Ayurveda Polarity Therapy and Yoga with Amadea Morningstar

Michele Lawrence interviews Amadea Morningstar, a pioneer in Ayurvedic nourishment and self-care, about her journey and contributions to the field. Amadea, who has a BS in Nutrition and an MA in Counseling, founded the Ayurveda Polarity Therapy and Yoga Institute in Santa Fe. She discusses her books, including "Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners" and "Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda," and explains the principles of Ayurvedic nutrition, polarity therapy, and Marma therapy. Amadea emphasizes the importance of individualized care and the integration of ancient practices with modern health principles. She also shares her daily spiritual practices and commitment to environmental respect. 

Transcript

Michele: welcome to this is yoga therapy. I'm your host. Michele Lawrence, join me as we venture beyond the mat into the fascinating intersections of yoga and health. Each episode brings you candid conversations with the visionary leaders and practitioners who are truly shaping this field, sharing their stories, insights and the profound impact of yoga therapy in action.

In this episode, I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with amadea Morningstar. Amadea has been working with Ayurvedic nourishment and self care for over 40 years. She's an internationally recognized author, teacher and practitioner, and she's the founder of the Ayurveda polarity therapy and Yoga Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which isn't too far from where I live, here in Durango, Colorado. Her books include Ayurveda cooking for Westerners, the Ayurvedic cookbook both published in 1990 and 1995 and more recently, easy healing drinks from the wisdom of Ayurveda, published in 2018 she has a BS in nutrition and MA in counseling, in RYT from integral yoga. And she integrates a variety of teaching methods, Eastern and Western into her offerings. And it's such a pleasure to meet you and have you here today. Amadea, such a delight to be here. Michele, well, I'd love if you can just share a little bit about yourself with our listeners and what initially drew you to the path of Ayurveda and yoga, and then how that led you to found the Ayurveda polarity therapy and Yoga Institute. I'm sure it might be a longer story than we have time for, but give us the version.

Amadea Morningstar  1:58  
I'll give you the short version. Well, when I think about it, when I went to Stanford as an undergraduate, I was drawn to human biology, and that was my major. And then I remember taking a biology class where we went to the ocean, and I saw all the gorgeous seaweed, and I thought, Man, this could be used to help feed people. And early on, I got very interested in nutrition healing, you know, food and healing. And so that was kind of the beginning. And by the time I got interested in Ayurveda, I was teaching nutrition the College of Natural Medicine here in Santa Fe and Dr Ladd had came to present a series of talks about Ayurveda. And at that time, I was teaching about Western foods and healing. And I was just fascinated also, because at that time I was starting to I had a small practice in in nutrition education, and many people who came to see me were dealing with rather serious things, and including cancer. And what I started to see was that certain kinds of foods helped one person and not another. And so when I heard Dr Ladd talking about constitution and how people had different needs, it'll just light bulbs went off. So that was kind of the beginning of that part,

Michele Lawrence  3:18  
that individualized approach that is so instrumental to Ayurveda and yoga therapy too. Yeah, so that was the start, and you have done many things since. We're going to talk about a few of those things here today, I'm really kind of curious about like the Ayurveda and Polarity Therapy Institute. So that's the name of your institute in Santa Fe and you offer Ayurvedic nutrition, lifestyle, education, marmotherapy and polarity therapy. So could you tell us more about what those things are, particularly marmotherapy and polarity therapy. I'm familiar with marmotherapy, maybe not all of our listeners are. I'm not familiar with polarity therapy, but maybe some of our listeners are. What are they and how do they work together to create a cohesive healing experience for clients?

Amadea Morningstar  4:14  
Definitely, I've taught my whole life, and so I taught Ayurveda. Once I started getting interested. I was working with Dr Ladd and Dr David Frawley in terms of the Ayurveda. And then pretty early on, I was asked to teach Ayurvedic nutrition different places. And at that time, the school here in Santa Fe was offering a polarity therapy training, and they were needing people to teach nutrition and the closest thing to Polarity Therapy, which was a vegetarian kind of diet, it's a special diet from Dr Randolph stone, was Ayurveda. And so I was invited to teach, and I became fascinated with what my students were doing. So the students had come from all over the country and from many different backgrounds. And polarity therapy is a combination of hands on healing. So it's it's hands on touch, and yet person's fully clothed, because it's working more with prana than it is with, you know, physical structure. It also includes a component of vegetarian diet that's four elements healing and also counseling, communication and some stretching postures. So the fact that it included these four elements, you know, of the body work, the food, the communication and the movement just really lured me in about the same time that I was teaching that and decided that I really would like to become a polarity therapist myself, Dr David Frawley, who's always been a kind friend and mentor, handed me secrets of Marma, which had just been published in India. And he and doctors Ranade and Lele had just put out the first book about Marma, you know, in English, as far as was we were knowing at the time, and that later came out as Ayurveda and marmotherapy here in the States, but I was just like, wow. And so I was doing private tutorial with Dr Frawley at the same time that I was finishing up my polarity therapy training, which was at EarthWise in Albuquerque, and it was a natural kind of combination in that polarity therapy works with two different points on the body, whatever points arise. And I'm going to do a little bit of a demo, if you're up for it to be able to harmonize flow. The idea is that if energy is stuck, there's more likely to be pain or stagnation, and if energy moves, then there's relief, more relaxation and more energy. It can be in terms of the coaches, you know, looking at the coaches, it's especially working with prana, Maya, Kosha, the energy kosher, and in that way, it's similar to, say, acupuncture, you know, or shiatsu, or some other kinds of energetic healing methods. I think the easiest thing, marmotherapy, as you say, marmotherapy is arisen from both Yoga and Ayurveda, and it literally means vulnerable. Marmotherapy works with a series of points in the body that they're almost like spring points of energy. So it's like the places where the energetic body meets the surface of the physical body. And so the wonderful thing about a Marmo point is that it can work on any of the five koshas levels. So it can be calming to the physical being, the energetic being, the emotional being, the mental or the sacred. And we don't have to necessarily think about, oh, this is where I want the healing to happen. It simply can go where it's needed. So combining polarity therapy and Marma therapy can be a potent way to be able to use self care or also to do hands on work. About half my practices is hands on table work the other half is working with people in terms of nutrition and shifting self care with Ayurveda. So to use a kind of a classical example, where in Ayurveda, marmachikit. So we would just use one point if, as you're listening to this, if you want to join us, you can rub your palms together and place both hands in the center of your chest. And this is a very potent Marma called sridhaya, the heart, and just take two, three deep breaths at your own pace, just noticing your body, noticing your hands touching your body and as you breathe in, just breathing kindness, breathing out anything you no longer need for your highest good, just simply breathing and noticing how you feel. Here, I've heard I relates to a lot of different functions within the body. But one of them is that this is the site of home side of Kapha. So in the ancient Ayurveda, this would be the place that Kapha was invited home. So we can invite our Kapha dosha home. Kapha wanders through all the cells, and yet it can come to rest in this place at this Marma point. Shadaya, so inviting. Kakaho, noticing how that feels and

when you feel ready to move on, you can we'll check in with the second single point, which is sliding your hands down to your navel. And if you like, you can even make a little sandwich of your body. You can leave one hand at the navel and the other at the waist, you know, right directly behind the navel, and noticing how. These two points feel. This is the home site of picha. So noticing how your hands feel, how your body feels here, taking a moment to just slow down and feel the space you so this Marwa, named after the navel Nabi, has a lot of different functions. It's a very key marmoni for digestion, absorption and elimination. It's also the home side of pitta, as I said. So as we just rest, sending kindness appreciation to Pitta dosha, you can invite Pitta home. Pitta will move through every cell, and yet she can also come home here, resting, relaxing, just gathering the energy as you hold this Marma point Nabi, You're inviting pit to home.

And then if you're ready, when you're ready, you can slide your right hand, whichever hand is on the back, down to the sacrum. So you're cradling you've got the heel of one hand at the sacrum. If that's comfortable, if it's in you, just bring both hands back to the front. But if it's comfortable, to cradle your sacrum with your fingertips heading toward the coccyx, and then the front hand goes halfway between the navel and the pubic bone to a Marmo point known as Basti. Basti literally means bladder. This Marmo point is also the home site of vata. So this particular hold with the rear hand at the sacrum and toward the coccyx is actually called Gouda, G, U, D, A, of the Marma. And Basti is the Marma at the front of the body, the lower abdomen, taking a few minutes to just breathe here, with kindness to vata, inviting vata home,

noticing how you Feel, just noticing what the quality of energy is here in vatas home site,

and we can just let that be for a moment. Just relax. Notice how you feel.

I got really interested in polyvagal theory a few years ago, and I've been really struck by how yoga therapy and marmotherapy and Polarity Therapy all really support, you know, that a balanced polyvagal system in particular, supporting the parasympathetic, ventral vagal and so this, you can kind of notice as as we move out of this, how your body feels. Michele, you did a great interview of back in end of September with Sarah Cruz, and she talked a lot of she it was a wonderful interview around Ayurveda, and she talked about different ways to calm vata, such as, you know, using oil. And this is another way to calm the doses, you know. So for people who are hands on, kinesthetic it can be very useful. I use marmotherapy, both in my office and also on Zoom, because, you know, we can talk people through, I can talk people through different protocols. I'd want to do one more, if we have time. That'd

Michele Lawrence  14:03  
be great. I'd love to reflect on the experience after we're done with all of them. Yeah.

Amadea Morningstar  14:08  
Or how about, do you want to say anything now about, well, two couple

Michele Lawrence  14:11  
things are arising for me in this moment. So from that little experience, if I were to give one word to describe how I feel from it, it would be settled. And yet, each of the three points were slightly different for the reasons that you kind of spoke to, but overall, there was a settling that occurred, which was really nice, and who doesn't need that right today, with so much that's going on that feels so unsettling. And then the other point is, you know, I'm familiar with the concept of Marma as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, in this world of yoga, if you will, for the last 2025, years. And so I understand these energetic points on the body, right? And how they are touch points into the subtle as you described, there's also something about the hands themselves, and I think about the practice of Mudra, for example, and how there's that component to using your own hands to stimulate or touch into marma points versus going to a practitioner. And so maybe you want to speak back to that for a moment if you felt like it, and then we can move into the other part of the experience.

Amadea Morningstar  15:38  
Yeah, definitely. I love those points. And there is, in fact, a large Marma in the palm of each hand called talaya. You know, the heart of the soul. And so when we place our palms anywhere on the body, it's like we're meeting one Marma point with another. The other kind of delightful thing, the thing that that is a little different about Marma that not everybody knows right off, is that that marmas, unlike acupuncture points, can have different sizes. So a Marma point can be very large, like can encompass the whole knee, or it can be a fairly small point, you know, between each finger, say, at the web of the fingers, and so there's an honoring of ourselves when we use Marma as self care. The other thing that I fleshed on as you were talking was that one way I got interested in yoga was because in Marma Ayurveda and Marma therapy, doctors Fraley Ranade and lay late make the point that yoga may have, in fact, in part, be created as a way to move energy through marmani. And that just made so much sense to me that we can even invite the doshas home through different poses, you know, through different asanas. And it's just being open to that.

Michele Lawrence  16:55  
Yeah, so true. Great. Thank you for sharing that

Amadea Morningstar  17:00  
the second kind of play that we might do with Marma has to do with a polarity therapy approach. And as I mentioned, polarity therapy works with two points or more at a time. And if you wanted to play with this, we'd be using some of the same points, but in a different way. Or if you So, if as you're listening, if you want to rub your palms together and gently place your right hand at the center of your chest and your left at the navel. You might relax your eyes or or have your eyelids just eyes be soft. And so you've got right hand at the chest, left at the navel, and taking two, three deep breaths at your own pace, noticing how this feels.

So as you rest your hands here, I'm just going to say that there's directional flows of energy, and the right hand is a sender and the left hand is a receiver. So part of what's happening here is that this particular hold can ground energy by sending energy from the chest to the belly. And you may or may not feel that it's just kind of notice how what this feels like for you, what your experience of this is right above the left. Then just shake out and you might stretch your shoulders, wiggle your fingers, brush your palms together again, same story, but reverse the hands So, right hand comes to the navel, left comes to the chest, two three breaths at your own pace, noticing how it feels to have the right hand at the navel and the left at the chest, Taking your breaths in opening to whatever's happening here. And

this is feel the same or different to you, whatever you're experiencing, this is just fine for you.

Now, with your eyes still closed, place your hands in whichever position feels most balancing and healing for you right now.

Great when you feel ready. Come on back. If. You happen to put your right hand above your left, it's a way to ground. This is particularly useful for both settling Pitta and vata, because both Pitta and vata have an upward flow of energy, whereas if you put your right hand below the left, there's an uplifting energy, which can be more useful for Kapha or for enlivening, or if you're feeling stagnant. So there's all sorts of in polarity. We'll use one hand at the periphery, one at the core, if we're wanting to invite energy in, you know, or the reverse. So there's all sorts of ways to be able to play with this, to meet the person where they are.

Michele Lawrence  20:40  
Yeah, I definitely experienced that. And since you can see me on the screen and they are just listening, you notice that probably that I moved my right hand back up top. And another way I experienced that was when the right hand was on the bottom, there was just more activation.

Amadea Morningstar  20:58  
Yeah, it's like, I have my own kind of shorthand for balancing Vata, Pitta and Kapha. And I think of things that are balancing for Kapha are going to be enlivening energy, whereas for Pitta needs creative expression, and vata needs safety and security. And that first hold the right above the left is going to be more calming and grounding, whereas there's going to be more enlivening in the right below the left.

Michele Lawrence  21:27  
I think we could talk just about that for the rest of the hour, and maybe we can at another time. I have do have some other questions for you today, but that was really lovely. And thanks for giving us that little taste of what it is that you do and and how it works. And to me, it really kind of helped pull some of the pieces together connect the dots a little bit between Marma and polarity and what you mean by those things. Although I still obviously don't know much about polarity therapy, and have a lot to learn there, but it gave me a little flavor. So thank you for that. So I would love if we can to go back in time to 1990 which is when you wrote the first book, which was the Ayurvedic cookbook, and I think you had a co author with you on that book, and then five years later, you put out Ayurvedic cooking for Westerners. But let's start back in 1990 when that Ayurvedic cookbook came out. And I I've seen that book around for a long time in the circles that I hang out in. I don't think I own a copy, but so it's been out there for a while. And I'm just kind of curious, was there much interest in demand in the subject back then and and how has the Western grasp of Ayurvedic cooking changed since then? I think back on the 90s, myself, and someone gave me a yoga book back then, and it was really weird, and that was yoga, right? So Ayurveda has always been, even like a little weirder than yoga. Before it all went mainstream, and that's just like my biased opinion. Maybe that's not a reflection of how other people think, but I'm just kind of curious, what was the interest back then? How has it changed since then? How have you noticed that change?

Amadea Morningstar  23:15  
And when you think about it, that's 35 years ago, yeah. So there's been a huge change. I mean, it's just there's been a burgeoning I mean, there's so many different cookbooks and classes and fabulous teachers and people really understand Ayurveda so much better at the time that I got interested in it. I was invited by Lotus press to do what I thought was going to be the yoga nutrition, because they put out a book called The Yoga verbs, and I was comfortable with that as somebody that had trained, you know, I had a bachelor of Sciences in nutrition, and that felt Yeah, but when they said, No, it's going to be, it's going to be a cookbook I love to cook. But I was like, oh my, you know. And at the same time, none of the different charts of food dynamics, what was warming or cooling, had been put out, and I felt a real sense of integrity around not wanting to mislead people. And so I read the classics a lot because I really wanted to have it be as authentic and true as possible. As I was working on it. I was also teaching back east summon. I met er Mila Desai because I was teaching at Kripalu, and she was there at the time, and she had put together a cookbook from West India, and she had me to dinner, you know, we started talking about collaborating, and it was really quite fun. And it was also difficult in that there was no internet. I was on a party line out in the country and outside of Santa Fe and we would mail things back and forth. But it was really exciting, because I was working, I had a private practice working therapeutically. It really mattered to me, like, all the stuff that I learned I could apply, you know, like, okay, so this would be helpful for ulcers, or this would be useful for settling someone's blood pressure, or so. So I was always thinking about food therapeutically. You know, that's always kind of been how I've worked. And so that first cookbook had a lot of herbs, had a lot of Indian recipes. And five years later, my family was, you know, if I gave them another pinch of cumin or coriander, they were going to leave. I thought, Well, how could I adapt this for people who aren't interested in Indian cuisine. We all adored it, and yet we were also looking like, Okay, if we were going to apply these same concepts of calming heat with cool or lightning something that's heavy, how could I do that in a Western way? And so those recipes in Ayurvedic cooking for Westerners are more things like, you know, like a light potato salad, or, you know, a veggie soup or, and both of them were received surprisingly well, you know, because nobody else had come out yet, and people were just like, Oh, boy. So I had fun writing them. And it was the same time my daughter had just been born as I was writing the first cookbook. And so there was this combination of, like, madly writing and then napping when she was napping,

Michele Lawrence  26:06  
yeah, so it was a different time. Wow, yeah. And I bet it was well received, because it gave people the power to do it at home, because there weren't that many places where you could get that served to you right, nor could you really learn it on your own otherwise. So yeah,

Amadea Morningstar  26:25  
it's been humbling, but even now, I still have people come up to me who found that cookbook and used it to help them heal. Yeah, it's just so wonderful to hear. Yeah,

Michele Lawrence  26:35  
that's great. Well, I'd like to now talk about the latest book and what brought you to put out a book entitled easy healing drinks from the wisdom of Ayurveda. And how do simple drinks, from an Ayurvedic perspective, contribute to a person's overall health and well being? I don't necessarily think about Ayurveda and drinks, right? So I want to learn more, though. Yeah.

Amadea Morningstar  27:03  
So the idea there was that smoothies had become so popular, and I was seeing all these different drinks out there that were just really horrifying food combinations, yes, digestion, absorption, elimination, and I thought, well, what if we were to combine things in a way that harmonizes digestion, you know. And Ayurveda is all about, you know, digestion being the the entry way for healing, for health. And so how can like, rather than like, one of the classic kind of things that appalls Ayurveda is like dairy and banana, you know, or like dairy and fruit and, you know, so many smoothies, you know, or yogurt and fruit. And I thought, Well, is there a way to be able to offer fun foods that digest well and at the same time are harmonious with Ayurvedic principles? And I'd never gotten to do a beautiful book before. Hey, Lynn, the my collaborator on that, the partner on that, is a wonderful photographer, and she did them all in natural light. And so it was really fun to be able to have something beautiful and natural and also simple, because I realized that some of the recipes in Ira cookbook, people wouldn't take the time to do anymore, you know. And so a lot of these recipes, yeah, you know.

Michele Lawrence  28:19  
Well, I even think about, like, some of the early vegetarian cookbooks, not even Ayurveda, but like, Moosewood, I remember having that cookbook, and, like, I don't have the time to cook like that anymore,

Amadea Morningstar  28:29  
yeah. And so it was a response to our current conditions. And a lot of the recipes take as little as five minutes or as much as 15 they're a lot of different I call some of them smoothies, which really they're hot soups. I have to confess,

Michele Lawrence  28:43  
I don't think you can put out a smoothie recipe and call it Ayurvedic.

Amadea Morningstar  28:49  
I could say a hot beets soup, you know. Yeah. So in terms of, like, one particular easy healing drink, would be artichoke Bay tea. So I'll use veggie teas. So you just simmer up. You know, you're going to simmer whatever veggie you like. In this case, artichokes with a bay leaf, and it needs to be organic, because you're going to be drinking the water. Artichokes are a great way to free the energy in the gallbladder, in the liver. So they're specifically therapeutic for moving energy through the liver and the gallbladder. You're just cooking your artichoke with one bay leaf. When it gets done, instead of tossing the water you're going to drink it. How does it taste? It's pretty tasty. It's, I would say it's like, I don't know if you know Bumi amalaki, but Bumi amalaki is an Ayurvedic herb that's does a lot of the same things, and artichoke Bay is more fun.

Michele Lawrence  29:46  
Yeah, yeah.

Amadea Morningstar  29:48  
There's like, sweet potato ginger tea, green Dino detox tea. So those are all kind of like the clear light sorts of teas. Then there's things that are more fun. There's like a vata classico, smooth. Which is, you know, like almond milk and banana and cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, the warmer cold, that one is a cool one, you know. But I would say one for autumn. I would say black sesame shake. So those last black sesame shake you soak overnight, a third of a cup of black sesame seeds, three tablespoons of hemp seeds, couple of cups of water, a pinch of salt. You drain it. When you get up in the morning, you add in fresh one and a quarter or so cup of water, a teaspoon to a tablespoon of honey and a quarter teaspoon of ground cardamom. You grind it up with either hot water if you want it warm or cool, if you want to cool, it's deeply rejuvenating. It's building for the bones. It's rich in calcium and iron, you know? And so that would be more of a grounding, fun kind

Michele Lawrence  30:51  
of thing, yeah, wow. I love it. Any other simple, easy healing drink you want to recommend for now, maybe kind of like an everyday type of drink, the everyday

Amadea Morningstar  31:05  
probably, I mean, it's maybe too boring, but I really like rosity, you know, for hydration. So that would be a really simple one that has fennel, flax seeds, Fenugreek and peppermint and ginger, especially as we're heading into winter, you know, in terms of heats, you know, it's a way to hydrate the tissues, but it's, it's good for all, all year round, in the autumn section, it's a four seasons book. And so there's, like, an apple spice smoothie. There's, you know, a pumpkin, a hot pumpkin drink, you know, it there's lots of different things to play.

Michele Lawrence  31:38  
Yeah? Fun. I can't wait to check it out. Yeah, thank you. So let's shift gears a little bit. And because you've been doing this for so long, really a pioneer, right? If you think about your cookbook in 1990 and how you blend these ancient traditions together with a modern understanding of health. I'm curious. Like, what do you see down the road? Like, how do you see the field of Ayurveda evolving into the future? And what role do you think yoga therapy plays in that evolution? Or how you know, together in separate just, where do you think this might be going?

Amadea Morningstar  32:19  
Yeah, I think that in some ways, we may be coming full circle. Because Ayurveda began as family lineages, you know, trusted recipes being passed on from one generation to the next in India. And then it went to a place of only the rajas having it, you know, the rich, you know, being able to afford the different therapies. There's some of that still, you know, and like, in order to be able to do something as wonderful as punch karma, you really need to have a fair number of resources, you like, I'll save, you know, for a punch karma, whereas I think that more and more we're heading for more and more people understanding Ayurvedic principles and applying them in their daily lives. So it's going to be again, more of a applying at home in your own home, I think that your podcast has done a great job of looking at how yoga therapy applies for now and also for the future. I went to an international association of yoga therapy conference back in Los Angeles and a number of years ago, and I just felt like I was at home. You know? It was like this giant cave, and there were all these yogis here, and I was just so delightful. And I see that there's really been a strong effort between IA YT and the National Ayurvedic Medical Association and sitar to be able to weave the knowledge. And we're all talking about the same energies and the same human bodies, and we're just supporting one another and being able to apply these in different ways. So I'm just very excited that there's going to be a continuing collaboration. It's been so cooperative and so exciting, you know. So I see it being more on the ground, more on the ground, and more and more popular.

Michele Lawrence  34:06  
I see it that way too, and I think there's like trends, if you want to call them that, or movements that are happening just in the world around us that make simple practices more accessible and beneficial for one's health, right? And being more accepted by modern mainstream medicine. And these simple practices are often, if not always, rooted in the ancient tradition. You know, whether it be getting sunlight first thing in the morning, good sleep hygiene, connecting with nature, right? Eating at certain times of the day, etc, etc, so,

Amadea Morningstar  34:49  
treating your body with respect. I mean, I think about the Datus, you know, the seven essential tissues of Ayurveda, and part of what's most nourishing for like reproductive tissue. You is respect and that oftentimes those aren't things that we think about from a Western medicine point of view, you know? So it's part of what I really appreciate about Ayurveda and yoga therapy. Yeah, I respect

Michele Lawrence  35:14  
that's beautiful. Thank you. I'd love to know more about your offerings too, what kind of trainings and recorded information you make available out there. I'll share the links in the show notes too, but I'd love to hear a bit about that from you.

Amadea Morningstar  35:30  
Yeah, that would be great. Michele, I have a YouTube channel, and on there is, will be one link for it's how to cut. It's a marmot protocol to calm the gut and also the nerves, and so that's something that people can do on their own. There's also, in my free offerings, on my website, there's an audio that oftentimes people will go to when they want to calm their guts down. It's just a half hour. They'll they'll follow through with the Marma. And I also do a course with seva Ayurveda. It's a short, three hour course that has three of my very favorite protocols that integrate Marma and polarity therapy. From an Ayurvedic perspective, we're moving from summer into autumn and winter, and I have a class called adapt recipes for autumn and winter. And again, it's a pre recorded you can take it at your own pace. And then, of course, easy healing drinks, you know, is on special right now, great.

Michele Lawrence  36:30  
I'll make sure we share that out as well. Thank you. Anything else you want to share with our listeners with regards to what you're working on, what's up for you now, what you know keeps you interested and sparks you a bit?

Amadea Morningstar  36:46  
Yeah, my practice is really important to me, and I have a Tibetan Buddhist practice. And clearly one of the values, not only in Tibetan Buddhism, but in many different spiritual practices, is do no harm. And so we're at a time in in the country and on the planet, where how I hold with my values and how I interact with the whole is I think about a lot, and I'm really working on bringing forward openness, and at the same time, how do I serve now and being honest with myself about what I can and can't do in that we're living in such huge times. I mean, the things that are changing now are changing so fast. And at the same time, from a point of view of yoga Aveda, we're all connected. What we do in any given minute is going to be impacting everyone, and so how we live our lives really matters. How I live my life, I'm I'm thinking in each moment. It's like, how do I meet this moment? You know, what is going to have value for everybody right this minute and at the same time feeling very small, you know, in terms of what any obvious impact can be, in another way, totally different kind of changing the gears. I was just given a book called The light eaters. I don't know if you've seen it. It's by Zoe Schlanger. She was a New York Times she's a New York Times writer, and it's about plant science. And it's like plants climbed out of the ocean like 500 million years ago, and they created this whole milieu that later we were able to benefit from. And it talks about a lot of the different sorts of things that the plants botany is in a place of really big shifts right now, and she does a great job of covering those changes as she communicates this, I really think about plants, you know. I've worked with plants my whole life in terms of the foods and the herbs, and yet also I live in the forest half time, you know, and I really rely on the plants to help me balance. And I started thinking, wow, the plants were here hundreds of millions of years before we were and to be able to respect them and make sure that they're a part of our environment feels especially important now. So I hadn't thought I know that for myself, being in the forest is calming, you know, and it's an antidepressant and anti anxiety, and yet it also makes me want to support accessibility to nature and respect for the plant kingdom for as many people who are as interested. That's kind of Yeah, the latest,

Michele Lawrence  39:41  
yeah, I love that. I'd love to sort of parlay that into how what your daily practices look like. So we always talk about that at the end of the podcast. I love to hear from different people how they are do this for themselves, right? Have their own practice first, I imagine if that's what's alive for. You right now that's reflected in how you live your day and what you revere and how you practice. So can you give us some insight into that?

Amadea Morningstar  40:09  
Yeah, absolutely. Plus, I also feel that the I really agree with you, Michele, in that spiritual practices is like the core reviving energy for whatever we're doing as yoga therapists or as polarity therapists, it's like, the better we know ourselves, you know, the deeper the practice, the deeper the therapy is going to be. So when I wake up, I take some breaths, you know, in terms of breathing in the hole. And there's a Qigong. Qigong is, I'm part of the Dree Kung Kagi lineage. It's a Tibetan lineage. And there's a particular teacher who was long past that, named Kemple mons Rinpoche, who taught at Qigong that is just being re emerging, kind of, and so I'll I'll do this Qigong just as I'm just getting up, and I'm just so glad that I'm getting a chance to be able to kind of both connect with this lineage and also be in the present moment. And then when I get to my mat, what I'll be doing is, is a simple yoga practice, or prostrations, or both. And then I'll, I'll go into a Tibetan practice. Oftentimes I'll do smoke offering. Smoke offering is like clearing energies for all sentient beings, including myself. And that's kind of like brushing my teeth. It's like, it's, it would be very hard for me to go into a day without any practice at all, because it really does that where I am. And I'm just grateful. I'm grateful that to Anandamaya Kosha, you know, and all my teachers in terms of just being able to open to amazing energies.

Michele Lawrence  41:51  
Well, thank you so much. It was a real delight to be in conversation with you, to meet you. I look forward to maybe coming down and meeting you in person at some point along the way too. So thank you so much.

Amadea Morningstar  42:04  
Definitely, such a delight to meet you.

Michele Lawrence  42:10  
Thanks again for listening. If you're interested to learn more about who we are and what we do, check us out at inner peace, yoga, therapy.com, you