People throughout history have celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of hope, promise, rebirth, and the ongoing cycles of life. Monuments, tombs, and temples have been constructed to celebrate and capture the solstice light since as early as 3200 B.C.E.

So what does "celebrating the solstice" mean?

The shift from winter to spring can be tricky for the body, digestion and sleep. In our climate, winter is cold and spring is generally wet — qualities that together can create mucous, heaviness and sluggishness in energy and digestion.

You know the phrase, "You get better at what you practice?"

The follow up to this truth is the real wisdom: "So be careful what you practice."

The spiritual path is hard work, and sometimes it's lonely.

But we do it because we want to grow and learn and evolve as human beings. We want practical support for the things life throws our way.

A couple of years ago I had the idea to organize a group to sing carols at a local senior center. This time of year is loaded with baby memories and anniversary dates and ultimately incredible loss. It's also been my favorite season for as long as I can remember. So I wanted to get some of that magic back.

Singing that year at The Carlton brought tears to my eyes several times. As we caroled around the large community room, some residents were eating, some were watching and many were singing along.

Why I don't make this for breakfast all year long makes no sense, given how excited I get when I remember that it's fall, the perfect time for a little sweetness and warmth. In Sacramento, we get fresh Apple Hill apples at the local Co-Op, which is usually my cue that stewed apples are what's for breakfast.

In-season fruit is always best -- for the environment and your body. A variety of foods throughout the year is ideal.

Food truly is medicine.

And while exercise and eating well should not be mutually exclusive, if scientists have to pick one as the biggest determinant of your health, it's what you eat.

Isn't that amazing? More than exercise, eating nutritious food determines your health.

The science of Ayurveda agrees -- digestion is the seat of health. It's the first place to look when something is out of balance.

As a long-time insomniac, I have tried every prescription, over-the-counter, mail order remedy I can find. I have a drawer of things that didn't work, including those that actually made me jittery and anxious rather than relaxed.

And from conversations I've had with just about every group I've been a part of lately, I am not alone.

Our brains are constantly making predictions based on our concepts and past experience to interpret the pleasant and unpleasant sensations in our bodies. The feedback from the body (in the form of sensation) about how the physical systems are working is called interoception -- being aware of the internal world.

Those concepts and guesses are how we make sense of sensation so we know what caused the sensation and what to do about it. More intense sensations are used to make emotions; less intense sensations are used to make thoughts and beliefs.

In spite of, or maybe because of, all the things going on in the world -- from political insanity to indefensible misogyny to nature's massive pandemonium with the California fires closest to home -- I found myself slightly obsessed with a recent 60 Minutes segment on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Of all the striking images and jaw-dropping facts (they now estimate that there are 2 trillion other galaxies in our universe), what spoke to my heart was the piece on the "Pillars of Creation" where stars are born.

Our culture does not acknowledge the profound impact of major life events, and definitely does not provide the space for these types of losses to be openly discussed or shared.

In fact, we are often urged, subtly or overtly, to deal with the loss privately and swiftly.

Yet it is critical to our heart’s health and the wholeness of who we are to integrate the loss into this new way of living, eventually learning to live wholeheartedly with – not in spite of – that loss.

It's pretty common this time of year to see people talking about or advertising a "fall cleanse."

Seasonal transitions are a popular (and useful) time to mark a shift in nature, prepare our bodies for a change in weather, light, and activities, and check-in with how our systems fared in the last season. And it makes sense to eat what is in the season to ensure a variety of nutrients.

S’s in Sanskrit can be a little confusing. There are three sibilants — one is pronounced like our ‘s’ as in such. The other two are pronounced very similarly, both with the “sh” sound, as in should. It depends on the markers on the letter s. This is why savasana is pronounced shavasana — there’s an accent acute on the s, giving it a sh sound.

Turns out there’s also an accent acute on the s in Saucha and I’ve been mispronouncing it for over 20 years. Even teaching it incorrectly. It’s pronounced “show-cha” (the “ow” sounds like the “ou” in “loud”).

First, plant-based, or plant-based nutrition, describes a diet consisting of whole plant foods and minimally processed plant foods.

A plant-based person does not eat animal parts or products such as meat, bone, eggs, milk, butter, gelatin, etc. Generally, the plant-based approach does not include refined or processed foods, which are considered “plant fragments.”

Mushrooms in general have a more hearty, "meaty" consistency and are a great source of protein, fiber and many important vitamins and minerals.

These trumpet and king oyster mushrooms eerily mimic the texture and look of pulled pork.

What really makes this sandwich for me is the slaw -- kale, carrot and red onion. It's the perfect tang to the spice of the BBQ sauce.

“We try so hard to separate joy and sorrow into their own boxes,

but the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama tell us that they are inevitably fastened together. Neither advocate the kind of fleeting happiness, often called hedonic happiness, that requires only positive states and banishes feelings like sadness to emotional exile.

The kind of happiness that they describe is often called eudemonic happiness

and is characterized by self-understanding, meaning, growth, and acceptance,

including life’s inevitable suffering, sadness, and grief.”

It’s possible that our extreme desire for comfort keeps us a little too protected. We successfully avoid situations where we are forced to grow, where there is uncertainty, where we don’t already feel adept and safe. This can make us reactive, entitled, and a little lazy.

A couple of years ago I decided to add a fitness class to the schedule of the yoga studio. Because It's All Yoga is known for the highest caliber of yoga teaching around, people were curious, to say the least, about why I would add a gym-type cardio class to the line-up.

This full moon promised revolution, breaking free to new ground and clarity on how to get there. I wanted it all.

My usual walking route gives me several places to glimpse its rising and ends with the perfect vista point.

I’d taken walks the two prior evenings, feeling the power build. So the dog and I set out on the full moon night to find it.

My projects included the Department of Health, the Department of Child Support Services, and CalPERS. My responsibilities ranged from Business Process Reviews (making maps for a current workflow and identifying potential inefficiencies or dead-ends) to Data Conversion Mapping (matching pieces of information in one system to their correct location in a new system) to Training (Hi, Department of State Workers, I’m going to train you on this new computer system I know nothing about).