Vata season greets us with crisp mornings, temperature changes, and the harvest of root plants. Detoxing at this time of year reboots your digestive system in preparation for the winter months. Why not reboot for your environment too?

Start with your home

You spend a lot of time in your home. Home is a reflection of who you are, from the furniture you chose, to art on the walls, and to the items in your pantry.  Home is a container for your identity in regards to beliefs, energy and emotions.  As you cleanse and rejuvenate your physical body why not update the energy of your home?  An easy way to shift energy is by smudging. The Deepak Chopra Institute recommends smudging with an Ayurveda Inspiration.

How do I incorporate an Ayurveda inspiration into the smudging ceremony?

1. Create a vision. What is your endgame?  What actions do you need to take to get there?
2. How do you want to feel in your body in your bedroom or office (ie content, peaceful, productive, less stress, anxiety)?
3. What do you need to let go of to accomplish this?
4. What do you need more of?
5. Do you need to communicate with others for support to achieve this?

What is smudging?  Smudging is a ceremony used by Native Americans to clear away negative, stagnant energy from the body, as well as, their personal living space. Smudging involves the burning of sage, cedar, sweetgrass, etc… Sage can be placed in a bowl or you can purchase or make your own smudge stick.  

Let’s smudge

1. Open the windows to the room that you are smudging (bedroom/office) to ensure proper ventilation so that the energy in the room is free to leave.
2. This ceremony begins with smudging yourself. Light the smudge stick until the bundle produces a fragrant smoke that you can pass around yourself from head to toe.  Beginning at your feet carefully lift one foot then the other, allowing the smoke to circle your feet. Proceed up your legs, torso, around your arms and head. Breathe in and visualize the smoke lifting away all negative emotions, thoughts and energies. See and feel your inspiration and the visualization you created.
3. After you have smudged yourself, the Native American ceremony continues by directing the smoke in the 4 directions.  Starting from the east, move the bundle from the floor upwards toward the ceiling, allowing the smoke to permeate the corners. As you move towards the south, west and north maintain your visualization of creation as the smoke clears away all negativity from your space.
4. When you are finished stub out the embers of your sage stick. Please in a ceramic bowl or conch shell.

Change Your Clothes with the Seasons

As you store your summer wardrobe and weed through last fall’s clothes you’ll probably be making a decision as to what to keep and what goes. Instead of relying only on a visual inspection, take a page out of Kon Mari’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, and incorporate Ayurveda’s uses of the senses.

Try It On, Does it Still Fit?

1. Use the words of inspiration from your vision statement and put on each garment.
2. Stop, take a breath and ask yourself how does this feel and fit; will I wear this all day?
3. Do these colors and textures give me joy and spark or are they old, tired and tattered?

As your identity shifts, your clothing will too.  Listen to your intuition and don’t second guess. Into the donation bag old clothes will go.

Switch up Your Smoothies For Tea.  

In Autumn, we need warmth and nourishment from root vegetables and teas to balance the dry, cold and windy characteristic of Vata. If making daily smoothies is already in your habit repertoire, preparing CCF tea will be an easy transition.

What is CCF Tea?  

Cumin, coriander and fennel- these powerful spices contribute to the absorption of nutrients which stimulate digestion and the lymphatic system. It doesn’t matter which dosha you are, CCF Tea pacifies all three. Laren Gernady, an Ayurveda Health Counselor from the Kripalu Center calls CCF Tea the “Ayurveda Miracle Tea”.

The Benefits of the Seeds of Good Digestion:

Cumin – Stimulates agni (digestive fire)

-Contains antioxidants and iron

-Soothes inflamed mucous membranes in the digestive tract

-Improves bowel elimination

*Lauren Gernady explains that cumin pacifies both vata and kapha doshas.  She notes that pittas may notice an increase in fire due to this spice’s heating nature.  The coriander and fennel work to balance the heat.

Coriander – Relieves gas and indigestion

-Decreases skin ailments like eczema, rashes and inflammation

-Calms muscles spasms

-Reduces inflammation and joint swelling associated with rheumatoid arthritis

Coriander:

Fennel – Strengthens agni without aggravating pitta

-Stops cramping

-Increases mental alertness

-Helps with IBS

-Contains phytoestrogens to assist with hormonal imbalance

-Helps flush your lymphatic system

Tea Time CCF Recipe

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

½ teaspoon coriander seeds

½ teaspoon fennel seeds

4 cups of filtered water

Directions: Bring water to a boil and add seeds.  Reduce to simmer for 5-8 minutes. Strain and pour into a thermos and sip throughout your day.  Drink CCF Tea hot. CCF tea is a diuretic so do not drink after 6pm.

Save time by blending in bulk:  Add ½ cup of cumin, coriander and fennel seeds to a glass jar.  Shake well to mix. Each morning add 1 ½ teaspoons of this blend to the boiling water.

Bask in Your Fall Reboot

Put on your favorite autumn clothing, a soft sweater and yoga pants, or a long sweater and leggings. Get cozy in your favorite chair or spot in your room.  While drinking your warm tea breathe in the aromas of the sage as it burns out the past. Envision your new self. Notice the colors, textures, aromas and sounds that accompany your inspiration. You got this! Now enjoy the best fall ever.

Where did the celebration of Gurupurnima come from?  

Gurupurima is an ancient practice of honoring the teacher.

A great teacher Veda Vyasa who compiled the 4 Vedas, translated the Maharabharata, and the 36 Paranas was the inspiration of this holiday. His students wanted to thank him for his  contribution to their lives.

They asked him how they could honor him. He said to choose one day to bestow their teacher with gifts and their offerings. They choose the day of the brightest fullest full moon of the year to be Gurupurnima to honor this teacher.

This tradition was set many centuries ago and has been celebrated ever since.

Ways to honor our teachers this month.

• You can make a gift in their name.
• You can send them notes, presents and offerings.
• Contemplate what would your teacher love to receive?

Your greatest gift to them is to live life to your full potential.

My own teachers have had a profound influence on me. When you meet a great teacher, you begin to hear an inner resonance. What they say touches your heart. You begin to see yourself through their eyes. A great teacher will recognize the greatness within you and you will start to see this in yourself.

I never feel diminished around great teachers, however, it’s not always comfortable to be around great teachers. In the presence of a great teacher you feel challenged to move into new territory, to face your inner demons of the small self/ego, and to step into your fullest potential.

Teaching that Wisdom is from Within

Teachers influence our lives through setting a great example of behavior. Sally Kempton, one of my favorite teachers, taught me to recognize that the guidance I am always looking for outside myself comes from within. This is such a powerful teaching. Everything we need is inside us. How can this be? There is so much help out there. I must need a lot of help!! I cannot tell you how much money, time and energy I have spent on self improvement seminars – it’s endless.

Honoring the teacher within and without is really what the month of Gurupurnima is all about. This is  an especially important message to receive at this time in the world with so much chaos and uncertainty.

The other blessing we receive from our gurus, our great teachers is the glimpse of the divine, that feeling of being in the presence of something bigger and larger than us.

Experiencing The Divine Presence

Many yoga teachers talk about the Great Self, Universal Consciousness, Shiva, Shakti, Prana…
There are so many questions as to where to turn to solve issues in your life, for your family and  in our communities.  What is the next right step (Swahdharma) for us as individuals, for our families and for our communities?

A great teacher will connect you to your inner guide… the guru within, the Great Self.

What is the guru within? How do you find it?

How do you experience this inner presence?

Some describe this presence as…

• Swirling lights
• Vast stars in an endless dark night,
• An ocean pulsating with love, emptiness, stillness
• a penetrating blue light emanating from the 3rd eye
• Waves of love washing over the body
• Undulating energy that moves deep inside
• Deep heaviness of the outer body and expansion within
• A blue/black pulsating presence that envelops us
• The seeker disappears into the feeling of love and oneness
• A giant eye peering back at you from within

Some folks see actual saints, sages, gurus who are no longer in a body. They may have never seen nor heard of these people but they show up in their meditations.

Others see spirit guides in the form of animals, totems, mandalas, or hear celestial music or the sound of OM pulsating inside. Some feel a pulsating movement of the Shakti throughout their body.

All these are manifestations of energy that has been awakened.

How does this happen?

Through practices like asana, meditation or chanting. You can also experience this by coming into contact with a realized being like a Guru or through shared practices with a community of awakened beings.

The Hugging Guru

How do we connect deeper with the divine presence within?

I was in the presence of a real Guru recently.  Sri Mata Amritanandamayi or Amma, as she is lovingly called by her students. She is also known as the hugging Guru.

There were huge lines of devotees queuing up to get her hugs. All around the hall people were buzzing with anticipation. Love filled the air as this compassionate realized being gives her devotees individual hugs sometimes for 22 hours straight without breaks.

I have been in this amazing being’s presence and received her hugs 3 times over the past 15 years. The experience was so beautiful. As she hugged me she chanted Namoh, Namoh, Namoh in my ear. It reverberated in my heart for days afterwards.

In this guru experience the divine mother is there holding you in her love and compassion. The name for this devotional love is Bhakti. You feel this divine love in her presence and when you chant with great kirtan masters like Krishna Das. Your heart melts in the presence of this deep transpersonal love.

We are living through a unique time in history when everyone on the planet needs a collective hug. The constant barrage of bad news blasting away at us on a daily basis is enough to drive anyone towards someone who might have the answer we are seeking.

Amma’s teachings are simple and beautiful.
“True love is that which helps us experience life and the life-force everywhere. If your love doesn’t enable you to see this, such love is not real love. It is illusory love.”

When folks ask what do we bring Amma as a gift. She tells them their suffering!

My students come to my yoga classes to find solace, peace of mind, hope. We are looking for something that will help us move forward when the momentum is moving civilization in the opposite direction.

Where are your teachers?

Where do you turn to for guidance? What blogs, websites, books, webinars, seminars, retreats do you attend to help you find your center, your inner guidance?

In honor of the month of the teacher check out this list of inner practices that were given to me by my teachers that will help you find your inner GPS. The practices are a way of reconnecting to your own inner Guru.

There are so many questions as to where to turn to solve issues in your life, for your family and  in our communities. What is the next right step (Swahdharma) for us as individuals, for our families and for our communities?

A great teacher will connect you to your inner guide… the guru within, the Great Self.

Honour Your Teachers

In honour of Gurupurima share in the comments below your great teachers and the gurus that have blessed your life.