Plant Ally: Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) Part eaten: leaf. Height: 1-3 ft. Spring and fall. Garlic mustard is my very favorite foraged green often replacing lettuce, kale, and other leafy vegetables in my diet. You can find it growing abundantly along wood edges, trails, and roadsides. This wild weed is considered by many to be an invasive species because it is not indigenous to North America and has root systems that interfere with some native plants. The best revenge? Eat it! Identify Garlic Mustard, which does not have any poisonous look-alikes, by it's palm-size heart-shaped leaves and by it's garlicky smell when you tear the leaf and rub it between your fingers. To harvest, simply pinch off the leaves from the stem with a sharp thumbnail. Although it's not actually a member of the garlic family, Alliaria's pungent taste is great in stir-fries, torn and tossed into salads, and as a basil substitute in pesto. Below is one of my favorite ways to use this lovely plant ally! Garlic Mustard Pesto 4 cloves of garlic 3 cups garlic mustard leaves, gently rinsed 1-1/2 cup low-sodium olives 2 cups walnuts or pine nuts 1/2 cup mellow miso paste 1-1/4 cups olive oil or as needed In a food processor combine the garlic, garlic mustard leaves, and olives. When those are blended nicely, add in the nuts and continue to mix. Pour in the olive oil, spoon in the miso paste, and process until you've created a smooth and spreadable pesto texture. This recipe will make about 3 delicious cups! As always, take care to practice the ethics of foraging by not harvesting more than 10% of the plant colonies, and never harvest more than what you'll use. For safety, it's best to have an experienced forager help you positively identify all plants before you set about gathering and eating them. The Pilates Method is much more than just a fitness regime; it is part of a broader philosophy that includes creator Joseph Pilates' thoughts on adequate sunshine, right livelihood, and even the types of furniture one should sit on. These philosophies will be the subject of an upcoming post, so today I will focus on the more familiar aspect of the his work, the physical practice. Originally called Contrology, Pilates is best described as a dynamic system of full-body exercises performed on a mat and on specially-designed equipment, created almost 100 years. Joseph Pilates' exercises help to integrate breathing, alignment and movement while uniformly toning your body's muscles. Using the resistance of springs and pulleys, or just gravity in Pilates mat practice, Pilates works to enhance your range of motion, improve your coordination, increase your flexibility, and build core strength. Joseph was born in 1883 in western Germany. His father, a native of Greece, was a competitive gymnast and his mother worked as a naturopathic doctor. From the time he was a young boy, Joseph suffered from rickets, asthma, and rheumatic fever. Determined to heal himself, he dedicated his entire life to improving his physical strength; his regime included skiing, body-building, yoga, martial arts, and gymnastics. He observed the movements of animals in the wild: their efficiency, freedom and natural range of motion, and came to believe that lack of movement, bad posture, and inefficient breathing lay at the roots of poor human health. During World War I, the British authorities interned him along with other German citizens in an internment camp, where he taught self-defense and wrestling. It was here that he began to intensively develop his concept of an integrated, comprehensive system of physical exercise, which he labelled "Contrology." It is said that the people he trained survived the 1918 flu pandemic due to their good physical shape. Later, attempting to aid soldiers who were injured and bed-ridden, he had the idea to take springs from their hospital beds and rig them to create resistance so they could recover by doing gentle corrective movements. Upon moving to New York City in 1925, he perfected these simple designs to create equipment such as The Reformer and Cadillac, which remain the mainstays of Pilates practice today. Watch a one-minute video of archival Pilates footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g3dPWBuOQ8 by Téana David Perhaps the most widely known aspect of the Pilates method has to do with what Joseph Pilates called 'the powerhouse.' The powerhouse includes all the layers of abdominals (rectus, tranversus, obliques), the deep back muscles, the gluteals and the upper inner thighs. With the right awareness and training, this group of core muscles acts as a pillar of support, underlying all of our movements so that more fragile areas like wrists and ankles are spared undue stress. All of our activities, whether it be tennis, yoga, or just climbing the stairs, become more precise and graceful with correct and consistent activation of the powerhouse. In working with a wide variety clients and seeing them progress over the years I have come to believe that waking up this area of the body - that is, learning how initiating movement from the core of our being - not only strengthens us physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. In Pilates we first learn how to stand on healthy, flexible feet by doing 'footwork' on the reformer, or perhaps standing footwork if we're on a mat. We then move up to core-based exercises like 'the hundred.' Learning to connect down through the legs and feet into the earth from an awakened powerhouse changes the way we move through space, impacting our exchanges with the world in healthy ways. If we look from Buddhist perspective, we can consider whether cultivating deep inner physical stability might also help us open our hearts and be more compassionate. Buddhist teacher Donald Rothberg has this to say, "I find that grounding in the body is very important for Metta practice (loving-kindness meditation) ... I know for myself, I could have a wide open heart and until I was more grounded in my body and connected to the earth, I could be very open and be knocked around a lot ... there's something about that grounding and centering that's very crucial. So you might find that by really emphasizing awareness of the body, maybe a body practice like yoga or QiGong, you can find ways to develop that center... We're really looking to find that sense of groundedness and connection, so there can be some stability when the heart is really affected." In the Japanese martial art of Aikido, we talk about initiating movement from the hara. In Chinese forms such as Tai Chi and QiGong, it's known as the dan t'ien. The Pilates powerhouse may be more of a musculoskeletal-skeletal understanding of our centers, but over time it translates into an energetic awareness as well. Donald's words echo and articulate my findings: it is only by becoming deeply secure in our bodies that we become courageous and available to our fellow humans beings. Our stability allows for accessibility. Listen to DonaldRothberg's entire talk about Metta practice here: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/55/talk/25349/ |
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