Spring Cleaning, for the Body, Heart, and Mind
If you listen very carefully you can hear that the earth is beginning to wake up, with bulbs pushing out of the soil and new buds on the trees. What had become brown, dry, frozen and mineralized over the winter is now enlivened and reinvigorated. Sometimes we are right there with this process and have already started clearing out the garage, or our sock drawer, and maybe even made a trip to the goodwill to give away what we don’t need. Sometimes, however, we feel more like molasses, and getting started is very, very hard. What to do? In Anthroposophic Medicine there is clear recognition that a part of our own physiology works to continually lift physical substance into a living state; and, reciprocally, that living substance eventually falls back into a gravity, mineral state. We are therefore beings of constant lifting and releasing. We feel sluggish if we aren’t lifting enough substance into living activity, and/or when what has been released back to a mineral state can’t be adequately shed or gotten rid of. So here are some suggestions for helping this process find renewed strength on the levels of body, heart and mind. Consider it a small springtime primer.
The Therapeutic Value of “Maintenance” as a Life Process
We all need to devote energy to “maintenance.” No, this does not refer to some kind of human 30,000-mile check, like what you might do for your car (although healthcare would be much simpler if it only required a new water pump or brake pads at certain intervals). No, we are referring to a different kind of maintenance. What is being recommended is more along the lines of taking the time to really work through what has been taken in, so that it can fully become one’s own.
Getting Unstuck, Part 1: How a Homeopathic Remedy Can Help
Been stuck recently? Seems to be going around. It’s not necessarily bad as long as it doesn’t become a way of life, though it usually does last longer than we feel comfortable with. But it has its place. Take breathing as an example. There is that place in your breathing, where you have taken in a full breath, but not yet started to release the air. Do you know that place? And it feels like nothing is happening, but there is something happening—a change in activity is coming (from in-breathing to out-breathing). And while the natural world around us these days is bursting into new activity, the human process for change seems to lag behind this time of year. Why? Well, when the winter comes and brings cold temperatures and long nights, we all naturally breathe in. It feels really good to breathe in at that time. Fall, the winter holidays, and the changing of the year bring an inwardness that feels really good. It's nice to be cozy inside, light candles in the darkness, and devote time to our family life, our community life, and our inner life. It is in fact true that the deepest winter nights are a potent time to come into a purer relationship to our inner intentions and our spirituality. We can connect better to our higher self and find inspiration for the coming year during that time….