Set your healing goals we help you achieve them

It is just routine. When I walk into a restaurant and they ask me if I want coffee or some beverage I always ask for hot water and lemon. The waitresses seem to be used to this request now. But even better than having Hot water and lemon with your meals is drinking it first thing in the morning upon awaking.  Lemon water helps stimulate the liver and helps the bowels to eliminate naturally. It also helps to reduce phlegm which may accumulate over night or at any time of the day.  This simple ritual of some hot water with 1/2 a lemon or lime in the morning is a purification / detox process. Great way to start the morning. SVA prefers limes to lemons as the post-digestive "taste" of lemons is still sour whereas the post-digestive taste of limes if sweet and more nourishing. Whether lemon or lime it these wonderful little citrus fruit have many benefits besides just kick starting the liver in the morning and cleansing our system. They are also high in Calcium, Magnesium, Pot...

Comfrey for external poultice I am wandering out the the realm of traditional Shaka Vansya Ayurved into traditional eastern European herbal medicine. Comfrey (Symphytum officianale) also known as Bone Knit has been used to wrap broken bones, sprains and bruises for 100's of years.  I have a great respect for Comfrey as a healing poultice.  I was just a young girl when I was introduced to comfrey by a friend of my mother's who was also a reflexologist. He have us a root to plant in our yard and we used it for various bruises and sprains.  Years later in my 30's I walked into a table and had a large multicoloured bruise on my thigh. I taped a small circular pad of comfrey on the bruise - the next morning the bruise was gone under the pad and all around the pad it was black yellow green and blue.  That was my confirming experience of the power of Comfrey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Comfrey.  Basically it h...

Everyone is talking about the many benefits of Magnesium. Not only does it help to balance your blood sugar, strengthen your muscles and help you relax, it can help to elevate your moods, keep you body alkaline and strengthen your teeth. One recommendation that SVA has for the use of Magnesium is the transdermal application to the spine. Magnesium is drawn to the spine so applying "Magnesium roll-on" to the spine get it to the place where it is more needed. I have been scouring the internet and found a few good sites that speak in great detail of the benefits of Magnesium. The following from www.mindbodygreen.com.  1. Better sleep -  The sleep regulating hormone melatonin is disturbed when Magnesium is deficient. Furthermore, Magnesium brings balance and controls stress hormones. Stress and tension are often reasons why people suffer from insomnia in the first place. 2. Relaxes the nervous system  - Serotonin, which relaxes the nervous system and elevates mo...

According to Shaka Vansya Ayurved toxins fall into 4 categories. Ama or undigested food that is clogging and leaves that white sticky substance on the back of your tongue. It also clogs other tissues. After Ama is in the body for a long time it becomes Amavisha. Then there is Garavisha or chemical toxins that are rapidly on the increase in modern society. An last but not least there are the electromagnetic toxins that interfer with pranic flow. When teaching about nourishing the body, hydration is at the forefront. One gift of SVA and Vaidya Mishra is his "Garavisha-Tea" for daily detox.  The following is off the label of the tea. Everyday we are exposed to environmental and other factors (mental, emotional, dietary, etc) that may create a build-up of toxic waste in our physiology. When left unattended, such toxic waste can interfere with the functioning of the physiology resulting in imbalances and eventually chronic ill-health. Just as we intake nourish ing on a da...

We had another very successful cooking class last Saturday. Again turmeric took the lime light and the blending of spices with turmeric to reduce its negative side effects and bring up its benefits. We watched 2 short videos of my Ayurvedic teacher, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra on you tube: "Benefits of Turmeric" and "How to use Turmeric Properly"  The main point that stuck out was that if you have a powerful machine you have to know how to drive it safely or you can get into an accident. Similarly we understood that turmeric is a very powerful herb, a sacred herb that is revered in Ayurvedic medicine. The safe and best way to use it is to cook it into your food with an unctuous substance like ghee and blended with other spices like coriander, fennel and cumin. The ratio of 1 part Turmeric to 6 parts Coriander and 6 parts Fennel and 1 part Cumin.  That is the best standard recipe for the spice mix that you add to your veggie stir fries, your dhal and your chicken or fish...

Years ago when I was still a newby to meditation, yoga and Ayurved,  I had a bad cold. I was at the meditation centre in Winnipeg and a lovely elderly gentleman who had been doing yoga all his life taught me the benefits of doing the Lion Pose for cold symptoms. This pose opens all the Nadis or channels in the upper respiratory tract. Simple to do. Sit cross legged or in a chair with your hands on your knees and fingers spread as wide as you can. Stick out your tongue hard and open your eyes wide. Hold as long as you can. Repeat several times. Be sure you have some tissue near by so catch the draining sinuses.

The "common cold" from an Ayurvedic perspective is a build up of Kapha which are excess of cool and moist Kapha qualities and at the same time not enough digestive fire. Ginger tea is a great remedy for colds.  My favourite recipes I have seen move through my communities for over 30 years. Use ginger root which you get from the grocery store. Cut 3-4 slices about the thickness of a coin - a quarter. Then put them in 3-4 cups of water and boil for 2-3 minutes. Then steep for 5 minutes and strain out the root and keep the tea in a thermos and drink about 1/4 or 1/2 cup at a time through out the day. I have seen some other recipes ( Dr. Lad's book on home remedies) which also add a bit of cinnamon and cardamom  or cinnamon and lemon grass to the ginger. I have also had great success with Elderberry (Sambuca). You can buy it in some drug stores and most health food stores.  I have also found a great clump of elderberry bushes growing in the Okanagan - harvest the berries ...