The critical first step in healing is accepting things as they actual are.

We live in a world where there is plenty that requires our resistance.

However, healing requires courageous honesty about ourself, our perceptions, our motivations, our circumstances and their cause.

I have doubled down on my commitment to live a life in alignment with my core values and the elemental.

My winter healing so far has looked like:

Living without liquid stress.
I had habituated a high quality jasmine green tea morning ritual. I would make one small pot of green tea then refresh the same leaves until noon. Occasionally, I would have one cup of coffee on special or social times. Even this small amount of caffeine masked my ability to feel my natural response of stress (cortisol surge) or ease (endorphin release).

Now I can actually feel my body’s feedback system and dig deeper into the root causes. From this understanding, I make better choices.

Living for today.
The last few years turned many of our lives upside down. I made plans from a place of fear. These plans are falling apart. I accepted a graduate teaching position with unethically low wages and promises of great job to come. I also spent a huge amount of time, energy and resources developing online classes that would bring in a consistent stream of income and continuity of care for patients and the opportunity to meet new ones -that project never gained traction. I have released these plans.

I have come back round to the real. I am offering real Wellness gatherings & Nature connects in real time during 2023.

Plans made in reaction to scary and unsettling situations are suspect. Maybe we just don’t know what is coming and can learn how to be okay with that.

I am living in winter. Studying how water moves, how it changes forms.

#water #winter #fear #healing #5elements

HERBAL INFUSED VINEGARS starring pepper sauce on greens!

Vinegar is a health tonic with multiple medical uses.

For centuries, healers and households relied on vinegars to both preserve foods and supplement diet and medicines.  Vinegar is a household staple as a health tonic with multiple medical uses. It is used as a treatment for allergies, flu, sore throat, acid reflux, gout, and other ailments. Some of the more common uses include:

Antiseptic

Vinegar is an antiseptic that is used to treat a variety of infectious and noninfectious conditions including the treatment of boils, acne, and minor cuts, scrapes and burns. Since it is antibacterial and antifungal, taking apple cider vinegar orally or applying it to your skin topically can help to stop the growth of a yeast infection or athlete’s foot. Raw vinegar has a probiotic effect and our skin has its own mircobiome. A second interesting research link here!

Supplements

Apple cider provides supplemental minerals including potassium, calcium, copper and iron. One of the benefits of taking apple cider vinegar, as an iron supplemental is that unlike cooked red meats, vinegar contains no cholesterol, sodium, or saturated fats.

Diabetes

Studies indicate that regular vinegar consumption may help control diabetes as well as decrease body mass and triglyceride levels. See links below.

diabetes control:

Small study with positive morning fasting levels after nighttime use of ACV

ACV Increases Insulin-Stimulated Glucose Uptake with Type 2 Diabetes

body fat and triglycerides:

Vinegar intake reduces body weight, body fat & triglycerides obese subjects

Arthritis

Apple cider vinegar may help in the treatment of arthritis, particularly gout. You can try mixing a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of honey and take three times a day and notice. This mix of apple cider vinegar and honey can break up the deposits of uric acid crystals that form between the joints and in muscles, which cause rheumatism. Taken over a long period of time, this mixture may also help to dissolve bone spurs. Most gout can be managed with reduction of foods that are high in purines like seafood, wild game, organ meats, red meat and foods that increase uric acid concentration like sugar, alcoholic beverages (particularly beer), fruit juices and fructose sweetened beverages.  The exception being the amazing tart cherry, which can actually lower serum uric acids and offer prevention from gout flares.

Indigestion/Heartburn

Vinegar is commonly used to treat indigestion and heartburn. Because the human body typically produce less hydrochloric acid as it ages, the symptoms of too little acid in the stomach can result in the symptoms which appear the same as too high of acid levels. As such, vinegar can aid digestion of food and relieve the painful symptoms of heartburn and indigestion.

Sore Throat

For the treatment of a sore throat, mix a tablespoon of vinegar with 8 ounces of warm water. Gargle this mixture every hour before being swallowed. Also, to break up mucus in the throat associated with cold and sore throat, swallow one tablespoon of equal parts vinegar and raw honey. This treatment is not for infants as their immune systems are developing and raw honey may (very rarely) contain bacterial spores that cause botulism.

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) has become a popular natural remedy during the past few decades. Numerous online articles are to be found that praise ACV as a treatment for a wide range of health conditions including: acid reflux, allergies, strep throat, high blood pressure, common cold, diabetes, obesity, PMS and more.

Natural ACV is brownish in color and is murky with cob-web-like substances that is called the “mother”. The “mother” in ACV is a complex structure of beneficial acids that have great health benefits. The “mother” in organic, unfiltered ACV is rich in proteins, enzymes, antioxidants and beneficial bacteria. Filtered ACV lacks the “mother” and also lacks the health benefits of natural ACV with “mother”.

The most common vinegar on the market is heated through pasteurization. It appears clear and looks like water. It tastes like vinegar but has no health value as it does not contain the nutritional and health values of natural, apple cider vinegar. Pasteurized apple cider vinegar doesn’t have the same benefits as raw apple cider vinegar. Valuable vitamins, probiotics, and enzymes are destroyed by the heating process. Also be aware that many “apple cider vinegars” on the market, are nothing but distilled, white vinegar with added flavors and colors. It is not the same as natural, unfiltered ACV with the “mother”. The distilled, clear vinegar is excellent non-toxic cleaner for your kitchen and home, particularly fabulous for streak free windows and mirrors!

GREENS!

Did I mention that we Southerner’s love our greens? Well it’s the time of year to plant seeds for a fall crop. Fall gardens in the South are often preferred because we don’t have the daily struggle of weeds, bugs, and heat. Try a mix of green seeds including rape, kale, turnip, mustard, swiss chard and collards. Broadcasting with radish seeds deters the bugs! They all grow well through the fall and into the winter here in our temperate planting zone. With increased attention to health benefits of kale, it has become a more important cash crop and increasing levels of pesticides on its green leaves have, sadly, also increased.  It is one of the ‘dirty dozen’.  along with peppers. So it is best to grow your own or purchase organic kale and peppers whenever possible.  Also check out the ‘clean fifteen’ vegetables as ranked yearly by the Environmental Working Group.

This PDF: Garden to Table: Leafy Greens  from NDSU Extension Service offers delicious recipes, crop descriptions and images, crop, soil and pest information.  I highly recommend that you click and enjoy!! You will definitely be inspired and well informed to give seeding a fall crop a go.

Southern pepper sauce on greens is a tradition, and many people take pride in their pepper sauces and share with friends and family. This wise combination actually increases the bioavailabity of the nutrients in the greens. Harvest those peppers left in your summer garden, place them in a pretty bottle or jar, add hot vinegar, and infuse. Homemade kitchen goods make great holiday and just-for-the-heck-of-it gifts!

ACV in Traditional Chinese Medicine

From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, vinegar is both sour and bitter and works on the liver system to reduce accumulations of stagnant bile, fat, and toxicity. In contrast, lemon juice also helps the liver but it has a more cooling effect. The warming nature of vinegar helps with the all too common American diet of ‘cold’/yin beverages such as iced drinks, alcohol, and caffeine. ACV’s sour properties stimulate digestion and help to break-down and absorb nutrients including minerals and alkaloids that are often harder to digest. In TCM, vinegar helps to circulate and dry out the “damp” conditions in the body that present as symptoms of a feeling of heaviness, swelling or water retention, distended/bloated abdomen, excess mucus, nodular masses/acne, sluggish energy, inflammation, and weight gain. For nausea and depression, add 1 tsp raw honey (not for infants) into your lemon ACV water. In addition to ACV stimulating the digestive system, it has a draining effect that is similar to an expectorant. For these reasons, ACV is used to clear or cleanse and reduce cholesterol. ACV, infused with a variety of herbs or just on its own, is used as a general preventative.

In addition to being sour, vinegar is also bitter from an energetic perspective of the properties of vinegar, and not necessarily its actual flavor. According to Chinese medicine, rice vinegar is bitter, sour and warm. The Nei Jing states that when bitter and sour come together, the collective function is to drain. Taken as a whole, therefore, vinegar warms and drains, and this explains most of its functions in Chinese medicine and food therapy.

1. Vinegar stimulates the blood, dispels blood stasis, and stops pain. In addition to taking internally, vinegar applied externally can treat external forms of blood stasis. Used alone or formed into a paste with da huang powder, it can help with the early stages of boils. This same formula can be used as a salve for first-degree and second-degree burns. Plain vinegar wash helps to heal bruises and contusions due to external trauma. As a mouthwash, vinegar can relieve toothache pain. 
2. Vinegar supports the liver, regulates qi, and moves stagnation. Pre-cooking in vinegar enhances the qi-regulating and pain-reducing properties of herbs such as xiang fu, qing pi and xiao hui xiang. Combined with cooling herbs, the draining properties of vinegar can be used to treat headaches due to liver fire or ascending liver yang.
3. Vinegar detoxifies the body. Vinegar can be used as a topical wash to prevent insect bites, or as a treatment for insect bites. Boiled vinegar may even clear toxins from the air and prevent colds and flu.
4. Miscellaneous uses: Diluted in water, vinegar relieves the symptoms of a hangover from excessive alcohol consumption. Patients with blood stasis, qi stagnation or liver yang rising should take a little more vinegar in their diet. One sign that your liver qi may be stagnated is lack of appetite in the morning after waking. Consider drinking vinegar through a straw to reduce contact with tooth enamel because of the erosive nature of vinegar.
   

“Vinegar is warming. It creates a temporary warming circulation of energy (qi) in the body, and removes stagnant blood. It can quickly alter emotional stagnation as well, especially in children— bad moods will usually disappear a few moments after taking or eating something with high quality unpasteurized vinegar.”

– Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition

ACV in Ayruveda

In Ayurvedic practice, vinegars, and ACV in particular, is considered rajasic, which means that it contains loads of Pitta or Pitta-stimulating properties. Rajasic foods and medicines are beneficial in small doses to stimulate digestion and heat-up or fire-up the body’s systems. Rajasic foods stimulate the fire element, outward motion, creativity, aggression, and passion. Common rajasic foods include chili peppers and garlic. As a Pitta-increasing food or medicine, ACV helps get the digestive system moving and stimulates the liver and gallbladder, increasing the digestive system’s fire and ability to break-down foods.

SHRUBS

Drinking vinegar was popular during the 17th and 18th centuries, and it has experienced a come-back in recent years as shrubs. A shrub is a concentrated syrup that combines fruit, sweetner, and vinegar.  The vinegar preserves the fruit syrup and adds a tangy taste that, surprisingly, quenches the thirst. Shrubs are often topped with either cold water or club soda, ginger ale, or any clear soda. Combine 1 ounce of shrub with 5 to 6 ounces of water or soda over ice. In recent years, shrubs have become a popular cocktail and mocktail ingredient.

Try drinking vinegar by making your own shrub cocktail

Hot Method

Cold Method

In addition to increasingly locally grown herbs in their tea blends, Johnathan and Becca Gardner aka Tea Town Alabama offer seasonal shrubs for sale at their marketplace booths in various locations like Pepperplace in Birmingham.  They have recently relocated to Rainbow City from Tuscaloosa and you can keep up with their ongoing on Instagram and Facebook. Check out their website for connect and details.

INFUSED VINEGARS

With all of the known benefits of vinegars, it makes sense to increase its use in our daily lives. Infusing herbs and peppers with vinegar not only gives us the benefits of vinegar but also delights our taste buds with a variety of smells, tastes, and uses. It’s the end of summer and many of our gardens are full with an abundance of herbs and peppers. Infused vinegars are a wonderful way to not let our garden’s produce go to waste. Here in the South, we love our greens and a spicy, vinegar pepper sauce is a staple at many Southern tables. I’ve listed several tried and true vinegar infusion recipes. Note that vinegars are corrosive so be sure to use glass bottles with a cork, plastic or glass lids.

Method:

Heat method: heat vinegar in an enamel or glass pot until warm. Pour over chopped or crushed herbs/flowers filling container to top.  Tightly seal container and place in a sunny window for 2 weeks, gently shaking a couple of times each day. When vinegar has reached desired taste, filter through straining cloth. Pour vinegar into clean, sterile container and add fresh herbs and spices for ornament and taste.  Seal bottle.

Sun infused or diluted method: Vinegar does not have to be heated.  This is especially important for raw, fermented foods like apple cider vinegars.  A small amount of the vinegar can be heated to infuse herbs filling the remained of the bottle with raw vinegar. Place in windowsill as above.

Rose Petal Vinegar

2 c (tightly packed) fragrant organic red rose petals

1 ½ c white wine vinegar

Purple Basil Vinegar

1 c (loosely packed) chopped purple basil

1 ½ c white wine vinegar

Lavender Vinegar

3 T  lavender flowers

1 ½ c white wine vinegar

Most herbs can be used to prepare vinegar for salad dressings. White wine vinegar is more  mellow than cider vinegar.  Cider vinegar can be purchased fermented and raw. Try a combination of herbs; add a bulb of garlic and peppercorns.  Make small batches until you find your favorite.  Place finished product on a shelf away from sunlight.

Vinegar Based Dressing

Basil Salad Dressing
2-3 cloves garlic
2 T raw honey
2 cups fresh green basil leaves
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup purple basil vinegar
1 cup olive oil

Other oils and vinegars can be substituted for those listed.
Place all ingredients in a processor except the oil.  Blend until basil and garlic are finely chopped.  With processor running, slowly stream oil into mixture.  Chill a couple of hours, shake well before using.  This makes a great dip for fresh artisan bread.

Grow your Herbs for Infused Vinegar!

GROWING HERBS

Herbs should be grown in a sunny garden, well drained, with good soil.  It should not be necessary to add fertilizer.  Adding mulch (leaf, grass clippings) each season will inhibit weed growth.

Plants with a silver leaf need to be higher and drier (sage, thyme).

A spot for your herb garden should be chosen that is near your kitchen area.  Start with a few herbs that you will use and enjoy.

Annuals:  purple basil, basil, parsley (flat: flavor – curly: garnish), dill, and rose geranium

Perennials: chives (round, flat), sage, thyme, rosemary, lemon grass, lemon balm, lavender, mints, catnip, bay tree or red bay, rose geranium (can carry over and use as edible), marjoram, monarda bee balm

Make your own FIRE CIDER! 

Fire Cider is an Apple Cider Vinegar tonic infused with superfoods.

Also try a homemade oxymel for the upcoming cold and flu season.

Oxymel – from the Latin oxymeli meaning “acid and honey” has been made and used in many ways throughout the ages and it’s a recipe that can be adapted to suit your health and herbal needs. Traditionally, an Oxymel recipe is used to administer herbs that are not so pleasant to take on their own.  Additionally, some of the more pleasant herbs can become even more delightful after a bath in honey and vinegar! 

Fire element ignites life!

Summer, ahh sweet summertime ~ this season of joy is not surprisingly associated with the element of fire. Summer’s fire ignites life! It’s an exciting time of year as our gardens mature with flowers, fruits, and vegetables during these long, hot, summer days. It is the season for adventures and activity; a time when our yang energy is at its peak. Summer’s fire spreads warmth, fosters growth, and expresses itself as life in full bloom. The fire element, in our bodies, governs the heart, small intestine, pericardium, and triple burner. In balance, fire manifests as joy and propriety; while out of balance, it manifests as hatred and coldness. See upcoming summer posts for more about the fire within us. 

Summer superfood:  berries

Berries, generally, are high in polyphenols and anthocyanin providing dense nutrition to our cells with a strong affinity for our heart and cardiovascular systems.  Blueberries, particularly, are a super food with recent research suggesting positive effects in patients with type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and hypertension in addition to blueberries’ antiviral and antimicrobial qualities. They are packed with vitamins C, K1 (a blood thinner), manganese, and fiber. Cooking denatures some micronutrients while some are relatively concentrated by freezing and dehydrating as water content diminishes.  Fresh picked off the bush is the most wholesome and life affirming choice.

Vaccinium sp.

The 4th of July holiday marks the peak season of blueberries at Alberta Orchard Wellness. A plant native to the American woodlands, blueberry (Vaccinium sp.) is hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant zones 3 through 10. The bushes thrive on creek and river banks, mountainous terrain, and in slightly acidic soils. In the home garden, seasonal epsom salt applications and pine straw or bark mulching help maintain a slightly acidic pH.

Important Note! At least two varieties of blueberry are required for optimal production by creating healthy cross pollination.

Many of our patients and visitors know about Petals from the Past, a nursery in Jemison, Alabama specializing in native plants and plants that thrive in our native soils. These folks love to share their wealth of knowledge so be sure to check out their educational videos like the one for cultivating blueberries linked here.

We planted the southern boundry of our parking area with several different varieties of blueberries that thrive in our local zone 8 including Tifblue, Rabbiteye, Brightwell, Powderblue, Climax and Premier. A diversity of varieties, which produces fruit at staggered times throughout the growing season, expands our harvest for spring and summer fruitings. This is a plant that we encourage all of our patients to work into their healthy home landscape. Their early spring bell shaped flowers provide pollen to honeybees.  In the summer, their sweet and astringent berries fill our bellies. Not only do we delight in harvesting and eating fresh berries, our feathered and four legged friends also feast upon blueberries ripe off the vine. Their taste is sweet and sour and their nature is warm.  In the fall, their ovate leaves turn firey yellow, rust and red. Plant blueberries against a fence, in a row, or in a clump or grove in a well drained area.  Bear in mind that they will lose their foliage in the winter.  Consider seasonal, companion, under-plantings; we utilize cayenne peppers, potatoes, gladiolas, salvia, parsley, and blue curl as seasonal spots.

Blueberries~a delicious superfood.

A recent study, funded by the United States Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC), found that blueberries may improve joint health by reducing pain, stiffness, and difficulty in performing daily activities due to osteoarthritis inflammation. Another USHBC study of US veterans, in coordination with the Stratton VA Medical Center, in Albany, New York, investigated the effects of blueberry consumption and glycemic control in veterans with type 2 diabetes. It found that daily consumption of 22 g of freeze-dried blueberries for two months results in better glycemic control and lower triglyceride concentrations with improvement in the liver enzymes, all of which are positive effects that may support cardiometabolic health of men with type 2 diabetes. In Chinese dietary medicine, berries are astringent by nature, acting on the  entire qi of the body and rectifying damp pathology. For example, excess dampness or damp accumulations may manifest as chronic sinusitis, yeast or fungal infections, and tumors.  While many fruits are restricted as they are cloying or moisturizing, berries can be freely enjoyed with the assurance that they are quite literally medicine! They nourish the blood and the kidneys, therefore providing support for anemia and all concerns of brain function from ADHA to dementia.

Follow the links below for more research on the superpowers of blueberries.

Hypertension

https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/journal/2015-06/blueberries-vs-hypertension

Anti-microbial

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31199652

Antiviral

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31137514

Dry blueberries to enjoy all year long

“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates

Embrace and make the most out of this summer season by rising early and practice movement or yoga that reaches for the sun to nourish us just as its energy and fire make our gardens grow. 

Sunrise yoga:

The Sun Salutation originated as a series of prostrations to the sun, honoring Surya as the source of energy and light for the world. Known in Sanskrit as surya namaskar, Sun Salutation is practiced in several popular styles of yoga, including Ashtanga, vinyasa, and power. Traditionally, it is performed at dawn, facing the rising sun.

Although there are variations and no right way, Sun Salutation generally consists of a sequence of twelve poses, including a symmetrical standing pose (tadasana), lifting the arms, bending to touch the earth, a lunge, the downward facing dog, a prone pose that flows into an upward­-facing lift of the chest, followed by a return to downward dog, another lunge, and once again touching the earth in a forward bend, then lifting the arms, and returning to the initial standing pose. Through each cycle of the series, you move backward, then forward. Use the video below for guidance until you know the Sun Salutation by heart.

If you need more detailed instruction, this video (click here) demonstrates the traditional Sun Salutation.  Brooklyn Yoga School founder, Lily Cushman, gives step by step instruction and no yoga experience is required. 

Sun salutation  (www.BrooklynYogaSchool.com or  www.LilyCushman.com)   

Music “Dawning” by Benjy Wertheimer from Soul of the Esraj album.

Rise early and welcome the sun with a sun salutation.