Last summer I wrote a Substack about Diabetes Ayurveda Blood Type Connections detailing one sound approach to maintaining healthy blood sugar. Here in Healthy Blood Sugar Revisited, I’d like to explore some of what I’ve learned this past year.

To summarize, last year I used an Ayurveda approach that was high in whole foods, fiber, and nutrients and which minimized simple sugars, carbs, and dairy. I chose proteins like organic poultry, fish, pumfu (organic pumpkin seed “tofu”), dals, kichadis, sprouted mung salad, tofu, tempeh, miso, other legumes, nuts, and seeds.

What types of dairy to choose?

In Jackie Christensen and Pat Crocker’s book The Ayurveda Solution to Type 2 Diabetes they take dairy off the TO CHOOSE list for every dosha. Cutting back on dairy last year did seem to help my A1C (a cumulative measure of blood sugar). Yet I’ve seen Ayurvedic doctors help people bring down their blood sugars without completely foregoing dairy. How?

In his thorough statistical review of the research on dairy consumption and Type 2 diabetes (T2D), SK Gudi concluded in 2020 that only low-fat dairy, especially yogurt, is beneficial in maintaining healthy blood sugar. This includes low fat yogurt and cheeses such as mozzarella, ricotta, and cottage cheese.

This runs counter to Ayurveda’s emphasis on whole foods, including whole full-fat dairy products. Yet when I did re-introduce yogurt into my eating, instead of my full fat versions, I chose low-fat plain yogurts.

Berberine

Berberine is the active plant alkaloid found in Oregon grape root and other herbs. It has been used for centuries in Asian medicine. The research is strong for its blood sugar reducing role. It improves uptake of glucose from the blood to the cells, reduces liver production of glucose, and modulates a friendlier gut microbiome. A typical dose would be 500 mg two to three times per day, best taken before meals as well-tolerated.

One respected Ayurvedic doctor recommends berberine mid-day before lunch in support of healthy blood sugar, using as much as 2,000 mg before the meal to support digestive fire. I began to use one 500 mg berberine capsule before lunch or before a meal with dairy in it.

Chromium

If you’re deficient in this trace mineral, it can definitely improve your blood sugar regulation and support cardiovascular health. It enhances the effectiveness of our natural insulin. People with T2D as a group are lower in chromium.

Rich sources of chromium include brewer’s yeast, turmeric, black pepper, mussels, and other foods. Nutritional yeast, while a great source of B vitamins, is not a source of chromium, unless it is fortified.

Gymnema

The Ayurvedic herb Gymnema sylvestre, Gurmar, has been used for centuries with other herbs to balance blood sugar levels. Fresh or dried, when placed on the tongue, it sharply reduces the ability to taste sweet taste. (Sigh.) It enhances insulin production in the pancreas and blocks uptake of glucose in the small intestine. Best used in conjunction with other herbs like fenugreek seeds, turmeric, and/or bitter gourd. (Sebastian Pole, Ayurvedic Medicine, p. 193)

Alpha lipoic acid (ALA)

Alpha lipoic acid is a nutritional supplement that has been used for years to prevent diabetic neuropathy and reduce blood sugar levels. The latest research shows that it has a definite role in neuropathy, yet a less clear one in reducing blood sugar.

If you are using alpha lipoic acid, don’t count on it as a primary support in reducing blood glucose. It is, though, a potent anti-oxidant, useful for gently detoxing heavy metals, and may be useful in the restoration of taste and smell.

By the way: When to check your A1C

If you’ve been struggling to keep your A1C in the healthy range, which is below 5.7; it’s worth doing some planning. (FYI, 5.7 to 6.4 is pre-diabetic; 6.5 and above, diabetic.) The A1C blood test is an average based on your last three months of eating. If you go in for your blood test right after an extravagant vacation, your results are likely to be the worst. Plan ahead, and if you can, apply virtue for three months before you have this test. You can also check your own daily blood sugars to see how you’re doing, if you have a home test kit.

Other supportive nutrients and herbs

Potassium (read fresh vegetables, fruits, fish) and zinc (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, protein-rich foods) are needed for optimal insulin production and function.

Fenugreek seeds, turmeric, guduchi, amalaki, and burdock root are all respected for their metabolic support of healthy blood sugar. Find them combined here in this simple tea. Don’t use this tea if you’ve got low blood sugar, hypoglycemia.

“Bitter is Better” HEAL THAT SWEET TOOTH TEA, friendly YEAR ROUND

Time: 40 minutes

Makes 1 quart

1 Tablespoon organic fenugreek seeds

1 teaspoon organic turmeric (or 1 Tablespoon fresh grated turmeric rhizome)

1 Tablespoon organic burdock root

1 teaspoon organic amalaki

1 teaspoon organic guduchi

6 cups of water

Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in all ingredients; simmer for 30 minutes or more uncovered. Strain; serve.

Effects: tridoshic in moderation. Excellent for Pitta and Kapha, could aggravate Vata if used daily.

This tea supports: blood sugar regulation, plasma, blood, skin, urinary tract, reproductive tissue.

Comments: This tea is appropriately bitter. It’s here to cut through excess sweet, sugar in the blood, congestion, toxins, stagnation. It is an excellent beverage for lowering high glucose in healthy ways.

Contraindications: Not for use in hypoglycemia, low blood sugar.

Notes: “Bitter is better” is an often-quoted saying of Dr. Vasant Lad. We honor him here.

EXTRA STRENGTH VARIATION: Stir in organic aloe vera juice, 1 Tablespoon per cup on serving. Especially appropriate in warm weather.

Reprinted with permission of Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda.

Image: Healing Roots Tea thanks to Renee Lynn and Easy Healing Drinks, standing in visually for Bitter is Better Tea

Bio: I’m a writer, health educator and Polarity Therapist working in the US. My latest veggie cookbook is Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda; you can find it on special here.

Nourishing proteinaceous Ayurveda breakfasts can help you live more easily within natural circadian rhythms. Intermittent fasting has become very popular. Yet when you begin the fast, and when you end it can make all the difference in terms of health.

When are you naturally hungry?

This lets you know when your digestive fire is rising. Appetite rises with agni, digestive fire. Agni naturally follows the sun. It is strongest in daylight hours.

Eating within 2 – 3 hours of when you rise, and close to sundown, you can align yourself with these rhythms. This could be as early as breakfast at 7:30 am and dinner at 5:30 pm. Or you may eat a little later. If you find yourself hungry between 8 and 10 am, trust this. If you can, eat breakfast then. If you are intermittent fasting 14 hours between your first meal and your last, this means finishing your last meal somewhere between 6 and 8 pm in summer months, earlier in winter ones, here at the lower latitudes.

If you’ve been intermittent fasting yet not eating your first meal until noon and your last meal later in the evening, this could be counter-productive. You could be training yourself to eat when digestive fire is weak. From an Ayurvedic perspective, eating later meals contributes to accumulation of toxins, weaker agni, and weight gain.

To shift this pattern, try working your dinner time backwards, even just fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. As you start to eat earlier, you are likely to find yourself getting hungry earlier in the day as well. What’s natural can shift to something that’s also more healthy.

Maintaining muscle mass

As we age, maintaining muscle becomes more challenging. Skeletal muscles are hungry earlier in the day; they absorb protein more effectively after an overnight fast. Nourishing proteinaceous Ayurveda breakfasts can be a part of both maintaining and building healthy muscle mass.

Benefits of nourishing proteinaceous Ayurveda breakfasts

Having an easy to digest breakfast with 15 – 30 grams of protein can ground you heading into the day, stabilize blood sugar, and minimize mid-day fatigue. It can give you longer “last”. It also supports healthy digestive fire throughout the day. It’s particularly helpful for maintaining healthy weight, both for those who are looking to shed and those that are wanting to gain. It’s a practice that is most useful for Vata and Pitta constitutions, within a pattern of three regular meals per day. Kapha constitution may find two meals and lighter eating is more what they need.

If you find that this practice does not work for you, trust that.

Spices & digestibility

In Ayurveda herbs and spices are used to encourage digestive fire, which enhances the digestion and absorption of proteins and other nutrients. I’ll put a little spice in the majority of dishes I make.

Most spices and herbs tend to be warming; it’s a familiar practice to add cinnamon to oatmeal and/or hot milk in winter. Yet hot weather can depress agni and too many warming spices may just aggravate your mood or gut in summer

How to spark your fire and keep your doshas calm? Use more cooling digestive spices with your favorite warming herbs in summer. Coriander, cumin and fennel are the classic cooling digestives; caraway and mint are others. Not to abandon your favorite basil, cardamom, fenugreek, marjoram, turmeric, or oregano. Try pairing coriander with cardamom or ginger, cumin with basil, mint with basil, fennel with fenugreek. Ideas for how to do this follow in the links below.

A variety of healthy digestible possibilities

1. What we’re looking for is a protein anchor, small carbs, greens or fruit, and a little spice. There’s a great blog here about this. Think eggs and greens and a whole grain workable for you, or scrambled tofu with cumin and turmeric, or sage and green onion, again with some grain. Kichadi.

2. Here’s 8 delicious East Indian style nourishing Ayurveda proteinaceous breakfasts from the Drs Chauhan.

3. If you read French, the very best Ayurveda breakfast book I know is here: Mes matinees ayurvediques by Michele Schulz. Imaginative and inspiring, it offers a wide variety of meals, from light to substantial. Check it out!

Michele Schulz and Amadea, 2009

4. Kate O’Donnell has a nice take on Ayurveda breakfasts, ranging from veggie to not, here. She puts in a good word for grass-fed whey protein.

5. What about me? Well, this whole healthy breakfast story was part of what spurred us to create Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda. Ojas Milk (p 119), Black Sesame Shake (116), Delicata Cilantro Smoothie (113), Hari Mint Lassi (88), Speedy Pachak Lassi (67), the Vata Classico (49) and Golden Milk (27) all provide strong supports toward a healthy breakfast.

As I’ve aged, my needs have changed. The lighter breakfasts in The Ayurvedic Cookbook and Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners I now enhance with a serving of protein. I still aim to rotate my proteins and grains: the proteins being eggs, tofu, non-soy tofu, goat yogurt, plant yogurt paired with carbs like brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, a little granola, this time of year. As cooler weather arrives, the warmer carbs like buckwheat, millet, and corn get woven in more.

Be practical about what works for you

Beans and fruit or animal dairy and fruit can be problematic (translate gassy) for many. If your smoothie of fruit and pea protein is attacking you later in the day, or you find yourself stuporous after a shake of cow yogurt and fruit, other options may serve you better. A high-protein plain Greek coconut yogurt like Foragers might be an easy substitute for the cow dairy. Or you could use freshly ground soaked nuts or seeds like hemp or pumpkin seeds in place of a legume-based protein powder.

You may be living somewhere where many of these foods are not available. It may be that looking at the timing of your eating, your choice of spices, and local proteins are your best bets.

What about the toast breakfast?

Some of us just adore tea and toast, and that’s it. If you’re one of these and are curious about shifting a bit, you could consider searching for higher protein breads, even brain-friendly grain-free ones and pair your toast with a warm more proteinaceous drink, like some of the Easy Healing Drinks mentioned above.

What are your favorite healthy digestible nourishing proteinaceous breakfasts?

Feel free to comment here.

Image: Allison, Laurie, Zoe, APTYI cooking intensive 2009, thanks to them and the blessed sister who took this. I confess we were making lunch! Yet it could have served as an excellent Ayurveda breakfast.

Bio: I’m a writer and health educator in Santa Fe, NM. My latest cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

When our teacher Garchen Rinpoche has talked about the faults of anger, inside my response has often been, Yes, but – All sorts of exceptions exist in my mind: standing up for what’s fair, holding against injustice, defending the innocent, protecting the Earth, naming stupidity, setting healthy boundaries – you name it, I can defend anger. Yet today this one is about anger and love.

In a recent text to a dear one about other loved ones, I wrote, We want them to be perfect, so we don’t have to be aggravated. Spare me my anger, just be perfect. Not likely!

The wisdom of a loving group

In an online Ayurveda mentoring group with past participants of classes this week, our focus morphed toward anger and love. Each person was facing complex challenges in an increasingly difficult world. Often anger can get stashed and become deep-seated resentment. Each of us had our entrenched patterns.

Yet the approach to handling anger seemed to be shifting for us. One person found their anger dissolving, as if the loved one who had died this past year had carried it with them. They said, I don’t want anger to have a place in me. It needs to be let go of. We talked about anger as if it was toxic sludge, which of course, it is.

Another person in the group talked about their recent journey with anger and love. They were tired of the drag on their family relationships from the steady resentment and unfulfilled expectations. In the last few weeks they’d asked the Universe for help. I want to love cleanly, they said.

The things we like about each other

What spontaneously came forward for them was an entirely new focus with their family. We’re only talking about the things we like, admire, or have admired, about one another, they related. All three generations of family members have been willing to try this. They reported that their interactions had gotten lighter, and a lot more flowing with the change in focus.

Fire in the mountains

There’s a serious fire in the mountains here in northern New Mexico. Last Sunday as the smoke poured upward in the sky toward the north east, I was a participant in ceremony at the annual Southwestern College Transformation and Healing conference in a workshop with therapists Concha Garcia Allen and Michele Rozbitsky. In the midst of what Concha called kinesthetic prayer, dancing to restore the balance of the elements in this moment, a moving prayer for rain with Danza Tonantzin de Analco dancers, I found myself inside the fire and the mountains. I could feel the anger smoldering in the earth. This wasn’t just the anger of the villages of Cundiyo and Cordova, so close to the front lines of danger. It felt like all of our anger, a male-female anger, fierce anger between the genders. There was this instant realization of I’ve got to give it up – it’s doing me no good and it’s doing my community and the Earth no good.

It was as sudden and definite an understanding as when I first read about the Plastic Continent of Trash in the Pacific in Ruth Ozeki’s delicious novel A Tale for the Time Being. Horrified, my consumption of plastic dropped drastically, just knowing about this reality. It was like that. I found myself thinking, I’ve just got to find other ways.

Cutting links to discord

Concha and the company passed out thin pieces of string to each of us, instructing us, If there’s someone you’re in a stuck place with, tie a knot in the string. Thinking about someone I’d held resentment toward for years, I tied the knot. We were instructed to take our individual strings home, burn them on our own. I did so the next morning in my daily Smoke Offering. It felt good to have a tangible way to let go of the anger, and not pick it back up again. The knot was gone.

The pueblos of northern New Mexico face what’s happening

The pueblos of northern new Mexico create a strong presence here, up and down the Rio Grande River and out beyond. Their imperative has been to protect their culture, people, language, homelands, education, water, ways of life with courage and persistence for these many decades in the face of extractive greed and ignorance. They model their own ways to work together about anger and with love. The latest issue of Green Fire Times Pueblo Convocation 2026 outlines quite a few of these. I am grateful to be their neighbor.

Thanks to my companions in this journey

Thanks to the open loving influence of my companions in the group this week, I navigated a dicey family crisis with more flexible love in the days afterward, rather than with the locked down power dynamic I first brought to the challenge. Thank you, Ayurveda mentoring group!

It’s not simple, and it is. Faced with death, birth, change, loss, destruction, joy, can we love?

This Substack is in honor of Cindy and her faithful kitty companion Charlie. Charlie, may you fly with love.

And to Lisa, Gem, and Niko. Niko, may love surround you.

The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas

Here are some of the things Garchen Rinpoche has said over the years about anger and love. Which ones could you connect with?

The antidote for anger is loving kindness and compassion. (p 63)

As soon as anger arises it is like a poisonous thorn piercing your mind. It has the nature of suffering. (p 62)

If you are in the right, of course you can talk about your side of things; you don’t have to accept false accusations or abuse. If you are in the right, it is alright to talk about it, but without anger. For example, if someone treated me with contempt and abused me, I would make sure not to retaliate angrily. I would think, “Oh! This is his afflictive emotion. This is his anger, but from the perspective of law it is alright to respond. His behavior is not okay.”….Still you must be able to discuss the situation free from anger. (pp 56 – 57)

All conflict arises out of the biased tendencies of benefactors, disciples and so forth. When we give way to bias, the activities of listening, pondering and meditation will not be useful to us…they will become like burned seeds. (p 93)

Your worst enemy is anger. Once one has defeated one’s own anger, no external enemy exists at all. Of course, even if you don’t have any anger there will still be some people who will try to harm you. But when anger is destroyed, you will become connected to everyone. (p 62)

Updates on Garchen Rinpoche can be found here.

Image: About Anger and Love Now thanks to Iza Bruen-Morningstar

Bio: I’m a student of HE Garchen Rinpoche, as well as a writer and health educator in Santa Fe, NM. My latest cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

The Buddha’s Four Applications of Mindfulness

Our teacher HE Garchen Rinpoche has been sick, evoking an outpouring of prayers and love in response. He’s asked us to practice Dharma in the classic form of the Buddha’s Four Applications of Mindfulness to benefit everyone. Rinpoche gave a short teaching on this in 2020, which leads into the practice of Mahamudra and Dzogchen toward the end of this Tibetan recording with subtitles. You can see him here.

What I’m hearing as a student is, Hold with Love Watch Our Minds. We’re responsible for our own minds and hearts; don’t let them go wild with sorrow or fear. Drupon Kunsang Rinpoche gave a clear teaching about this in relationship to the 4 Applications of Mindfulness in English August 1^st from Thailand, at Garchen Rinpoche’s request. You can access this here. He links these practices of mindfulness with the Four Noble Truths in succinct ways.

About the same time, Khenpo Tenzin taught on the same topic at Rinpoche’s request at GBI, the center in Arizona. While more informally presented, I appreciated how he led us in this down to earth explore. Basically, one is applying mindfulness, to four common areas of experience: our bodies, feelings-sensations, mind, and phenomena.

So for example, applying mindfulness to our bodies. As Khenpo Tenzin spoke, I reached out with kindness to a part of my body that was feeling pain. 1. Impermanence – will this pain be here forever? No. Or, rather yes, it is impermanent. 2. Selflessness – has this area got a self? Well, no. So, yes, here’s selflessness. 3. Suffering – is there suffering here? Yes, especially if I fixate on the sensations. 4. Emptiness – emptiness in a part of the body, what an idea. Yes. The whole thing expands. How surprising.

Hear Khenpo Tenzin’s teaching here.

The mind’s only friends are love and compassion

Rinpoche says this in the 2020 recording. The Four Applications of Mindfulness are the Buddha’s ways to become free of suffering.

The Amitabha visualization and mantra

The picture accompanying this Substack is from Garchen Rinpoche. It is what he sees when he meditates on Amitabha, the Red Buddha of compassion. As he explains it, Amitabha is with every single one of us, directly above our heads. As we die, releasing our consciousness through our crowns, it is possible for the consciousness to go straight upward into the heart of Amitabha in the Pure Land.

There are billions of us here on this planet, dying and being born in every second. Saying Amitabha’s mantra OM AMI DEWA HRI evokes this energy and possibility for anyone dying in that moment. It’s support for everyone, especially anyone dying.

Here’s a teaching with OM AMI DEWA HRI from Rinpoche last year in Tibetan and Spanish.

Buddha Amitabha is a practice of loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, and empathetic joy. How far can we extend our love? Can it reach every single one of us?

Image: Amitabha, from HE Garchen Rinpoche, thanks to GBI. Find more Resources here.

Bio: A student of His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, I also write and practice in Santa Fe, NM. Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is a Drikung Kagyu Buddhist teacher whose home monastery is in Tibet and whose working base is in Chino Valley, Arizona. He has taught all over the world. There are thousands of us fortunate enough to have met him and become his students in Asia, North America, Latin America, Europe, Ukraine, Russia, and the Middle East. His living presence has guided my life these last 23 years.

He is an astute, deep, wise, loving person, remarkably open to many different kinds of people and cultures. Born in 1936 in Kham, Eastern Tibet, home of rugged frontier people and the Kagyu lineage of experiential wisdom meditation, his life has spanned many changes – for himself, his country, and the world.

Rinpoche celebrated his 90^th birthday this spring at The Garchen Buddhist Institute. Now he is very sick with a viral infection. All of us students are praying for his good health and long life. It feels like an important moment to share some of who he is. He has a different face for each of us. What I’ll write here is a small fractal in the much larger picture of His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche.

Dalai Lama and Garchen Rinpoche

The Buddha is the mind of love

Recognized at 7 as the reincarnation of the 8^th Garchen Rinpoche, he journeyed by horse with his companions to Nangchen Gar Monastery. From the time he set out until the moment they reached their destination, he recalls that a compassionate dark figure travelled with him. This person was by his side throughout the journey. Yet when they arrived, the fellow traveler vanished. The person had not been a person at all; it was Mahakala, the Vajrayana Buddhist protector deity. Through out Rinpoche’s life the unseen world and the seen ones have moved in and out of one another. He has introduced us, his students, to this possibility.

Once many years ago at the Garchen Buddhist Institute (GBI), Rinpoche was giving a Chod teaching. As he sang, I could feel the many dis-embodied spirits of the Southwest land come, to receive the teachings and participate in the practice. It was a profound experience.

Afterwards there was a Q and A. I raised my hand to ask, What if someone died elsewhere, far from here? Could they still be a part of this practice? I had been a student of Rinpoche’s for a while at that time, and the look he gave me said it all. While loving as always, it was also one of total disgust, like, have you learned nothing at all about non-locality and the union of all experience?? The look was my answer. With his words he simply responded, Yes.

Whatever you do, think, may this benefit sentient beings

Rinpoche has opened us all to wider worlds, most especially the practice of bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is loving unconditionally, without grasping to an outcome, for the benefit of everyone. Over and over he has come back to this point. This life will end. You will not be able to take anything with you – not your relationships, possessions, power, or roles. The only thing you have that moves with you from life to life is your bodhicitta. Guard it with your life.

Once we understand the nature of afflictions, they can transform into timeless awareness

Once long ago Rinpoche posed a question to us in a story, something he had had to face in actuality. It was along the lines of If someone asked you to teach them, and later they tried to kill you, what would you do? This question bewilders me still, in its blending of past, present, and future realities. Yet given the world in which Garchen Rinpoche lived, this was a real possibility.

Garchen Rinpoche as young man in a flowery meadow in Tibet. While it is very blurry, you can get a sense of him as a determined meditator.

He completed a 2 ½ year retreat in his early twenties in the late 1950’s, as Mao’s armies invaded, to “liberate” his country .Rinpoche became a freedom fighter for Tibet. The documentary For the Benefit of All Beings depicts these times. The technology of war is a brutal one, with conquerors often possessing far more advanced methods of destruction than those they are attacking. Faced with Chinese fighter planes overhead, Rinpoche and his fellow Tibetan fighters would lie flat on the ground and cover themselves with leaves to escape detection. When no water was available, they drank their own urine.

(The novel The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste describes similar heart-wrenching war scenes in 1935 in Africa, as Mussolini’s Italian planes spew mustard gas on Ethiopian warriors, men and women. Most recently we can see the brutal outcome of AI technology use in warfare, when the US bombed a girl’s school in Iran, killing many children this year.)

Garchen Rinpoche’s experience was that the deity White Tara saved him multiple times from death in the war.

Captured by the Chinese, he spent the next twenty years of his life in a work prison camp. There were 800 people there, half of them monastics (monks and nuns). He met his root lama Khenpo Munsel there and studied secretly at night with a small group of fellow monastics. People who knew him said he would give away his own food to others who were starving. Less than 100 of his companions in this Chinese prison camp were alive a decade ago.

Released in early 1980, Rinpoche set out to restore what he could of his home Gargon Monastery, which had been destroyed. Many of the people close to him now in Arizona as he experiences this life-threatening illness were with him then, as young people. He told us a story once of finding two kids tussling in the rubble of the monastery at that time. They were later to become his two closest attendants, travelling the world with him.

Wisdom is being free from the thoughts which obscure our nature

These young people are now spiritual teachers themselves, like the Venerable Lama Thubten Nima of Los Angeles Rinchen Choling, Drupon Rinchen Dorje of Chicago Ratna Shri, Lama Zopa Gyamptso of Drikung Seattle, Lama Bunima, and the Venerable Khenpo Samdup, holding with Garchen Rinpoche in Arizona. Some like Khenpo Tenzin or the Venerable Drupon Palkyi, are much younger yet have been steadfastly with Rinpoche in his later years. Lopon Barbara Du Bois, Khenpo Tsultrim and others share his compassionate wisdom. Others, like our teacher the Venerable Traga Rinpoche hold with him from inside Tibet.

Love is the cause of happiness, protect it with patience

Many of us Westerners were not so young when we first encountered Garchen Rinpoche. Invited to the States in the late 1990s by Paljor and Tsering of Project Tibet here in Santa Fe, his early students were often older than him. At this time he was 67, He radiated the joy and openness that attracted so many of us to his teachings.

For me and many others, there was the shock of being recognized by Rinpoche. He looked at me like, of course I know you. Inside I knew he was right; there was a deep connection that went back to – when? Who knows how long?

Rinpoche actively practiced with us for decades. There are fine writers among the sangha, may they write their own experiences.

The difference between samsara and nirvana is the presence or absence of self-clinging

Rinpoche has referred to developments in science and technology as mundane wisdom. While some can destroy so much so quickly, other technologies have been used to spread bodhicitta. With the help of devoted adept artists and technicians, including Christiana Lundberg, director of GBI, the Garchen Institute’s You Tube channel spreads teachings quickly.

Garchen Rinpoche’s original Drikung Kagyu teacher, the founder of the order, Jigten Sumgon, 800 plus years ago attracted thousands by word of mouth. They would pitch their tents on the hillsides around Drikung Thil Monastery to receive summer teachings with the master. Many of us also found his disciple, the current Garchen Rinpoche through word of mouth. Thanks to the mundane wisdom of Internet technology, thousands more can see a teaching within a day of its being given, and they do. Garchen Rinpoche’s recent teachings are all available there.

Love is the sunlight of the mind.

Yet it is with supramundane wisdom that one wakes up, resting in the nature of mind as it is. (Garchen Rinpoche, the Commentary on the Essential Meaning of the Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, p. 87) This has been Rinpoche’s purpose, supporting us all in waking up. May we hold with him in love now.

When you become free of self grasping, your mind becomes one with the Guru’s mind.

8/3/26 Update: Rinpoche has asked that his students, anyone wanting to support this process, contemplate the 4 Applications of Mindfulness from the Buddha. There is an excellent teaching on this here from Khenpo Tenzin. This practice is traditionally a great way to spread benefit and wake up.

If you want to do a mantra practice, Rinpoche has asked us to do Amitabha with visualization. Find out about this here.

You can find updates about Dharma practice and Garchen Rinpoche’s progress here.

Garchen Buddhist Institute

General info about GBI

Garchen Biography

Garchen You Tube Channel

Photos: thanks to GBI and sangha members

Bolded Header quotes from HE Garchen Rinpoche, GBI

Bio: I’m a student of His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, as well as a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist in Santa Fe, NM. Any and all errors here are my own.

This is one of those rare times where the shit could be hitting the fan seriously, yet somehow there’s a better chance than usual of learning what we need to and pulling it out of the bag in a creative way. It’s time to review our values and aims, and see if we need to make any shifts for the good of the collective whole. As well as apply common sense to our own specific lives.

Astrologer Thea Anderson has a remarkably apt way of putting things. She calls this summer a chance to manifest an unoptimized, cared-for life. Looking at US Americans’ tendency to value individual self-improvement over collective action, in her latest Substack she writes, You can’t Pilates your way out of sex oppression. It’s time to figure out how to work together.

Barbault’s Basket: will it be limes or limeade?

I just heard about this rare planetary combo yesterday from my astrologer friend Angela (see above) yet last night it came to life vividly in my dreams. This second half of July the powerful outer planets in the heavens have created a pattern that offers potent opportunities for change, most likely through crisis. This pattern was first described by the French astrologer Andre Barbault, hence Barbault’s Basket. Here’s Far Stellar’s excellent take on what it might mean now and for the years ahead.

British astrologer Penny Thornton also looks at this current pattern in the skies from the perspective of how it might influence human’s lives in the years beyond this fleeting moment.

The large outer planets involved in this basket pattern are Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Uranus was discovered in 1781, just as the colonies’ revolution against Britain was coming to a close. Neptune emerged into our scientific awareness in 1846, as the US declared war on Mexio, and simultaneously American settlers tried to create a short-lived California Republic. Pluto was identified in 1930, in the depths of a world-wide Depression.

Thornton associates these last three planets with the dawn of our current nuclear age. For whatever reason, scientists chose to name newly discovered highly radioactive elements after each of them: uranium, neptunium, plutonium. There is an association here between expanding awareness, the discovery of new things, and potentially dangerous developments. Best not to be naïve.

Penny Thornton has an enthusiasm for technology that I do not share. Yet, as she points out, it is with us. Since these planets were discovered, technology has taken us beyond our past experience. This particular configuration in the skies now could speed up technological developments. Yet there is another opportunity that she describes. There is a potential to expand consciousness here, with the ability to move between two or three realities at once.

I think of spiritual practice. In order to join with one’s sacred self, one has to be willing to open to other realities, let go of what our mundane mind insists is true. In other words, this could be a very good time to practice, to drop into deeper understandings about our values and actions, for a longer term benefit than just one that is self-oriented. As Penny says, out of crisis comes opportunity.

If you’d like to hear her presentation in its entirety, here’s the link. Her wry disclaimer is Some say I’m as spiritual as a brick.

It’s been a tough time for many

We’re just emerging out of what’s been a grueling Mercury retrograde period for many. In this moment, coming out of the multiple crises, it could be useful to open to the opportunities, in a non-linear non-structured way, as Thea Anderson suggests. If you’ve been birthing something new in the midst of all this labor, what glimpses of this can be seen now? Dancing, dreaming, journalling, meditating, riffing with friends, collaging together, now could be a good time to see where your recent experiences and deeper values bring you. It could be we will be making more open curious connections with one another, across a wide range of cultural experience, in these coming years.

I’ve mentioned here before the practical mystic Machig Labdron who lived in Tibet one thousand years ago. One of her students, Sonam Gyenma, asked her about the coming degenerate age. When this begins and whether it ends are not clearly articulated. Yet how it might look certainly is well-described. Some of Machig’s answers to her daughters are almost comical in their explicit truth now:

Everything will be upside down and mixed up. ..

The private counsel of the foreign and interior ministers and counselors will be blown helter-skelter in the wind and ripped open. Their private conversations will be as public as the wind. Private words and public words will blend like milk and blood, blending the essence with the refuse inseparably until it is lost.

All this amounts to trading the royal seal on the work of state law for wealth, and the stockpiling (of goods). ….(leaders) will have especially great hostility toward harmless, humble people and will show favor to the harmful, wealthy, and famous. They will maintain that unwholesome action is beneficial. They will welcome chronic liars with their chat.. . .

The Night of Tibetan Spirit this August 8, 2026 in Santa Fe

If you’re here in New Mexico and would like to connect more with Tibetan culture, our vital Tibetan community is offering a night of entertainment and education this August 8^th, 7 pm, as a benefit at the Santa Fe Women’s Club. Tickets are being sold at the Ark Bookstore.

Lead image: Gord, Angela, and me October 18, 2025 (hence the bundled up non-July look) much thanks to photographer Corey McGillicuddy

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

Ayurveda works with everyday conditions to heal, as a 5,000 year old nature-based system of healing from India. What follows here is basic Ayurveda info about cooling calming Pitta foods. I offer it to interested novices, as well as to those of us like myself who can sometimes forget the obvious. Whatever scope of experience you bring here to calming Pitta, welcome.

Signs of Pitta being too high, in need of cooling & calming

Why would you want to calm Pitta dosha?

The three doshas Pitta, Kapha, and Vata mediate our physical and psychological experience of the world. More info about the doshas here. When Pitta is in balance, we’re relaxed, calm, creative, assertive, and warm enough.

When Pitta is high, there are different signs: irritability, inflammation, anger, crankiness, impatience, loss of hair, feeling too hot, urinating a lot, or heavy perspiration. After all, Pitta comes from the two elements fire and water.

When Pitta is in excess, the qualities (gunas) associated with this dosha can also be more in evidence: oily (as in skin or hair), sharp (as in tongue or temper), hot (as in body temperature or hot-headed). Dunking one’s head in cool water at this time of year is a real thing, from an Ayurveda perspective.

When the Doshas are in balance

It’s already been mentioned. When Pitta is balanced, we’re creative, assertive, warm, focused. (For a delightful example of balanced Pitta, scroll down in this Substack to hear Leona’s song.)

When Kapha is in harmony, we feel grounded, steady, connected.

When Vata is in balance, we’re flexible, curious, go with the flow.

The doshas under pressure

Under pressure, the doshas can reveal a different story. Pitta can mouth off, Kapha can withdraw and sit on stuff, Vata runs around.

Emotionally under stress, the doshas also push us to behave differently. Pitta can get mad, Vata scared, and Kapha sad.

Environmentally, Pitta likes it cool and fresh, Vata warm and humid, and Kapha fresh and dry. If you are in a battle with loved ones about the temperature of a space, consider what this could indicate in terms of meeting all the doshas’ needs.

There’s more about this in my first book with Urmila Desai, The Ayurvedic Cookbook with a review here. There’s plenty of other great resources about the doshas and Ayurveda now; feel free to explore.

The key to summer wellness is to keep cool, yet nurture healthy digestive fire. (Easy Healing Drinks p. 74)

The tastes can cool us down or warm us up

Ayurveda heals with opposites. Just the way a room can be warm or cool, on a more subtle level, food and drink can be heating or cooling. This is based not only on the temperature of a food, which counts, but also its tastes.

The six tastes – sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent – each have different qualities. So they can be used to balance a given dosha or aggravate it.

Sweet taste has heavy, moist, cool qualities. Its coolness calms Pitta. Yet it can also inhibit agni, digestive fire.

Bitter taste is cold, light, dry. Think bitter greens, which are soothing to Pitta. It can also paradoxically support digestive fire via samana vayu. When Pitta is high, a splash of bitter before a meal, such as Swedish bitters or a little aloe vera juice, can actually enhance digestion.

Astringent taste is cool, dry, heavy, calming to Pitta. Astringent taste can cause our mouths to pucker and dry out, like an unripe banana or witch hazel. (Warm sour taste, on the other hand, is moistening, to the body and our mouths. Think lime or lemon juice…)

Sweet, bitter, and astringent flavors cool most effectively

Here’s some examples: pomegranate, prickly pear, apples, sweet apricots, avocado, sweet berries, dates, coconut, grapes, limes, ripe mangos, melons, papaya, sweet plums. There’s more info here.

Whereas sour, salty, and pungent/spicy tastes warm us up

The three warming tastes do better to balance cool Vata or Kapha doshas then hot Pitta.

Sour taste is warm, moist, oily; it enhances agni. Think citrus or apple cider vinegar.

Salty flavor is moist, warm, and heavy. It can also enhance agni. Think salty foods, in moderation.

Pungent taste has hot, light, dry qualities. In moderation it can enhance digestive fire.

These three tastes are used in the classic pre-meal digestive remedy of a thin slice of fresh ginger (pungent) with a thin slice of lemon or lime (sour) and a pinch of salt. I’m saving this warming strategy for cool weather.

Practically, if you adore spicy foods yet your Pitta is running noticeably high, go for the “mild” over “hot” choices when possible. If you enjoy cilantro, it can be used in pungent dishes to cool them down. Or you can use coriander, the cooling seed of the same blessed plant.

In Ayurveda, all six tastes are valued as part of a healthy meal. Yet we’ll use them in different proportions depending on your balance of doshas. I write more about this here.

See Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda, Appendix 2, p. 133 for more about the tastes, doshas, and agni.

Pitta, digestive fire, and our environmental homes

This morning I left my home in the forest where it’s HALLELUJAH!!!!! been raining for the last two days. It was 63 degrees F getting in the car there. Thirty minutes later, pulling into my mom’s driveway, it was 79 degrees, overcast, yet still quite dry.

If you are in a cool, moist Alaska village, it will be easier to keep your Pitta calm than if you are in 101 degree F temperatures with smoke. Yet if you’re living in Alaska, you may have to nurture your digestive fire more. You may also need to be more resourceful, in terms of accessing healthy cooling foods.

Easy Healing Drinks and Pitta

There’s an abundance of cooling calming Pitta foods in the Easy Healing Drinks spring E-book like Lavender Rose Lemonade, Key Lime Mint Cooler, Cooling Coconut Green Drink, Artichoke Bay Tea, True Toning Tea, Simple Comfort Tea, and a variety of fresh veggie juices.

The same recipes plus more can be found in the 4-season print book along with Watermelon Spice, Gord’s Strawberry Lemonade, Cool-that-Rakta Green Limeade, The Virgin Pomegrita, Sports Solution, agua frescas, and a Blueberry Apple Bliss dessert. Watch my colleague Iza Bruen-Morningstar make Pomegranate Chia Smoothie here.

Food lists, geek out

If extensive detail delights you, here’s more.

Plus, more ways to keep cool, including breath.

Creativity and joy are powerful ways to balance Pitta

Our creative fire needs healthy outlets to be balanced. We each have different ways to express our creativity. Last month a very young singer, Leona, wowed audiences across the globe with her spontaneous and impassioned rendition of Let it Go from Frozen, sung on a Los Angeles street with her parents in close proximity. Listen to her here. Pianist Emilio Piano models great ways to create space for the powerful and new energy of tiny Leona. May we be so skillful and spacious in our own lives in opening to the much-needed new. Rock out, Leona!

Other ways to create

Any dosha can create trouble – Good Trouble is what we’re after this weekend. It’s a weekend to honor the life and death of Congressional star John Lewis and stand up for protecting the vote and civil rights now.

Image: Summer Rainbow thanks to Renee Lynn and Easy Healing Drinks

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

In Ayurveda, each of the three doshas, Kapha, Pitta, and Vata, has a homesite in which they rest. While all three doshas move through every cell, their individual homesite in the body is where they return to restore themselves. Each of these homesites is associated with traditional marma points, therapeutic touch points of Ayurveda and yoga.

When you think about balancing the doshas in Ayurveda, it is often with food, herbs, or asana. Yet you can also invite your own doshas home with this simple touch process. Sound can be used to enhance the experience, as we did here in this 3-minute video.

I’ve used this process for many years in classes and one-on-one sessions to support the doshas in rebalancing. As the doshas balance, the body, nervous system and psyche can experience tangible relief.

You can invite Kapha home

You can take more time to invite the doshas home than three minutes, if you like. You can rest your hands in the center of your chest, Hridaya marma, and take three or four breaths at your own pace, inviting Kapha home with loving kindness, noticing how this place on your body feels. Take as long as you like to rest here.

Let Pitta balance

Similarly you can rest one hand at the navel Nabhi and the other at the back of your waist to invite Pitta home with kindness and appreciation, breathing in a relaxed way, feeling how this area is now. Is there anything Pitta would like you to know?

Now it’s time for Vata to ground and settle

Then to invite Vata home, rest one hand at the lower abdomen, half way between the navel and the pubic bone. This is the marma point Basti. With your other hand, cradle the sacrum, with your fingertips resting gently toward your tailbone (Guda marma). As you invite Vata home with kindness and respect, take 3 – 4 breaths, or as many as you like at your own pace, opening to how this area feels.

This simple body explore can be relaxing, and also a bit eye-opening. Perhaps you’ve never felt your doshas’ homesites before. It’s interesting to experience directly what these three areas feel like, and how different they can feel from one another, in any given moment

Pairing mantra and marma

Calling the doshas home with sound offers another dimension for healing. Seed syllables, bija mantras, can be warming, cooling, light or heavy in quality, just as herbs or foods can be.

OM, light and expansive, can be used to invite Kapha home.

SHRIM, cooling and soothing, can attract Pitta home.

RAM, warm in quality, invites Vata home.

Other mantras can be used, or other songs. These are simply the ones I’ve appreciated over the years. You can hear them in the video.

Integrating this process with other healing flows - including a grounding legs flow

I often will invite the doshas home as part of an in-person or on Zoom Polarity Therapy session. The body and the doshas can feel “heard” and other Polarity processes can then take happen, sometimes more readily or easily.

This week in an Ayurvedic mentoring session with guided marma as self-care, I invited participants, after calling the doshas home, to feel into their pelvis and legs. First we rested our hands on our hip joints, breathing with loving kindness and respect. What do you notice here? I asked them.

Then we moved our hands to our own knees, front, back, sides, breathing slowly and with kindness. How does this feel? Is there a difference between one knee and the other? Between the front of a knee and the back?

Sweeping the hands down to our own ankles, I suggested breathing with kindness and respect here. How do the ankles feel?

We held the soles of our feet (Talahridaya marma), same story, breathing with kindness and awareness, simply noticing the feet felt.

Finally we played with connections: one hand on one’s own hip, the other on the knee of the same leg. How does this feel? Is there any kind of connection? Similarly, knee to ankle, ankle to foot, each side… The whole process, including inviting the doshas home, took about a half hour.

Participants felt more grounded, and surprised at what they’d noticed about themselves.

Often we struggle with pain in one area, yet may forget to consider how this part of the body relates to the whole, to the places around it. Connecting gently with loving kindness and respect can be quite healing.

Saraswati Cutler, my co-demonstrator in this video, currently has an active healing practice in Madrid, New Mexico. Her work can be accessed here.

This video was originally produced by OtherSide Wisdom Works with Tim and Lian Blair in 2009, as part of a Dhatu Rejuvenation program recording. Much appreciation to everyone responsible for this collaboration.

Seva Ayurveda offers a pre-recorded three-hour Polarity Therapy & Marma Therapy course with me, including a deeper explore of Inviting the Doshas Home.

Image: Saraswati Cutler and I, 2009, thanks to Tim & Lian Blair

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

The recent flurry of US Supreme Court rulings makes the protection of civil rights now as crucial as in the 1950s and ‘60s, when significant breakthroughs through massive protests extended the civil rights of many ordinary people.

ICE has increased its quotas to 2,000 arrests per day with its extra funding from Congress. 10,000 people were arrested in a five-day period this week, including the Haitian caregiver of a friend of a friend with Lewy Body dementia here in Santa Fe. Presumably he was one of the 350,000 immigrants impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision to end the Temporary Protective Status of Syrian and Haitian immigrants in this country. He was flown where? Maybe DC, they hope with his lawyer. (For more info about the proposed Find Our Families Act click here.)

Imagination, Experience, Awareness, Gathering Together

It has been observed often in recent years that as a divided populace, we need to connect with one another. Yet how? Imagining others’ experience, experiencing outside-the-box moments, increasing our awareness of others’ realities, could be part of building this different reality. Gathering together to do so, YES.

In the midst of reading a recent biography of writer and activist James Baldwin, Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs, it’s quite remarkable. It’s written a lot in Baldwin’s own words, drawn from his letters to loved ones as well as his published and unpublished work. One story really got me:

In the spring of 1963, president John F Kennedy, non-violent leader Martin Luther King Jr, and attorney general Robert F Kennedy were all still alive. Author James Baldwin had just appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, May 17, 1963, and was in an extensive article in LIFE just six days later. The March on Washington and MLK Jr’s famous I Have a Dream speech were still to happen in August of that year There was a huge amount of violence happening in the South. The administration was looking to discuss with Black leaders ways to reduce tensions.

Civil rights activist - famous Black comedian Dick Gregory suggested Baldwin’s name to attorney general RFK and Burke Marshall, chief of the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ. Ironically, at that time, Baldwin was considered safer than talking with MLK Jr, of whom, RFK reportedly said, King is so hot these days that (it would be) like Marx coming to the White House.

Baldwin was somewhat shocked to be invited to breakfast with Bobby, his family, and Marshall in the Kennedy apartment in New York. The conversation was cordial, yet Baldwin told Kennedy that he and his brother the president had not made it clear to Americans that civil rights was a moral issue. RFK didn’t see any lack in that regard, yet the three men agreed to meet the next day for a longer period with a larger group of people, willing to advise them on the Negro situation in the North and what role the federal government might take.

The following day, Friday May 24, 1963, Baldwin had assembled a stellar group of potential advisors, ready to meet at the Kennedy apartment on Central Park West. The group included Lorraine Hansbury (award-winning playwright of A Raisin in the Sun), Harry Belafonte, Baldwin’s brother David, the inimitable Lena Horne, a young actor Rip Torn, twenty-five -year-old civil rights activist Jerome Smith who’d been recently beat up on the front lines protesting in the South, Dr. Kenneth Clark, producer Henry Morgenthau, Edwin Berry of the Chicago Urban League, and others.

In a wide-ranging conversation that centered on Jerome Smith’s harrowing experiences in the fight for desegregation, there were multiple accounts of what happened at the meeting.

Kennedy expressed disbelief that the FBI is the South could be in collusion with racists. An impeccably dressed Lena Horne is said to have cooly looked at him and asked, But, Mister Attorney General, you’ve never been a Negro being questioned by the FBI in the deep South…have you?

She was inviting Kennedy to imagine something that had never crossed his mind. We White people, there are many things we fail to imagine. Or willfully ignore. That afternoon, the conversation was deeply shaking for attorney general RFK; his experience was harshly expanded. His awareness of what civil rights then meant to millions of citizens became larger.

Less than two weeks later, his brother JFK would go on national TV to announce that he would be asking Congress to enact civil rights legislation, calling it a moral issue…as old as the scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution.

Civil rights now

A veteran of civil rights then and now, labor activist Dolores Huerta spoke two days ago in Texas. She is ninety-six. Latinos hold over 40% of the votes in Texas. Addressing the many cruel events that have occurred, she said, There is a way to change it, and the power to change it is in us.

In her long life, she sees the critical steps as:

Get people together.

Work collectively for the good of all.

Organize the vote, the only way to solve this.

Hear her full speech here.

Find Our Families Act

Congressional Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has introduced a bill in the House to help loved ones track people seized by ICE. Is your rep a co-sponsor? Find out more here.

Art in support of civil rights now

If you happen to live here in northern New Mexico, the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe has a powerful exhibit happening, America the Beautiful. You can find out more about it here.

Yesterday photographer Ryan Vizzions gave a presentation at the gallery with his featured work, From Standing Rock to Minneapolis. Access it here.

The shadow of white supremacy has always been with us

We are in this place now because of the exercise of many kinds of imagination, including Stephen Miller’s. His take on disability rights is radically different than my own. What do you imagine as fair disability rights? Check out his views here.

Many people fought very hard for the breakthroughs we’ve experienced since the era of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Yet White supremacy has informed the actions of famous leaders who have done decent as well as appalling things in our 250 years as a nation, as well as the thinking of millions of us. Witness FDR and the practice known as redlining: his housing legislation helped millions of US citizens – yet discriminated against African Americans. It was in another infamous Executive Order, 9066, that FDR ordered the rounding up and incarceration of 122,000 Japanese-American citizens.

For a closer look at our Shadow, see Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.

Encouragement in Mercury retrograde

Spoiler alert: if astrology helps you make sense of things, read on. If it’s not your story, these next two sections refer to planetary wisdom.

The planet Mercury is retrograde these next three weeks. This can mean many things, yet as Vedic astrologer Michelle Berry writes, The invitation isn’t to rush toward the next chapter, but to clear away what no longer belongs so the path ahead can reveal itself naturally. To access her wisdom, click here.

Jupiter is freshly in Leo

Western astrologer Thea Anderson writes about a current planetary transit that will be with us close to a year. Jupiter in Leo, she says, wants your vulnerability and your presence. It wants your truest self – not the self-aggrandizing or performative self but the one that deserves to be witnessed. For a generous take of Jupiter transiting in each horoscope, click here.

May all sentient beings be happy, peaceful and free of suffering. What a thing to imagine. Imagine! - a very young John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

This Substack is in loving memory of my mentor and deep time friend, Shamaan Ochaum, who would have turned 85 today. Bless you for all your revelations, Shamaan.

Image: RESIST T-shirt thanks to loving companion Gordon Bruen, pictured here. And to Adam LaVail, for all the great Tees you’ve gifted Gord over the years.

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

I live in a state friendly to my skin color and my ways of thinking and voting. Not everyone I know in the US is so fortunate or privileged. We’re coming out of a sixty-year period (1965 – 2026) in which protecting the vote was a high priority.

This sixty-year period began with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), the culmination of years of effort by civil rights activists and congresspeople like the outstanding John Lewis. During this period, protecting the vote got support from all three branches of government and our populace.

Why the Voting Rights Amendment (VRA) was so important

While the US has been considered a democracy, it has been a conditional democracy, including the participation of some and excluding others. After the Civil War, the 14^th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states July 9, 1868, affirming that an individual born within the US was a citizen. Then in 1869, Congress passed the 15^th Amendment, which prohibited federal or state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. It was ratified by the states in 1870. How these two amendments passed is a story in itself. Southern states had to ratify the 14^th Amendment as a condition for re-entering the Union. (Kristen Clarke observation this week in NEA Webinar) Four states were similarly pressured to ratify the 15^th.

The 15^th Amendment greatly expanded the right to vote to many men who had been legally barred from voting before. How ever it did nothing to guarantee the voting rights of women or indigenous people.

The 19^th Amendment made it illegal to deny the right to vote to any citizen based on sex. It was first introduced to Congress in 1878 and finally ratified in 1920. As Rock the Vote points out, on paper it protected the vote for all women. Yet in practice, only white women got the right to vote. Women of color continued to face discrimination for another 45 years, until the passage of the 1965 VRA.

As the Native American Rights Fund observes, voting rights include being able to:

1. Register to vote

2. Cast a vote

3. Have one’s vote counted.

Protecting the vote encompasses all three of these steps for all citizens.

Native Americans did not win the right to vote until 1948, appallingly. And they still face barriers in all three categories. The Native American Voting Rights Act still waits passage as does the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, to restore the rights guaranteed in the VRA. Where do your congresspeople stand on these voting rights acts? I’m glad to say our New Mexico senator Ben Ray Lujan is a proud sponsor of both of these bills.

The original VRA passed in 1965 with the support of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in the face of continuing discrimination against voters, especially in the South. He himself was a southerner. He urged Congress to pass legislation which will make it impossible to thwart the 15^th Amendment, pointing out, we cannot have government for all the people until we first make certain it is government of and by all the people.

The VRA was effective in protecting the vote for more citizens than ever before, and it was upheld for sixty years.

This ended with Louisiana v. Callais last month

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais (Cal-LAY) gutted Section II of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, wiping out hard-won protections. Now, as General Counsel Kristen Clarke of the NAACP points out, lawyers arguing in favor of voting rights can’t even refer to the VRA, as has been customary in SCOTUS cases for decades. Instead, they have to refer all the way back to the 14^th and 15^th Amendments of the 1800s, legal moves that were huge steps for their times yet ones that did not and do not adequately protect the voting rights of many people, including women of color. Women of color been able to vote for the last 60 years primarily thanks to the VRA and active enforcement and respect for it. Now this is gone.

The stakes are clear

In order to have a voice in what’s going on, one needs a vote. In order to have a vote, one needs to be a citizen. The current administration has intense stakes in suppressing the vote. If it was confident in its majority status as a way to hold on to power, it would not be doing everything imaginable to reduce the number of votes against its agenda. There would be no need, if its agenda was truly popular. It is not.

Consequently, the administration is pushing a myriad of strategies to suppress voting: making vote-by-mail less reliable, complex voter ID requirements in the SAVE Act , and encouraging the swift gerrymandering of voter districts in unprecedented ways since Louisiana v Callais.

This week the president refused to sign into law a popular bipartisan housing bill unless the SAVE Act, with its basket of voter suppression tactics, passes first. The housing bill was designed to address more affordable housing, both for new buyers and renters. It took months of negotiation to develop. One bright light, it passed Congress by such wide margins in both houses that there is a good chance it can be passed ultimately even without the president’s signature. Yet holding on to control seems to have much higher precedence with this administration than benefitting the populace.

How to protect the vote

Danielle Davis of the National Education Alliance articulated their strategy simply this week:

Plan to vote

Promote the vote

Protect the vote

Plan to vote: my 96-year-old mom has voted in person in every election up until this year. She can’t walk that far into the polls any more. We’ll need to be sure she has a mail-in ballot, and keep apprised of whether we can still drop it in special ballot boxes here in New Mexico. Have your plans to vote changed based on local or national conditions?

Promote the vote: NEA is reaching out to 16, 17, and 18 year old people, inviting them to consider the stakes, with information. How would you promote the vote in your area? As Rachel Rossi of Alliance for Justice said this week, We need members of every community to work toward justice in America.

Protect the vote: supporting legislation to protect the vote, volunteering, getting more educated about what other voters may be facing, checking whether your state offers paper trails for ballots, connecting with organizations that protect voting rights like the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, ACLU (Helen Keller was a founder - her birthday’s this weekend), Sunrise Movement, the Carter Center, League of United Latin American Citizens, Common Cause, to name just a few of the positive responses happening.

Image: VOTE much thanks to Sora Shimazaki on Pexels

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

Keeping cool as Pitta rises with the temperatures is a major dance through the sprinklers. Here in New Mexico we don’t have or use sprinklers much; the water evaporates too fast; it’s wasteful. Yet I can remember the feeling of running through the sprinklers as a kid in the burbs. This fresh, open feeling is what I’m holding as a Pitta calmer as we review a few fresh possibilities for keeping cool.

First, a most cooling recipe, pictured here:

THE VIRGIN POMEGRITA

Time: 5 minutes

Makes: 2 cups

2 Tablespoons organic lime juice

½ cup pure pomegranate juice

2 teaspoons organic coconut sugar

¼- ½ teaspoon ground coriander

1 ½ cups pure water

Whip together all the ingredients with an immersion blender or regular blender. Serve cool or at room temperature.

Option: simply shake the ingredients together in a covered Mason jar. Although the result is not as frothy, it’s just as refreshing.

Effects: In summer, calming to all doshas, especially Pitta. In other seasons, calms Pitta, neutral for Vata & Kapha.

This drink supports: plasma, blood cells, female & male reproductive systems.

Shared with permission of Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda.

In memory of Asha, that hot summer day when we made a large pitcher of these and passed them out to overheated passer- byes – was it outside the Coop or Annapurna in Santa Fe? Our conversations invariably sparked much creative reflection for me. Remembering you with love and gratitude, dear friend.

And in celebration of Juneteenth, the Solstice, and the first anniversary of Dorie’s passing. Remembering you with love and gratitude, dear friend.

Recipe: Fresh Sprouted Mung Bean Salad

Like the Virgin Pomegrita, this recipe has a season, and the season is NOW. This dish is cooling, calming, cleansing, building, and a decent source of protein. I pulled out my dried whole green mung beans this week, immersed a cup of them in water, and the sprouting process began. In such hot weather, rinsing daily, they’re usually ready in 3 to 4 days. Here’s the recipe.

Moods and heat

In hot weather with Pitta rising, anger, frustration, loathing can arise in an instant, surprisingly fast and strong. The obstacles can come fast and furious, the supports we need to keep steady and cool can feel few and far between. May we all receive all the help we need.

Culture and mental heat

When I was a kid growing up in the Midwest, maybe we weren’t Anglo-Saxon, yet our family otherwise sure met the criteria for privileged White and Protestant. The assumptions can still pervade my thinking, and for sure they’re still to be found in our culture at large, as far as I can see.

The ones like, if you’re having trouble, it’s your fault. If you’re rich, you must have done something right and are loved by God. (Deeper that is, than wisely planning for the future as best you could.) Having a carefree existence means you must be doing something right. I don’t know if this version of Christian culture exists outside the US, yet it certainly can permeate mental conditioning here.

Self-recrimination can aggravate the doshas, not conducive to keeping cool.

Other perspectives more cooling to the mind and awareness

Mired in one of these moments recently, where the obstacles were arriving fast and furious one hot day, and my ability to respond was shutting down swiftly into aggravated Pitta, I stumbled upon the healing balm of Catherine Weser’s wisdom. In her latest Substack, The Obstruction is the Instruction she invites her readers to consider a different perspective. What if the obstacle is simply there to help us learn? We’ve done no wrong per se, we’re simply learning. The relief to my nervous system was instantaneous. Bless you, sister. Read more about this approach here.

The revered teacher Dilgo Khyentse in The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel, The Practice of Guru Yoga According to the Longchen Nyingthig Tradition, makes the same point in a more intensely Tibetan Buddhist flavored way: The circumstances in which we find ourselves should actually clarify our practice, our experiences, and our realization, and we should be able to understand all situations, both favorable and unfavorable, as teachings on the path. (p 75)

How ever it works for you.

Keeping Cool with Ayurveda breathing

Sheetali (Sitali) is a specific breath technique in which you inhale in through your mouth and out through your nose. It’s great for hot days, or to cool out a hot flash. Dr. Vasant Lad demonstrates it here. Not all of us can curl our tongues into an O, as Sitali pranayama invites.

No problem. Instead bring your teeth together, lips slightly parted, and place your tongue against the back of your upper teeth. Same as before, breathe in through your mouth, out through your nose. You’ll make a slight hissing sound as you do this. (I think of it as Darth Vader breath, it sounds like that.) This is Sheetkari (Sitkari), quite clearly demonstrated here by Kanica on YouTube.

A dozen repetitions of either Sitali or Sitkari in a sitting can change one’s mind, mood, and body temperature.

Keeping cool with you

Sometimes simply handing a friend a glass of water is a blessing.

Or putting an ice cube in their palm (with their permission).

For this moment, I’m imagining I’m spraying a rose water spritz in your direction – Can you feel it? Would you want to make a completely ridiculous cooling smile back as you do?

Namaste.

The Virgin Pomegrita image thanks to Renee Lynn

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here. Renee Lynn and I wanted to keep it simple, for moments like these. Enjoy!

Writer Heather Lanier did a potent memoir piece for this month’s Sun magazine that resonated with me. In my quiet struggles lately to get clearer about what being a woman now means, her words encouraged fruitful self-examination. Harkening back to when she was pregnant and mothering a special one-year-old in Vermont, she looks at When to accept reality? When to take action?

Power

Nova Reid quotes actress Cynthia Erivo on claiming power: We want the agreeable version of (the) powerful (woman). The version that smiles when offended, says nothing when she disagrees and endures quietly when she doesn’t want to.

Her implication is, support the powerful woman inside you and around you, don’t kick her to the curb. Especially now.

Encouragement

One powerful woman who steadily teaches me through her actions and words is author and activist Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her non-profit Plant Baby Plant seeks to restore the land and re-story our relationships: Raise a Garden and Raise a Ruckus. Working with community gardeners across the country, she highlights the power of earth-based actions. She was with Sankofa Community Farm recently at Bartram’s Gardenwhich offers free open access to growing spaces in the center of Philadelphia. If you want to get a jumpstart on Juneteenth, celebrate there this coming Sunday June 14^th.

One of Plant Baby Plant’s fortifying quarterly Plant Circles is coming up soon on the Solstice, June 21^st. It will be live on its YouTube channel.

Respite

We can get so wound up in the to-dos, that when it comes time to relax, it’s hard to “be” into it. Emily Mason explores this phenomenon most kindly here.

The Present Moment

I’ve found myself thinking, from the perspective of women’s rights and minority rights, how are Trump and Hegseth any different from the ayatollahs?

Charles Blow picked up the similarities between the US and Iran in a slightly different twist in Donald Trump American Shah?

Will leaders realize feeding people is popular, as well as necessary? In the meanwhile, let’s do it ourselves. Here’s more info.

Image: On the Porch, with appreciation to everyone in that course we shared together at Sivananda Ashram, Val Morin, 2011, and to our photographer.

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here now.

It’s our Gramma Noren’s birthday today, June 5^th, our dad’s mom, shown here with our sister Stephie. Our dad Bob, her youngest child, was born one day later on June 6^th. My mom’s dad, The Baron’s birthday, was one day after that, June 7^th. Growing up it was a trifecta weekend of celebrating our elders in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Both our parents were born in these same suburbs west of the City.

My grandmother wasn’t. Where she was born, none of us alive know anymore. Where she grew up, mostly likely Chicago. Yet even this I can’t say for sure. One can see her in her face a stalwart determination. She was a quiet, kind person who thought about things more than she spoke about them. She wasn’t usually visually expressive. This is the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever seen. Her parents, like her husband’s parents, arrived in the US sometime in the late 19^thcentury from Sweden. I don’t know if she had any brothers or sisters; I don’t know her maiden name.

I learned what I do know about her mostly when I went to her funeral, my first funeral, at thirteen. I was surprised to realize that my taciturn Swedish American grandmother had lots of women friends, who obviously respected her a lot. They had all been Eastern Stars together. I’d had no idea what an Eastern Star was, or that they were linked to the Masonic Order. When I read now that members’ aim was to make a positive difference in the world with charitable works, lasting friendships and loving kindness to all mankind (sic), this makes sense. For sure this was my grandmother.

I also know she made a mean angel food cake. When my dad would drive over to Villa Park from Wheaton many Sunday afternoons to pick up her for a visit with all of us, they invariably carried angel food cake back with them. It was his favorite, and she knew it. Myself, it wasn’t until I hit my anorexic early teens that I fully appreciated the low-caloric content of angel food cake.

I was young when she died. And now even all her children are gone. Only my mom, her daughter-in-law, is alive to substantiate the bits of what I remember. That Gramma’s family had been strapped financially, so she was raised as a foster child, or possibly adopted into another family, in the early 1900s. Who these people were, we don’t know. I don’t know how she made her way in the world, or how she and my grandfather met. I know all her five kids adored her, and had the highest love for her. She and my mother had a relationship of mutual respect, which my mom remembers today.

For me, she was kind of an enigma. She sort of scared me as a little kid. She was very serious and seemed to notice my every mistake. She wasn’t harsh or scolding; she would just raise an eyebrow and start to say mildly, Robin – (my name growing up) and I would wither inside. Shot down again. No way to impress Gramma. I so wanted to impress her.

Yet writing about it now, I can see she was a master of subtle nuance, and that I was pretty good at reading her. Ours was not an oblivious relationship.

She had five children: Agnes, Wally, Dorothy, Chuck, and Bob. Wally lived with his family on the same block as Gramma in Villa Park, with Agnes and her family not far away. She had her own small frame house surrounded by flowers (she must have grown them) in this neighborhood near the Ovaltine factory. The whole neighborhood smelled like malted milk to me. Gramma’s most obvious neighbors, besides our Uncle Wally and Aunt Phyllis, were the Stefanis. The Stefani family’s home occupied a large part of the block, at least a third of it, from the corner down. They seemed quite well to do and lived behind a high stone wall. We wondered what they did there.

Our dad Bob and our mom Margie had a big family, six of us stretching across sixteen years of births. Because our dad was the youngest child, we too were the youngest grandchildren, by a long shot. Our cousins conversed together with the high sophistication of someone 16 or 17 – Wally’s kids Laurie and Rick were stars, standouts; Little Dort wore her amazingly black hair in a giant beehive; it was the fifties after all. Her brother Tommy wore very white T-shirts, like James Dean. They were teenagers; we were grade school kids, far down the mountainous hierarchy of childhood. We shrubs hung out on the floor by the toy box in Gramma’s sunny front room as the teen gods and goddesses lounged in the living room. It was the same house where years later at her death I learned about the Eastern Stars.

There were more Eastern Stars

While all the Eastern Star ladies I met back in Gramma’s living room were White, there are also Black Eastern Stars, the Prince Hall Order of the Eastern Star, actually the oldest black sorority-based organization in the US. In these last few years, I’ve learned what I can about the Eastern Star Francis Tyrrel of the Bay Area. She and her family remind me of different times, different possibilities. She also embodied those ideals of charity, friendship, and community that Gramma did. Yet their lives were further apart than the many miles between Chicago and San Francisco, I’m guessing.

I wonder about Our Gramma Noren’s life

In 1900, Chicago was home to 150,000 Swedes and Swedish Americans. It was widely considered the second largest Swedish city in the world. Was my gramma surrounded with friendly faces, or did she have to work hard to survive? Or maybe both?

From 1850 to the 1930s, one and a half million Swedes left Sweden, mostly for the Americas and Australia, due to crop failures, poverty, and religious persecution. Catholics in Lutheran Sweden risked banishment. Farmers, factory workers, and ordinary folks were the vast majority of people who chose, or were forced, to leave. Close to half of them settled in three states – Minnesota, Illinois, and New York. The Congressional passage of the Immigration Act in 1924 set strict quotas on immigration. What had been called The Great Emigration in Sweden abruptly halted. Now, of course, ironically, in some circles, they’d be heartily welcomed again.

My husband Gord’s Grandma Dorothy caught the last stagecoach out of Nevada at twelve, heading for California. What I remember, about the same time, was that my mom’s parents, both German Americans, were admonished not to speak German outside their homes, what with WWI and later WWII. Yet asking my mom about this today, she did not substantiate this. What language did our Gramma Noren hear inside her head and heart? How did she see the world? I have very little idea.

Something new is being born

Lately I’m drawn to these pictures of loved ones holding babies. I’m realizing it’s a metaphor for the current moments. Something new will come from all this turmoil, and how it plays out, we have no idea.

Today I send love and respect to my grandma and all the ancestors, and all of us here alive in this moment.

Image: Our Gramma Noren with Stephie, probably taken by RB Noren, 1959 or 1960

Bio: I’m a writer, Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special now.

The therapeutic focus of Ayurveda approaches in autoimmune diseases differs considerably from the Western medical one. From a Western view, the body’s immune response produces abnormal antibodies that attack its own tissues. To calm this attack, medications are prescribed to suppress the immune system. There are more than 100 different autoimmune diseases currently diagnosed, including MS (multiple sclerosis), SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), RA (rheumatoid arthritis), psoriasis, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, and Hashimoto’s thyroid disease.

Ayurveda looks at autoimmune diseases in a different way. Practitioners see the root cause as an accumulation of toxic waste, ama, within the body. If it isn’t cleared, this debris can begin to gather in key weak spots in the body. As debris accumulates, inflammation can occur. (Think of the exasperation you feel as junk emails build up.)

Antibodies (apara ojas) try to address the problem yet are blocked by the stagnation. (Ayurvedic physician Dr. Smita Naram calls them restless soldiers.) From the perspective of the dhatus, ama around the joints can precipitate rheumatoid arthritis, while ama in the colon can eventually contribute to inflammatory bowel disease. This is a slow-rolling disaster that can develop over many years.

The initiating insult could be an infection, like Lymes, EBV, or Covid-19, compounded by a digestive system not working well, exposure to environmental toxins, imbalanced metabolism, and/or stress, all of which can speed the buildup of ama. Dr. Akil Palanisamy, Harvard-trained Integrative Medicine specialist, an MD with a passion for Ayurveda, likens it to having the gas pedal to the floor. The body is in full out push, and the immune system is out of control. Ayurveda takes the foot off the gas pedal by removing the triggers for autoimmune activity. Very simply, if the ama isn’t there, the immune system can start to calm down.

Ayurveda Approaches in Autoimmune Recovery

The initial autoimmune process can look like 1) infection 2) chronic tiredness 3) and over time, mental depression, though each disorder has its unique ways of manifesting. The Ayurveda approach in autoimmune diseases maximizes digestive health with foods and herbs, employs deep cleaning like Pancha Karma and seeks to remove the root causes of whatever disorder the individual is facing. Key Ayurveda herbs to eliminate ama are common ones, like triphala, guduchi, hing, turmeric, tulsi, and neem. Cumin, coriander, fennel, ginger, and lemon or lime are also often part of the plan.

Naram, the Ayurvedic physician specializing in reversing autoimmune disorders, says that systematically removing the blocks – ama,low agni (digestive fire), and environmental toxins – opens the pathway for apara ojas to function well again. In her experience, it typically can take 3 – 5 years to be free of symptoms. Yet at that point, people are free of autoimmune diseases for ten years or more.

Ayurvedic physician and pioneer Dr. Vasant Lad sees immunity as a totally individual path. Each person is different, and will need different foods, herbs, and treatments. Agni supports immunity and also reduces the accumulation of ama. He gives a short description of agni and immune health here.

As an MD, Palanisamy points out that the Western approach of medications to suppress immune function leaves the gas pedal still pressed down to the floor, with the underlying disease process still active. In Ayurveda one must remove the triggers for the illness, for the immune system to recover.

Some current Western research supports Ayurveda’s view of autoimmune disorders as slow in development

Autoantibodies are the hallmark of Western diagnosis of autoimmune disorders. When one shows up in a blood test, Western physicians are immediately on the alert. Yet interestingly, autoantibodies may be present years before clinical manifestations develop. This supports the Ayurveda perspective of slowly cascading imbalances that can and need to be addressed.

Ironically, AMA is also a Western abbreviation for anti-mitochondrial antibodies associated with autoimmune liver disorders yet also non-hepatic ones including Sjogrens Syndrome.

The view of the authors of the 2021 study quoted above (Colapietro, Lleo, and Generali ) maintain that The immune system scrupulously controls reactivity against self-antigens, and AID are relatively rare. Yet the Ayurveda Institute UK states that the incidence of autoimmune disorders in the UK can be as high as one in ten. There is an undeniable rise in the incidence of autoimmune diseases globally.

Money, Power and Toxic Waste

Environmental activists Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben have described in detail how the world’s most powerful companies already own huge untapped reserves of fossil fuels. Companies would need to keep those reserves buried underground, in the process forfeiting approximately twenty trillion dollars in assets, (points out Astra Taylor, in Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, p. 295) Considering capitalism’s short-term view of the bottom line, profoundly out of sync with environmental realities and democracy itself, she concludes, it lacks the attention span required for survival, let alone . . . democracy.

It’s been clearly established that living downwind of a fossil fuel installation is dangerous to one’s health.

Industrial civilization is a lot for one individual to counter.

A different way of looking at this

One thousand years ago, a radical Tibetan teacher, Machik Labdron, came up with a process not to thwart petroleum barons but rather to wake up (Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod, translated and edited by Sarah Harding). A mother and a renegade, she called herself a beggar woman. Among the many remarkable observations she made to her children and followers was, It is more important to meditate with a loving mind on a single being who demonstrates hostility and anger toward you than it is to meditate with love on a hundred beings who are affectionate and thoughtful of you. (p 112)

Relax in Essence

I’ve been lucky enough to be at two lively and deep retreats this month, including one about Machik and her method. Retreating isn’t always peaceful, as fellow retreatants know well. I came back home a little stirred up after this last one. My partner Gordon Bruen looked at me and said, Remember what Namkhai Norbu said, after the last day of a retreat: “Relax in essence.” Just relax in essence.

With that, I stumbled on to this quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

And with that, I opened to our good friend Donna Thomson’s explore, which invites us, her readers, to rest in the natural process of this radiant life, nature, spirit, energy all there. Wow, thank you.

Image: thanks to Iza Bruen – Morningstar. This picture is ice, a different kind of slowed down metabolic process. Yet the erratic accumulation of debris felt like a good visual approximation of ama in the tissues. If you wish to be more true to the biological reality, imagine a tinge of red inflammation around the edges.

Bio: I’m an Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. There’s quite a bit more info about the dhatus in my book Ayurvedic Guide to Polarity Therapy available for purchase here. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special now.

Within the vast interconnectedness of our lives, this physical body is our most basic daily experience of Mother Earth. No matter how we look at it, to be in existence on this earth plane, we need this body. St Francis called his, Brother Ass.

Yet we push and prod our bodies to do things that only bring satisfaction to the mind. When I take an epic hike at 73, am I relaxing and nourishing every cell as I did at 50? Or am I proving to my mind that I can do it, that nothing has changed? Because in truth, lots has changed.

When I hustle to finish the last of some work on the computer, rather than taking the time to get myself to the plant sale or nursery to support our tiny food garden, who am I short-changing? What are my nourishment priorities?

The Dhatus, our essential earthly tissues

In Ayurveda the dhatus are the seven essential tissues within our physical bodies we need to stay alive and well. They include:

1. Plasma, the liquid part of our blood (Rasa)

2. Blood cells, both red and white, moving thru the plasma (Rakta)

3. Muscle, of all kinds (Mamsa)

4. Fat, healthy adipose tissue (Meda)

5. Bone (Asthi)

6. Nerves, connective tissue and bone marrow (Majja)

7. Reproductive tissue (Artava, female) (Shukra, male, sometimes used to refer to both)

All of these tissues contribute to Ojas, our vital cushion and immunity, when they are well-nourished. Generous ojas cushions us not only from infection, yet also excess stimulation. When ojas becomes depleted, every dog bark in the night, each challenging experience, can push our buttons. Ample ojas means deeper equanimity.

What might ecological restoration of the dhatus look like?

I want to credit Katie Singer and her latest Substack about ecological restoration within communities for inspiring this particular perspective on the dhatus. Thank you!

To look at examples of ecological restoration for the dhatus:

Plasma, like water in a landscape, feeds all the other tissues. When it (rasa) is low, dehydration occurs. None of the other tissues can function as well as if it were in generous supply. Think of a wilted plant, or on a more drastic scale, an AI center moving into your area.

Adequate fluid throughout the day, as invited by thirst, is the remedy. In Ayurveda we use specific plant supports to enhance the absorption of fluid into our bodies. Essential Rasa Tea from Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is designed to restore healthy plasma. Here’s the recipe for it, plus more discussion on how to recognize when your plasma needs help.

Blood cells deliver prana, oxygen, energy, and immunity

Rakta in the form of red blood cells carries oxygen to every cell, fueling multiple energy reactions within our bodies. Invigoration is its mission. When it is low, anemia can be the result: pallor, low energy, shortness of breath. White blood cells, on the other hand, fight germs by engulfing them in hydrogen peroxide produced onsite. (wild, yes). Iron-rich foods and enough protein are key to nourishing blood cells.

Muscle establishes form.

Mamsa creates healthy movement and shape. Many of our vital muscles are unseen, despite the big focus in our culture around body building. Muscles propel blood through the blood vessels in a network wrapped around those vessels. They move food through the gut, again with many muscles all along the way. Our heart pumps thanks to them. When we skip meals, we’re shorting these silent friends. Give them what they need; have compassion.

Mamsa is fed by both protein and wise movement.

Fat offers lubrication, love, and the resource for hormone production.

While here in the West we often think of fat as a waste to be gotten rid of, in Ayurveda it is an essential tissue. Meda provides lubrication and protection for other tissues. Cholesterol is used to make vital hormones like estrogen and testosterone.

Too much fat can block the flow of energy to other tissues. Yet too little can dry out the landscape of our bodies. Healthy fats from coconut, avocado, nuts, seeds, healthy oils, dairy, fish, poultry, and four-leggeds support this dhatu.

Bone creates structural support.

Bones are the levers on which muscles move. Minerals and protein build our bones. Minerals are also a key factor in sleep, which restores all the dhatus, including bone. There’s tips here for how to get enough calcium and magnesium, as well as sleep.

Majja transmits the magic.

Majja dhatu includes bone marrow (hence the traditional function, to fill bone), the nervous system and connective tissue. Omega 3 fatty acids help us transmit energy more effectively through our connective tissue. Sleep, again, is a vital support for the nervous system.

Our nervous systems process emotion as well as waking reality events. Awareness of the nervous system’s needs can help us restore it more effectively. Here are some simple ways to begin to restore the ecological terrain of your nerves.

Here are 3 more key tips to nourish majja.

The reproductive system is about creativity as well as reproduction.

Respect is a key support for the reproductive tissue. Actually, breathing in respect to each of the dhatus is a healing activity I use in my private practice.

Out of all this nourishment and connection, ojas is built

As I mentioned earlier, ojas is our vital cushion. Traditionally sitting by running water, practicing by alive flowing water, hanging out around waterfalls, offering kindness without conditions, these can build ojas.

FYI, I wrote a kind of wild take on Mining the Dhatus in an earlier post here.

Our larger ecosystem includes the sacred

When beset by difficulty, whether on the outside or the inside, it is wise to remember the sacred, the unseen friends, guides, and guardians we can call on for help. To open to their presence in healing is something I consider essential.

Dr. Larry Dossey has pioneered the practice of prayer as a key component of healing in medicine. Here’s an interview Oprah Winfrey had with him on her Soul Series.

How we put these ingredients together matters

One of the aspects of Ayurveda that has continued to draw me is its wise approach to practicalities. Simply feeding ourselves good foods, if we’re lucky enough to do this, will not completely restore the ecosystems of our bodies. Digestive fire is needed to incorporate what we’re offering our cells.

There’s more about how to cultivate agni, digestive fire here. While the focus is earlier rather than later spring, the recipes and observations are still useful now.

Aging and the dhatus

Inevitably with aging our tissues degrade. We can slow down the processes, be more skillful in how we tend them. Small changes can have big results when done with consistency and awareness.

Tissues degrade, yet love does not need to. Love can remain strong, at any age.

Connections, Fractures, and Restoring Communities

Katie Singer’s latest Substack highlighted the work of John D. Liu, founder of Ecosystem Restoration Communities. Click here to connect with some very inspiring work, one community at a time, across the planet.

There are millions, billions, of us here living through this ferocious time. May we connect to restore not only our health, but also our communities. And Katie Singer, may you find the home, the land, the neighborhood you need and that needs you two.

Love

Amadea

Image: Digestion, the Dhatus and Ojas used with permission from Ayurvedic Guide to Polarity Therapy, Morningstar

Bio: I’m an Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. There’s quite a bit more info about the dhatus in my book Ayurvedic Guide to Polarity Therapy available for purchase here. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special now.

Photo: Iza and James

It takes a tremendous amount of emotional and spiritual maturity to witness in full force the collective shadow of humanity and keep your heart open. - Roshi Joan Halifax

This photo was taken in the 1990s, long before our daughter Iza became a counselor and our friend James a painter, each following their own unique paths in life. It was a moment of opening to wonder, the sheer remarkableness that either of these two beings could meet, let alone thrive. Yet both have.

Time as luxury: a leisurely dinner with friends last night

We’d gathered, five of us, in an unusual moment of slow-down to look at family photos and enjoy a delicious meal made by our friend Mich. The conversation turned to how rare such times are; they’ve almost become extinct in the pressured economic realities of the US today. Especially for the younger members among us, connecting like this was not a regular occurrence.

Looking at the pictures, Iza reflected that she’d had an unusual upbringing, in terms of the ratio of kids to adults. We’d been a part of a local group of friends who called ourselves Sustainable Presence from the time Iza was small through her teenage years. It was self-organized to create gatherings, work parties, and a kind of unique savings club-lottery for sustainable projects. While there were a few families in our group, the large majority of committed members were single adults. Iza grew up with many adult friends with no biological connections to her for most of her young years. (Thinking of James’ family, I bet that was true for him too.)

The conversation turned toward other kinds of kid-connections. The point was made that these days in our area, having birthday parties with your school mates was unusual, unless you were rich and white. Most parents were too strapped and each working multiple jobs to be able to take time to invite a bunch of kids to a party. Time to connect has become a luxury under these conditions. Opening to wonder in the midst of the reality of so much injustice and suffering can be almost unimaginable at times.

The redistricting of Tennessee

As we talked about all this, my grief went to the recent news from Tennessee. In a special session called by the governor, the Tennessee state legislature created a new voter map on May 7 that would eliminate the last Democratic-leaning and majority Black district in the state. It divides Memphis into three parts and dilutes its Black vote into minority presences in the surrounding White districts. In doing so, it wipes out a voting district that has been in existence for more than 100 years.

Nashville’s Black influence had already been similarly eliminated in 2022. The chances that every Congressional member from Tennessee will be now White is extremely high.

Understanding Voting Rights in the US

In earlier times, the Supreme Court emphasized the right to vote was the fundamental political right…preservative of all rights. Today this right is widely regarded as the primary essence and end point of democracy. (Astra Taylor, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, 2019, p. 174) The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 underscored the importance of universal and equal suffrage and free voting procedures. (Taylor, ibid.)

The 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution prohibit intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color, or nationality. (Though the 14^thAmendment did manage to leave out ironically native-born indigenous people from this protection.)

There were many illegal work-arounds to this law of the land by states. In 1965, after years of struggle, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to ensure that citizens would get the rights they deserve, as guaranteed by the Constitution. For a number of decades, civil rights protections for voters improved. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, preventing discrimination through unscrupulous gerrymandering, was the focus of a lot of pressure. In 1982, Congress amended the Act to clarify that proving intentional discrimination was not necessary to win a case under section 2.

However since 2013, there have been significant erosions to this protection through the actions of the Supreme Court. Section 2 was the primary strong functional part of the Act to survive - up until last month. In light of these weakening moves, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act was proposed to block states and counties from enacting restrictive discriminatory voting laws and policies. It has yet to pass Congress.

The Supreme Court decision on Louisiana v Callais

On April 29, 2026, the landmark decision effectively gutted Section 2, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevented racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 has long been used to ensure minority voters are treated fairly in redistricting. Intentional discrimination would have to be proved in court, something extremely difficult to do.

In bizarre Mindspeak, Justice Alito speaking for the conservative majority in Louisiana v Callais labeled compliance with section 2 as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Dissenting Justice Kagan wrote that the decision gives lawmakers virtually unlimited leeway to justify drawing districts that discriminate based on race.

In other words, a white supremacist minority in the US is changing basic law to be able to hold on to power, no matter how unpopular their actions and policies are. In 2017 in North Carolina, the Reverend William Barber II called out such deceptive practices: Wealthy oligarchs know they cannot hold on to power in truly democratic elections. If you can’t win on the issues, stop cheating to keep yourself in office. (Taylor, p. 171)

Not only this. Having reversed the law, the Supreme Court hustled along its implementation. Not only did the Court destroy key voter protection, in an unusual move blasted by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, it allowed the ruling to take effect ahead of schedule, so that Louisiana (and other eager states) can redraw their maps before the midterms. As Jackson pointed out, the Court has only hastened its ruling like this twice before in the last 25 years. Guardian last

Tennessee is the first state to take advantage of the reversal of voter protection, a scant week after the Court decision passed. Fair Fight is just one of many excellent non-profits standing up for justice; they’re based in Georgia.

Family Counseling in these times

Struggling under the weight of our own dysfunctional patterns and this kind of news, our family started counseling at the Sky Center last December. While the non-profit Sky Center’s strong focus is suicide prevention among youth, they also offer family counseling for people of all ages with their interns. We were relieved they took us. Our intern counselor Megan was astute, compassionate, and joy-oriented. She graduated this week, so of necessity, we did too, that is, our healing sessions with her are now over.

In the remarkably short time – 16 weeks, one hour a week – that we worked with Megan, we were able to find better ways to connect with each other, opening to wonder, and hugs. If you’ve thought about change in this way, I’d sure recommend it.

Opening to Nourishment

Kids need help in tangible ways. World Central Kitchen is feeding families in Gaza and Lebanon, and so many other places

Opening to the wonder of long-term connections

Happy birthday, Jim! As James’ dad, you’ve created magic in countless ways. Nancy, as James’ mom, you’ve invited him into myriad new worlds. Both of you, with your shared wisdom and resilience – wow! Thanks for keeping our mutual family friendship connections so alive through these many changing years.

With love, Amadea

It takes a tremendous amount of emotional and spiritual maturity to witness in full force the collective shadow of humanity and keep your heart open. - Roshi Joan Halifax

Bio: I’m an Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

It’s a great time for a spring mini cleanse, if you’re so inclined. Here are some simple ways to get started.

Decide the length of your cleanse – one day? A weekend? The next two weeks? And gather whatever you might need to nurture yourself well. Pick one cleansing beverage.

1. A Spring Detox Tea

This classic recipe from the Western herbal tradition comes from medical herbalist Lynn Childson of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a woman of wisdom and inspiration. Thank you! If you have Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda, it’s in the Autumn section. There are many Ayurvedically balanced recipes there to support your spring mini cleanse. Let’s keep it simple and just consider this one for now.

LIVER DETOX TEA

(can be used YEAR ROUND)

Time: 1 ½ hours plus an overnight soak

Makes 2 quarts = 8 cups

1/2 heaping Tablespoon organic dandelion root

1/2 heaping Tablespoon organic burdock root

6 cups of water

Another 6 cups of water

Bring the first 6 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in the herbs; boil for ½ hour uncovered. Remove from heat, strain tea into quart glass jar. Leave the herbs in the saucepan; add another 6 cups of water to the pot, bring to a boil again for 45 minutes. Cover and let sit overnight. In the morning, strain this second decoction into another quart glass jar. Drink one or more cups per day.

Effects: Excellent for Pitta and Kapha, it can be taken up to three times per day with meals. It can aggravate Vata if used daily for weeks.

This detoxifying tea supports: digestion, elimination, liver, gall bladder, plasma, blood, skin, urinary tract.

Comments: It clears ama, stagnation and swollen lymph glands. It is diuretic. It is an excellent support if you’re looking to switch from a high animal fat, high processed food diet to something lighter and cleaner.

2. Re-balance your food and/or eating patterns

How you’re nourishing yourself may be well-balanced already. If so, don’t change a thing. Yet if you’re noticing you’ve slid into patterns that don’t serve you, now could be a good time to make a change. One change is plenty. Here are some questions to stir up whatever choice could be useful for you.

Are you eating later than 7 pm on a regular basis?

Is white sugar becoming a necessity rather than an occasional treat?

Do you let yourself get two (for Kapha) or three (for Vata and Pitta) regular meals a day?

How would a serving each of dark leafy greens and golden vegetables (like carrot, beet, yam) weave into your dance?

How often do you incorporate home-cooked meals into your menu?

Are you leaning heavily into frozen foods, to the detriment of fresh (cooked and raw) foods?

Consider making one food or pattern shift during your spring mini cleanse.

3. Enjoyable movement

We’re each so different in this regard. Movement inspires breath, which catalyzes cleansing. Plus it builds muscle tissue as well as lightening fat tissue, both essential dhatus in Ayurveda.

What movement gives you joy?

Are you willing to have it on a regular basis? For how long?

Can you move at least 4 – 5 days/week during your spring mini-cleanse?

Would you like to escape something that isn’t working during your spring mini cleanse?

Have you gotten trapped into activities that really aren’t a priority for you? I’m already into my spring mini cleanse, dragging myself away from my favorite frozen veggie burgers and salmon burgers, and substituting Fresh Sprouted Mung Salad, kichadi, fresh chicken veggie soup, and pasta pesto salad with smoked salmon or fresh turkey.

If you’re a Polarity Therapist, you might seek inspiration from the Health Building plus Purifying diets of Dr. Randolph Stone. Here’s one short fun liver-friendly recipe.

What I haven’t really confronted yet personally is how much time I spend on the computer and how little time I get to play in the yard or garden. It’s spring!

Drupon Palkyi, a Tibetan nun in the Drikung Kagyu tradition visiting New Mexico from Germany, gave us powerful teachings last weekend at Rigdzin Dharma center. At one point last Sunday she started talking about the water spirits and the earth spirits, and how they can get angry when we trash the land or water. This can make the sentient beings in the area sick. This makes a huge amount of sense on a variety of levels.

I could be offering more care to the land around me than I take time for. How could I change this?

Yesterday I had the great good fortune to spontaneously visit the Neem Karoli Baba Hanuman temple, with a shrine to Siddhi Ma. Although Taos is north of Santa Fe, and usually exposed to more harsh temperatures than we are, the temple grounds looked like it was June instead of May. Giant fragrant roses bloomed near Siddhi Ma’s shrine. Moving throughout the radiant grounds were local Taosenos, volunteers to keep these community blessings happening. It was a direct reflection of what Drupon Palkyi had been saying, about care for the earth and how healthy it can be, for everyone involved.

Good fortune to you in all your choices!

Image Liver Detox Tea thanks to Renee Lynn and Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda

Bio: I’m an Ayurveda health educator and Polarity Therapist practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

How to take time to love? There is so very much going on in the world to destroy peace, and peace of mind. Yet also so many reasons to love!

“Solving human problems thru transforming human attitudes”

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said that no special religion is needed to create peace. At various moments, his words have been, Lots of people show me closeness of feeling…(because) everywhere I go, I’m warm-hearted and smile. The way to change other’s minds is with affection, and not anger.

Tomorrow May 1^st is May Day Strong

Historically May Day has been a day of collective action across the world, in support of workers’ rights and human rights. The call is for “no work, no school, no shopping” this year from a wide array of respected groups, including multiple unions, Black Voters Matter, Democratic Socialists, pro-democracy groups like Womens March, Indivisible, 1000 Grandmother’s for Future Generations coalition, Face the Music collective, and dozens more.

The purpose is to stand up for fair and equal roles for every person, in the face of the rapid erosion of democracy and the imbalance of power here in the US.

Love is Slow

Love is Slow read the bumper sticker on the wall downtown yesterday, as I drove around trying to get in our county tax form before the end of the month. This feels so true. Destruction can take place so quickly. Take time to love, the results may take years to be seen. Yet it feels so much better, to rest in loving kindness and compassion, rather than anger. It’s not easy, yet as the Dalai Lama wrote Anger plays no small role in current conflicts…

Our monkey minds

This gigantic Buddha image comes from Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka from my good friend Shanna Marsh. (Happy New Year Shanna!! All blessings to you in this next dance around the sun!) She told me this week a fragment of the remarkable life story of revered Christian contemplative and Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who had a profound epiphany with these buddhas in 1968, just four days before he suddenly died. Merton was a staunch advocate for peace and social activism throughout his life.

The phrase Our monkey minds refers to the everyday distracted tumultuous all over the map quality of our thoughts. (To attribute these qualities to monkeys might not be fair. There’s probably many monkeys out there with more focused minds than mine.)

So when Shanna texted this photo, with the addition, Complete with monkey mind, I was like Whoaa! Look at this huge peace of mind, this Buddha, and the tiny monkey on its head! What would that feel like, to have this much equanimity relative to a tiny monkey mind? FYI, if one were to represent my average state of mind as a sculpture, the monkey would be the giant one, casually holding a tiny Buddha in one hand, perhaps ready to drop it on the ground.

I offer this image, with Shanna’s kind permission, as inspiration that this May Day our loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, and empathetic joy be vast, in relation to our tiny monkey minds. That whatever we do this Friday, may we take time to love.

If we’re in the streets, the example of the people of the Twin Cities of Minnesota is a high bar. They recently received a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award LINK for peacefully defending the human rights and values that serve as the foundation of our Constitutional democracy.

It’s no small feat to keep one’s temper. Yet as the Dalai Lama has said, Without anger you can take action more effectively.

The remarkable Peace Pilgrim was asked, How can I begin to really live life? She replied, I began to really live life when I began to look at every situation and think about how I could be of service in that situation. I learned that I should not be pushy about helping, but just willing. (from Steps Toward Inner Peace)

The pleasures of attachment

There’s reasons we’re attached to the contents of our monkey minds. Just look at yours, or mine. I run through the good things that happen endlessly; it’s fun. I addictively dwell on my errors and shortcomings – this isn’t so pleasurable, yet somehow it is alluring. To loosen the grip of the monkey mind for the space of a day, even for a few minutes, how remarkable.

Peace begins with a smile

Again, this quote comes from the Dalai Lama. The invitation for one of the local events I plan to participate in tomorrow starts with: Everyone can choose what way they want to express their frustration and anger toward the Trump administration and the billionaires that run it.

That’s not why I’m going. There’s strength in numbers; it’s important to turn out. As a populace, we and our rights deserve to be treated with honesty, fairness, and respect. This is my story.

I’m there to take time to love, to advocate for this. Can I do it without being stinky? This remains to be seen. There’s smiles.

Lots of ways to love

The Carter Center just sent out their annual report to donors: Waging Peace - Fighting Disease - Building Hope

Founded by President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1982, their focus has been fair elections worldwide and the global eradication of guinea worm disease, among others. There’s thousands of noble non-profits out there. Could be the moment to take the time to love them up.

Sunrise Movement is youth working for a Green New Deal in schools and communities.

I’ve appreciated Common Dreams, a progressive news service that keeps me abreast of what’s not covered in much of the mainstream media. They’re in a funding crunch as I write this.

Lots of things happen in a life. Many in this very moment. Are you willing to take time to love now?

With hugs, Amadea

Image Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka with much thanks to Polarity sister Shanna Marsh

Bio: I’m a Polarity Therapist and Ayurveda health educator practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

Iza and Amadea, most likely 1991

Opening to the present moment, it’s the day after our daughter Iza’s birthday. This is Iza and I in a different time. Yet you can see the relentless focus we both can bring to a given moment. What were we looking at here? No idea. We do still like to look at stuff together, more inner than outer these days.

Daughters and mothers often see things quite differently. This is for sure true of Iza and I. I value her perspectives, the things she sees that I don’t.

Most likely this photo is a treasured favorite precisely because of the rare resonance it captures in that time in our family lives.

Being the daughter of a mother

It’s a delicate dance, honoring someone else’s reality and not ignoring one’s own. My 96-year-old mother Margie and I get in her car for Mom’s Mondays, not infrequently a little rough around the edges. One or both of us will be grumpy, tired, resistant, whatever. I’ve learned not to bring up anything controversial in the first fifteen minutes or so of a drive, until we establish some sort of resonance or at least acceptance of our current condition, driving around together.

This year, after all this time together, I noticed an astrological improbability: the planet Mars in both my mother and my natal charts are at the exact same point in Sagittarius. For us this translates to, the road is our friend. We may start a Mom’s Monday disheveled, uncertain, at odds, yet we’ll slowly ground together into the adventure of the present moment. Three deer poised cautiously just outside the trees on edge of the road up Pecos River canyon. The lilacs all over downtown Santa Fe blooming with tremendous abundance this month. The oddly painted railroad cars parked at the Lamy train station under the giant cottonwoods.

Being the mother of a daughter

For Iza and I, there are different agreements. Walking and talking we can say things to one another that can’t be said easily sitting in a room. One of our agreements is to listen unconditionally, for the same amount of time each walk. We protect this guideline fiercely. This means on any walk, when we turn around to go back, it’s then the other person’s turn to talk. (If we’re doing a circle, we agree on where the midpoint is.) Reflecting what one hears is valued. Saying what one thinks and feels is a priority for us both.

As the parent of a grown child, I’m still learning to let go. Our friendship is precious to me. Yet our freedom to be involved in our own lives without one another has to be honored.

Mistaking protection for love

When a child is small, one needs to be so vigilant, so protective of any danger. That expression of our love can get hard-wired into our circuits to the place where, even if our loved ones are adults, it is hard to let go. I’m so attached to Iza’s happiness; I still want to create ways to protect it. Yet I can’t. I have to trust that Iza knows better what she needs than I do. This seems to be working out okay for both of us.

Being a parent is beyond biological

As I write this, I think of the many loved ones who’ve never had kids in the biological reproductive way. To me it looks like if one brings that same unconditional love, humor, connection, to a friendship with a younger person, the lessons learned are equally deep. The way the young person doesn’t do what you want. How sometimes your insights are valued, and other times ignored. For sure, if you are connected in this way, it is a priceless role – for them and you. And all of us, as a community. Being a parent is beyond biological.

Remorse, guilt, apologies

In any deep and long-lasting relationship, mistakes are made. Tibetans and Westerners tend to look at this differently. My teachers would often say, if you have remorse for a mistake, and vow that you will not make this mistake again, then confess or apologize in the way that is needed, that’s it. You don’t need to hang on to it.

In my own life, I think I’ve tended to attach more to my mistakes than my successes in family life. As a Westerner, guilt over past errors is easy to come by. Yet in my own experience, remorse and apology do seem more fruitful for long term happiness with loved ones.

Finding one’s own way

Iza and I worked together for a year and a half a few years ago. It was so fun. She uplifted the processes of the Ayurveda Polarity Therapy & Yoga Institute (my small school here in Santa Fe), and brought her incisive wit to workshops and Instagram videos. Yet much as she appreciated Ayurveda, she knew it wasn’t her path of work. Now as a licensed counselor at a community clinic one on one, while also working with people in an addiction recovery program in the evenings, she’s in the middle of who she is.

My mother Margie is also where she needs to be, lying on the couch, watching Gunsmoke on TV. The medicinal vibes of Matt Dillon soothe her soul.

I sense it’s time for me, as a mother, and a daughter, to find my own way, to open to whatever’s next in my life.

A moment in time, part of our family gathered: me, Mom, our sister-in-law Nancy, my younger brother Dodd, Gord, and Iza in 2022 (Not pictured here: our sisters Steph, Lisa, and Cindy, and many loved cousins and grandchildren)

Wrapping one’s mind around what has not yet been imagined

If you do not grasp at either true or untrue but settle within the nature of mind, then the mind is not obscured.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, commentary by HE Garchen Rinpoche, p. 85

Not latching on to my ideas of what’s happening, what I’m attached to or appalled by, I can see there’s a more spacious way to be. Some of the happiest moments are in this state.

Leaping to May Day Strong: no work, no school, no shopping

I invite you to relax in that spacious state, the openness of this last paragraph, Then, ridiculously, I invite you to look ahead to next Friday, May 1st. If you’d like to join those of us standing together for May Day Strong in support of democracy, here’s more info. In Santa Fe the gathering will begin at 4:30 pm.

Bio: I’m a Polarity Therapist and Ayurveda health educator practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.

Photo: HE Garchen Rinpoche & the Venerable Traga Rinpoche meeting again in Asia, 2017

In the last year, my ideas about supporting memory have shifted considerably. I for sure wouldn’t describe memory disabilities as a one-way path downhill, as they often seem to be portrayed. Instead, I’ve seen some surprising recoveries and at least one pretty shocking episode of memory loss with substantial reversal.

I’m in my seventies. My beloved family members and clients are aging. Supporting memory in myself and others has become paramount for independence, healthy connections, and quality of life. First I’m going to say some things you already know, yet may be ignoring.

Then I’ll go on to the newer break throughs and ancient practical supports, plus some free recipes. Yet first off, here’s lifestyle observations, from the perspective that memory is a whole-body process.

Fatigue

When we’re exhausted, our memory abilities can plummet. Pacing oneself, not running yourself routinely into the ground is crucial for memory at any age. Key Ayurveda herbs for enhancing memory often also support sleep and equanimity. More on this further down

Paying attention and the role of distraction

Awareness, paying attention to details and writing lists all support healthy functional memory. Conversely, distraction, on the rise in a digital age, can trip it up swiftly.

The senses in supporting memory

If you don’t see or hear something, it’s hard to remember it. Our senses support our interface with the world. Untreated mild hearing loss doubles the risk of dementia. Visual impairment also has a connection with memory. People receiving cataract surgery reduce their risk of dementia as much as 30%. Addressing treatable sensory deficits can improve our risks of long life and memory substantially.

There’s interesting research happening in the realm of aroma, exploring whether olfactory memory, which can be vivid, may be used in supporting memory. Loss of smell can be a warning sign for neurological challenges.

Disassociation and depression

Healthy connections are crucial in supporting memory. I’ve been shocked this past year to see several people I love check out – then check back in. Their mental acuity came back as they re-engaged with life. This was both exciting, noticeable - and relieving.

If there’s a history of trauma, disassociation can be a learned survival skill. We may unconsciously “choose” to check out as a coping mechanism when life is challenging later. Yet if we’re not connecting with awareness, memory can strongly diminish. This is a reversable condition. Yet it can also become a lifelong pattern.

Depression can be mistaken for dementia. Depression can include episodic memory loss. If and when the depression clears, memory can substantially improve. Yet it needs to be recognized to have a chance to heal.

Supporting memory with healing substances

Ayurveda

Ayurvedic herbs have a long history of strengthening memory through support of the brain and the whole nervous system, enhancing sleep, and clearing toxins for whole-body health. Healthy movement and breath are teamed with herbs to support memory.

Shankhapushpi, brahmi/bacopa, ashwagandha, gotu kola, and tulsi are commonly used for these purposes. Here’s a good intro to these and how to use them.

TCM

Traditional Chinese medicine offers other options in supporting memory. One of the most effective and easily available substances currently is the therapeutic mushroom, lion’s mane. It strengthens memory, cognition, and the cardiovascular system; it is anti-inflammatory; and it can help relieve mild depression and anxiety. It also plays a healing role in leaky gut and irritable bowel syndrome. Brain fog and gut distress can both be addressed with this natural ally.

I appreciate how easily both the Ayurveda herbs and lion’s mane can be used as powders in daily drinks and foods. See the recipes at the end of this Substack for ideas you might apply in your own life.

Western medicine

Western medical practitioners have made key breakthroughs in supporting memory in recent years. The work of Dale Bredesen, MD has inspired many people to better mental and physical health. His book The Ageless Brain includes thorough discussions of food, supplements, and lifestyle practices for supporting memory. I’ve seen them make a definite difference.

Choline (in the form of sunflower lecithin), Omega 3 foods and supplements, B complex vitamins, and acetyl-L-carnitine supplements are all substances he discusses. Each of these I’ve found helpful in improving cognition and memory.

Bredesen is outspoken in what foods he finds useful and those he advices his patients to eliminate. On his YES list: high phytonutrient foods (think whole fruits and veggies, colorful foods), high fiber foods, foods high in healthy fats like avocados, nuts, seeds, wild-caught low-mercury fish, pastured poultry and eggs, grass-fed meats, dark leafy greens, some fermented foods, like beets or sauerkraut.

On Bredesen’s NO list are simple carbs, especially white sugar, caffeine, preservatives, alcohol, grains, and dairy. We’ve found an interesting grain-free bread, Base Culture brand, that works well for sandwiches. NOTE: it’s not vegan; it does have eggs. Like many Paleo products, it is pricy – close to $10 per loaf. Yet I’ve found it worth the cost so far.

Here’s a few more specific conditions that can affect memory:

ADHD: Organizing space and time

If you’ve worked with ADHD directly in your own life, the frustrations related to organization and memory can become heightened with aging. Yet there are strategies that work well for ADHD in countering memory challenges. Interestingly, these approaches aren’t helpful in dementia, as it impacts a different part of the brain than ADHD.

For ADHD, organizing spatially by consistently putting key objects in the same places and applying easy to use formats for scheduling the day can relieve a substantial amount of mental suffering. One evening years ago I was at a lecture at Southwestern College given by a psychiatrist with ADHD who also worked with ADHD patients. At least half the audience was intimately familiar with ADHD. The number of ways to organize time and space discussed that night were remarkable.

Oxygen and memory

We need oxygen to think, at every age. Oxygen directly supports cognition and memory. Pulse oximeters are simple finger clips that can be used to assess one’s blood oxygen saturation levels. Levels of 90% and above are best for healthy function. If you have a respiratory condition that seriously impairs your O2 levels, addressing this issue is an important way to preserve your memory.

Medications and memory loss

Anti-anxiety drugs, benzodiazepines, tricyclic depressants, sleeping aids, opioid painkillers, urinary continence drugs, and others have documented deleterious effects on memory and cognition. Click here to look at a full list with alternatives. Mixing these can be especially dangerous, yet this commonly occurs.

I work with a strong number of people over 80 years of age. One experience in the last few months completely shocked me. A healthy elder was given the standard dose of a muscle relaxer for an appropriate condition, 10 mg capsules. What they and their practitioner didn’t realize was that previously they had tolerated HALF that dose well, 5 mg. Since the last time they’d used the drug, their kidney function had deteriorated, making clearing of medications slower. The drug was building up in their system without anyone realizing it. The client, their PCP, and their family were all aware conscientious people.

Yet three days on the wrong dose of muscle relaxers and the person could barely speak. A few days before they had been quite articulate. Now all they could manage was, I don’t know and look helplessly at their loved ones. Suddenly they lacked the cognition and memory to be able to do even the most basic self care tasks.

Their PCP quickly titrated them off the drug. Yet it took a full week for them to remember daily events or routines with any acuity. And months before their basically good cognition and ordinary mediocre short-term memory kicked back in. This simple and horrifying assault on memory threatened their ability to remain safely at home. They did recover fortunately and are still living independently with support.

Uplift on this new moon day

The new moon was at 5:51 am MT this morning. Yet its effects will percolate through this day and beyond. One Substack that steadily uplifted me in the midst of this chaotic and fast-moving day was written by Jyotishi (Vedic astrologer) Michelle Berry. Thanks for the inspiration! She describes the auspicious conditions for spiritual insights between now and April 19^th. LINK

Meeting my teachers

The two Tibetan monks pictured here are HE Garchen Rinpoche on the right and the Venerable Traga Rinpoche on the left. When I first met them, they each looked at me with recognition. Ah, we know you. Glad to see you again. I was dumbfounded. We came from such different cultures and life conditions. How could this be? Yet I remembered them, too. There’s different kinds of memory.

Earth Day tomorrow

Remembering Mother Earth with gladness: Earth Day will be celebrated tomorrow April 18^th and also April 22 this year. Find out more here.

May Day Strong

Reflecting on what values matter now, I invite you to May Day Strong, hosted by the Women’s March and many other community groups this May 1^st. No work, no school, no shopping is the plan. Gather in support of the present and future you want to create for yourself and your loved ones.

Supporting Memory Recipes

Here’s two favorites in our household. Feel free to modify them to suit your needs.

MEMORY ELECTROLYTE WATER

Takes 10 minutes, tri-doshic, healthy in all seasons.

In a clean glass jar (we use recycled 12-oz Kombucha bottles), place:

1 teaspoon lion’s mane powder (supports memory and nervous system)

½ teaspoon organic tulsi powder (antioxidant, adaptogen)

Pour in:

¼ cup boiling water (no need to be exact. I put in about ¼ of the bottle.)

Steep for a few minutes while you do other things.

Add:

8 oz more pure cool water

1 – 2 tablespoons organic lemon juice

Pinch of mineral salt

1/8 teaspoon organic stevia powder (or other sweetener as desired)

Shake.

Add:

2 capsules acetyl-L-carnitine, 500 mg/capsule (open them up, shake them in) (optional, memory support)

Shake. Bless.

Can be drunk throughout the day as a restorative when thirsty.

With much thanks to my mentor and friend, Dr. Rich Panico for his guidance on this one.

MEMORY SUN BALLS

Time: 20 minutes Makes about 24 balls

Calms Vata, calms Pitta, neutral effect on Kapha eaten in moderation

¼ cup plus 2 Tbsps raw or toasted sunflower seeds

¼ cup unsweetened sunflower or almond butter

1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract (optional)

3 Tablespoons raw honey

2 Tablespoons tahini

2 Tablespoons sunflower lecithin powder

1 teaspoon lions mane powder

½ teaspoon ground coriander

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom

Pinch of mineral salt (optional)

¼ - ½ cup carob powder or shredded, unsweetened coconut

Grind the sunflower seeds in a blender until fine. Mix the ground seeds with all the other ingredients (except the carob or coconut) in a bowl. Needs to be sticky enough to hold together into balls.

Pour the carob or coconut on a small plate. Make 1-inch balls and roll in the carob or coconut. The smaller you make them, the better for Kapha. These are nutrient-dense, heavy.

A good snack food.

NOTE: the lecithin, lion’s mane, and sunflower seeds are all fine brain supports.

Here’s a friendly dairy-free alternative, if you’re needing one:

PUMPKIN SEED MILK

Suitable for all seasons, tridoshic

Soak over night:

1/3 cup raw organic pumpkin seeds in

1 quart water with

½ teaspoon mineral salt

In morning, strain, add a fresh ¾ cup water to the seeds and blend well until smooth. Makes about 1 quart Pumpkin Seed Milk. Store in glass mason jar in fridge.

Thanks for hanging in here!

Love, Amadea

Image: Meeting thanks to a Dharma sibling in Asia

Bio: I’m a Polarity Therapist and Ayurveda health educator practicing in Santa Fe, NM. My most recent seasonal cookbook Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda is on special here.