Cleansing

This past weekend here in Canada it was Thanksgiving. I was actually in Colorado on the weekend celebrating a friends wedding which was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on all that I am grateful for!

I love celebrating by taking the time to give thanks and enjoy the abundant harvest of early fall. There are so many things I love about this time of year - here in my cabin in the woods I've been enjoying stoking the wood fire stove first thing in the morning as I sit down to write, the particular color of light as it plays against the changing leaves, and the warmth of making delicious meals from a new yummy cookbook I recently found (look out for recipes coming soon!).

I LOVE juicing. To be clear - I'm not talking about conventional store bought fruit juice which is often full of processed sugar, colors, and preservatives. I'm talking about homemade rich green veggie juice. Veggie juicing enlivens you, and your cells, and gives you an instant shot of nourishing energy and nutrition.  

Many wisdom and medical systems looked to the natural world as a way to find balance. Right now in the northern hemisphere the sprouts will soon be bursting through the rich dark soil. The spring is time we can find clarity around our direction and vision, we can invite more creativity into our lives, and we can release stuck emotional patterns. During the spring there is a gradual moving up and out. Spring is time when we move from the internal focus of winter to the expansiveness of summer.

It's that time of year again! As we wind down from the holiday season many of us begin to set those new year resolutions...During this time of year (especially after a season full of sweet treats) we can look at our lives and our habits and decide that we may be ready to let go of (or at least greatly reduce) SUGAR.

White sugar is extremely processed from its original state. The sugar cane is stripped of its healthy minerals and put through processing that renders it pretty much void of healthy nutrition.

The secret to super powerful health is in the pH of your body. Your beautiful body operates optimally if it has a slightly alkaline pH. In fact it is designed to function within a very narrow pH range. Even small changes to your bodies pH can create havoc. Our bodies are constantly dealing with acidity from various processes including respiration and cellular breakdown but its when we add to this acidic condition with stress and a bad diet that we start to encounter problems.

Regularly using seaweeds or sea vegetables in your diet is a wonderful way to increase the nutrition profile and healing potential of your meal. There are so many reasons to eat more seaweeds!

Did you know that seaweed (is):  

Traditional cultural and spiritual practices and the ancient healing arts such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) tell us that cleansing the body, mind and heart helps to kickstart our health. I find regular cleansing is a wonderful opportunity to reassess my life addressing any areas that might be out of balance. But…. there are so many cleanses out there. How can we be sure that we are getting the most benefit out of our cleanse? Is there a way to incorporate other techniques into our daily life that will help our cleansing work?

There are different kinds of cereal grasses including barley and wheat grass. They have small differences but for the most part their properties, benefits and uses are very similar so I will discuss them together.

Use it for:

• Promoting weight loss and assisting digestion
• Boosting immunity

As we sink into this season of autumn many of us feel the natural turning of attention inward. The busyness of summer has calmed and we can now take the time to prepare for winter. Just like spring the autumn is a time of transition. In the autumn we move from the heights to the depths. Cleansing and fasting is a wonderful way to mark this time of transition and prepare our bodies and minds for winter. Cleansing has always been historically used as a healing remedy and used traditionally as a way to mark the transition of the seasons, clear stagnant emotions and physical issues, re-establish a healthier relationship to food, detoxify the body and mind of excess wastes, and used to prepare the self for spiritual practice.