If I am to be completely honest, we are now in my least favourite season, which I like to call “Still Winter.” In terms of Ayurveda, we are transitioning from the vata season to the kapha season. In its more extreme form, vata weather is freezing cold, dry and windy. Picture blowing snow and you’ve got the chaos and chill of vata. Now personally, as a vata, I love the days when the weather drops below freezing and the sun reflelcting off the snow is brighter than a white sand beach.
What’s difficult for me is kapha in its extreme form: days when the temperature is just above zero so the snow is melting, the skies are grey, and the ground is soggy and slick. It’s tough to leave the house when the sky looks depressing and I’m pretty sure I’m going to slip in the muck.
But if there is an imbalance for every season, there is a way to find balance in every season.
One of my favoutire tools for navigating the kapha season is to nourish new life! A friend of mine has a quote in her garden shed that says, “A gardener will always be happy because there is something to look back on, something to do and something to look forward to.” (On that note, having something to look forward to is an essential to daily life in my opinion.)
Enter, Sprouting! It has recently been rebranded as microgreens, but essentially you get some seeds, water them regularly and wait for the sprouts to start! After 5 to 7 days you have a nutritious treat to add to salads, sandwiches and stir fries. You may also notice that with warmer weather and increased hours of daylight mean that it is easier to digest fresh/raw food than during the winter/vata months.
How to sprout / grow your own microgreens:
1. Get some seeds! Your local garden centre, grocery store or health food store may have a sprouting kit, or as you see above, bags of sprouting seeds.
2. Get a container! Personally, I like to use jars with sprouting lids or cheesecloth. My mom uses a glass baking dish with paper towel. You can also buy a sprouting station / kit that does all the work for you.
3. Soak your seeds for 4- 8 hours to get them going. After that, rinse them twice a day and allow the water to drain. If you use my mom’s method, the paper towel needs to be changed regularly.
4. Wait patiently and dream of springtime 🙂
Health Benefits of Microgreens:
- Delicious and crunchy
- Nutrient dense. Depending on the specific green, they are generally full of vitamin C, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium
- A good source of fibre
- Antioxidants and other plan micronutrients that I don’t fully understand
If you find that you have trouble digesting raw foods, you can lightly sautee them perhaps with olive oil, onion and garlic.
Other ways to nourish new life:
*Foster a pet or volunteer at your local animal shelter
*Get some chickens to eat your kitchen scraps
*Volunteer helping children to read at your local library
* Support the people around you and encourage them when they try something new
*Support yourself, too!
*Start a book club reading personal development books. Might I suggest The Yamas and Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice? https://deborahadele.com/resources/
How will you be nourishing new life this spring? Drop a comment below!
ZenwithGwen 
One thought on “Tips for the Kapha season: Nourish New Life”