Dear spring!

My favorite season has just arrived! May you be very welcome dear spring! …you brought flowers and bees, the promise of warmth, the chirping of the birds, the sunshine still interrupted from time to time by the beautiful gray of the clouds and those last drops of water. You illuminated the lush green of the plants and gave sound to the wind, helping the seeds to be once again distributed throughout the fields.

And that’s why I celebrate you every year! Because you’re the living proof of new beginnings, blossoming of new ideas, dreams and projects! 🙂

In macrobiotics, we view spring as a season with upward, fast and expansive energy. The one in which, as nature shows us, we should get rid of layers and heavy clothes, in order to have the ability to move more and become more outwards, in contact with nature, giving wings to our creativity.

The organ associated with spring is the liver, the cereal is barley, and the vegetables are all those whose leaves grow from the earth towards the sky, as well as all sprouts. Now we should eat lighter foods and cooking methods, which allows our body to clean some of the heavier foods eaten during winter.

And what are lighter cooking methods? It’ll be something like steamed or boiled, instead of baked or cooked in pressure.

What about food? Well… here in Portugal our land is full of greens, such as turnips, beetroots, radishes, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, lettuce, chard, celery, fennel, spinach, asparagus …  and peas are just arriving… It will all be our allies during spring, helping us to purify, clean and germinate.

If we are able to create in ourselves the typical lightness of this season, we will feel in tune with spring and we’ll probably be able to set goals to achieve in the future with a clear vision.

I wish us all a blossoming spring loaded with new ideas, projects that fill us as unique human beings and that help make this world a more beautiful and pure place to live in. 😉