Dearest friend

What is well planted cannot be uprooted.......
Cultivate virtue in your own person and it becomes part of you.
Cultivate it in the family and it will abide.
Cultivate it in the community and it will live and grow.
Cultivate it in the state and it will flourish abundantly.
Cultivate it in the world and it will become universal.
- Tao Te Ching

 We have recently been enjoying the abundance of the garden. There is just nothing like picking, preparing and eating from your own yard. The swiss chard is dreamy and the lettuce greens delicious. This weekend we had our first artichokes, one of my favorites. Now, I am not even for a second going to pretend that I am the farmer in the family. Tyler is the one that makes the food magically appear in the backyard. I have watched his learning curve of tending to the soil. The soil (and sunlight) is the key to what we can cultivate. It requires a careful recipe of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to make a garden produce food. He is constantly working with the soil, learning the seasons, what works and what doesn't. Too much chicken poop and the plants will grow leafy but will not yield food. Too much phosphorous and we have little dwarf plants with fruits. When the soil is balanced the food is bountiful. What do we cultivate our lives and prepare our personal soil? 
 
My good friend Arun Deva teaches to cultivate Sattva. This is the quality of clarity, harmony, contentment, and peace. We do this with lifestyle choices, daily practices, and diets that encourage Sattva in our hearts, minds, and bodies. The other two options we can cultivate are Rajas (movement, activity, passion, and energy) or Tamas (inertia, dullness, lethargy, and chaos). What and who we surround ourselves with, the quality of food we ingest and the amount of gratitude we have all have an impact on our personal cultivation. Spring is about growth and starting anew. Take advantage of this season of renewal to nurture activities and that keeps you in a place of Sattva. 
 
Maharishi Patanjali advises in the Yoga Sutras "When Disturbed by Negative Thoughts, Opposite or Positive Ones should be Thought of. " It sounds simple right? But how many times do you find yourself in a repetitive thought process that is not cultivating clarity, harmony, and peace (Sattva)? Thoughts lead to feelings which yield emotions followed by desires ending with actions. If we can catch negative thoughts in the first stage of this process, we can change the outcome. We do not need to fall into dullness or hyperactivity. Consciously turning the direction, we begin to cultivate more peace. Interpreting the Tao Te Ching with a Vedic twist: our Sattvic state will extend to family, community, state, and the world.
 
Happy Spring from my heart to yours.