This Lentil Cilantro Soup exquisitely supports the water/winter organ pair of the Bladder and Kidney. This is the perfect soup to catch the tail end of winter in harmony food support. This pair of organs, when in balance, support our need to restore, unplug, dream and merge into higher states of consciousness.  The seeds of the year are planted during the winter, sprout during spring. come into full bloom in summer and return to the earth during fall. What have you planted this winter in the quiescence of the season?

The soups can be created and enjoyed in any order.  However, the order of the soups as presented journeys you through the 12 organ network in order of energetic flow.  One or two may even become your favorite go to soups throughout the year. The first and last vegetable combinations concentrate on the Metal element organs: large intestine and lung respectively.

All Nourishing Winter Soup Cleanse recipes can be found  a few posts back (click here).

Wanna dive deeper into the cleanse with spices, soup toppers and self-care actions?  Check back in for our upcoming posts or follow our blog to have the posts delivered to your email

Gardening Tip:  Direct Sow Cilantro Seeds

In the south, we are able to have fresh cilantro during winter and spring simply by direct sowing every three weeks. I watch the weather and sow my seeds just before or during the rains. So sow those seeds! 

Fill your kidneys with blue-black light

Compliance Tip: Element Wisdom Cards

Choose an Element Wisdom Card each day to support the organ systems, seasonal harmony or your constitution. These unique messages support your seasonal health & elemental constitution as determined by your 5 element practitioner or our Seasonal Medicine Element Quiz.

Spices: 

Peppercorns: 

nature: hot, pungent

action: opens pores, promotes sweating, warms abdominal organs

direction: outward

affinity:  Liver, Lung & Kidney

Whole Foods Tip: Cilantro Berries

Discover the delightful in between stage from cilantro leaf to coriander seed – the amazing, little known cilantro berry.  This tender green pod pows with flavor.  I love to eat it fresh, toss in into the end cook stage of a stir fry or fancy up my salsa. 

Toppers:

Chives: 

nature: warm, pungent

action: warms coldness. supports sexual function, removes dampness

affinity: Kidneys

Pollinator Tip: Bees adore the Cilantro flowers.  Like buckwheat, they are an early source of pollen and nectar to forage. If your spice plants bolts, bee happy – don’t worry.

Self Care:

To support the kidney and its expression as the adrenal: tonify the vagal nerve to move into rest & digest mode.

How to practically soothe your nervous system and improve vagal nerve tone:

• Take a cold shower or plunge
• Splash cold water on face & neck
• Sing, laugh, chant, hum, & hug
• Restore the microbe of the gut
• Relax jaw tension
• Meditate on loving kindness
• Positive Social Connect

.

xoxoxoxo Sarita

Carrot Leek Ginger Soup Mandala

Soup Cleanse recipes can be found  a few posts back (click here).

Wanna dive deeper into the cleanse with spices, soup toppers and self-care actions?  Check back in for our upcoming posts or follow our blog to have the posts delivered to your email

The final soup in the in the nourishing winter soup cleanse is my favorite Wednesday soup.  Yup, Wednesdays are a busy day committed as a Hometown Hero to Habitat for Humanity building houses in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  That means I need a quick lunch to take in the thermos for on-site break time or a quick dinner when I come home exhausted (in a good way) after a long epsom salt soak!

The soups can be created and enjoyed in any order.  However, the order of the soups as presented journeys you through the 12 organ network in order of energetic flow.  One or two may even become your favorite go to soups throughout the year. The first and last vegetable combinations concentrate on the Metal element organs: large intestine and lung respectively.

Several years ago, I bought a blendtec that turns chunks of vegetables and herbs into a steaming hot soup in 152 seconds.  While I love my immersion blender for the convenience that it offers by transforming my just cooked hot vegetables and stock into a delightful puree, the blendtec tops.

Compliance Tip:  Soup Share

Want to do the soup cleanse with 1/2 the work?  Consider a soup share.  Divide the soups and double the ingredients, package and swap with a friend or family member.

We are all brothers and sisters

Compliance Tip: Element Wisdom Cards

Choose an Element Wisdom Card each day. These unique messages support your seasonal health & elemental constitution as determined by your 5 element practitioner or our Seasonal Medicine Element Quiz.

Spices: 

Fresh Ginger: 

nature: acrid, warm

action: releases exterior, disperses cold: stops cough, alleviates vomiting

Skin: promotes urination, reduces edema

affinity:  Lung, Spleen & Stomach

Whole Foods Tip: Peeling the carrots will sweeten the soup. Choosing not to peel the skin imparts an ever so slight hint of earth and bitter taste. This soup freezes well for single servings later on.

Toppers:

Chopped Soaked Almonds: 

nature: sweet, neutral

action: ventilates lungs, relieves cough & asthma, transforms phlegm, lubricates intestines

affinity: Lung & Large intestine

Self Care:

To support the lung and its expression as the skin: breath work and dry brushing

I hope you enjoy this journey!  Be creative.  Love your body with healthy foods.

xoxoxoxo Sarita

The winter soup cleanse as a method of preparing the body for a spring cleanse, resetting after over indulgence and a nourishing and gentle act of a self care to resent our habits. Our goal should always be to first optimize the functioning of our bodies to aid elimination when we undertake a detox.  

The number one question I get in January is “What do you think about this detox kit or that cleanse program or this product? My general answer is Winter is NOT the most harmonious time of the year to detoxify – save it for spring and fall.  And always, always prepare your body for a detox by opening the 5 avenues (emunctories) of elimination  ~ more on that later. Winter is for resting, restoring, dreaming, merging – hibernating in essence.

I do understand the desire, even the need to reset after the overindulgence of the holidays and to affirm our newfound, yearly commitment to healthier habits with action.  Over the next weeks, I will guiding you through a simple winter soup cleanse with soup base modification, organ specific spices along with seasonally appropriate practices to feel better now. 

I will be delivering lifestyle and winter wellness tips, whole food hacks in a mini blog format. Click here to have the blog delivered to your inbox, so you don’t miss these insider tips. 

The soups journey you through each of the the 6 yin/yang pairs of the organ network to gently cleanse and restore – a perfect winter way to care for yourself. 

Soups:

Lung/Large Intestine ~ Cauliflower / Cabbage

Stomach/Spleen ~ Butternut Squash

Heart/Small Intestine ~ Asparagus/ Turnip & Pumpkin/Chili

Bladder/Kidney ~ Lentil/Cilantro

Gallbladder/Liver ~ Beet/ Parsnip

Triple burner/ Pericardium ~ Kale/ spinach/ chard

Lung/Large Intestine ~ Carrot/ Leek /Ginger

All in a base of onion, garlic and sea salt

For 2 servings: combine one medium onion, 2-5 cloves garlic, seal salt to taste in 1 quart of filtered water. Simmer until onions are not quite clear. Add chopped vegetables until fork tender. Blend with immersion blender, blendtech/vitamix, or blender. Add a little olive oil. 

Optional spices to taste like cardamom, curry, turmeric, Chinese five spice, fresh parsley, basil, chives, etc.

Be creative and enjoy.

If you wish to go deeper into seasonal wellness purchase your Winter/Water Element Wisdom Card Deck here for 73 unique messages of inspiration, affirmation, jedi mind tricks, inquiries and instructions and to support this restorative cleanse.

The seasonal return to the Earth element invites simple methods of food preparation that allow more time for self-love and beloveds.  Golden and earth toned foods like millet, corn, amaranth, rice, garbanzo, golden split mung and soy beans, hazelnuts, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, yams, squash, carrots, apricots, and cantaloupe are harmonizing choices.  All root vegetables strengthen our internal Earth.  

Sweet potatoes harmonize during Earth season.

Keep spices, seasonings and flavors mild during these days of transition and keep food temperatures not too hot and not too cold (raw or chilled) ~ honoring the middle way. Simplify cooking and digestion with soups, purees and medium temperature baking during the doyo, or the return to Earth three week period between the seasons.  Soaking and pressure cooking all legumes and grains renders them more digestible as it denatures the lectins, the carbohydrate binding proteins which can damage the lining of our intestines and disrupt digestion if our enzyme pathways are confused or not functioning properly. 

Even in a tiny house, two kitchen gizmos are absolutely worth their weight and shelf space:  an instapot and a good blender ~ a Blendtec or Vitamix are premier if in your budget.  These appliances transform whole foods into meals in minutes. I often create a soup with ginger, carrots (sometimes cashews), and filtered water in 152 seconds in my Blendtec . Yes, from raw ingredients to warm soup in way under three minutes!

This week consider:

a four day vegetable fast,

eating from earthenware (non toxic),

a soup cleanse,

walking barefoot on the earth,

regular eating times.

Walk barefoot during Earth season.

My patients enjoy this mini cleanse that journeys through the entire organ network in seven soups.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Soups:

Lu/Li    Lung/Large Intestine   Cauliflower / Cabbage

St/Sp     Stomach/Spleen   Butternut Squash        

Ht/SI     Heart/Small Intestine   Asparagus/ Turnip      

Bl/Kd    Bladder/Kidney   Lentil/ Cilantro          

Pc/ Tb   Pericardium/Triple Burner   Kale/ spinach/ chard    

Gb/Lv   Gallbladder/Liver   Beet/ Parsnip            

Lu/Li    Lung/Large Intestine   Carrot/ Leek /Ginger    

Cook up one of more of these mini-cleanse veggie soups in a base of vegetable stock or onion, garlic, and salt.  For two servings: combine 1 medium onion, 2-5 cloves garlic, salt to taste in 1 quart of filtered water.  Simmer until onions are not quite clear. Cook on low to medium heat until chopped vegetables are fork tender. Blend with immersion blender, Vitamix, or Blendtec. Add a little olive oil if desired. Best salt sources these days:  Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, due to the plastics in our oceans.

To southern cooks, onion, celery, pepper, and garlic constitute the four seasons. Try out a four seasons base as an easy vegetable stock. Some folks do not do well with the nightshade family of vegetables, including peppers (genus Solanaceae) due to their alkaloid content so best for y’all to stick to a ‘mirepoix’. Mirepoix is a 2:1:1 combination of onion, celery, and carrot that is popular in French cuisine. Other folks do not tolerate sulfur foods, like onions and garlic (genus Allium) so simply use a filtered water base. Organic boxed vegetable stocks can be reduced with water for convenience. If you discover a delicious combination, leave us a comment or send us a message.  We will be sure to pass it on.

Optional Earth supporting spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, Chinese five spice, coriander, cumin, turmeric, rosemary, fresh parsley or basil, caraway, and fennel seed may be added for mild complement. Add dried herbs in at the start of preparation; add fresh herbs toward the end. Be creative and enjoy!

Cultivating the Earth element in our surroundings is also a method of balancing and rectifying the energies of the season.  To engender the Earth and provide a grounding entry, we painted our front door at  Alberta Orchard Wellness with a color match to Alabama red clay. We love it! We also left the kiwi arbor in primer tone to temper the metal in the southeast corner of the office. 

Our upcoming project at the tiny house is to apply a natural earth plaster as an interior wall treatment with southwestern clay and crushed Gulf Coast shells. This beautiful and natural clay plaster is not only nontoxic but it is an environmentally conscious product manufactured in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Keep an eye on this space for updates and photographs. But in the meantime, check out the company that makes and sells this earth friendly product that is sure to enrich and beautify our space.

Feng shui bagua, an energy map.

The center of the house represents the Earth according to Feng Shui. The art of placement in ancient China, Feng Shui encourages the flow of Qi in your homes, gardens, and offices. What is in the center of your home, your bedroom, your office, your dining table?  A simplistic fix is to place a pottery vessel centrally, empty or filled with earth from a place that brings you tranquility (beach, mountains, forest, sacred space) or to decorate or accent with earthen and gold tones.  A more complex undertaking would be installing terracotta on the floor or plastering the walls with earthen clay in an area of the home that needs a stronger Earth element to bring balance.  Another Feng Shui tip is to fill a ginger jar with soil from a property with abundance and place it in the wealth corner of your home or office.  Several years ago, I collected soil from a prosperous friend’s rose garden and placed it in the wealth corner of Alberta Orchard Wellness upon opening.  We have experienced an abundance of blessings, for sure.  It may be the Feng Shui or it may be the integrity, perseverance, open mind, grateful heart and good vibrations around here responsible for our success.  Either way, we’ll take it and pass it on!