Ayurveda in the Garden

Almost 150 years ago, the explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley hired a large company of porters to carry his equipment and forge a path through the African jungle. He was in a hurry to find the legendary Dr. Livingstone, so he pushed aggressively ahead—until one morning, when his porters sat down under a tree and refused to continue. Stanley begged, cajoled, demanded, threatened, but they wouldn’t budge. Finally, one of their elders explained, “We need to sit now and wait for our souls to catch up.”

In a world that is endlessly cyclical, persistently dynamic, with time constantly marching on, how do we actually let our souls catch up?

Ayurveda, the ancient natural science of health, healing, and wellness, reminds us that we live in a world where everything is moving, everything exists in rotations and repetitions that create patterns. The Earth’s axial rotation causes day and night, the sun and the moon determine the seasons and the tides. That whirl of time cannot be stopped. There is no button for “pause.”

What can give us that sense of pause is to move in rhythm with nature: to align with the course of the cosmos. There is no better time to synchronize with the rhythms of our cosmos than in late spring, when the buds of May announce not only the bloom of summer but also the fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and herbs that are nature’s nourishment to come.

What’s in Season

Artichokes, asparagus, avocados, beets, broccoli, grapefruit, kumquats, Meyer lemons, blood oranges, tangelos, mandarins, carrots, chard, dates, fava beans, fennel, green garlic, leeks, kale, spinach, lettuces, mustard greens, new potatoes, nettles, English peas, snap peas, pea shoots, pea tendrils, radicchio, radishes, rapini, spring onions, shallots, bean sprouts, strawberries, watercress.

Ayurvedically speaking, the edible wild greens of spring are especially balancing for the season. Bitter, pungent, and detoxifying, they include dandelion greens, purslane, ramps, sorrel, lamb’s quarters, chickweed, chicory, shepherd’s purse, escarole, fiddleheads, wild prickly lettuce, mâche, nettles, frisée, sour grass, and onion grass. Sample some of these spring greens, freshly picked and still moist, and you might be surprised by the peppery pungency that punches forth from their refreshing lightness.

Loaded with fiber, leafy greens like mustard greens, spinach, and kale act like industrial scrub brushes to aid your body in its housecleaning and repair. Full of chlorophyll, dark leafy greens will help release toxins from your body, while stimulating cellular intelligence and improving your energy. Spring peas freshly picked are crisp little packets of protein.

From the darling buds to the roots and shoots, food grown in your own garden tastes better. Not only are you able to control what goes into it, but there is nothing fresher and more satisfying than food you harvest minutes before preparing your meal.

Rising from the Compost

A part of my daily spiritual practice is what I call “feeding my worms.” It has taught me much about life, including that soil is ready for the garden when the unpleasant smell disappears, and it crumbles in your hand. That teaches me patience. Like soil, the soul has its time, and time will restore its sweetness and manageability.

Composting gives me many surprises. One of them is the cilantro that rises as one of the first gifts of spring. It grows up in thin bunches in random spots. I am not really sure where they come from, other than from the whole coriander seeds in my tea, which might have ended up on a compost pile with some life left in them.

Whatever the cause, the delight is in the unexpected. The way life resumes. Insists. Returns. And keeps returning. Even without our help, or expectation.