Simple things, sattvic food & remembering what matters

FURTHER ON IN this post you will find the recipe for the above photo – sweet potato with cardamon, cannellini & tahini purée, and wild rice. It is a simple sattvic dish and I liked the combination of tastes.

Sattvic foods

Ayurveda explains the qualities of things through their ‘gunas’ of sattva, rajas and tamas. The gunas are ways of describing energetic qualities. Sattva brings light, balance and clarity. Rajas brings movement, activity and passion. Tamas brings density, structure and darkness. We need all expressions, to exist physically, but in our mind we need to cultivate sattva, because rajas and tamas in the mind leads to decay and illness. If you have any questions please feel free to pop them in the comments.

We bring the qualities of the different gunas into our mind and body through the things we consume – the food we eat to nourish our body, and the sensory experiences that feed our mind.

The food we eat also effects our mind. For instance if you feel very driven, to the point of burning yourself out, you will likely benefit from eating more sattvic foods. On the other hand if you are very flat and lethargic, some rajasic foods could be beneficial. For someone who is very spaced out and ungrounded, including some tamasic food can be helpful.

A Yogi walking the spiritual pathway will focus on eating sattvic food, but for those living the worldly life, a mixture is needed. For instance, it’s a rare person who can carry out hard labour on a sattvic diet, and Western culture can be difficult to navigate psychologically for certain types, if they don’t ground themselves with some tamasic qualities in their diet.

It’s all about balance and context and knowing what your nature needs. Mine needs some tamasic food like meat and fish to stay grounded and feel stable in the Western culture, with all its demands. Other people need more sattvic food to lighten up. And, I was taught that someone who has a lot of tamas in their nature, will need rajasic foods and experiences to get their energy moving, before they can benefit from sattvic foods to lighten them up. It’s a big subject and one I will be addressing in a podcast I’ll record later in the year – The Ayurveda Series. But, I thought I could share this understanding in relation to the recipes I pop up over the next few weeks.

Simple things

We picked our first strawberries out back in the shared garden today, I had them for breakfast with Greek yogurt and honey. I sat next to the towering sweet corn stalks that my neighbour planted in huge pots, and potatoes in big boxes, munching and chatting, chatting and munching.

I also picked baby beetroots to thin the rows, it’s one of my favourite things to do at this time of year. Then I cut parsley from one of my window boxes, boiled the beetroots for about 20 minutes and ate with the parsley, a good butter and Celtic salt. Absolutely delicious.

As I ate them I remembered planting the seeds when the skies looked like ink blots, the ground was wet, the air cold and I spent my spare time looking at photos of sunny skies and Mediterranean blue, wondering if the English winter would ever end.

Back then, just a few months ago really, it felt as though the English winter would go on forever. But it didn’t. And now we have blue skies, warm air and sunshine. All things change.

Joy dots

Baby beetroots

Organic unsalted butter

Celtic salt

Olive oil

Garlic

Orange calendula

Warm weather

Relaxed bones

Beautiful butterfly

Sparrows

Vejer de la Frontera

Warm sea

Silken sand

Watering the garden out back

Blue skies

Friendship

SWEET POTATO & CARDAMON MASH

Ingredients (per person)

1 good sized sweet potato cut into chunks and cooked

2 teaspoons ghee

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cardamon

1/4 fresh lime juice

Rock salt to season

Method

Mash all the ingredients together.

CANNELLINI & TAHINI PURÉE

Ingredients (per person)

1 cup cooked cannellini beans

1 tablespoon light tahini

Juice of 1/4 - 1/2 fresh lemon

2 teaspoons olive oil

Rock salt

Black pepper

Method

Blend all the ingredients tasting to see how much lemon juice, rock salt and black pepper you like; then pile up the wild rice, sweet potato and cardamon mash, and the cannellini purée.

Sweeping the Moon Away

Photo by Matthias Kost — pixaby

I’ve written a very tiny little bit more of this story. Here are links for part one and part two.

“As the day began to absorb the dark night sky, a little glimmer of light could be seen on the horizon. Far, far in the distance. The sky started to become like silver, and the birds began to unfurl within trees that rocked a little this way and that, to the rhythm of a soft, gentle breeze.

The man with the broom and the red watering can was fast asleep. And the cat, prowling the gardens out back twitched its tail. It was making its way back to the house and thinking of the dreams that awaited it there.

The last owl out hunting terwit terwooed, then glided into a tree. A mouse scampered into a thick trail of fallen down leaves, just as the first bird began to stir, with eyes still closed and beak at rest. The whole landscape was moving into the, in between times.

I looked out of my window and saw the sky was beginning to lighten. The soft silver glow in the distance, painted itself into a canvas of cloudless silvery slowly beginning to shine sky, sun still below the horizon. I went out in my bare feet and smelt the damp earth. Full of wonder it was. The soil rich with creatures that meandered this way and that, in between tree and dandelion roots. And then, as the sun began to rise…”

Till Sunday, warmest wishes,

Lucy x