The Common Ground ~ Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

As our calendars roll to April, the light returns and we sense our energy beginning to stir upward from the deep nurturing slumber of colder darker months. Outside, the sap rises back into circulation, tender green shoots burst through the warming earth, and buds swell on their limbering branches. Regardless of modern culture’s seeming determination to veil it, spring time elicits a nearly universal connection to our existence in the greater natural cycle. We too feel an instinctive enthusiasm for cleansing and making new. We yearn to transform our lives, our closets, our bodies, our diets, our jobs, our relationships, our intentions – inviting them out of a state of inward hibernation and into a phase of outward new growth and action.

Much can be gained from an attunement with the seasons. Until fairly recently it was not only sensible but necessary for people to eat what was naturally growing around them, relying like all other creatures on the notion that nature provides appropriate foods at appropriate times. Now, however, in the age of 24 hour grocery stores stocked year round with wholly unseasonable, unnatural, and nonlocal foods, we must trust our instincts and know-how to remind us of which foods are appropriate to eat throughout the year.

Let’s consider some specifics… The colder darker days of winter tend to diminish our activity and surface circulation thereby lowering our overall metabolism. We also tend to eat richer, hardier foods which comprise a more acidic, salty, and caloric diet. The combination of these circumstances, while benefiting us in winter, translates to extra pounds and sluggish digestive and detoxification systems come spring. It’s no wonder, then, that spring as the season of greens. Alkalizing leafy greens provide just what our overwintered bodies crave -- a burst of chlorophyll, vitamins, minerals and nutrients that thoroughly nourish our systems and specifically strengthen digestion and cleanse the liver, blood, and bowel.

According to the principles of Chinese medicine the spring season is associated with the Wood phase, characterized by its ascending, outgoing energy and its emphasis on renewal and purification. Spring is the time for planting seeds and ideas, and for creating intentions for the year to come. The season is physically associated with the liver and gallbladder, organ systems which deal primarily with digestion and detoxification. With help from the gall bladder, the liver converts essentially everything we eat, breathe and absorb through the skin into life-sustaining substances. The liver is the primary metabolic organ for proteins and fats. In addition to its many critical digestive functions, the liver, as the primary cleanser and filter of the bloodstream, also vitally tends to the neutralization and excretion of toxins from the foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the by-products of our bodies’ own natural metabolic processes and chemical/hormonal responses to stress that we incur from moment to moment. And in our crazy post-modern world, this is clearly no small task.

Unfortunately, given that the standard American diet (SAD) is high in calories, fats, sugars, alcohol, preservatives, and pesticides; our environment is riddled with a myriad of chemical toxins; and our lifestyles are increasingly sedentary and chemically addictive; most all of us have some degree of toxic overload which results in a stressed out liver. When the liver becomes so overloaded with harmful toxins that its enzymatic processes can no longer cope, the toxins build up and manifest themselves in an unbalanced state which, without intervention, can become a vicious cycle of chronic toxicity and lead to persistent health issues such as arthritis, cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivity, addiction, depression, and premature ageing. Initial symptoms of liver stress include: allergies, all manner of skin eruptions and irritations, headaches, emotional difficulty related to anger (irritability, impatience, frustration, resentment, greed, excessive desire, arrogance, stubbornness, aggression, and impulsiveness), foggy thinking, muscle tension, nausea and fatigue. Women can add PMS, fibroid tumors, and endometriosis due to the liver’s role in processing excess estrogens out of the bloodstream. OH MY!

Lucky for us, the spring season offers natural intervention. With the daylight lengthening, the temperatures warming, and the world greening up all around us, our spirits are instinctively lifted; our bodies are increasingly in motion, and we are naturally inspired to eat less and less often to cleanse our bodies and minds of the heaviness we amassed over winter. For dietary springtime tonics we need only to “think green”. Now’s the time to load up on fresh local spinach, leeks, greens, and lettuces and to forage for young nettle leaves (harvest with gloves and cook to eliminate stinging), watercress, chicory, dandelion greens, yellow dock, sorrel, and burdock. There are also many good commercial detox formulas available in tea and supplement forms that are especially appropriate now. Many of these formulas will focus on powerful liver detoxifying herbs such as: milk thistle, red clover, wheat and barley grasses, goldenseal, pau d’arco, and psyllium.

Food preparation becomes simpler in spring as well. With an emphasis on raw, organic, unrefined, unprocessed, and local foods our cooking becomes lighter, uses less oil and salt, and involves shorter cooking times at higher temperatures. Animal products, sugars and refined foods ought to be limited or avoided as well as caffeine and alcohol. While cleansing consciously it is also important to drink plenty of pure water or diluted juice, at least two liters per day, to assist our bodies in eliminating wastes.

A good sensible spring detox offers many positive benefits that enhance our overall well-being: increased energy and emotional balance, clear skin, and renewed vitality. While extreme cleansing methods trigger the rapid release of toxins they are also potentially dangerous and accompanied by unpleasant acute symptoms. Like any filter, the liver requires regular cleansing, and it is much safer to make it part of an everyday awareness. By attuning to nature and experiencing the many healing plants, attitudes and attributes each season has to offer, we can flow through the years with health and balance.