Chai Time

 

Chai supplies

I love a warm, spicy beverage on cold, wet winter nights, and chai is my favorite. Because I’m sensitive to caffeine, I make my own chai. While Stash has a decaf vanilla chai which is handy when I’m short on time, making my own chai lets me adjust the spices to my preference. I’ll share a couple of recipes and the ingredients I keep on hand.

The first recipe I use is here. I make a double-strength batch so I have enough for a few days. When I want a mug, I add milk or milk and water when re-heating. Cloves, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, star anise and the other ingredients also make my spice cabinet smell wonderful.

I'll share two other recipes. One can be made with black tea or rooibos for a decaf version, and the other with carob and coconut. Both linked in this paragraph are from the site GrowForageCookFerment.

Chaga. It's not the prettiest fungus.

Another chai that I love which is also caffeine free incorporates a medicinal fungus, chaga. Chaga is reported to be a nutrient-dense,
antioxidant-rich, and adaptogenic fungus. This Masala chai blend from Euphoria Botanica is delicious, but does need to simmer for 20 minutes in order to gain the benefits of chaga.

Since Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow earlier this month, it looks like there will be plenty more time to enjoy some hot chai.

Source: https://www.groundhog.org/

 

 

 

 

What's New?

Photo by Esther Verdú on Unsplash

 I hope 2026 has been good to everyone so far. Instead of making resolutions in January, I set intentions. This year I want to be more internally and externally aware, listening to my inner voice and exploring new topics.

To start this awareness, I first had my chakras balanced. Yes, this may be a little woo-woo for many, but I’d never had this experience and it was very affordable. To my great surprise, I learned that my root (first) chakra needed the most work. This surprised me as I garden a lot, nurturing plants from the root up. That my creative (third) chakra was weak didn't surprise me as my creativity has been dull since late November.

Just before New Year’s Eve, I then had a chakra massage which was divine. The massage therapist used a different oil for each chakra and gave me a mantra to focus on while she worked. The mantras, in order from the first chakra (sacral area) to the crown (top of head) chakra are:

I am.  I am creative. I am powerful. I am loved. I am heard. I am connected. I am divine.

The massage was extremely relaxing and I hope to be able to do this

Photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash

on each solstice and equinox. How about exploring new topics? Well—and I won’t go far on this one—early this year I read about an experiment scientists did where they measured 37 dimensions! What? How? Curiosity led me to watch a few videos on quantum mechanics. There is so much at least theoretically possible, but our human brains aren’t able to contemplate these dimensions. Thank goodness. 

There’s so much out there we don’t understand, don’t even know how to comprehend or measure. I have plenty to explore and learn this year. Here’s a dimensional brain-twister that I’ll close with: the tesseract. Wild!!

 

 

Another tesseract resource for those wanting to know more:  

https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/what-exactly-is-a-tesseract-real-life-geometry-4-dimensional.html