Before my son Henry flew back to Minnesota last week, I took him out shopping for vitamins. \u00a0Last winter, temperatures on his campus routinely dipped below zero; by the time he came home for Christmas break he’d had a nasty cold for two weeks.<\/p>\n
Like every other parent of a child who’s living in a dormitory this flu season, I’m worried, and determined to do all the immune-system building that my sons will allow. \u00a0By the time I’d bought everything on my list of must-have supplements, vitamins, and homeopathic remedies, we’d spent over a hundred dollars on prevention and put together quite a good portable pharmacy for him to lug back to school. \u00a0Driving home from the health food store, I swallowed hard a couple of times and suddenly realized: I was the one feeling sick.<\/p>\n
As soon as Henry left for the airport, I went back to the store and stocked up on vitamins and remedies for myself. \u00a0It’s been over five years since I’ve suffered so much as a sniffle, so I didn’t expect much to come of this, but the film crew was due on Sunday, and I knew I needed to be in good form. \u00a0I made it through the taping, the afternoon of socializing, the clean-up. \u00a0And on Monday I crashed, hard.<\/p>\n
Now it’s Friday afternoon, and I still don’t have a voice. \u00a0The bug that’s got me seems to have stripped my vocal chords on its way to settling deep into my chest. \u00a0Fortunately, I didn’t have much scheduled for this week, and I cancelled the rest. \u00a0After two months of running around, visiting bookstores, talking on the phone, and checking things off my to-do list, I stopped. \u00a0I stopped moving and I stopped talking. I stopped calling people and stopped answering the phone. \u00a0Instead, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants, wool socks, and my fuzzy old gray fleece. \u00a0I brewed up a gallon of yogi tea on top of the stove. \u00a0Then I settled into the couch, picked up a friend’s manuscript I’d promised to read, and gave in to the quiet.<\/p>\n
It occurs to me that the last two months have been like one long exhalation–of energy, intention, and fun. This week, my body quite effectively said, “enough is enough.” \u00a0It’s let me know that the time has come to be still, and to take a good, deep breath in. \u00a0We turned the clocks back last Sunday, and darkness comes now at five. \u00a0The leaves have fallen, the garden is cut back, done for this year. The turning of the season, from fall to winter, brings its own kind of quiet. \u00a0The full moon lingered this week in a clear, cold sky. \u00a0The nights feel long; the days, abbreviated. \u00a0Each morning, I step outside and fill the bird feeder with sunflower seeds, while the chickadees and woodpeckers and titmice flit back and forth from stonewall to tree, eagerly awaiting their turns at the breakfast buffet. \u00a0The birds can’t afford to slack off. \u00a0As for me, though, I am grateful for the stack of good books on the table, the empty space on the calendar, this time to regroup. \u00a0There is a time for silence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yogi Tea<\/strong><\/p>\n I learned how to make this delicious tea from my Kundalini yoga teacher, who prepares it according to Yogi Bhajan’s instructions. \u00a0Here is the original recipe. \u00a0I brew mine strong, and let it steep for a long time for maximum intensity, then strain it into jars to store in the fridge, and heat up just one cup at a time, adding almond milk and raw honey to each individual cup as I go.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n **Milk helps to ease the shock of the spiciness on the stomach and intestines so drink with milk if you\u2019re sensitive. \u00a0<\/em>Note: for a stronger tea you can let the spices sit and sink to the bottom. If the tea gets really strong you can cut it with more milk or reconstitute with a little water.<\/em><\/p>\n As the story has been told, when Yogi Bhajan was a military commander in India there was an epidemic among the troops. He ordered all of his men to fill their canteens with yogi tea and drink nothing else, not even water. His battalion was the only unit that didn\u2019t get sick. It is said that yogi tea purifies the blood, lungs and circulatory system and has many more unseen benefits. \u00a0I do know that it lifts the spirits. I’ve gotten into the habit of drinking this tea every day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before my son Henry flew back to Minnesota last week, I took him out shopping for vitamins. \u00a0Last winter, temperatures on his campus routinely dipped below zero; by the time he came home for Christmas break he’d had a nasty cold for two weeks. Like every other parent of a child who’s living in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,5,35,40,8,10,13,14],"tags":[263,324,352,375,378,480],"class_list":{"0":"post-171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healing","8":"category-hearth-home","9":"category-letting-go","10":"category-mindfulness","11":"category-parenting","12":"category-parenting-teens","13":"category-recipes","14":"category-soul-work","15":"tag-letting-go-2","16":"tag-parenting-2","17":"tag-recipes-2","18":"tag-silence","19":"tag-slowing-down","20":"tag-yogi-tea","21":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
1 Gallon Water<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
30 cloves<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
30 whole green cardamon pods<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
30 whole black peppercorns<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
1 lg finger of fresh ginger, thinly sliced<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
5 sticks cinnamon<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
1 teabag, Black Tea<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
*Milk and Honey to taste (*optional)<\/ul>\n
\n