I really enjoyed talking with David Crow, who interviewed me on his educational site – MedicineCrow.com. David invited me to “tell all” about Rasa Ayurveda and the Muthashi Project.

To hear the interview, click here.

Don’t hesitate to download the pdf slide show found on the page, also, so you can enjoy the lush images of Kerala and Rasa Ayurveda, coordinated with the interview.

When you’re ready to listen, I hope you’ll brew a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy! Please allow plenty of time for the interview to fully download and begin playing as it is close to 90 minutes long.

Let me know what you think~

We look forward to welcoming you to Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre for Women.

With warmest regards~

Niika Quistgard, CAS (Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist)

Women’s Health & Happiness Advocate

Founder & Director, Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre for Women

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Niika Quistgard :: Dec.10.2011 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Culture, Spirituality, Rasa Ayurveda News, The Muthashi Project, Traditional Therapies :: 1 Comment »

Marie Paule came to Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre for Women to share special time with her daughters, and was surprised to discover the clinical and personal value of her stay.

Enjoy this brief YouTube clip, recorded at Rasa Ayurveda:

Marie Paule talks about her experience at Rasa Ayurveda

Niika Quistgard :: Dec.08.2010 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Patient Outcomes, Rasa Ayurveda News, Traditional Therapies :: No Comments »

Rasa Ayurveda Therapists Give Ayurvedic Medicines to Take Home

This week, local women and children were especially invited to come to Rasa Ayurveda for complimentary Ayurvedic consultations, medicines and treatment. As Ayurveda’s popularity increases worldwide, it’s important to make sure Malayalee continue to benefit from the traditional medicine that arose from their own homeland, Kerala.

Invitation distributed to Women & Children around Rasa Ayurveda

In the United States this week, Thanksgiving is celebrated as a time to remember what we are most grateful for.

Here at Rasa Ayurveda, we are all –patients, students and the Rasa Ayurveda family–feeling grateful for the native plant medicines and the knowledge of traditional Ayurveda. We’re grateful we are able to share the power of this traditional medicine with women from all over the world, and with women in our own village here.

Niika Quistgard with Local Patient

With more gratitude, we thank all those who have contributed to The Muthashi Project in this last year, from the bottom of our hearts. We hope to do much more to protect the native medicinal plants and the unbroken stream of Ayurvedic knowledge. May the benefits of Ayurveda be enjoyed into the next many generations!

We look forward to welcoming you to Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre for Women.

With warmest regards~

Niika Quistgard, CAS (Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist)

Women’s Health & Happiness Advocate

Founder & Director, Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre for Women

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Niika Quistgard :: Nov.24.2010 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Rasa Ayurveda News, The Muthashi Project :: No Comments »

June isn’t summertime in Kerala. Summer went out with the first rains! June is the beginning of two months of monsoon. It’s a great time to come to Rasa Ayurveda. Just be prepared to share the grounds with a few puddle fish and beautiful wild birds…!

Monsoon Treatment

Monsoon is traditionally considered to be the very best time to take Ayurvedic treatment for most conditions, and for overall detoxification thru pancha karma therapies. Luscious and moist,  a sudden abundance of tender, green leafy medicines spring into being. All of Mother Nature’s resources seem to brim over in service to cleansing and rejuvenating the body, and the mind. For details about the qualities of monsoon, see this previous post, Monsoon in the Right Time.

Monsoon is natural time for turning one’s attention within, and for experiencing the world at its most peaceful. Meditation comes easily now. The air is quiet, and every storm washes the inner and outer worlds clean.

Enjoying Meditation Together

With just a little bit of guidance, one can fall effortlessly into a state of unity at this time… Don’t believe me? Give it a try!

Here’s a wonderful awareness practice I hope you enjoy:

Sit comfortably on the floor, or on a supportive chair. Feel where your body–hip bones, feet–touches the ground or chair. Get a feeling and even visual sense of your postural foundation.

As you inhale, allow your spine to lengthen upward gently, almost as if someone were pulling a small handful of hair up just a little, right at the crown of your head.

Notice that some of your attention remains grounded in your foundation as you exhale completely through your nose. Soften your face. Soften your neck. Soften your belly.

Inhale, allowing the spaces between the vertebrae, ribs and the tops of the shoulder to open.

Exhale, feeling the support of the ground beneath you. Allowing that support to just be there, holding you.

Inhale, releasing the eyes as your spine lengthens. Pull your chin in just a little bit.

With simultaneous awareness of both the downward-grounding and upward-reaching energies, feel your whole body as you exhale completely and inhale completely. Continue to soften any areas of holding you become aware of. Continue to enjoy the feeling of your spine, straight and elongating.

Turn your head from side to side a few times, slowly, and lubricating your movement with your breath.

Come back to center. Breathe and enjoy.

When it’s time, continue your full breathing, and open your eyes just 15% to see the floor in front of you. Allow your energy to remain in full engagement with your whole body, and with your internal beingness. No need for the energy behind the eyes to to jump out and run across the room.

After a few breaths, open your eyes a bit more, keeping your foundation intact.

Place your hands together in gratitude for the enjoyment of being. Slowly stand, walk and move into the rest of your day, smiling, and keeping your self-awareness with you as long as you like.

Even if you can’t come to Kerala for  monsoon, you can savor the rejuvenation that come with  peaceful mind and expanded body sense, wherever you are…

Whenever you can come, we look forward to welcoming you to Rasa Ayurveda~

Niika Quistgard, CAS

Niika Quistgard :: Jun.10.2010 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Culture, Spirituality, Environment, External Medicines, Patient Outcomes, Rasa Ayurveda News :: No Comments »

Rasa Ayurveda closes each year in early April for the hot season, reopening when monsoon arrives June 1st.  All our residential patients had gone, but before staff joined their families for a summer break, we put together a special event of The Muthashi Project for a group of young orphan girls–ages 9-13–to come spend a day with us, exploring traditional Ayurveda and having some fun…!

The entire Rasa Ayurveda family of staff members spent a day preparing for our special guests, setting up hands-on learning stations throughout the clinic, rehearing answers to anticipated questions and preparing the medicinal plant “party favors” to give the girls.

It was very rewarding to see all staff interacting with the girls with such joy, and to see the enthusiasm they enjoyed as they shared Ayurveda with the girls.

The girls arrived to enjoy tasty niruneendi naranja vellum – a kind of sweet lemon water made with Indian Sarsaparilla root, for its cooling qualities. Then we broke the crowd of girls into small groups, and each group visited every station:

Girls explore the magic of the biogas plant, where vegetable scraps are transformed into cooking gas!

~ A full clinic tour of the patient rooms, treatment rooms, kitchen and yoga hall, including an intriguing stop to learn how our biogas plant  produces cooking fuel from daily vegetable scraps.

The girls focus on 'dravyaguna,' the study of medicinal plants

~ A survey of our medicinal plant collection, with impromptu Q & A on plant identification, medicinal values and some smelling and tasting too…!

Making 'thali' - a traditional, handmade fresh hair wash...

~ A ‘thali’ table, where the girls each made fresh hair washing shampoo from hibiscus leaves.

Picchipoo jasmine is beautiful, and medicinal...!

~ The ‘picchipoo’ hut, where the girls learned about the medicinal value of a certain type of fragrant jasmine, and how we use the bandage these blossoms over the eyes after netra basti. Each girl was offered a piccipoo mala to wear in her hair, too…!

Exploring Medicinal Ayurvedic and Siddha Vaidya Oils made at Rasa Ayurveda

~ A visit with Dr. Geetha to explore a variety of Ayurvedic and Siddha Vaidya medicinal oils and their therapeutic uses. The girls loved trying to recognize them by aroma only!

~ A romp into the paddy field to identify medicinal plants, and just – to be free!

Talking over the process of making medicinal oils in the traditional way.

~ And, a session in the medicine hut with Sanju, who demonstrated the process of making traditional medicinal oils.

The girls paid great attention, and asked a lot of good questions. Some even wrote down every detail in notebooks, hungry for Ayurveda! It was a full, lively and satisfying morning at Rasa Ayurveda.

After our learning sessions, everyone cam together to enjoy some fun competitive games…! Musical chairs, ‘lemon & spoon’ and ‘stick the bindi on the sundari’! Every effort was made to win trophies! All had many laughs and enjoyed the good company.

With broad smiles, the girls headed up to the main building for a delicious meal of fried rice served on banana leaves – a Kerala favorite!

Taking a medicinal plant seedling home to the orphanage.

When it was nearly time to go, everyone gathered ’round. I called out the names of the trophy-winners and handed each prize to a gleeful victor. Last – but surely not least – the girls lined up and came forward one by one, as Dr. Geetha placed one variety of medicinal plant seedling in the hands of each girl, telling the name of the plant, and the medicinal use it will hold when it matures.

Everyone Enjoyed a Wonderful Day of Traditional Ayurveda

We look forward to more educational Muthashi Project events to protect and encourage the relationship between young Mayalayee women and girls and their native plant medicines.

We hear the girls have planted their seedlings at the orphanage already…!

We look forward to welcoming you to Rasa Ayurveda.

With warm regards,

Niika Quistgard, CAS

Managing Director, Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre

RasaAyurveda.com

Niika Quistgard :: Apr.03.2010 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Culture, Spirituality, Environment, Rasa Ayurveda News, The Muthashi Project :: 1 Comment »

We’ve just returned to Rasa Ayurveda after leading a group of women from Chicago on a learning expedition to Medicine Mountain in Tamil Nadu. The great Indian epic, the Ramayana, tells the story of Lord Rama and his servant Hanuman, the monkey God who is the embodient of service and devotion.

In the Ramayana,  Hanuman travels to Mount Sanjeevani in the Himalayas known for its vast variety of living medicines to find and harvest a rare flowering plant for Rama’s army physician. He looks and looks, only to see many plants that more-or-less fit the description of the one he needs to carry. Time is of the essence, so Hanuman scoops up the entire top of Sanjeevani, just to make sure he has the correct plant. In one famous leap,  Hanuman flies across the entire length of India and across the Indian Ocean to the island of Sri Lanka to deliver his precious cargo. As he passed overhead, it’s said Hanuman dropped a clod of earth, which now stands as Medicine Mountain,  300 feet high and studded with countless medicinal plants.

Sanju Shares his Knowledge of Native Medicinal Plants

On Medicine Mountain, Sanju introduced many medicinal botanicals, including the sacred Koovalam (Aegle mermelos), a perennial small tree now on Kerala’s endangered plants list. (In our work thru The Muthashi Project, we hope to take action to help propagate this rare and valuable botanical.)

Students learn about the Sacred and Medicinal Koovalam Tree

The fruits of the Koovalam tree are astringent and regulate digestion in cases of diarrhea and dysentery. Koovalam has also been used traditionally as a cardiac depressant, and a powder of the bark is used to poison fish.

Medicinal and Sacred Koovalam Tree

The Koovalam tree is sacred to Lord Shiva and the tree is often planted on temple grounds. It is never planted near homes, however, because of its sacred and sensitive nature. Devotees of Lord Shiva lucky enough to have access to a few leaves of Koovalam will no doubt be offering light green garlands this Friday night on Shiva Rathri, the annual Night of Shiva,  celebrated by all who worship MahaShiva who is one of the three main Hindu deities.

Healing, Learning & Enjoying!

While our main goal for the trek was to study the rare medicinal plants on the mountain, we also a taste of perfect bliss in a small Shiva temple one of many pilgrimage spots along the mountain trail where I led the group in intoning the primal mantra OM. The deep resonance of spiritual energy and pure vibration we experienced together within the cave walls cannot adequately be described in words!

Thanking Our Friend and Mountain Guide

We’ve now returned to Rasa Ayurveda Traditional Healing Centre, where all the participants are settling in for an extended period of residential traditional Ayurvedic treatment, and quiet study of Ayurveda. As these women learn about Ayurveda’s value for every stage of a woman’s life, we are appreciating that this particular group includes women of all ages, from twenty-something to grandmother hood! Thanks are due to Sandia Bachman, the group catalyst for this special 14-day Women’s Ayurveda Retreat. Sandia is a yoga teacher and new practitioner of Ayurveda from the Chicago area, who’s always looking for beautiful ways to be of service to nature and humanity. Thank you Sandia for bringing such a lovely group of women together at Rasa Ayurveda!

Wishing you all the Blessings of our Mother Earth~

Niika Quistgard, CAS, Managing Director
MayaShakti Ayurveda, Pvt. Ltd.

Niika Quistgard :: Feb.10.2010 :: Ayurveda & Siddha, Culture, Spirituality, Environment, Internal Medicines, Medicinal Plants :: 1 Comment »