How did you come to know and love tea?

I grew up with a mom who always created an herb garden wherever she has lived and helped me develop a taste for herbal brews early on starting with spearmint sun tea and catnip.I learned so much about tea in the town I lived for medical school – Portland, Oregon. They actually have tea shops and tea shops within Chinese gardens. My Chinese Medicine teachers always packed their traveling suitcases with tea and spices. The ah too true joke with them is that packaged teas that we drink in this country are the sweepings off the factory floors from their country. I choose bulk tea from high quality vendors and use a tea pot with strainer or french press.  I add hot water until the liquid is near to colorless. Any extra tea can be stored in the fridge for 3-4 days.

What is your favorite tea or tea blend for Winter?
My go to winter tea is chai or a spiced bone broth

Click to learn how to free the medicine in leaves, roots, barks and berries in this week’s Cultivating Wellness blog http://drsaritaelizabeth.com/brewing-teas-free-their-medi…/

Below is an easy Bone Broth preparation for you to enjoy.

Simple Slow Cooker Bone Broth

Crockpot, Pruning shears, Ladle, Skimmer, Mesh strainer, Freezer containers

Instructions

Fill crockpot ¾ of the way full with bones. Add dried spices/herbs. Add salt/seaweed. Add vinegar/lemon juice. Add just enough filtered water to cover the bones. Cook on low 18-72 hours

Add vegetables, skins/ends/stems at any time during the cooking process. Skim fat/gelatin and retain for later use. Fill containers with broth. Freeze for later use.

Soup = cooking liquid for gains, vegetable simmers, tea, gravy

Five Element Analysis

Soups, especially broths are Water Element nourishment. Each type bone directs the energy to more specific Elements

Pork, Deer, Turkey or Duck to Water to nourish the Kidney, Bladder & Adrenals

Chicken to Wood to nourish Liver & Gallbladder

Beef to Earth (and Water) to nourish Stomach, Spleen & Pancreas as well as Kidney, Bladder & Adrenals

Let’s combine our Water/Winter wisdoms with a nourishing, gentle Soup Cleanse for the stay at home and stay warm days of ice, sleet & snow.

Ginger Foot Bath Instructions:

Add ginger tea, decocted fresh ginger root or even ginger powder to hot water.

Need herbal tea preparation tips? Click here…midway down the post to learn how to free their medicine.

For a warm foot bath, water is warmed to 92-100F (33-38C). For a hot foot bath, water is warmed gradually and frequently tested with elbow to 103-108F (39-42C). Be particularly careful to test if you suffer from diabetes or other conditions that impair normal peripheral perception of temperatures. 

Soak feet 10-15 minutes.  Adding hot water from a kettle or pot with extra hot water as the bath water cools allows maximum benefit and enjoyment.

For additional benefit add 1 cup of epsom salts.  The taste associated with the winter/water element is Salty. Epsom Salts (magnesium sulfate) are easily absorbed through the skin. After your soak, wrap your feet in a hand towel to dry. 

Ginger alleviates cold and invigorates circulation. Epsom Salts relax muscles, soften the skin & deep cleans.

Forward this link or post to a friend,  to share our free two week series of Element Wisdoms:

Water/Winter Element Wisdoms & Nourishing Soup Cleanse

FOLLOW IT HERE

This is one of the amazing ways:

Mandala ~ Create sacred space. Choose 5-8 cards. Arrange them in a circle within concentric rings of found or precious materials like seasonal fruits/vegetables, flowers, leaves, shells, stones, sticks, feathers, etc. Choose an elemental center piece: an earthenware filled with soil/clay, a transparent vase of water, a bell, a wooden bowl, an incense burner. Cards and objects may also be arranged by cardinal directions.

Did you know you can search the card titles on the Cultivating Wellness Blog? 

Our real time project for 2022 and 2023 is adding musing about the cards. 

Send us your favorite ways to play and images for 10% off any card deck or the entire collection!

albertaorchard@gmail.com

Winter is the season of potential. The essence of the kidney is likened unto a seed. A seed hidden by soil or leaf litter or snow or ice. A seed in dark potential storing and protecting all of the necessary information and instructions to grow at just the right time. This is not the sprouting of the seed for that is spring.

We all have latent abilities that arise situationally or can be developed. What are yours?Within the science of ourselves and the universe our potential, systemic energy is stored and dependent upon relative relationship forces like gravity, elastic, stresses and our own electric, magnetic charge & position. What forces are you aware of that effect your potential & energy?

I recently did a Tony Robbins team training with @agrosharemd. My biggest take away was the simple concept that if I had not achieved my goal up to this point, I would not achieve my goal with the same thinking, patterns & actions that I had in place.

My potential energy freed itself when I changed my mind, my patterns and my actions. That changed my results! Wow. So simple. So powerful.

#potential #elementwisdomcards #winter #water#fiveelements #lifecoaching #naturopathicdoctor

Have you ever considered your power, your drive or your will like unto water? I was raised up on the Tennessee River. The singing river has been harnessed to provide hydroelectric power to the multitudes at the expense of snails and darters and such.

In our highest, most healthy state our power is like a mighty river determined in it’s purposefulness. In our highest, most healthy state our drive is like a stream flowing around obstacles. In our highest, most healthy state our will is like a singular tributary merging with the ocean great.

#water #winter #fiveelements #river #ambition #power #will #drive #elementwisdomcards #wisdom#elements

The kidneys store jing – our primal energy.

This essence is to be guarded, protected, treasured not squandered or frittered away.

It determines our fertility, growth, development, vitality and longevity.

It is one of the three treasures: jing, qi and shen.

The kidneys are the expression of the water element in our bodies.

Their energy peaks in winter offering harmonious opportunities for winter support and healing.

Fulfilling our destiny is healing.

The way of this deep healing summons and joins celestial jing with our terrestrial jing.

In other words, jing is our DNA. In this is all the knowing, the unfolding, the potential manifesting, the blueprint. It is our lifetime’s greatest job to connect with heavenly order.

Jing is the seed and the wellspring.

For 73 days of winter support, musings, inquiries, instructions purchase a winter/water element wisdom card deck.

Sign up for our emails for seasonal wellness tips directly to your email inbox.

How much water should I drink?

A good formulation is to divide your weight in pounds by half.  Convert that number to ounces.

Notice the liquid measurement of your favorite water bottle or glass.  How many times a day do you need to refill it to meet your personal total?

For example, my favorite water bottle is yellow stainless steel with honey bees. It contains 15 ounces.  my formulation is 115/50 = 57.5 oz.  My daily water intake goal is 4 containers a day.  I always fill a bottle up before I drive in my car.  I refill the bottle at my destination if possible.  I keep a 32 ounce stainless bottle in my car at all times.  

Adding mineral once a day to water can help with absorption.  My favorite minerals are in liquid form from the great salt lake. 

You can purchase them here via my online pharmacy link

https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/selizabeth-cox

Oils, food grade lotions and water spritzes are helpful in combating the drier air, hydration even for your skin begins on the inside (after all your skin is just another organ). I love coconut oil, shea butter and floral waters.  

For more fun & simple fall wellness tips purchase your own Metal/Fall card deck. 73 cards of inspiration, affirmation, direction and inquiry to help you have your best autumn yet! visit www.element-wisdom.com (link in bio) or click the card deck below.

In order to optimize digestion, space your snacks and meals 4-5 hours apart.  This allows the MMC, migrating motor complex, of the small intestine to complete one full cycle, sweeping food into the intestine for digestion and sweeping unwanted or harmful bacteria down the line for waste disposal. Any new intake during this time interrupts the cycle and creates stress and strain in the natural order of digestion and uptake of nutrients.

Need to drink more water each day? Start with 16 oz of room temperature water before your breakfast and your well on your way to reaching your goal. Trying to balance your sugar levels (pancreas) throughout the day? Try adding some healthy protein like unsalted nuts or seeds to your breakfast and consider adding some cinnamon to your fruit, tea, or whole grains. Want more vitamin C? Eat some citrus like oranges, kiwi or grapefruit. Need to add fiber to your diet? Try whole grains, ground flax or pumpkin seeds, and some berries for added fiber in your breakfast. What is your favorite healthy breakfast hack? #breakfast #realfood #youarewhatyoueat #earth #transition #elementwisdomcards

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.

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

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

Water is the representative element of Winter.  The Kidney Bladder organ pair and the Adrenal glands (as the endocrine extension of the Kidney) are manifestations of Water in the landscape of the human body. *Read about lifestyle practices and self-care actions to take now for best Winter health* This energy of this trio peaks during the winter season.  The nature of water is to flow.  When there is excessive cold the water freezes causing blockages. When there is excessive heat the water element becomes gas, rises to the sky (lungs) and begins a new cycle been transformed, transmuted.

The highest good is like water, it is good at benefitting the ten thousand and yet it does not contend with them. It dwells in places the multitudes detest; therefore, it is close to the dao.

~Dao De Jing

Energy in the body is in dream state during the winter.  It’s creative energies rise in the spring, blossom in the summer, being deterioration in the fall and come to quiescence in the winter.  The transitions between seasons and is the focus of our second soup in the series. *Learn more about the Doyo – Earth – Transition season here* and the Earth element rule all transitional periods.

The color associated with the Earth elements is golden yellow and the taste is sweet. To Further direct the golden winter squash on this soup toward the Earth element trio, concentrate your efforts on spicing and topping to enhance the power of the soup. Winter squash and pumpkin are detoxifying and cooling in nature thereby quenching thirst, relieving irritability and alleviate skin lesions. Additionally they all leech dampness remedying edema and difficult urination.

Whole Foods Cooking Hack:

Cook your winter squash and pumpkins whole!!  This is by far the easiest method to process these hard shelled beauties.  Preheat the oven to 425.  Place whole gourd on baking sheet, pierce with ice pick or sharp knife and cook 60-90 minutes. Let cool.  While still warm, peel the skin, slice and scoop out the seeds then the flesh. Honestly, this method is super easy and will become your favorite way to cook the golden gourds ~ well unless you still enjoy the struggle. Which is also fine.

Spices: 

Cardamom: (read more about Cardamom here)

nature: warm, pungent

action: ‘wakes’ the spleen, removes dampness, promotes circulation of qi and warm these organs, stops vomiting

affinity:  Kidney, Spleen & Stomach

Cinnamon:

nature: hot, pungent, sweet

action: warms any coldness in the body, fortifies yang, unblocks channels, stops pain, generates qi and blood

affinity: Kidney, Spleen, Liver, Heart

Toppers:

Miso (chickpea or soybean) ring: 

As a salt substitute and probiotic drizzle a ring around the edge of the bowl to benefit the spleen and the large intestine. Reduce a spoonful of paste in warm water to liquid consistency.

Walnuts: crush and sprinkle (raw or toasted) to benefit the spleen and kidney and add a dose of omega 3 fatty acids.

Flax:

nature: neutral, sweet

action: laxative, relieves pain and inflammation

affinity:  Spleen, pancreas, large intestine

Self Care:

To support the spleen and stomach: visualize golden light filling your stomach, spleen and pancreas.

Consider 5 minutes of qi gong to loosen the muscles and get the qi circulating.

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

xoxoxoxo Sarita