A sweet and salty lavender scrub for the month of mud

It’s time to start that spring cleaning, loosening, opening up, scrubbing out, sexy-hello-to-my skin-again-underwear-and-rubber-boots kind of time. Here's a recipe to get your blood flowing and ready for Spring glory.

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It’s March! Depending on where you are, it’s SPRING! Or, it’s not quite winter anymore, or it’s MUD TIME. Whatever the case, it’s time to start that spring cleaning, loosening, opening up, scrubbing out, sexy-hello-to-my skin-again-underwear-and-rubber-boots kind of time. March is the season of PISCES, it’s wet and windy and mucky and delicious. In March we are inviting in a dear old friend to honor and delight in, beloved LAVENDER.

If you have been through a cold winter, your bones are stiffer, your joints are tighter, and your blood is denser and moving more slowly. Green is coming up again out of the earth. The days are getting a bit longer. Things are melting, thawing, opening up to a fresh new season. We have to coax and love our bodies through these transitions and relish in the activities that can prepare us for becoming new, again and again.

One of the ways we do this in March is by oiling ourselves up and scrubbing it down. Stagnancy is a barrier to our desires. Sometimes we look at things like clearing through our internal debris as work. Hard work. Lots of pile up and backlog and we need to get to it.

At TOCA, we believe that the way to do things well, like moving forward in alignment with your dreams and reaching your goals, you must include the element of pleasure.

Consider your thick blood, held grief, aching bones, tired body, and allow the thought, “It’s going to feel GOOD to move things around and release and lighten.” Perhaps the work is actually us holding on to all the things we must let go of, and we are all working too damn hard for something that is weighing and slowing us down. Perhaps we need to unwork, and just put it down. Let go.

And lavender is an ally in this process.

“Lavender is the connector, the filter and the sponge. Lavender is a support to those who are sensitive to the energies of life around them, sometimes to their own detriment. Lavender helps create porous yet protective boundaries so our spirit will not be overly impacted by interactions and energies that do not belong to us, while still supporting our ability to live in a vibrant engagement with the world.”

(From The Dirt Gems Botanical Tarot Deck, written by Anne Louise Burdett)

THE RECIPE: Sweet & Salty Lavender Scrub

A simple recipe to help break down barriers, scrub our skin, and get that stagnant blood flowing.

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Ingredients

• Coarse salt
• Sugar (organic if possible)
• Lavender essential oil and/or lavender flowers (about 1/4 cup)
• Almond or raw sesame oil
• (optional: rosemary essential oil)
• In a small container, maybe 2-4oz big, you will fill ½ the container with salt, another ¼ with sugar, and cover it and fill the top with oil we prefer either almond or raw sesame oil. You will then add 10 drops of Lavender essential oil. For a bigger brighter scrub also add 5 drops of Rosemary essential oil.

How to make the scrub

This is a proportional recipe so quantity doesn't matter so much.

In the small container, fill 1/2 the container with salt and another 1/4 with sugar. If you're using lavender flowers you can add them in now. Generously pour in the oil so that it covers the mixture and a bit more. Then add 10 drops of lavender essential oil. For a brighter scrub, you can also add 5 drops of rosemary essential oil.

Mix together and add more oil if necessary. The idea is to have something that you can scoop with your hand and bring to your body. Too little oil, it won't cling to the body. Too much oil, and you'll lose a lot of the liquid! But it's not exact and you can feel this out.

How to use

Use this scrub in the bath or shower, or over a small pot of hot water for a footbath.

Get yourself wet with hot water, let your cells open and relax, and then scrub as vigorously as you (comfortably) can, and let it sit for at least a few minutes. Take a big breath and release, observing yourself opening and relaxing with each breath.

Imagine the waters of your body that were thick and muddy, rinsing and running clearer and clearer with each breath. See the river of yourself running clear over rocks, the wind sunny and bright.

Feel the movement, the release. Feel yourself lighter, not working, not trying. Imagine yourself as a sponge getting wrung out and placed to dry. Feel your joints being lubricated, the density of yourself spreading out and becoming less viscous. Keep breathing, run your hands along your body and feel its warmth, feel the tenderness from fresh new skin, feel the open relaxed tissues. Gently move your neck, rub your joints. Breath. What a relief.

Once you have rinsed it off (no need to use soap!) stay in the hot water a bit longer to really let your body soak it in and relax. When you get out you will still feel some oil residue, which is great, it’s like you have already lotioned up after your bath without having to do it!