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Well Fed Woman // Winter into Spring: Seasonal energetics, Food lists, Rituals, & Routines for the Hearth Witch

Welcome! This post explains the seasonal energetics of late winter into spring from the points of view of TCM, Ayurveda, and Celtic traditions. It also includes food lists and fun seasonal rituals to embody the seasonal energetics.


Seasonal Energetics

Late Winter: Portal to the North

This is a portal through which we can access void consciousness and really lean into rituals of rest, warming our inner hearth, dreaming, and visioning in fertile darkness.


Ayurveda: Kapha season, where the kapha dosha (Ruled by the elements of earth and water) is dominant. As the late winter can bring more cold, damp, and lots of luscious mud, this can create imbalances in us that manifest as heaviness, lethargy, sluggishness, density, digestive difficulties. Therefore, it’s important to bring in more movement, routine, spiciness (in both food and lives). Kapha is the dosha that provides us with structure, lubrication, and love. It’s so delicious and ooey gooey, but we don’t want to get weighed down by it. Bring in more flow and circulate that juiciness!


Chinese Medicine: Winter is ruled by the element of water and governed by the kidneys and urinary bladder. Winter is a deeply nourishing yin time, granting us much needed energy, rest, reflection, and visioning with which to be reborn in the spring time. There is an energetic need for retraction and hibernation as our qi flows more deeply inside of us. This is an invitation to go deep within ourselves, to connect with our root self. The elemental ruler, water, always flows toward life. To maintain a healthy flow and ease throughout this season, we must embrace routines and rituals that allow rest, rejuvenation, and easeful flow.


Spring: Portal to the East

This is a portal through which we can access expanding energy, renewal, and planting seeds of intention. It is a time of rebirth, and we can mother ourselves as we grow into beings of more courage, power, and wisdom.


Ayurveda: Spring is still ruled by kapha (see above).


Chinese Medicine: Spring is ruled by the element of wood and governed by the liver and gallbladder. Spring is a time of growth, strength, courage, vision, and renewal. We are approaching yin’s peak: as yin starts to recede, it will give birth to more yang: energy, light, and movement. The liver governs the free flow of qi, and the wood element wants to move out and get things done!! As this is a time of transition, allergies, anger, headaches, tight muscles might show up if the qi cannot move, resulting in stagnation and pain. Be sure to move, stretch (especially the rib side and hips), dance, and breathe in deeply the sweet smell of new beginnings.


Food Lists for Late Winter & Spring

PLEASE NOTE: Take what resonates and leave what does not. These routines are meant as guidelines to deepen your embodiment with the Earth’s seasons. It does NOT need to be perfect. I certainly do not adhere to all of these things. I recommend choosing 1-2 to really integrate into your life this season so that it is truly embodied. The following year, you could add 1-2 more. This season is about slowing down to regenerate, and it’s only through slowness and presence can we truly integrate and embody something.


Primarily, diet should be seasonal and local. Secondarily, eat from the kapha-reducing food list (see below).


GRAINS: Toasted breads are very good for kapha, as they are drying.

Best: Amaranth, barley, basmati rice, buckwheat, corn flour, quinoa // Small Amounts: Millet, rye // Avoid: Oats, long and short grain rice (white or brown), wheat, whole wheat


OILS: Use all oils in small amounts only. Even the best oils, if overused, will aggravate kapha.

Best: ghee, mustard, soy // Small Amount: Almond, avocado, castor, coconut, olive, peanut, sesame


SWEETENERS: Best: Raw honey only (in moderation) // Avoid: Fructose, maple syrup, molasses, raw sugar, white and brown sugar


FRUITS: Best: Dried fruits, apples, cherries, cranberries, grapefruit, pomegranate, prunes, raisins// Small Amounts: Apricots, lemon, lime, papaya, pineapple // Avoid: Sweet fruits, avocado, bananas, berries (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry), cantaloupe, coconut, dates, figs, grapes, mango, melons, pineapple, oranges, peaches, pears, persimmons, plums, tangerines, watermelon


DAIRY: Best: Goat milk // Small Amount: Butter, buttermilk, cheese, cream, cottage cheese, ice cream, kefir, sour cream, yogurt


VEGETABLES: Vegetables are best eaten raw during the summer and cooked the rest of the year.

Best: Alfalfa sprouts, artichoke, asparagus, green beans, bell peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, celery, chilies, cilantro, corn, kale, lettuce, and other leafy greens, mustard greens, onions, parsley, peas, hot peppers, potatoes, radish, seaweed, spinach, rutabagas/ turnips // Small Amounts: Mushrooms, tomatoes, beets, cucumber, eggplant, okra, squash (all), sweet potatoes, water chestnuts, zucchini


NUTS AND SEEDS: Best: Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds // Small Amounts: Sesame seeds // Avoid: Almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, coconut, filberts, lotus seeds, macadamia nuts, pecans, pistachio, peanuts, walnuts


MEATS: Limit consumption to 2-3 times per week if you wish. Kapha individuals can thrive with much more veggies more than the other two doshas.

Best: Chicken or turkey, fresh water fish, rabbit // Small Amounts: Eggs, Beef, duck, lamb, pork, seafood, shellfish, venison


LEGUMES:

Best: Mung beans, red lentils, soybeans (tofu and soymilk), split peas //

Small Amounts: Aduki beans, black gram, black beans, fava beans, kidney beans, lima beans, pinto beans // Avoid: Black lentils, chickpeas


SPICES:

Best: Anise, basil, bay leaf, black pepper, calamus, chamomile, caraway, cardamom, catnip, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, fenugreek, garlic, ginger, horseradish, hyssop, marjoram, mustard, nutmeg, oregano, peppermint, poppy seeds, rosemary, saffron, sage, spearmint, star anise, thyme, turmeric. Hot spices are best. Any spice not listed is probably fine // Small Amount: Salt


CONDIMENTS:

Small Amounts: Ketchup, vinegar // Avoid: Mayonnaise


BEVERAGES:

Best: herbal teas (spicy and bitter), cranberry juice, green vegetable juices, wheat grass juice // Small Amounts: Carbonated mineral water, coffee, tea // Avoid: Apple juice, carrot juice, orange juice, soft drinks


Rituals & Routines for Late Winter & Spring

  • Spend time outdoors

  • Plan new projects, new purchases, as springtime is the season for new beginnings, rebirth and renewal. Redecorate a room. Start a garden.

  • Try waking shortly before or with the sunrise.

  • Stay warm, particularly in the beginning of spring. You may feel tempted to bare it all out of the sheer joy of feeling the sultry sun on your wintery-white skin, but think twice. Spring brings a tendency for cool dampness to build up, particularly in the lungs.

  • Exercise: Spring is the season where a more vigorous exercise routine makes the most sense. It is a time when the body naturally wants to shed excess winter blubber. Your lymphatic system will love a fluid yoga class, jumping rope, a bike ride or a brisk walk.

  • Primarily, diet should be seasonal and local. Secondarily, eat from the kapha-reducing food list (see above).

  • In the late winter and early spring, the water element is predominant, although it is accompanied by the warming aspect of the sun (fire element). When we are in balance in the springtime, we feel the inherent enthusiasm, rebirth, seed planting, cleansing and creativity of the season.

  • Spring is the season extraordinairy for doing a dietary cleanse. I am not a fan of unguided, “do-it-yourself” cleanses. While a daylong cleanse is safe for most people, any longer cleanses should be done with the help of a reputable Ayurvedic practitioner. Why? Because while the cleanse may seem mellow, it is designed to “bring shit up”—literally and figuratively. I encourage you to meet with an Ayurvedic professional (like me!) that can work with you to make sure you remain healthy and balanced during and after this life-changing undertaking.

  • Clean out your heart (and your garage). Spring is not just the time for cleansing the physical vessel. It is also a good time to let go of unhealthy habits, lovers, and let’s have a big old yard sale for all that junk in your basement.

  • Honor your desires—spring is when we are intuitively most attuned to our deepest driving desires. This is especially true during late spring when the fire element builds. We may find ourselves with more hunger (sexually, in regard to food, as well as our drive and ambition in the world.) This is a good thing. It’s almost as if the Big Mama were giving us some big birthing pushes, and if we can ride Her contractions, we can use the natural rhythm of spring to move forward in activity and accomplishment.




Immune Support for Winter & Seasonal Transitions:


Digestive Support:


Women’s Health:

Glow: Rose Floral Mist


For Devotional work: 


For Shadow Work:


For Deep Rest:


✨Go Deeper into the Seasons with Me ✨


This post is just one piece of a bigger teaching I call Well Fed Woman, a free bonus section inside my Yoni Herbal Substack. Well-Fed Woman is where I share expanded seasonal recipes, herbal allies, and embodied kitchen practices for women and families.


The Yoni Herbal itself is my living classroom for feminine body literacy, herbal wisdom, and cyclical care — a space where we remember the body as oracle and ally. Inside the Yoni Herbal you’ll also find Glow School, a seasonal beauty temple devoted to radiance, skin, and adornment rituals aligned with the rhythms of nature.


And if you want to go even deeper into the archetypal and energetic side of the seasons, I invite you into The Medusa Year — my mythic descent and initiation journey through Persephone, Domnu, Lilith, Aphrodite, Selkie, and beyond, held in the axis of Medusa and Babalon.


🌿 Explore the Yoni Herbal & Well-Fed Woman

💎 Step into the Glow School Temple

🌀 Enter The Medusa Year


This is Tantric Witch Journal, filled with magical and practical tools and rituals for riding and embodying the regenerative currents of the Earth's seasons. Enchant yourself!

magical tools and rituals for becoming fully embodied and fully ensouled. 


Enchant yourself.

 
 
 

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