Summer Solstice

Happy Summer Solstice!  Celebrating the longest day of the year with 108 sun salutations was invigorating-challenging-exhausting-energizing and rewarding!  108 is a number that has many meanings and before we began our fearless leader Erin shared with us some of the meanings.  For all twenty of us enduring and meeting the challenge of 108 Sun Salutations it meant getting through and being able to walk out the door.

I am happy to announce we all made it and found ourselves to be filled with this exciting high.  To think it only cost us $12!  This natural high is what it feels like to balance the energy in your body.   This natural high happens when you combine your body mind and breath.  When you are guided by breath when you are guided by your internal spirit…well life just gets easy. 

In Sun Salutations we build energy in our body.  We build this internal heat that helps to burn all the blocks and toxins in our body.  We move with our breath and let our minds stay focused on the breath and not the work.  If we lose our focus we notice how muscles get tired. 

It was an amazing Celebration!  Thank you to Erin for the thought…and to everyone that shared in the celebration. 

Happy Happy Summer Solstice!

May the long time Sun shine upon you

All love surround you

May the pure light within you

Guide your way on

Spring Cleanse: The Grand Finale-Finally!

Well, we all finished our spring cleanse in a blow out fashion.  Taking our castor oil on Saturday left most of us on the cleanse a little tummy tense.  It was a little weird for me.  There was great comfort in knowing that I was not the only one waiting for the explosion that was about to invade our digestive system throughout the night - it was a type of camaraderie and safety in numbers.  As promised the castor oil did the job and the job was done well!  All the fats, emotional body, lymph and excess that was hoarding around in our tissues and cells was brought to the digestive system and with the help of our mighty castor oil.

I remember lying on my belly in the wee  hours of the morning and experiencing this amazing space in my body, a unique lightness.  I had stepped on to the scale just after I took the castor oil (12 hours earlier) and stepped on again after evacuation - I lost 4 pounds of extra “stuff”!   For me it was not about the weight loss,  for me it was about cleaning out the system year after year….just like we do our closets, our lawns after the fallen leaves and winter debris.  It was good…a job well done to Erin Casperson…and all her spring cleansers!

On our final day Erin just sent this and I share with you:

Good Morning Cleansed Beings,

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you.  I feel like I am letting all my fledglings leave the nest.  You are all so brave to have signed up and complete this process. 

I want you all to remember that the cleanse is still happening.  It is not as though you did your castor and that was the end.  It is really important to continue to rebuild the tissues.  Do this by eating whole, organic (when possible) freshly cooked foods 3 times a day.  It is that simple.  Avoid anything in a package, fast food, fried foods, left overs, microwaved foods, canned and frozen foods.   The more energy (or prana) our foods have the more energy we have.  If we eat from the aforementioned food list it depletes our prana and our tissues. 

Continue to drink your hot lemon water in the morning.  This is my morning ritual....I am drinking it as I write this email.  Keep scraping your tongue every morning (I do in the evening as well).  If you are of the nervous energy.....daily oil massage is the best antidote.  Move your body everyday.  Sit quietly in meditation everyday.  Spend time in good company; people who uplift you and you them.  Good Morning Cleansed Beings,

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you.  I feel like I am letting all my fledglings leave the nest.  You are all so brave to have signed up and complete this process. 
I want you all to remember that the cleanse is still happening.  It is not as though you did your castor and that was the end.  It is really important to continue to rebuild the tissues.  Do this by eating whole, organic (when possible) freshly cooked foods 3 times a day.  It is that simple.  Avoid anything in a package, fast food, fried foods, left overs, microwaved foods, canned and frozen foods.   The more energy (or prana) our foods has the more energy we have.  If we eat from the aforementioned food list it depletes our prana and our tissues. 

Continue to drink your hot lemon water in the morning.  This is my morning ritual....I am drinking it as I write this email.  Keep scraping your tongue every morning (I do in the evening as well).  If you are of the nervous energy.....daily oil massage is the best antidote.  Move your body everyday.  Sit quietly in meditation everyday.  Spend time in good company; people who uplift you and you them.Good Morning Cleansed Beings,

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you.  I feel like I am letting all my fledglings leave the nest.  You are all so brave to have signed up and complete this process. 
I want you all to remember that the cleanse is still happening.  It is not as though you did your castor and that was the end.  It is really important to continue to rebuild the tissues.  Do this by eating whole, organic (when possible) freshly cooked foods 3 times a day.  It is that simple.  Avoid anything in a package, fast food, fried foods, left overs, microwaved foods, canned and frozen foods.   The more energy (or prana) our foods has the more energy we have.  If we eat from the aforementioned food list it depletes our prana and our tissues. 

Continue to drink your hot lemon water in the morning.  This is my morning ritual....I am drinking it as I write this email.  Keep scraping your tongue every morning (I do in the evening as well).  If you are of the nervous energy.....daily oil massage is the best antidote.  Move your body everyday.  Sit quietly in meditation everyday.  Spend time in good company; people who uplift you and you them.

Why not join us for the annual fall cleanse…or see you in the spring.  Remember “If you don’t take care of your body…where are you going to live?”

Spring Cleanse!

It is kind of interesting how we take really good care of our lawns...we rake the debris from the winter, we clear the leaves away from the gardens so the flower will grow and so we can plant new ones. We clear away the gutters from the accumulation of life and the environment. It is also interesting how we "spring clean" our homes, clearing out the clutter, washing the windows to let the light shine in.

Here at the Whitman Wellness Center we have been spring cleaning out bodies. Yes, spring cleaning. There are 14 of us cleaning out the winter debris from within our system. We are clearning away the sludge from the foods we et and the emotions we store. Erin is our Ayurvedic Consultant and is very beautifully and compassionately guiding us through our two week cleanse with daily email support and weekly group gatherings.

We are on day 5 of the 2nd phase. Our first phase lasted a week and was about no sugar, gluten, meat and dairy. Think of it as clearing out the garage of the shed so you can find the tools you need to spring clean the lawn and gardens. That was allright. I still could not give up my morning coffee, I still have a huge attachment to the morning time of sipping and reading. Erin told me to just look at why I was attached...it is all good.

The 2nd phase is finding us eating the same thing for 6 days. It is an Indian dish called Kitcheri...made with mung beans that are loaded with protein and easy to digest - I love it. Over the years of doing the cleanse we've found you either love it or hate it. I love it because I don't have to think about what to eat, its always the same. The purpose of this is to let the digestive system work at bringing all the toxins from the tissues into the digestive tract. When its not busy digesting food - well it has time to do the rest of the work. After we bring it into the digestive tract, we will need to get rid of it...think of it as taking otu the trash.

We haven't gotten to the "trash removal" part of the cleanse...if you are curious as to what that entails - its castor oil, so stay tuned!