winter

S E A S O N A L T O O L S + P R A C T I C E S

THE SEASON OF REST (+ stew)

Winter is a time to hermit in, to nest, to turn our gaze inward, to spend time in recovery + restoration. It is a time to focus more on input rather than output, on being rather than doing. It is a great season for self stewardship and really focusing on nourishing ourselves, for shadow work, for doing the behind the scenes vibrational recalibration, as well as connecting to our inner wisdom, to The Crone.

​It is the season of Kapha and we want to continue to tend to our inner fire to stay in balance. You'll find below that there are a lot of practices, rituals and food choices for body, mind + spirit to keep us warm, well + cozy through the winter months.

food

First and foremost, listen to your body and know what's good for your constitution. Keep a food journal if you need to. And, know that foods can affect you several days after consuming them. Below are recommendations based in Ayurvedic + Holistic medicine for what types of foods can be beneficial for winter but if beans don't agree with your body then don't eat them, or if you’re having a Pitta imbalance like acid reflux then some of the particularly warming or spicy foods may not be good for you at this time. Always tune in for what resonates with you. Eating a diet rich in whole, seasonal foods that are varied in color is a great place to start. When we eat seasonally we also give our bodies a break from the foods not in season. Before we had access to year round produce we ate things that were in season and that meant eating fresh tomatoes in the summer and early fall but not as much the rest of the year. Therefore people were much less likely to develop an allergy + you get a broader range of nutrition when you're shaking things up so to speak. This is also a way to bring in variety for those who have Gatherer determination in Human Design. Don't know what's in season? Google your location and seasonal produce and you can pretty easily find a chart. 

​For winter we want to focus on foods that nourish our immune system and keep us warm.

This means focusing on warm, cooked, slightly oily foods with some spice to stoke the inner fire.

​And for hydration we can focus on nourishing herbal infusions and/or warm water which aids in digestion.

​HERBS + SPICES for winter: ginger, thyme, rosemary, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, paprika and curry.

​Foods to limit or avoid during the winter months: sugar + dairy especially if you feel a cold coming on, frozen foods, cold smoothies, heavy/fried/oily foods.

In Ayurvedic medicine when we are experiencing too little of Kapha’s positive qualities in winter; decreased digestive fire, melancholic moods, low energy, dryness and physical and/or mental weakness we want to incorporate foods that strengthen our ‘Ojas’ or vital essence. These are foods like sesame, olive + avocado oils, ghee, nuts + seeds, avocados, dates + figs as well as lightly cooked vegetables and honey.

FORBIDDEN PORRIDGE
From High Vibrational Beauty

• 1 cup black rice

• 1/2 cup coconut milk

• 1 1/2 cups coconut water

• grated fresh ginger to taste

• 1 cardamom crushed, black seeds removed

• small handful of goji berries

• big pinch Himalayan salt

• coconut yogurt of coconut butter

• black pepper to taste

Add the rice, milk, coconut water, ginger and cardamom to large pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and cook for 30 minutes, or until done. Take the pot off the heat, add the berries and stir, allowing them to steam in the porridge. Add the salt, coconut yogurt or butter and sprinkle with pepper.

Serves 4

broths

SEAWEED “BONE” BROTH
from Moon Juice

Ingredients

• 12 cups water

• 10 dried kombu strips

• 4 leeks, dark green ends trimmed, halved through the root, and cleaned

• 1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms

• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

• 3 scallions, sliced on an angle

Directions
In a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Add the kombu, leeks, and mushrooms and reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Strain the broth, reserving the kombu, leeks, and mushrooms. Return the broth to the pot. Slice the vegetables and return them to the broth to eat as soup, or leave the broth as is. Garnish with the ginger and scallions.

IMMUNE SUPPORT
I also love this recent recommendation from Moon Juice for immune support:

• 1 cup hot water (or sometimes I use actual bone broth)

• 1 tbsp miso (I use chickpea)

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp spirulina

• 1 garlic clove

• juice of one lemon

• pinch of cayenne

Blend all until garlic is broken down + add a tsp of Chaga for extra protection.

soups + stews

CREAM OF SPINACH SOUP
From Cooking for Winter Health Wellness by Brittany Wood Nickerson

In a heavy bottom soup pot, heat:

• 1 Tbsp ghee or extra virgin olive oil

When hot add:

• 2 onions chopped

Saute until clear, then add

• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper

• 1 pinch nutmeg

• 1 pinch allspice

• 1 tsp salt

• 2-3 potatoes with the skin, diced (about 2 cups)

Stir well, then add:

• 4-6 cups stock

Cover and simmer on low until potatoes are soft (20-30 minutes).

Add:

• 1 lb fresh spinach

Remember the spinach will shrink down considerably once cooked. Once the spinach is added, the soup should be rather thick. Add more stock or water if necessary. Cook for about five minutes, until the spinach is cooked, but still bright green.

Let soup cool for several minutes, then add:

• I cup of whole milk or cream (preferably raw) or plain yogurt.
  *I sub alternative milk.

Blend with an immersion blender or in food processor. Taste for salt. Makes 4-5 8oz servings. Garnish with thinly sliced green onion or chives and plain yogurt, crème fraîche or grated parmesan cheese.

ONION + MUSHROOM SOUP
From Cooking for Winter Health Wellness by Brittany Wood Nickerson

In heavy bottom soup pot heat:

• 1 tbsp butter, ghee, or extra virgin olive oil

Once hot, add:

• 2 onions, sliced thinly into quarter moons

Sauté until onions are clear, then add:

• 1 lb. crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 1 tsp of fresh ground pepper

• 1 tbsp fresh thyme

• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped or pressed

Stir well and add:

• 5 cups of stock

Cover and simmer on low for 1/2 hour. Salt to taste. Serve with freshly grated parmesan and fresh parsley.

​GUINNESS BEEF IRISH STEW
(pictured above)

• 2 lbs Beef chuck

• 4 Carrots, medium

• 3 Garlic cloves

• 1 Onion

• 1 Parsley, fresh

• 1 Potato, large

• 2 Turnips

• 4 cups Beef broth, low sodium

• 4 oz Tomato paste

• 2 tbsp Worcester sauce

• 1 Salt and pepper

• 2 tbsp Olive oil

• 12 oz Guinness extra stout

Season beef with salt and pepper.
In a large Dutch Oven, heat oil over medium high heat. Add half of the cubed beef to the pot. Brown beef on all sides (about 2-4 minutes) and remove to a plate. Repeat with remaining beef.
To the pot, add onions and garlic. Stir around a bit to scrape up the brown bits and soften them a bit. Add tomato paste and stir around a bit more. Allow the tomato paste to become golden in places.
Pour in Guinness, beef broth and Worcestershire sauce and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Return the beef to the pot, including any juices from the plate. Bring stew to a boil and then cover the pot and reduce to a simmer. Allow beef to cook for 1 ½ - 2 hours.
After the 1 ½ - 2 hours, add the carrots, turnips and potatoes to the pot. Allow the stew to simmer, covered, for 20-30 minutes more or until vegetables are tender. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.
Enjoy!

​recipes

Vegan Kimchi Jigae (pictured above)

Spiced Cauliflower Kale + Chickpea Stew

Spicy Hummus Oven Fries

Harissa Veggie Bowl

Chickpea + Sweet Potato Noodle Soup

Chocolate Walnut Chile

Butternut Squash Chipotle Chile

Dal Palek

Root Vegetable Mulligatawny

Winter Vegetable Panzanella

Mushroom Miso Immortality Soup

Sautéed Greens w/ Garlic
*add the garlic after raw for the health benefits

plant medicine 

Infusions are basically a tea steeped for several hours or overnight. I put my herbs in a large mason jar, cover with hot water, put the lid on and let sit while I sleep. Typically 1tbsp dried herb or 2tbsp fresh to 1 cup of water is a good ratio. Then I strain in the morning and enjoy throughout the day. I tend to do a lot of infusions that are nourishing to the liver and the female reproductive system like dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, red clover, raspberry leaf, oat straw, etc.. Nettles are great for adding minerals to your water but they can be drying so just make sure (especially if you're Vata leaning that you are paying attention). You can always add some moisturizing herbs like licorice or marshmallow root to balance the drying effects. 

​I drink mine within 12-24 hours but if you need another day out of it then throw it in the fridge. You can drink it at room temp or warm it back up. I typically add hot water to dilute and drink throughout the day. You can also always make a standard tea with any of these listed.

There are lots of great nervines for down regulating our nervous system to focus on calm + immune boosting herbs that are supportive for winter.

NERVINES + ADAPTOGENS

• Ashwaganda

• Milky Oat Tops

• Oat Straw

• Hops

• Blue Vervain

• Kava Kava

• Reishi Mushroom

immune support

• Astragalus Root

• Tulsi / Holy Basil

• Goji Berry + Elderberry

• Turkey Tail, Chaga + Reishi Mushroom

• Sage

• Cat’s Claw

• Ginger

• Pau d’Arco

• Olive Leaf

🌿🌿🌿 You can also bring a big pot of water to boil (and then simmer) on the stove and put herbs in for immunity + lung support to cleanse the air and add moisture during this time when central heat can dry it out. Some good options are: rosemary, thyme, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, sage, lavender, lemon balm + basil. You can let it simmer all day with enough water.

bolstering immunity

Keeping our tissues hydrated and moist helps us to not “catch” colds, bugs + viruses going around. It’s always a good practice in winter when we tend to be dry to pay extra attention. This may mean using a Neti Pot everyday + this one for your throat, and even homeopathic eye drops if they tend to run dry, as well as adding a little shatavari and/or marshmallow root to your infusion/tea.

This is also why breathing though your nose is good for your immune system, it is designed to stop foreign invaders. If you think you may be breathing through your mouth a lot, you may want to try mouth taping at night to experiment + check out this book.

M O V E M E N T 

Cold walks or runs outside are actually good for our system and help to keep everything moving as well as offer at least a bit of vitamin D. Walking is balancing to all constitutions and helps support your digestive fire when you walk after meals, as well as balance your blood sugar.

​Vinyasa Yoga can be good when we want to get our circulation moving and warm up our bodies. Focus on breathing through your nose. Good poses for winter that open the front body are Sun Salutations, Moon Salutations, Fish, Lion, Camel, Bow + Locust as well as inversions.

Restorative + Yin Yoga

Vibration Plates like this one.

Dance around your living room to move energy + feels.

Sex to stoke your inner fire.

Rebounding.

Winter is a time to be gentle with ourselves and be sure to integrate more restorative practices alongside our movement.

your subconscious

Winter is an incredibly supportive time to work with your subconscious to bring clarity, to grease new grooves, reset default settings, honor your higher wisdom, tune into intuition + bring shadows to light.

The Crone

Winter is the time of The Crone. Get in touch with your inner wise woman, with the energy of being instead of doing.

“It is winter. It is dark. This is not the time of doing. This is the time of dreaming and dissolving our consciousness into the fertile void from which all life comes and into which all life returns. There is renewal here, through stopping what you are doing and dropping deep into being in oneness with all that is. It is the pause in between breaths. It is suspension. It is the deep sleep when we dissolve into the dream of Gaia and remember not what occurred upon waking. From this time, we arise renewed. But the renewal itself is part of the mystery. And to enter the void, we must be willing to dissolve ourselves completely, offering ourselves to realms unknown. To merge our Consciousness with the dark moon and the starry sky, To drop our body into the rest of hibernating animals that sleep in the caves and folds of the Earth Mother’s flesh. Humbling ourselves as we bow before the vastness of all we do not know, we become wiser and more whole. Rest to regenerate yourself, dark Crone.” - Marysia Miernowska

• Are you allowing yourself to rest? Your body, your mind? What kind of rest does your heart most desire?

• Can you allow yourself to exist in the liminal space? In the unknown?

• Are you taking the time to stand still?

• Are you taking time to turn your gaze inward and tune within?

• Besides your Authority where else does your intuition exist in your chart?

• Explore Baba Yaga.

Dreaming

Dream Journaling:

Set the intention each evening before you go to bed to remember your dreams. Keep a notepad by your bed.

It can help before you go to sleep to remember your day in reverse. I like to use this time also to check in for missed opportunities of alignment, to empty out, as well as to amplify all the high vibes.

When you first wake up, before moving, see how much you can remember from your dreams in their entirety and then jot it down.

What does it mean to you? Rather than say, googling what do spiders mean… think about what spiders mean to you first.

Think about each element (person/animal/item/place/etc..) as a symbol and as a piece of your psyche. And then if you like, google. This is my favorite resource. If you enter it in the search bar as well you can often find additional or more detailed information. Make sure you listen to what feels resonate and aligned.

Even if you’re only getting glimpses or fragments at first, like anything what we bring our attention to grows and you’ll likely find yourself remembering more and more as you commit to it daily.

Share your dreams. Make art, poetry, stories around them. Honor them.

There are many herbs that can support more clarity in dreaming + open the Third Eye. My favorite is mugwort. You can drink it as a sweetened tea, put it in your bath or apply the oil before sleep.

You can also ask your higher guides or the Angel of Dreaming to help you heal and/or find clarity while you sleep.

SHADOW

A big part of working with our shadows is simply recognizing them. Shadow wants to keep us in the dark and our ego running the show. This can create deep set default patterns that we are not enough or somehow unworthy. We begin healing by simply acknowledging them. We release low vibrations. We transform obstacles into gifts. We become more whole.

Begin by taking inventory. We get really clear about what our shadows are and we write them out; getting curious and peeling the onion. What are they at their core. A lot of shadows are formed before the age of 7 when something happened that shamed us into disowning or stuffing that part of us down away from the light, but we can carry Shadow from all manner of experience in our life and as everything has a high and low vibration, we can carry them in our DNA, which we thoroughly explore in our Design.

We often fear our light more than our darkness. And therefore we stuff the parts of us that can shine the brightest into the shadows of our existence to continue to play small.

When we are willing to step into the uncomfortableness of exploring our shadows and our light that exists within we access the whole of our truth. We let them transmute by being fully with ourselves. We reframe them by recognizing their offerings and their medicine. We step into our true authenticity. No part of us goes unseen. This is well being. This is how we truly love ourselves.

P R A C T I C E 

Begin your day with a glass of warm water.

Massage your feet with sesame oil.

Go for walks in the cold (wear a hat, scarf + cozy socks).

Work with + nourish the earthly Chakras: The Root, The Sacral, The Solar Plexus

Wear the warm colors of the above Chakras (orange, deep reds + mustards).

Breath of Fire to build heat, move stagnation and clear mucus.

Moisturize. Your skin is your first defense in the world and for good boundaries we want a well hydrated + healthy barrier.

Breathe through your nose to protect your immune system.

Warm baths. Massage your body with warm oil before hopping in + let the tension melt away. Add some essential oil of Pine/Tree, Resin or Root to ground.

Enjoy infrared saunas regularly.

Morning Pages

Explore Shamanic Journeying if you feel called.

Meditate with stones +/or plants to deepen your experience. What do you want to align with? What stone resonates? If you just want to deepen your experience by calming the nervous system so you can more deeply tune in, look to Reishi or the other nervines.

Explore: What do your Earth Gates have to tell you about how you uniquely ground?

R I T U A L

• Rising around 7am and honoring sunset with a practice or routine that helps you wind down is a good way to tune into nature’s rhythms.

• Morning abhyanga with sesame oil.

• Create an altar to honor the season.

• Add elements to your space to nurture, nest and support restoration. Create your sanctuary.

• Winter is a supportive time to create new rituals or take time off + create new relationships with those that may not serve our highest good, like the news and social media. Below are some suggestions for replacing morning + evening scrolling.

AM SUPPORT

• take the time to just lay there for 10 minutes and allow yourself to tap into what you feel grateful for, then amplify that feeling while daydreaming. Or just daydream. I read recently that daydreaming is a form of planning. I love that.

• say a morning prayer setting the intention for how you wish your day to go.

• start your day with meditation whether it's 10 minutes of mindfulness, watching your breath, pranayama, or imagining filling yourself up with light from the crown down.

• chant a mantra. Many of my favorites are on this playlist.

• dance a song.

• have sex.

• read a few pages or a chapter from an inspirational book or listen to something that raises your vibration.

• draw a tarot card.

• read about an element of your chart + contemplate.

• journal about the positive aspects in your life to get into a high vibration.

PM SUPPORT

• stretching especially actively to work with the fascia.

• enjoy a cup of Oat Straw or Milky Oat Tops tea to nourish your heart and your nervous system.

• gua sha and/or face yoga

• yoga nidra for deconditioning

• meditate on an archetype

• take a warm bath.

• explore a tool from this weeks transit.

• consciously listen to some tunes without multi-tasking.

• turn off all electronics and your wi-fi

• abundance +/or gratitude journaling.

• perform your nightly rituals by candlelight

• listen to a Soundbath and sink into a deeper state of rest.

products

• Umami bouillon.

• Goddess Ghee

• Medicinal mushrooms.

• Mountain Rose for ordering bulk herbs.

• Rooted Oil

• Get clear on intentions from the right motivation as you move into the new year.

• Explore The Heroine’s Journey or The Hero’s Journey

Stay Cozy! 

​In Dark + Light.