Tea Recipe to Keep You Healthy!

My first yoga class was in 1998 at a place called Yoga Yoga in Austin, Texas.  A skinny man with a beard dressed in white clothes with a turban on his head had us do strange chanting and fast breathing and other things like make faces like a lion and laugh spontaneously and then we all had to lay down while he played a gong for what seemed like a very long time.

I thought it was the weirdest thing ever.

Then, after is was all over, we were served a cup of the most amazing tea I had ever had.  Seriously.  It tasted SO good to me.

So I went back.  And I went back again.  And again.  Because, although yoga was extremely unusual to my Southern upbringing, I sure did feel good after class and for the days afterwards.  And that tea!  How could I pass up that tea?

That was my introduction to yoga; it was kundalini yoga.  My first teacher was Mehtab (aka Michael), and his classes were quite magical.  And that tea is known as Yogi Tea (or chai), and it's a recipe passed on from the famed Yogi Bhajan.

I still practice Kundalini yoga, and I don't think it's weird at all any more, just awesome.  I now live in my home state of Alabama, and I take the occasional kundalini class here at the various yoga studios around town that happen to offer it.  Recently I was in Akasha's class at Birmingham Yoga, and he reminded us of the awesome benefits of yogi tea and suggested we make it ourselves.

Wow.  Why haven't I thought of that?

So at New Year's, a friend and I went to the store seeking out the ingredients, and I now drink this wonderful tea in the comfort of my own home just about every morning.  Because it's just so darn good!

AND, I have not gotten the flu.  I swear, I think this tea may be the best cold/sick preventer out there.  Be gone, flu.  Be gone, flu-shots-that-get-us-sick-anyway!

So drink up, friends!

Here's the recipe courtesy of Birmingham Yoga!

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YOGI TEA:

When Yogi Bhajan was a military commander in India there was an epidemic among the troops. He ordered all of his men to fill their canteens with yogi tea and drink nothing else, not even water. His Battalion was the only unit that didn’t get sick! Yogi tea purifies the blood, lungs and circulatory system. It cleans the liver and has many more unseen benefits. It’s good to drink this tea every day.

1 Gallon Water
30 Cloves
30 whole Green Cardamon pods
30 whole Black Peppercorns
1 inch or more of fresh Ginger, thinly sliced
5 sticks Cinnamon
1 teabag, Black Tea ( leave out if sensitive to caffeine or planning to drink at night)
*Milk and Honey/Maple syrup to taste or Almond Milk.

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Add all spices except black tea bag. Boil 30 -45 min. If you want to make it stronger boil longer and add more water as needed.
3. At the end add black tea bag and boil another 5 min.
   **The black tea is added last because it amalgamates the spices and sort of seals them. Also the tannins help assimilate the spices into the body.
4. Add milk & sweetener to an individual cup as you require.  This will allow you to store the raw tea in the fridge and prepare with milk and sweeteners as you like.
5. If you go cup by cup, you can leave the raw tea on the stove on the lowest flame to enjoy all day.

**Milk helps to ease the shock of the spices on the stomach and intestines so drink with milk if you’re sensitive. Note: for a stronger tea you can let the spices sit and sink to the bottom.

Dalai Lama Promotes Feng Shui (in his own words)

Re-organizing my files for the new year, I came across this article I wrote that was published in Sun Valley, Idaho back in 2005.  The Dalai Lama had just visited and spoke there....

"A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life." --His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The above statement may seem simple at first reading, but upon consideration, it is really quite powerful. I believe that the Dalai Lama is emphasizing the importance of the state of one's living space....a.k.a. feng shui.

Too many people are careless with the space in which they work or dwell. In terms of the Black Sect Tantric Buddism school of feng shui (which is a derivative of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism), when a person is thoughtful (or thoughtless) in regard to his or her living space, it spills out into his or her life.

So why does feng shui have all those strange and curious "cures," you might ask, if all one has to do is create a "loving atmosphere"? The fact is most of us have forgotten what a loving atmosphere is. Sure, we may recognize it when we see it, but making it happen is a different story. This is a result of a mass disease that has taken over our world: that is the disease of not knowing how to love our selves completely. Otherwise, creating our lives according to our deepest desires and most lofty dreams would be a cinch.

I like to tell my clients to imagine reading a short story where the author describes the space. 

This a quick way to notice the "symbolism" that occurs in your own home. After all, the subconscious sees everything. It constantly absorbs messages from our environment and processes these messages. In turn, these messages are sent into our energy fields, creating the very lives we are experiencing. Imagine the difference of a home filled with unwanted gifts, dying plants, and cluttered closets compared to one with healthy flowers, treasured objects, and neatly organized closets with (gasp) extra space! The first home feels slightly neglected, even if the rest of the furnishings were pleasant, while the second space feels freer, lighter, and, cherished. Even the smallest of details have an impact. Our subconscious mind takes images without a filter.

A wonderful start to a loving atmosphere is to first discard or give away any objects that you do not love in your home. Clutter is a sure way to block your highest potential as the subconscious sees it as a symbol of things that we don't love or need in our lives and creates accordingly. It is amazing how letting go of a thing as simple as a candle from an unfaithful ex-lover or a blanket that you have never used because it is too scratchy can lighten your load! The subconscious gets the message that you'd rather have something (or someone) better in your life.

Next, play with ideas, and find out what it is that want to invite into your life. Then consciously bring it into your home symbolically. For example, you've always wanted to travel to Italy.   Then stick a postcard of the the Mediterranean on your refrigerator. Would you like to amp up your love life? Figure out your own personal "romance symbol" and drape it, plant it, or play it on your stereo everyday. The key to creating a great life is to get creative!

With every object in our homes, we are sending a message to ourselves and to the Universe. Wouldn't you want your message to be one of pure and uplifting love so that you could receive that, and only that, back? Use your conscious mind to transform your subconscious mind, and then witness the shifts in your life.