Written by Shay Maclean, the co-founder of the Ayupōtheca Retreat, a Modern Ayurveda & Yoga retreat, for self healing & self realisation.
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DINACHARYA {DAILY RITUALS}
Din (day) acharya (to follow), in Ayurveda Dinacharya means the daily routines/rituals to follow for optimal mind-body-spirit balance - in other words, to realign with Nature’s way. Most of us have heard the saying “our daily activities form our habits, our habits for our choices and our choices essentially shape our life and our destiny” and so by reconnecting with nature, and with our true nature, we become closer to our higher self through these daily rituals (spirit rituals) and everything we do with in-tention then becomes an act of self-care, of self love, and an opportunity to reconnect with our higher purpose. Rituals help to realign us with our pure unadulterated self, the version of us that remembers health, beauty, love, abundance and happiness is not external from us, that it's our birthright. From these simple rituals we begin reclaiming our true radiance and vitality and we can take charge of our life.
According to Ayurveda Mother Nature operates in cycles, with certain Doshas (energy types) dominating throughout different times of the day, night, season etc. These cycles are constantly in rotation; in fact they rotate twice daily from dawn to dusk & back again, thrice monthly for menstruating women, bi-monthly with each seasonal shift and thrice throughout the different stages of life. In Ayurveda we refer to this as the Dosha Clock. This is how Mother Nature births all her creations and later justifies her destruction of them. This is how she brings things from the unmanifest into the manifest and back again. With every day comes night. With every sunset she follows with light. This is how Mother Nature wrote her song, and we get to choose how we wish to dance along.
We are all innately programmed with an internal clock which is automatically programmed to sync with the cycles of Nature, we call this our Circadian Rhythm. Yet because the modern lifestyle tends to disconnect us from nature, we lose our innate syncing capabilities. Thus we confuse the mind/body of when to feel hunger but we eat anyway and complain of digestive impairment, when to feel tired but can't sleep and we complain of insomnia etc. It explains why digestion and sleep are usually the first two areas to be disrupted whenever we stay indoors in conditioned environments for extended periods of time, shut off from the outside world. Nowadays many people wear a watch to remind them of when to breathe or when to go to bed, so they no longer see the need to rely on the sun outside to remind them to start winding down for the day so that they can actually enjoy a restful sleep.
The thing people forget is regardless of whether you’re aware of what's happening outside or not, Nature still continues her cycles. We can choose to follow along or we can choose to rebel and go against her by defying physics eventually sooner or later we will start to feel the wrath of the Mother from all our blasphemy. Ayurveda recommends living in accordance with Nature and her cycles because when we go against her for long enough eventually dis-ease and dis-harmony begin to manifest, and by then our watch won't save us!
We have created the Ayupōtheca retreat to offer inspiration to live in tune with Mother Nature through appropriate Dinacharya (daily rituals) and activities we might want to engage in during the day based on the fluctuation of the Doshas to best support overall health and wellbeing.
THE DOSHAS
Doshas are the energy humors which govern all physiology and pathology; in other words they’re the very real yet intangible forces that essentially create and/or inhibit life. The Doshas are comprised of the 5 elements - descending from the unmanifest into the manifest in divine order.
ETHER
AIR
FIRE
WATER
EARTH
And they can be categorized into Three types:
VATA (ETHER & AIR TYPE ENERGY) responsible for all movement, including movement of the mind (thought) which initiates all movement of the body. It’s the artist, the creator.
PITTA (FIRE & WATER TYPE ENERGY) responsible for all transformation, including food into nutrients, thought into action.. It’s the processor, the digester, the one who transforms.
KAPHA (WATER & EARTH TYPE ENERGY) responsible for all stability, both emotionally and physically. It's the preserver, the restorer, representing strength, stamina & resilience.
Because the Doshas are energy and energy moves in circles, not in straight lines it explains why they're in a constant state of flux and Ayurveda helps us to understand their fluctuations for the betterment of our health. Being an elemental based science, Ayurveda understands that everything under the Sun is made up of the same elements, therefore everything in life can be explained through nature, by nature, and if everything can be explained and understood, everything can be healed.
All about Ayurveda dietetics & nutrition to be continued in the next article..
Images & words by Ayupōtheca.
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