Rituals from American Yogini hohm yoga retreat in New York, to help you bring harmony and healing to your own home.

Be excellent at every moment ~ Relax

Music

Start with a sacred soundtrack that makes you feel happy and peaceful. Sound is healing vibration that moves through the un-manifest space of air into the manifestation of our bodies and the food that surrounds it! Be careful not to have TV or negativity in sound form surrounding your kitchen space. Music with only words about love, or instrumental vibrational sounds.

Sound vibration is life, Start with the intention that the food you prepare in your kitchen, will carry the vibration of love through the food, and into our bodies and the bodies of those we love.

What we are playing in our kitchen today as we make the juices for our hohm juice cleanse customers and healing meals for our cleansing members at the retreat:

The sound of crackling and soft hissing from our fire,

What are your favorite sacred kitchen sounds?
Would you share some in the comments section below?

Tie on a clean apron, Tie back your hair

When I was a young dancer, tying back my hair into tight bun, pulling on my tights, and tying up my ballet shoes, were a memorable and important ritual. If my hair was not pinned and neatly out of my way, or my shoes were to come undone, it effected how the entire class and rehearsal would proceed.

To prepare as a ritual, is to “intend excellence,” to make all we do an offering of our best as a devotion to the gift of the moment, our bodies, the people closest to us that we nourish.

Wash your hands

I add mandarin orange essential oil to our castile hand soap. If you have a scented soap it will uplift your spirit, luxuriate in the warmth of the water, the rich lather and the fragrance as you smile, to begin peacefully to prepare food for your body and the bodies of your family who you see becoming happy and nourished, contented and at their best because of it.

Allow enough time, no rushing – if time is shorter than you would like, decide on the simplest menu so you can stay present- imagine yourself “surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure” in your every move.

Set the table

A napkin, a place for nourishment and restoration,

Silently blessing the food, as you place dishes, utensils, an object of beauty and or fragrance such as herb sprig, or flower.

As we set the table for our guests, we bring to our mind the bodies who are to receive the juices or meal…we see them beautiful, …and we smile.

We invite you to try some of our rituals from our “hohm” in your home.

Remember

Always remember the most important thing of all:
Enjoy and connect and smile. Be happy, be healthy!

Namaste,

Mary McGuire-Wien

American Yogini, a division of Hohm, LLC, is a luxurious eco-chic New York Health & Wellness Retreat specializing in juice cleansing, weight loss, detox & yoga lifestyle.

Mary McGuire-Wien, Author of The 7 Day Total Cleanse, is committed to teaching, guiding and inspiring you through your juice cleanse, cleansing detox & weight loss retreat.

© 2010 Mary McGuire-Wien / American Yogini All Rights Reserved.
*Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Haha! It’s TRUE!  You may or may not know that we have been steadily creating a gorgeous new belgian block walking path around the pool and gardens, so as I strolled along checking it out, I discovered last year’s compost pile had three beautiful cantaloupe growing on top of it! Perfectly ripe too! When produce grows from the seeds that are inside things that have been composted, these are called “volunteers”. In other words, we did not actually plan on planting and harvesting cantaloup this year, but what a delicious surprise!

I plucked one up, and on the way to the kitchen scooped up some nastursium blossoms and some little lemon verbena tips and created this breakfast salad.

Who would have guessed how delicious and “friendly” they would be all together in a bowl?

WOW the lemon verbena was so bright, the nastursium a spicy snap for the sweet soft cantaloupe just LOVELY!

"volunteer" in a bowl

Nasturtium  Lemon Verbena Cantaloupe Breakfast Bowl

1. 1/2 cantaloup cubed
2. lemon verbena, use tiny tips or chop finely
3. nastursium petals, torn if very large

Simple simple simple and nothing in all the world could be bettter.

Wish you were here

Juice Cleansing is really something we do when we are about to change, transform something or everything about our lives. So doing new things, or just the urge to do them happens. We have guests that set up easels around the house to paint, some that knit by the fire and produce an entire project over the course of a juice fast, some that do things they have never done before such as our recent guest Jenny who had so much energy she learned how to kayak, and to horseback ride! Even thought it is DECEMBER upon us, just this past week juice cleanse retreat guest enjoyed a day of kayaking ( wow LOVED this! We just bundled up in a parka and even felt HOT while paddling) one day and took english saddle riding lessons for the two days following. This group was taking a class, learning about water,  juice smoothies to maintain the restoration acheived during a five day juice cleanse.

a really wonderful break fast at hohm