Showing posts with label Healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healing. Show all posts

October 1, 2025

Ode to Soup





Ever since I was a little kid, I have associated soup with being sick. I remember having Campbell's Chicken Dumpling soup, those golden globs of goodness swimming in their pool of healing broth. Or slurping up Chicken and Noodle soup, the tiny specks of carrot and celery were hardly worth counting as vegetables. 


We moved to Europe when I was seven, and my aunt Silvana once took us to a dark restaurant in Milan late at night, where I was entranced by their chicken soup with stars. The white porcelain bowl was so inviting, as I dipped and redipped the silver spoon in the flickering candlelight.


I love a good French onion soup - gruyere cheese caramelizing on the sides of an ovenproof crock, crusty bread now mushy with dark brown ambrosia, the contrast of salt and thyme to the sweetness of onions. I confess I tend to only eat it in restaurants, as there’s a lot of clean-up.


Lentil soup is comfort food. The Saturn Cafe used to have the best lentil soup with vegetarian chili and brown rice, served with a sprouted, whole wheat bread smothered in butter. It was a rainy winter during my sophomore year at UCSC, and I spent many an afternoon curled up in one of their booths, with my book and brown bowl of comfort.


Butternut squash has taken my fancy lately, in its homogenized box from Trader Joe's, the orange liquid pouring out into the saucepan in serious gulps. I'll add black pepper and sage, often a dash of nutmeg, a trick I learned from my daughter’s spouse, Morgan. It’s the perfect mug soup, warming hands and belly.


I've never been fond of clam chowder, either red or white. They smell too fishy. I am also turned off by beef tongue and oxtail, from the days of going to the butcher with my Mom when we lived in Luxembourg, the slabs of organs neatly lined up in the steel chill. 


Mom used to make green soup. She would throw pretty much whatever was in the fridge into the Cuisineart - not quite sure what, could be lettuce, could be parsley - along with some chicken or beef bullion, garnished with a swirl of ubiquitous Parmesan cheese. We would sit at the white Formica kitchen table in Bethesda when I was in High School, watching the cardinals on the feeders outside the window.


Miso soup is a perennial favorite, but I stopped going to Mobo sushi because theirs tasted like dishwater the last few years. When I went out to the Nevada desert in my twenties to protest the atomic testing site at Mercury, I learned the benefits of miso and of studies in Japan of healing rates for those who drank miso after surviving Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I love chasing after the little white tofu cubes with my wooden chopsticks, the way the salty green seaweed clings to the side of the plastic red and black lacquer bowl, which always has a satisfying clink against my teeth.


Now I associate soup both with healing and enjoying staying healthy. Ever since COVID, we've been making bone broth from the rotisserie chickens from Costco, slow-cooking in the Crock-Pot for a good 24 hours, adding apple cider vinegar to leach the goodness from the marrow.  Then skimming out the fat and filtering out the bones, looking for the wishbone, of course. Last, adding potatoes, green onions, carrots, ginger, turmeric, paprika, and a full head of chopped garlic (for those medicinal benefits) and cooking until all is tender. This I will freeze in Chip’s favorite little Pyrex containers, for those stuffy winter nights to keep the colds away. 



December 30, 2019

Hummingbird Magic


Hummingbird Magic

This morning I heard a noise in the hallway. My cat, the calico, had caught a hummingbird! I picked it up in my hands, went outside onto the deck, and did a backward count from a hundred. I could feel its' little heart against my fingers.

At about count thirty, the other cat came and rubbed against my legs. The hummingbird shot out of my hands, turned and hovered about two feet in front of my face, then shot up into the locust tree. There were a few feathers on my pant leg so I picked one up, held it for the last count down to zero.

When I opened my eyes, the hummingbird was still in the tree, then just zipped off into the sky. It felt like such a blessing. To me, hummingbirds represent joy, and I had this feeling of holding joy in my hands, praying for joy, and seeing joy have a new life. Extremely potent hummingbird magic!

December 2, 2019

Pre-Surgery Hypnosis


Pre-Surgery Hypnosis

I worked with a client who had lost one of his eyes to cancer. He was going to have an intensive surgery procedure to seal the empty socket shut so that he could go back to surfing. He was going to be sedated for ten days and in the hospital for thirty days.

We did eight sessions of "acu-hyp" - hypnosis during an acupuncture session. He focused on letting go of his anger at the failure of his five past surgeries and the stress of his divorce, as well as affirming that he had always been a fast healer and that his body would respond to the new grafts.

Well, he was only sedated for one day and out of the hospital in ten days! You can imagine the enormous savings on the hospital bill. It is amazing to me that insurance will not pay for hypnosis when it is so effective in accelerating the healing process.

If you or someone you know is going into surgery, consider the benefits of hypnosis as a part of your process. Feel free to call or email with any questions!



November 20, 2017

The Healer’s Manifesto



The Healer’s Manifesto

Breathe

Hold the Space

Ask Deep, Precise Questions

Listen & Reflect

Keep the Silence

Have Clarity in Your Vision

Have Wisdom in Your Words

See the Success

Breathe

Smile

Repeat

-Kayla Garnet Rose, 2015

October 16, 2017

Review

Kayla has work with me for five years I have received Reiki and hypnotherapy. She has been a huge blessing for me in my healing from trauma and big life changes. Reiki with my shoulder injury help me not have a frozen shoulder. A whole body affect.
Thanks for all of your loving work.

-JoAnn Tennent on Yelp