Winter is the most yin time of the year – the most receptive season.

Practice reserve.

Spring has not yet come.

We are still dreaming our dreams.

Practice listening to the stillness.

Practice waiting in the void.

Join our email for seasonal retreats, nature connects https://follow.it/drsaritaelizabeth?action=followPub

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.

Purchase Element Wisdom Card Decks here

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.

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Spoiler alter:  this soup might just become your favorite welcome to spring winter soup favorite.  

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

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.

Compliance Tip: Element Wisdom Cards

Reach your Zenith

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: 

Oregano: warm, pungent

qualities: releasing, detoxifying

actions: heart protective, antiviral, anti-parasitic

affinity: HT, SI

Thyme: warm, pungent

qualities: tonifies wei qi, spleen, lung; releases exterior

actions: restorative, antiviral, anti-inflammatory

affinity: LU, ST, SP, adrenals, nerves

Whole Foods Tips:

Snap the asparagus from the bottom of the stalk to divide the tender from the woody stalk.

Store the asparagus in water  in a cup or glass in the refrigerator until ready to cook.

Toppers:

Lemon zest, peel or juice: 

qualities: sour, sweet, neutral

action: calming, clears phlegm misting the heart

affinity: LV, GB, HT, LU, ST

Self Care:

To support the heart: practice metta – loving kindness toward yourself and others

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

xoxoxoxo Sarita

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

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

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 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.  This and upcoming posts provide organ specific self care suggestions as well as spices and toppers to add to each soup to power up the effect of each vegetable combination. 

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.  

One of the most important and frequently overlooked areas of a cleanse or detox is to prepare the body to efficiently clear the toxins that are stored in the body. We eliminate waste via our

• lungs via carbon dioxide gas
• large intestine via feces
• skin via sweat
• liver via detoxification pathways
• bladder via urination

The first soup in the winter nourishing soup cleanse series focuses on the elemental metal pair of organs: the lung and large intestine. The onion/garlic base is a pre-biotic with their long fibrous strands of fructooligiosacchrides and insulin that feed the microbiome. Onions are warm in nature, promote sweating, resolve phlegm and act as a diuretic. Do you notice how many of the avenues of elimination just onions hit? Garlic is hot in nature was recognized as an antibiotic long before the advent of pharmaceuticals. In fact, it was a standard item in military ration kits through the ages. It also has anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-helminth properties. If onions and garlic aren’t your thing, visit our post on soup stock variations. If onions and garlic aren’t your thing, visit our post on soup stock variations.

Beyond the base: concentrate your efforts on spicing and topping to enhance the power of the soups.

Spices: 

Black & White Pepper: 

nature: hot, pungent

action: warms internal organs, eliminates phlegm

direction: downward

affinity:  Large Intestine & Stomach

Nutmeg:

nature: warm, pungent

action: warms internal organs, eliminates phlegm

direction: downward

affinity: Large Intestine & Spleen

Toppers:

Avocado: 

nature: sweet, cool

action: moistens lungs, intestines, skin

affinity: lung and large intestine

Self Care:

To support the large intestine add abdominal massage.

To support the lung add breath work and  dry brushing

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

xoxoxoxo Sarita

The soup cleanse is developed with simplicity in mind.  However, onion and garlic base may not be the best fit for everyone or we might tire of the same flavor or feel creative. A percent of people are sulfur intolerant; in these cases, I suggest a simple vegetable stock or herbal tea.  

My favorite long game way to create vegetable stock is to consistently contribute all the trimmings from my organic vegetable meal prep into a collective freeze.  I save all the heads, tails, skins, peels, cores from vegetables and fruits that cross my cutting board and add them bit by bit to a collective in the freezer.  When needed, I simply add the fresh and frozen scraps with chosen whole spices to very clean water and simmer on medium-low with lid on for 10-15 minutes once the stock has come to a gentle boil.  

A short game to create a quick soup base is brewing or warming herbal tea.  My winter favorite quick tea bases are ginger, chai and green tea.  Over the years, my tea ritual has evolved to almost exclusively bulk teas.  The quality of the herbs are superior and the cost overall less when we re-brew the leaves.  As long as there is color in the second or third or fourth ‘washing’ of the leaves, there are powerful antioxidants and phytonutrients.  The additional benefit is that it naturally decaffeinates the teas by water processing.

Herbal teas deliver botanical medicine.  

Vervain Collective Tranquilium Tea by Oracle

To free the medicine, we choose the best preparation method, temperature, and timing.  Boil or steep the herbs multiple times until there is little color left.  Combine all brews into one large container and drink room temperature or cool from the refrigerator throughout the day or over the next few days. For more information about tea preparation visit our previous post Brewing Teas: free their medicine.