Nettle photo by Hans — pixaby
Today I thought I would share my warm words at the end, because I wanted to begin by sharing some Ayurvedic health tips for the season of spring.
Spring with Ayurveda
Ayurveda recognises that as we move into spring we need to clear out any heaviness that has accumulated within our mind or body during the winter season. This is because it is the cause of lethargy, depression, heaviness in body, stubborn weight gain that won’t go away, excess mucus and a tendency to pick up the various cold bugs doing the rounds. If we don’t clear it out we compromise our health for the seasons of spring and summer.
We can kick-start this process by carrying out a spring cleanse and by slightly changing our approach to food and lifestyle choices. This includes resetting our biological rhythms so that they can dance harmoniously with nature’s changes.
You can read how to carry out an Ayurvedic spring cleanse here.
Food
The tastes to start having more of include bitter, astringent and pungent. Freshly grated ginger, and the bitter leaves that you can forage are very good at this time of year — wild garlic, nettles, cleavers and dandelion leaves/root.
Use the top few inches of nettles before they go to seed to make fresh nettle tea, and also combine them with cleavers to make a tonic (recipe further on) or sauté with ghee/butter, garlic and a squeeze of lemon as a side dish. Wild garlic can be sautéed, steamed with other seasonal green vegetables, and used to make an incredibly vibrant pesto that cleanses and gives your whole system a boost. The wild garlic brings a good dose of antioxidants that support health. The bitter roots of dandelion are good in soups, they cleanse the liver, while the leaves can be used as nettles. All parts of the plant can be used. Like wild garlic, dandelion has been shown to be high in antioxidants, as well as protecting against cancer and obesity. You can read more about the health benefits, culinary uses and how dandelion has been used across the world here.
Digestion
When we eat our food determines how well we digest it. Ayurveda, a 5000 year old approach to health, has always recommended eating the biggest meal around midday, the second largest meal for breakfast and the lightest meal for supper around 5.30 pm. This mirrors research in relation to the circadian rhythm — the 24 hour solar cycle.
NETTLE & CLEAVER TONIC
INGREDIENTS
Fresh nettles that have not gone to seed
Fresh cleavers
METHOD
Put freshly picked and rinsed nettles and cleavers (50:50) into a large glass jar. Cover with boiling water and leave over night. Make sure the jar is really packed full of nettles and cleavers. The next day sieve. This tonic can be stored in the fridge for 3 to 4 days. Drink a glass every day for a few weeks.
I know a forager who says that if his wife, who suffers from hay fever, makes a tonic in this way but just using nettles as soon as they are available, she doesn’t get hay fever.
Biological rhythms
Ayurveda which is rooted in the circadian rhythms of nature, recommends getting up pre-dawn or a little before 6 am, whichever comes first, and getting to sleep by 10 pm.
Getting up during the precious early morning hours of pre-dawn allows your biological rhythms to perform at their best.
The hours between 10 pm and 2 am are viewed in Ayurveda as the time when your body is healing, rebalancing and rejuvenating, if you are asleep and not needing to digest food.
Spring tips
Get up pre-dawn or a little before 6 am.
Be asleep by 10 pm.
Eat your main meal for lunch around midday.
Eat a light supper around 5.30 pm.
Have breakfast around 7 am.
Eat more of the bitter taste.
Lighten up your diet by switching to lighter grains like barley and buckwheat, lighter meats like chicken and fish, and lighter vegetable dishes using steamed vegetables instead of roasted, served with pungent pesto sauce recipes.
Forage some nettles (before going to seed), wild garlic, dandelion leaves and roots, and cleavers.
Include wild garlic, dandelion and nettles in your soups and other recipes.
Make a nettle and cleaver spring tonic.
In case you don’t know what cleavers is, here is a picture. You probably know it from your childhood as the plant that stuck to your clothes.
On Friday I will post a recipe for a light spring dish which is plant based and on Sunday one that is a little fishy.
Spring in the Pyrenees
Spring weather in the Catalan Pyrenees can be very changeable after the snows melt. I remember discovering this while staying at the project I mentioned in an earlier post, called Ecodharma. There was a storm one night, where a full moon had shone down only hours before, from a clear, dark and starry sky.
I was in my little caravan with a cosy fire, looking out of the big window that covered the end wall by my bed, as I curled up to sleep. I gazed at the moon and stars through the window, as I snuggled and drifted off. After a few hours the change in weather woke me. The sky above the Pyrenees was brightly lit, as thunder struck and lightening forked through.
I remembered the caravan was a metal box and, just in case, I put on my rain jacket and left. I walked in the wet, windy darkness, under lightening strikes and thunder, to where I knew there was partial shelter. From there I watched mesmerised as lightening lit up the sky, and the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard, rolled and cracked through the great hulk of the Pyrenees. Their big dark mountainous forms set alight with flashing skies. It was immense. I don’t have words to properly convey it.
The next day the storm was completely gone. The sky blue again with the sun shining on plants, rocks, old stone and gorse. And great big caterpillars made of black fur, that created wiggly lines across dirt tracts, as they moved head to tail. The gorse was a brilliant golden yellow, and the world looked scrubbed clean. Every colour of every thing, shining brighter than it had ever shone before. Inspired by this I started to write a short story about the impermanence of things, here’s the first beginnings of that story.
Sweeping the moon away
I saw a full moon in clear, dark, starry sky, shine down; into a still puddle. Beautiful. A man came out to sweep some magnolia blossom away, and as he brushed the broom swept over the puddle, and the moon was gone from the street. I don’t think he saw it. He only saw the magnolia blossom and the end of his broom. After he walked away I saw a cat walk under the moonlight, little paws on the road that pattered across, then up the mans driveway to where he was opening his door, and they both went inside. Then it was just the moon in the sky, and me. Dreaming of boats and far away places.
Photo by Matthias Kost — pixaby
Wishing you a warm and nourishing week,
Lucy x