To be a Pioneer in my world of Ayurveda, the many facets of the science are revealed as a part of daily life.  We get together every few weeks to share our insights, our research, and our understanding of this beneficial and complex way of going about the maintenance of our health, our aging, our relationships, our eating choices, and all with good humor and friendship.

Each Pioneer begins with a private consultation. Many times the consult will be attended by a husband of another other with whom we share bed, board, marriage, or friendship. We look at the big picture of Ayurvedic wisdom and then we related it to our own basic nature and constitution.  Doshas are considered as not one single category, but as part of a very unique and ever-changing set of emotional, physical, intellectual, and psychological properties.

We look at simple occurrences such as the weather, the time of day, the time of year.  We convo about sleeplessness, about dry skin, about minor maladies, about our yoga and meditation practices, and so it goes on and on.

The basics, shown here, are represented by our daily diets, the food we choose that balances us or brings about imbalance, no matter how good it feels to be indulgent. Therapeutic oils and the neti pot  are tools that have taken on great meaning to us in solving annoying little problems such as sinus infections and insomnia. We have met in an organic grocery store where we could go through recipes and explore new tastes. For example, the ancient grains of millet, quinoa, and a zillion varieties of rice bring new zest to menu planning.  The cleansing practices ( called Dinacarya in the Ayurvedic Sanskrit alphabet ) are slow to be adopted without a group meeting where we explore the options of foot massage and the way to use a neti pot without any sign of choking.

Field trips are a lot of fun.   We were hosted by an Amish farmer who gave us a tour of his fields and of his non-mechanical flour milling equipment.   We saw the difference between the agriculture developed with heritage grains and then modified to the current practices of growing wheat and rye. When we saw what has happened with the modification of wheat, early in the 20th century, we understood why our bodies resist adoption of that ancient form of protein.  We were truly in awe of the work ethic of the farmer who gets help from all of his relatives to plow, harvest, and process grain from seed to flour.  This spring we will visit a farm where medicinal herbs and flowers are organically grown and captured for market. No doubt we will plunge into the work of it and spend a day understanding how those little seedlings become beautiful flowering plants.

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