cleanse
How to Create Your Own Sacred Halloween Ritual Webinar October 2024
How to Create Your Own Sacred Halloween Ritual Webinar
with The Shakti School and Katie Silcox
Ayurveda Fall Cleanse Guide Webinar September 2024
Ayurveda Fall Cleanse Guide Webinar
with The Shakti School and Katie Silcox
Subtly Sweet Harvest Muffins
~sweeter foods are a reminder of the sweetness of life~
Craving more sweets this fall? A vata-pacifying diet actually calls for more sweet (madhura) taste. Beyond being comforting, soul-hugging and grounding, the sweet taste pacifies vata, invigorates the mind, strengthens the immune system, nourishes body tissues and enhances the ojas. Satisfy your sweet taste with these yummy fall muffins crafted from whole grains, a good dose of vata-pacifying spices and some orchard-fresh apples!
Gluten-free Buckwheat Muffins with Apples & Walnuts
Dry ingredients: ½ cup crushed walnuts; 1 cup almond flour; ½ cup buckwheat flour; ⅓ cup ground flax seed; 1 tsp each powdered ginger, cinnamon & salt; ¼ tsp each nutmeg, cardamom & allspice; ½ tsp each of baking powder & baking soda
Wet ingredients: ½ cup coconut oil, ½ cup maple syrup, 3 eggs, ⅓ cup non-dairy yogurt, ¼ cup nut milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 finely diced apples (medium-sized)
Instructions: Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix wet ingredients, including apples. Add wet to dry and mix well. Spoon mixture into greased muffin tin and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Pair a freshly baked muffin with a nourishing cup of Golden Yogini Milk or another Shakti-infused recipe.
Tips for Autumn Thriving and Lovin’ on Your Liver
Just… WHEW! As we shift from summer’s on-the-go intensity to the calmer, more introspective winter months, let’s pause and take a cleansing breath, shall we? 🙏🙏🙏
Change is in the air, and we’re in that blurry space between summer and fall. During this time of flux, you might experience Mamma Earth’s seasonal changes in yourself: dry leaves = dry skin; windy weather = gassy belly; swirling, erratic leaves = scattered mind; naked trees = raw, exposed feelings. ⚡POW!⚡
Repeat after me: Grounding. Warming. Routine. Release. That’s my autumn mantra for vata-balancing goodness.
⭐Grounding: Rather than maintaining the activity of summer, now’s the time to slow down and adopt different rhythms. Savor simplicity and cultivate balance in the stillness. Stabilize your mind with rhythmic breathing and leave space in your day to rest and reflect. During your yoga practice, try less postures with longer breaths.
⭐Warming: Introduce vata-based nutrition: root vegetables like carrots, potatoes and beets; soups and broths; and late-summer harvested apples and pears. Lube your skin with oil massages, take a bath with ginger powder and use warming essential oils like geranium, mahanarayan and vetiver.
⭐Routine: Make conscious effort to stick to your daily routines of sleep, work, exercise and eating. Routine is always a good idea, especially during fall when erratic vata can knock you off balance.
⭐Release: Autumn invites time to pause and reflect on what is holding you back from reaching your life’s true dharma and purpose. Just as the leaves eventually release and let go this season, YOU TOO can release what is not serving you. ❤️
Cleanse Your Liver with Ease this Fall
~give your liver some lovin’~
Ode to the liver! As our body’s primary detoxifying powerhouse, we want to keep our livers in tip-top shape. 🎺Enter a liver detox!🎺 Before vata can take over this fall, help your body get rid of old pitta heat accumulated over the summer. A simple liver detox will help you restore and enhance liver functionality, boost your immune system and prep your body for the winter ahead.
✨Limit caffeine, alcohol, sugar and dairy and swap excess fats and proteins for more vegetables, bitter greens, aloe vera, rice and berries.
✨Eat lighter, smaller portions (broth-based soups are great!) Steam or lightly saute your foods.
✨Prioritize your Zzzzz’s. Liver detoxification happens during sleeping hours.
✨Your liver is a hotpot of emotions. Quiet your mind with meditation, pranayama and yoga.
✨Add herbs that support a liver cleanse: bhumyamalaki, kutki, guduchi, amla + turmeric.
✨Cleanse your colon. Yes, really. Your colon is home to the vata dosha and a therapeutic enema (basti) can be a powerful step in cleansing toxins and buildup.
✨If you’re seeking a more in-depth, traditional Ayurvedic cleanse this fall, get started with Katie’s kitchari recipe!
Hot Girl Summer! ☀ Cool & Fun Tips to Stay Balanced this Season
Isn’t summer just the best? Sandy toes👣 and sun-kissed glows☀️. Farmers’ markets and scents of jasmine, rose and honeysuckle wafting through the air. I don’t know about you, but I CRAVE summer – it means road trips, BBQs, outdoor concerts, barefoot walks and quality time with friends and friends.
Full stop.
What I don’t crave is summer’s annoying skin rashes, hot flashes and indigestion, or feeling hangry, impatient and leave-me-alone frustrated. Sound familiar? Yeah, total hogwash!
As fiery pitta 🔥 builds and the earth gets uncomfy, humid and hot, so do we! And, I don’t mean in a cute, “lightly flushed + glowing” way… No, I’m talking full-on hot, angry face. 🥵 So how do we keep pitta at bay and actually enjoy summertime?
Easy! Ayurveda tells us how to cool our jets so we’re not walking around red-faced and moody all season – generally, stay hydrated, eat a summer diet and prioritize SELF-CARE. ((Good news! Ayurveda permits napping during the summer months! So allow yourself to take a conscious rest or siesta when the afternoon slump hits.))
Hey, speaking of self-care, summer is the perfect time to unleash your sensual goddess and get your sexy on, girl – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. More on that later…
To help you beat the heat, stay mellow and enjoy summer’s sun-drenched days, I’m sharing some essential pitta lifestyle tips (SPOILER: yummy DIY recipes + HOT hints on how to rediscover your sensual self.) Get ready to roll with the heat by priming your body and soul for the season! Onward…
Katie’s 10 Favorite Pitta-Pacifying Foods
~foods that cool your body + calm your mood~
A pitta-pacifying diet includes heaps of hydrating, fresh seasonal produce that have cooling energies. During summer, it’s best to favor sweet, bitter and astringent tastes and reduce salty and pungent tastes. Here’s what you can always find in my kitchen during the summer months.
✨ Aloe Vera
✨ blueberries
✨ cucumber
✨ coconut (coconut water with slices of lime - yum!)
✨ leafy greens: radicchio, watercress, arugula, spinach
✨ turmeric
✨ stone fruits: peaches, pears, apricots
✨ melons: cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon
✨ mint, cilantro, basil, coriander
✨ beets
Sexy, Sassy Summer
~celebrate your divine sexual energy~
Balmy nights, bare legs, sun-kissed skin – summer is an oh’ so SEXY season, isn’t it? Connecting to your physical and energetic sexual centers is key to boosting your vitality and should be an area that is nurtured and attended to regularly. This summer (heck, anytime!!), I want you to tap into the HOT sensual goddess that you are and rediscover your feminine magic.
Try a few of these tips to reconnect with your sexual prowess… or have fun with a partner.
💋 Light up your libido with a sensual photoshoot. No, really. Grab your sexy boy shorts, summery lingerie or go a la’ nude. Keep the photos to yourself to gawk at or share with another!
💋 Cultivate self-love. Stand in front of a mirror and note all of the intricate details you love about your body. Say them OUT LOUD, lady! You are special and deserve to hear it.
💋 Let loose your inner Beyoncé! Move your hips through dance to ignite your sexual energy. Your hips, located at your second chakra, are linked to your sexuality and pleasure.
💋 Go skinny dipping and relish the erotic feel and freedom of water on your bare skin.
💋 Write yourself love affirmations: I am desire. I am sexy. I am magnetic. Yes. You. Are!
💋 Try this meditation for building and healing sexual energy.
💋 Share a chilly treat with your bae – chocolate-dipped strawberries, ice cubes, whipped cream, need I say more?
💋 Incorporate intimate acts of deep connection with your partner, such as massage, talking, walking hand-in-hand, long hugs, kind words or simply gazing at one another. Pleasure is a journey, not a destination!
💋 Get busy! Wild and spontaneous or soft and sensual – sex is a magical and beautiful part of life. During summer, the body’s ojas are not up to optimal levels and sexual frequency may be reduced (but hey, you do you).
✨For more deep real-talk on sex, spirit and shakti-infused self-care,✨
subscribe to Katie’s Spirit Sessions podcast.
Skin That’s Good Enough to Eat
~homemade scrub for dewy, glowing skin~
Keep your skin cool, smooth and lickable with a DIY body scrub. Whip up this super-simple scrub using coconut oil (one of Ayurveda’s best pitta-pacifying ingredients), brown sugar and your favorite pitta-balancing essential oil. Ready to get your sexy back?
🥥Sugar Scrub for Sooth, Supple Skin
- ¼ to 1 cup coconut oil
- 2 cups brown sugar or any organic sugar
- 10-15 drops of essential oil
- Mix oil & sugar until creamy
- Add essential oil while stirring
- Add remaining sugar until you reach desired consistency
Katie’s favorite cooling oils to calm fiery pitta: Jasmine, rose, chamomile, geranium
honeysuckle and sandalwood. Choose one or mix and match!
Cooling Blends for Sultry Days
~kick back with a refreshing cuppa~
A scorching summer day = cooling off poolside with a citrusy, refreshing drink in hand, am I right? Before reaching for a margarita, cue da herbs! Our plant companions (like, mint) can help us beat the heat while supporting our constitutional balance. And, it’s yummy! Mix up this delicious, totally guilt-free Ayurvedic-inspired limeade and get outdoors to kick back.
🥒Cooling Cucumber Mint Limeade
- 1 cucumber
- 3 limes
- 1-2 sprigs of mint
- Honey or agave to taste (optional)
- Peel & cube cucumbers, removing seeds if needed
- Put cucumbers, juice of limes, mint, sweetener of your choice & 4 cups water into blender
- Blend until smooth & sip away
- Drink at room temp to allow the herbs to naturally bring down your agni
✨For more tasty recipes, visit Katie’s blog! ✨
Frayed Nerves? Try Sitali Breath!
~pacify the building heat in your body~
Sitali Pranayama, “the cooling breath,” is my absolute go-to yogic breathing exercise during summer. It helps lower our body’s temp, calm our nerves, take the edge off hunger pangs, and reduces fatigue, fevers and high blood pressure. It’s a super easy practice and will leave you feeling renewed, refreshed and energized. Here’s the deets!
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
- Sit in a comfortable position with your head, neck and spine in alignment
- Close your eyes, breathe consciously for several minutes
- Form the lips into an “o,” curl your tongue lengthwise and project it out of the mouth
- Inhale deeply through your tongue as if drinking through a straw
- Focus your attention on the cool breath across your tongue as you fill up your diaphragm
- Bring your tongue into your mouth and exhale slowly through your nose
- Start with 2-5 minutes of Sitali breath and increase to 10 minutes over time
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Not a tongue curler? 🙋No worries - lots of people aren’t! You can get the same results with Sitkari.
- Sit in a comfortable position with your head, neck and spine in alignment
- Close your eyes, breathe consciously for several minutes
- Press your lower and upper teeth together, and separate your lips so your teeth are exposed
- As you inhale slowly through your teeth, focus on the sound of the breath and the sensation
of the air on your teeth
- Close your mouth and exhale slowly through your nose
- Repeat Sitkari breath for 2-5 minutes and increase to 10 minutes over time
🙏 Finish with several minutes of meditation to notice the sensations throughout your body. 🙏
I hope that my recommendations assist you on your journey this season. I wish you the most balanced summer in your being.
Love yourself. Enjoy yourself.
Parsley Magic, Moon Gazing and Dream Yoga – Yes, Please!
As the spring equinox arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, we shed the cold, dry, dark of winter to welcome spring’s 🌼 blessings🌷— rejuvenation and rebirth, promising seeds and unfurling leaves, euphoric birdsongs and glorious blue skies.
I hope this finds you dancin’ into spring with joy in your mind, body and spirit.
Or… maybe spring is kinda kickin’ your booty!
While the transition of vata to kapha season brings incredible abundance and beauty, this rtu sandhi (seasonal juncture) can carry with it an intensity that’s as challenging as it is euphoric.
Just as nature is thawing and cleansing the toxins and heaviness accumulated during winter, so are our bodies. And, not every sexy goddess’s body moves gracefully into new phases of the year. Mine included!
You may feel unbalanced, lethargic and blah as your body pushes out of hibernation mode to make room for the lightness of spring. Allergies, congestion and colds are common. And, with the rise in spring’s water element, your emotions (hello, anxiety!) can feel OUT OF CONTROL.
Sound familiar? Spring can be darn HARD on your body, y’all.
My dear friend, use this time of dynamic renewal to tune DEEPLY into yourself. Observe the exuberance of spring, and enjoy this sense of thawing and awakening. Set judgment aside to breathe deeply, turn your face to the sun and receive the melody of nature with open arms.
I’m excited to share our April content to help guide you in seeking harmony and balance with kapha this spring. This month’s newsletter offers some simple Ayurvedic wisdom — like sipping parsley water and meditating by moonlight — to help you get the wellbeing you crave.
P.S. I’m thrilled to announce that my second book, Holy, is set to be released in Fall 2023. Look forward to a spirit-infused, sensual guide on how to connect with and 💗love your body.
Reduce the Springtime Imbalance of Kapha on Your Body
~gentle, time-tested methods for resetting~
Come kapha season, receive the abundance of spring with your fullest self by bringing balance to your internal systems with Ayurveda activities, spring diet and self-care rituals.
✨ Wake up with the sun
✨ Get outside for a walk, reconnect with nature as it
flourishes
✨ Eat your largest meal at noon when your digestive
fire🔥 is strongest
✨ Consume less meat and dairy
✨ Eat light, easy-to-digest foods: broth-based soups and
whole grains like amaranth, millet, buckwheat
✨ Favor foods that are bitter, pungent, and astringent:
lemon, dark leafy greens, chilis, mung beans, radishes
✨ Use spices and herbs: cayenne, ginger, turmeric,
black pepper, fennel, parsley, nettle
✨ Protect your immune system with 🌿parsley water🌿
(yes, parsley offers extraordinary health benefits!!)
✨ Indulge in garshana (dry brushing)
✨ Cleanse a cluttered mind by journaling
✨ Be playful, dance, invite newness and freshness into
your daily routine
Click here for more Shakti School wisdom on how to clear away kapha this spring.
Parsley is Spring Magic
~power up your health and immune strength with parsley~
I love 🌿parsley🌿. It’s the perfect spring herb. With several times the vitamin C of citrus and packed with flavonoids, chlorophyll, calcium, vitamins A, K and E, sodium, magnesium, iron, and loads of other minerals, nutrients and antioxidants, parsley is a powerful source of nutrition with incredible medicinal potency.
This potent, bitter wonder herb improves digestion, reduces inflammation, controls blood sugar and helps dry excess mucus. And, parsley’s magical green goodness can improve liver, bladder and kidney health by promoting urination, reducing urinary infections, and treating kidney and bladder stones. Yep, all of that and more!
Plus, come springtime, parsley helps drain excess kapha by flushing out winter’s heaviness and toxins — ‘cause, we all overindulged a little this winter, right?
I’m excited to share a super cleansing parsley water recipe from my friends at Blue Sage Ayurveda. It’s easy to make and crazy affordable… like $2 a day!
Click here for my simple parsley remedy and to listen to my Spirit Sessions Ep. 102 Parsley is Spring Magic podcast.
✨For more deep real-talk on sex, spirit and shakti-infused self-care,✨
subscribe to Katie’s Spirit Sessions podcast.
It’s Time To Start Moon Gazing
~add this mind-body practice to your spiritual routine~
Did you know that lifting your gaze to the moon can calm an anxious mind, reduce anger and irritation, and soothe inflammation? I was recently featured in InStyle Magazine, sharing how the timeless practice of moon gazing has been used for healing all over the globe.
Moon gazing is simply soaking in the calming energy and effusive glow of our celestial gift.
The moon’s liquid-like energy is feminine in nature and has long been associated with women’s health, vitality and spiritual wellbeing. Basking in the moonlight cleanses, replenishes and EMPOWERS our Divine Feminine force. And, it activates our sex and bonding hormones, too!
By incorporating moon gazing into your practice, you can add a level of internal peace that transcends what you achieve with your regular meditation routine. With the promise of warmer evenings ahead, why not schedule intentional time with the Earth and cosmos?
How to meditate while moon gazing:
✨Go outside and sit or lie down where you can see the moon. Connect to your breath as you softly let your eyes move to the moon’s light and shape.
✨Gaze at the moon as an object of meditation. Become curious about its shape and contours as if you were observing something you really loved.
✨As you breathe and observe, begin to gently pull the cooling qualities of the moonlight into you, filling your body with this healing light.
Check out the full InStyle article on moon gazing. Then head outside and soak in the silvery energy of this benevolent light source. Let me know how it goes!
Katie’s Spring Time Ice Cream
Katie’s Spring Time Ice Cream
“Oh my horror of Ayurveda horrors! Ice cream in the spring is a big no-no Katie Silcox!”
Yes, yes. But you still wanna’ eat it, right?
You, see I don’t believe in dogmatic Ayurveda food rules. (I ditched all fundamentalism a few years ago :-))
But what I DO think is really cool is using the principles of Ayurveda and the seasons to adapt and work with my cravings and desires. Ice cream in the spring included.
So, how do I do that in the spring? In this season there is a domination in the heavy, wet and unctuous qualities. And what’s so weird about imbalances in our system is that when we have imbalance, we will often crave things that are exactly the opposite of what we need.
Which is why, before I got way healthier, I craved lounging about with an ice cream bowl on my belly exactly in the Kapha season.
End result - mucous, sad-face, lethargy and a lack of getting s%$t done.
So, my hot little healer-woman, here’s a GREAT spring ice cream replacement that will totally douse your cravings, but also keep Kapha at bay.
It’s fruit-only sugar. A powerful protein and healthy-fat punch. As well as chock full of mind-tonic herbs that will keep you sharp all day. The secret ingredient is that it replaces the dairy of ice cream, which is super heavy and mucus producing with a wonderful Kapha-reducing replacement. Cauliflower! And I don’t even like cauliflower.
Give it to me, Silcox:
2 cups frozen cauliflower
One cup frozen blueberries
One scoop of any good bone broth protein. My favorite is this chocolate kind from Ancient Nutrition.
One scoop Anima Mundi Qi Energy powder
One scoop Anima Mundi Shroom mocha milk
Add in 1/2 tsp ginger, cinnamon cardamom to spice it up and further reduce the kapha
2 cups water- add a bit more if needed
Blend in a blender til’ creamy smooth.