AYRUVEDA, etc.

So in this post, I'll concentrate on Item b) on the agenda I set for myself last time...Saving a) for sometime...



This weekend, our training cohort went up to the studio in Huntington Beach to take an amazing intermediate/advanced class and then a workshop on Ayurveda both with this phenomenal and inspiring woman named Heather. It was eye-opening and heart-opening in so many ways-- I had all kinds of epiphanies and incredibly simple yet profound revelations about the relationships among habit and mind and diet and movement and interaction and drive in any given person. Upon coming into the class, I had taken a test to determine which "dosha" was most dominant in my own mental, emotional, and physical make-up-- doshas basically are "types" by which people are categorized and there are three-- Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Each is associated with various characteristics that correspond to the various chakras as well as to elements, season, scents, flavors, and areas of the physical body. My test proved me to be at this moment a Vata in body, largely, but more Pitta in personality and mentality. I thought before going to the session that this was a little hokey, even though a lot of what the test said resonated with me, but after Heather described these in details and took us through the rationale behind their very existence in the philosophy, I was hooked, convinced, and totally fascinated. I still think they are, inevitably, a bit reductive-- however, that's only if one chooses to look at them this way. I'm going to post the quiz here so you can all try it out if you want to: http://doshaquiz.chopra.com/
See if it seems to work for you-- then see what you think about its diagnosis of me ;) Vata-Pitta (more Vata body, Pitta mind; though it changes daily and recently, I've been much more Pitta-ish; today's test proved this)
If you take it and find that you have an imbalance in some area, let me know and I can give you some recs for rituals to take on and small changes to make in order to even things out, harmonize them. I'm in the process of instituting some new things in my own day to day life and I am seeing results, feeling them really. It's pretty incredible stuff actually-- so brilliantly simple and complex a system simultaneously...I am hooked; wanting to go more deeply into studying this. What's really fascinating too is to apply it to yoga-- looking at want poses support balancing out the doshas, what poses a particular person perhaps should or shouldn't do-- and also, learning how to recognize a particular dosha-type when s/he walks into one's yoga (or any) classroom...and how to help that person accordingly in specific postures...

Writing this is difficult because I feel like there is just so much share and digest-- but I guess this will just serve as a taste of what I'm experiencing and as an explanation of why I am eating more hearty, rooty, warm, grounding foods; why I am meditating formally twice a day, why I'm using sesame oil on my skin as a delicious toner and why I am using spicy aromatherapy and essential oils; why I am doing these wacky "kriyas" during the day--small exercises that target specific chakras to open them up...We shall see what happens :) At the worst, I'll just smell good and glow and be super relaxed...