Insights into Ayurveda
One of the best parts of my work is exploring new ideas, new cuisines and meeting new people. But there has also been an occasion when I have been reconnected through my work with an old classmate or friend from my past.
Which brings me to Laura Plumb.
Our paths crossed briefly during our years in high school and we recently reconnected through a blog post I did last Fall about Lake Forest Open Lands. Over the past few months, we’ve enjoyed catching up and began to explore ways we could work together.
With that in mind, I asked Laura, Founder of VedaWise, if she could introduce our readers to Ayurveda. Over the next few weeks Jane will use inspiration from Laura’s cookbook Ayurveda for Beginners to explore an ancient way of looking at food and help you learn what foods will nourish both your body and your soul.
What is Ayurveda?
Excerpted from my book, Ayurveda Cooking For Beginners
I remember long Summer nights when as children we would lay ourselves out on the grass and gaze up into the vast night sky. Do you remember that excitement and wonder? It was as if your whole body was listening while you felt the whole world glistening.
Subsequently in my life I found a science that articulates that experience: Ayurveda, a comprehensive system of healing and wellness arising from the universal wisdom, Yatha pinde tatha brahmande: In the microcosm is the macrocosm. In the atom is the cosmos. In the personal is the universal. In the one is the all.
Ayurveda is a tangible reminder that you are an integral part of this natural world, alive with radiance and grace. In fact, you are a mirror of all that is mighty and majestic, and you are made of the very same power that ignites and sustains existence.
Said to be the world’s oldest and most comprehensive system of medicine, Ayurveda never sees a person as a disease, or as a diseased person. It views each individual as a vital expression of life, with intelligence and regenerative powers that sometimes need support and nurturing. In this way, Ayurveda restores dignity to patients and humanity to medicine. It is respectful. It is medicine of the people, for the people.
But its service to the wider world is in its simple, easy to adopt, intuitive systems for better living—and those joys begin in the kitchen. According to the Charak Samhita, an ancient Ayurvedic text, “The distinction between health and disease arises as the result of the difference between wholesome and unwholesome diet.”
To me, cooking is where Ayurvedic wisdom comes home; where nature, in her great generosity, offers herself most fully to us—letting us touch, taste, smell, and hold her bounty. Ayurvedic cooking is a sumptuous blend of science, art, love, and nourishment.
I began writing about Ayurvedic cooking to support the health of family, friends, and clients: to nourish a teenager, rejuvenate a grandmother, soothe the digestive issues of a brother, calm the anxiety of a grieving parent, strengthen the bones and organs of a husband whose journalistic career covering wars left his body ravaged.
As a practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine, I have witnessed people over the years transform their lives by changing their relationship with food. I have seen the power of pure grains, organic vegetables, juicy fruits, and natural spices to ignite digestive ease, healing, renewed energy, hope, and exalted purpose.
The ancient science of Ayurveda is really the art of living wisely, as it empowers people to make choices that nurture and sustain the body and the mind for optimal wellness.
Ayurveda explains that we are each microcosms of the macrocosm—the universe within each being. You are whole, the totality of all, a dynamic play of swirling energies, radiant light and complex intelligence. The universe of which we are each an integral part is made up of five prime elements: space, air, fire, water, earth. These elements, alone and in combination, are found everywhere in nature and in every human being.
What makes us each unique is the uniquely individual combination of these elements. One person may have all five elements more or less evenly balanced. Another may have a high predominance of one element over the others. Someone else may have two or three elements leading the others.
The tendency of one or two elements to be dominant is called a Dosha. Dosha is a Sanskrit word at the root of our English word dysfunction. It refers to the tendency of a living organism to imbalance due to the persistent dominance of elements.
In excess, the air or space elements create what is called a Vata Dosha. Pitta is the excess fire element, combined with water—much like gastric juices combine acid/fire suspended in liquid/water. Excess water or earth leads to the stagnating imbalance of Kapha.
Ayurveda teaches us to restore doshic balance with an opposite element. For example, heat, as in a spicy tea, a cooked meal, or a loving touch, helps warm and calm the cold airy, spacy qualities of Vata. Water hydrates the dryness of air, so soups and warm baths are helpful to Vata, and the earthiness of root vegetables grounds the space element.
Pitta heat can be cooled by water, Pitta intensity can be relieved by the element of space, Pitta is liberated by air. Gazing at the night sky, walking through open lands, turning on a fan, swimming in the sea, or even just observing the flow of each breath—the spaciousness of the inhale, the release of the exhale—are cooling elixirs to balance Pitta.
Kapha is balanced with fire, as in aerobic exercise that makes you sweat, spicy foods that increase the digestive fire, mental challenges that require focus. Wet, heavy Kapha can also be balanced by the light, dry air element. Strong breathing exercises open the respiratory channels and increase circulation. In fact, all activity that increases circulation is great for Kapha, including circulating out in the world—trying new things, meeting new people, exploring new ideas.
Everyone is unique in their expression of the dynamism of the doshas. While there is usually one dosha that dominates, some people have two, and some even feel all three doshas equally strong.
You could be Vata-Pitta (VP), Pitta-Kapha (PK), or Vata-Kapha(VK). In rare cases, one might even be “tri-doshic” (VPK). While that may seem confusing, there is a simple trick to finding balance: Consider what the doshas have in common.
Vata-Pitta are both light and mobile, so when imbalanced, earth and water ground and soothe.
Pitta-Kapha both contain water, so the air element helps them circulate, while space helps them lighten up when they get too singularly focused or weighed down.
Vata-Kapha are both cold and need a warming touch. Boost your inner fires with warm foods and aromatic spices
Vata-Pitta-Kapha are like nature itself, and must align with the seasons for optimal balance.
Ayurveda unlocks nature’s healing power and connects you to the inherent wisdom that is already within you. It is a reminder of what you already know somewhere deep within. It is a wisdom that has been transmitted through families for generations, and it is a wisdom that we cannot afford to lose. Our world, and all of us in it, need Ayurveda now more than ever.
In a time when digestive disorders and metabolic imbalances are rampant, I feel passionately about reminding people that eating for health can be a simple, sacred, sumptuous delight.
Authors Note
If you want more information, please go to Laura’s website . If you want to understand your “dosha” or body type, please check out her quiz at the Dosha Quiz. She has also offered a special discount for consults to any Zen followers at 10% off at Consult. Consults | Discount Code: LP10. In celebration of my upcoming birthday, I asked her to do my Jyotish (read my birth chart) which was fascinating!
Zen Moment
“The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on.”
-Josiah Gilbert Holland
