Day 17 - Pranayama

As I further explore yoga and meditation, it is inevitable that I would develop an interest and come across more information on Pranayama. Luckily I had a meeting with Megan on Saturday and she went further into the practice with me. Pranayama is the practice in which the control of prana is achieved from the control of one's breathing. In yoga, pranayama techniques are used to control the movement of these vital energies within the body, which is said to lead to an increase in vitality in the practitioner. Although Prana is essentially the breath, it is also the notion of a life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, found also in blood, and in its most concentrated form as other bodily fluids. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis.

Nāḍi, the Sanskrit word for "tube or pipe", are the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the subtle body are said to flow and connect at each chakra. According to the tantras there are 72,000 or more such channels or networks through which the stimuli flow like an electric current from one point to another, the picture above is a map of the nadi's or said channels . It was interesting for me to see how far away from the body these channels expand. Of course we have energy moving within the body, and when an object is very close to us we can also sense that, but this actually expands way further than that. This may sound familiar to you, more commonly referred as your Aura. In many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation supposedly surrounding a person or object that some people are claimed to be capable of observing by means of their third eye (aka the ajna chakra).

The tangible benefits of pranayama include:
• the releases of acute and chronic muscular tensions around the heart and digestive organs
• helps sufferers of respiratory illnesses such as asthma and emphysema to overcome the fear of shortness of breath
• it actually increases lung capacity
• encourages proper nervous stimulus to the cardio-vascular system
• dramatically reduces emotional and nervous anxiety
• improves detoxification through increased exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen
• amplifies the auto immune system by increased distribution of energy to the endocrine system
• calms the mind and integrates the mental / physical balance.

Day 3 - Experiment

First I want to address the name change, as a crazy brazilian, "mixed" is the word I was looking for all along but sometimes these things don't occur to me as they would a native. So there you have it. Things are going really well and I feel an inner-calmness with my "one day at a time" approach. I have fullfilled the programs daily requirements now for three days. I went to yoga this morning and did my full ten minutes of meditation for the day since Joe and I have tickets for Harry Potter at Kabuki tonight, seats reserved and bar access included. I have not once tried to kid myself that wine would be out of the picture for these 40 days but I was planning on cutting back on week-day consumption. However, this is a special occasion (can't you just hear the Potter music in your head, because I can) and I am ruling it ok to have a glass in the one city theatre that has a liquor license, I mean how could you not??

I have been very careful to follow my food plan as set forth by Megan but I am also trying to experiment with the ayurvedic principle of the six tastes. This means that all meals should include qualities from each of these: bitter (greens of many kinds, turmeric, coffee), astringent (beans, cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower and cabbage, cilantro), sweet (milk, butter, wheat, ghee, rice, honey, raw sugar), salty (sea salt, seaweed), sour (limes and lemons, yogurt, pomegranate seeds) and pungent (garlic, ginger, mustard, chilli peppers). Yesterday I tried a recipe with the leftover rice that was in the fridge staring at me, and LOVED it. Just for copyrights’ sake it is from a book by Amadea Morningstar.

Rice Yoghurt
Pour about ½ tablespoon of oil in a sauce pan and add ½ teaspoon of cumin seeds and ½ teaspoon of mustard seeds. When these start to pop, add two cups of leftover rice (or fresh if you will), ½ cup yoghurt, 1/3 cup of skim or soy milk, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Let it all come to a boil and serve hot. Definitely garnish with cilantro and I topped it with some fresh mini bell peppers. You can also take it from here and make it your own. If your dosha does not have an aversion to spicy food or nuts you can add a jalapeno pepper and top with almonds as suggested by the original recipe.

Ayurveda

“Ayurveda, which translates from the Sanskrit language to “the knowledge of life”, has its roots in India over 5,000 years ago. These roots, both physiological and philosophical, strive to re-connect us to our true nature or, who we are at the most basic and balanced levels of body, mind and spirit. As a medical science, ayurveda works on all of these levels to heal symptoms and disease at their root and maintain a state of health and well being. As a philosophy, ayurveda gives us a better understanding of why disease develops in the first place and how to compassionately view ourselves and others as perfect beings”

Every other Saturday I cross the city, from the foggy sunset to sunny potrero hill, to visit my Ayurvedic Specialist, Megan Munoz. I started my journey with Ayurveda in March 2009 and have been working towards incorporating the routines into a sustainable daily regimen. Megan is a wonderful guide, non-judgmental, kind, and able to transform this complex process into bite-size pieces. She also offers me tea every time I walk into her office. Megan determined that my dosha was Pitta-Vata-Kapha, of which 47% is Pitta and my imbalance lies in Pitta and Kapha. The Pitta dosha is said to be made up of the fire and water elements, of which fire is more predominant, making Pitta qualities hot, oily, sharp and penetrating. Pitta’s are fearless leaders, and it didn’t hurt when Megan mentioned Obama was a Pitta as well.

The Pitta-Kapha food plan is one of the most strict, or at least I think so. Because of the hot and oily qualities of Pitta, I cannot eat anything with those properties or it will aggravate my dosha, such as wheat, nuts, avocado, cow’s milk (except for skim milk), and sugar of any kind except stevia. Instead, I focus on what I should eat to cool me off, such as basmati rice, pomegranates, cilantro spiced things, pumpkin seeds, and most veggies. It sounds harder than it is, and the biggest challenge is at The Pizza Place. Even if I have the vegan pie, there is still wheat in the crust. Well, actually, wine, of course, is a big challenge. But even Megan said “a glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away”, or something like that... Either way I’m working on it.