PLAY - Janaki Patel Ayurveda

Upcoming events —

(Online) – Community Chat: Ayurveda Conversations on Mental Health with Janaki Patel and Steph Myrie. Our topic is: Cultivating Mental Resilience with the Wisdom of Ayurveda and Yoga’s Food and Lifestyle Practices. Sunday, 19 January 2025, 10 am PST/ 1 pm EST on Zoom. Free. Meeting link goes out to email list subscribers.

2024 Events were a success!- educational workshops, providing Ayurveda-inspired cuisine at a retreat for women of color, and co-creating an online space for Ayurveda conversations on mental health. I hope to keep this going! More opportunities in 2025 will be posted here.

Ayurveda Workshops

In 2025 I am conducting in-person classes and workshops on the West Coast of the USA and perhaps India! If you are interested in hosting a workshop for you or your group, please contact me. May this authentic sharing reach more people who need it, especially those who have had barriers to accessing this healing knowledge.

My past and future workshops:

• Ayurvedic Foundations for Self-Healing

• Tending Your Agni, Your Digestive Fire

• Simple Ayurvedic Kitchen:
Vibrant Food for Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit

• Nourish and Invigorate YourSelf:
Introduction to Ayurvedic 5-Sense Therapies

• Ayurveda + Art:
Exploring and Creating with Prana and Natural Media

And on a related note– there is a need out there to feed our communities with food that heals. I sometimes envision hosting a pop-up community feed with this type of healing food and energy…anything is possible…it calls us to become a team of dedicated people with a spirit of giving, embodying the Yogic principle of Seva. Do you have a similar vision, or would like to collaborate in some way? Send me an email.

Lemon Balm, *Melissa officinalis*– known since ancient times, allies with the nervous system and gently soothes and uplifts

Cilantro, *Coriandrum sativum* leaves are used for their cooling and blood-purifying properties; seeds (coriander) are an important spice that serves as a digestive aid

Denser vegetables with Sweet taste like carrot and squash have a building quality on the body, while lighter vegetables with Pungent or Bitter tastes like choy and turnip have more cleansing qualities. When both types are included in a meal, they have a balancing effect

Kichari, the nourishing and cleansing Ayurvedic 1-pot meal, can be made to support all constitutions, and can also be modified with constitution-specific grain-to-bean ratios and spices to more directly support an individual healing process.

Hikes, Trips, and Retreats

More opportunities for Ayurveda-Yoga- aligned excursions are simmering,

This is evolving from my many years of connecting people to the land through environmental, wilderness and farm-based education and guiding.

It is important to me to support Ayurvedic and Yogic affinity groups in Nature for people whose lived experience and identities are less represented in such spaces. This can be very powerful for our collective healing. Do you have an idea for a location, near or far? I would love to hear from you.

And- join my email list to be in the loop for future opportunities…!

Our Mother Earth Medicine is calling us to gather and connect on her beautiful lands.

Creating with natural materials can be a way to help us reconnect with ancestors, the 5 Elements, and Spirit. I love the traditional clay process that involves digging and processing by hand, and firing with dried cow pies (one of its many magical uses known since ancient times).

“Janaki, you have taught me the fundamentals of a beautiful way of cooking, one that has allowed me to understand the process behind many delicious dishes…knowing which spices to use in combination.. the natural essence of the food…how to make ghee… chapati, and my go-to kitchari recipe! …it is a very empowering thing, and I thank you for that!” – Leopold, student