyclamen and primrose) and some bulbs (hyacinth and narcissus).

If you have the space outdoors, there is nothing like a vegetable garden to bring the seasons into your life. Greens, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, corn, strawberries, melons, carrots, green beans, peas, they are all available with a little tender care and patience. Whether indoors or out, getting your hands in the dirt and bringing a seed to life is as grounding as it is rewarding.

And while you are at it, why not plant a seed or two of your own in the garden of your heart? Think about what it is you’d like to harvest over the next few months— a new job, a relationship, more time to enjoy your life, more money. Spring is a great time to plant the seeds of these changes.

Just like a vegetable or a flower, planting the seed is very important, but it is only the first step. Once planted, you must provide the seed with a nourishing environment (instead of water, our heart seeds need positive thoughts and reassuring beliefs so they can blossom), weeding from time to time (tossing out old negative beliefs that interfere with the seed’s growth), and plenty of room to blossom (don’t crowd your seed with too much stress, too many activities or too many other seeds.) Nurture your seed and watch it slowly grow. Soon you will be able to harvest its fruits in a better life for you.

What are your seeds?

The Cleansing Breath

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Spring is the cleansing season, so let’s learn the Cleansing Breath. This exercise will clean and open up your lungs and tone your entire system. The Cleansing Breath can be done at any time throughout the day, but is best practiced just before the resting phase at the end of any yoga or physical exercise.

The Cleansing Breath is a series of exhalations designed to expel toxins and gremlins that may have set up shop in your lungs over the winter. To practice the Cleansing Breath, stand straight with feet close together, toes slightly apart, knees slightly bent and arms hanging loosely at your sides. Take a deep belly breath in and hold it for a count of 3 to 5 depending on your comfort.

Next, open your lips as if you were to whistle and start exhaling in short forceful bursts, as if you were blowing out many candles one by one instead of with one long exhale. Be careful not to push out your cheeks when blowing as these exhales should remain soft and hollow. You may feel a little dizzy, which is fine.

Rest in between Cleansing Breaths to make sure you do not get too dizzy. Practice this once per day with 3 to 5 breath cycles per practice. However, after a week or two, you may want to practice the Cleansing Breath several times a day.

Easy Spring Cleanse for the Liver

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By Colleen Cannon

The whole idea in the spring is to “lighten up,” and eating light spring foods and thinking light spring thoughts can really be beneficial to your lightness of being.

A great way to start spring is with an internal cleanse. My favorite one is a lemon cleanse. I think it is my favorite because I love lemonade. You take about a half of a lemon and squeeze the juice out, then add a little maple syrup and a little cayenne pepper. I typically do a three-day liver cleanse and I drink a bunch of this stuff, around 8-10 glasses each day. A good compromise is to do it every morning when you get up.

The reason this cleanse is so important is that the organs of spring are the liver and the gall bladder. The liver is one of the body’s most important organs. With more than 100 known functions, the liver does everything from aiding in the metabolism of the foods we eat, to helping with the formation and filtering of blood, to removing toxins, to helping clot our blood.

The liver is also the organ hardest hit from our modern lifestyle. Stress, high fat diets, environmental toxins, drugs and alcohol, and processed and impure foods all depend on the liver to make things right with the body. So when the liver is overstressed by our lifestyle, it can become stagnant or out of balance. Some of the physical symptoms of liver stagnation are allergies; swelling of the abdomen, chest or breasts; menstrual problems; neck and back tension; eye problems; fatigue; slow rising in the morning; and muscle and tendon pain.

While the physical signs are important, most liver imbalance is recognized by the emotional symptoms, which include, anger, frustration, impatience, edginess, depression, poor judgment, inability to make decisions and overall negativity. These are all common for spring when the liver is out of balance. So not surprisingly, the emotion of spring is anger, which should be avoided to the extent possible as your mind and spirit might be easily agitated this time of the year. However, it is also important not to ignore or repress these volatile emotions as they can lead stress on the spring organs. Find a safe place to release these gremlins and let the world know you are alive with a roar of your own.

To support and restore balance to the liver, the spring diet is very important. Spring diets are less complicated and include foods that are lighter in contrast to heavier winter foods. Raw foods such as greens, vegetables, sprouts, and shoots are emphasized in the spring as are minimal cooking methods. With sour being the taste of spring, lemons, limes, sour plums and vinegars are used as well to help stimulate and detoxify the liver.

The Chinese direction for spring is east, the direction from which the sun rises, giving birth to a new day. The sense organ of spring is the eyes, which it is said nourish the body and soul by the visual splendor of the season. Another indicator of spring is your nails. If your eyesight is a little off or your nails are cracking or dull, these also can be due to liver imbalance in the spring.

Spring is the season of rebirth. It is the season of movement from yin towards yang, from inner to outer. Chinese tradition suggests this is the season to rise with the sun and drink in the renewal around you. Spring is the promised gift of winter; drink it in.

Spring Nutrition

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Spring is green and new and our foods for the season reflect it. Our spring diet is the lightest and simplest of the year and is also designed to support the liver and gall bladder. Our diet this season should reflect the expanding energy of the spring and focus on what is available; fresh greens, sprouts and young plants. This is also the time of year to leave the sodium-rich, sinking-energy diet of winter behind. The heavier diet of the winter can overtax the liver at this time of renewal.

Salads made of spring greens with lemon-based dressings are ideal this time of year. Cooking styles also change with spring. Very fast sautés, a yummy stir fry and quick steaming are best to get the digestive benefits of cooking while leaving the raw nature of the foods intact.

One of the best examples of spring is the humble dandelion. This little wonder is one of the first new plants we see blooming in spring. While the yellow flowers nourish the eyes (the Chinese sense organ for spring), the leaves are one of the best foods for spring. Dandelion greens are young, green and sour—all of the qualities of spring foods, and an excellent detoxifier for the liver.

With this in mind, look for simple ways to present greens, salads with lighter proteins, bitter or sour vegetables and just eating less. This should provide you with more time to go outside, breath in the new air of spring, count dandelions or watch the clouds drift by in the golden afternoon light.

Thinking about what is naturally available these days, good foods for spring include:

Vegetables: Artichokes, asparagus, beets, beets greens, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, celery, chard, collard greens, kale, dandelion and mustard greens, cilantro, green onions, green peas, leaf lettuces, mushrooms, rhubarb, spinach and watercress.
Proteins: As the liver cleansing season, we want to keep proteins as light as possible and typically served in smaller portions in salads. Fish, chicken, turkey and even small amounts of beef are all right in moderation.
Seaweeds: Agar, arame, dulse, hijiki, kelp, kombu, nori and wakame.
Cooked grains: Barley, buckwheat, corn, rice, rye, and wheat.
Beans: Adzuki, pinto, garbanzo, lentil, fava and mung.
Nuts and seeds: Walnut, pecan, almond, and sunflower, alfalfa, clover, radish seeds (ideally sprouted).
Fruits: Avocado, lemon, grapefruit, lime, olive, date, orange, tangelo, strawberry and tangerines.
Spices: Turmeric, basil, bay leaf, cumin, cardamom, dill, marjoram, fennel, black pepper, horseradish, rosemary and mint.

Try a Track Workout This Spring

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By Colleen Cannon

In spring, the first natural impulse is to start moving more. It feels like a good time to start to play, jump around and get some spring into your step.

After the winter of long, slow distance training where you have developed a good solid foundation to your training program, it is time to start “getting the lead out” or opening up your internal streams. You can do this by introducing a fartlek, Swedish for “speed play,” twice a week to your training program. Or you can start thinking about some early season track workouts.

My favorite track workout is called “straights and curves.” You run or stride the straight part of the track and then you jog around the curves to get your breath back. You do this for 3-5 miles. This is a great season opener because it does not tax your anaerobic system so much. By the time your heart rate has gotten up there from running the straight part of the track, it has a chance to go back down on the curve part. This is a great way to trick your self into shape.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!