Karṇa Pūraṇa & Pāda Abhyaṅga

"Rooting the Winter Body" — ears, jaw, feet. The two ends of the vāta body, warmed and weighted.

A one-day Ayurvedic clinic in Mendocino for the deepest part of winter: warm oil held in the ears, jaw and temporal bone release, and foot treatment with a kānsya wand. Six appointments only.

Your feet have been cold since November.

January on this coast has a particular quality. Wind off the headlands, dark by half past four, and a woodstove pulling the last moisture out of every room you sit in. You wake at three. Your jaw is tight before you've said a word to anyone. There is a low hum in your head that you've stopped mentioning because it sounds like nothing.

Ayurveda has a name for this and a season for it. Vāta — the principle of movement, and everything cold, dry, rough and erratic — peaks now. It also has a sense-field: hearing. The ear is the door vāta comes in through, which is why the classical daily regimen includes putting warm oil in it. That instruction sounds strange until someone has done it to you, and then it doesn't.

W H A T H A P P E N S

Seventy-five minutes, beginning with pulse assessment and a ginger and salt foot soak.

Then karṇa pūraṇa: you lie on one side and warm medicated oil is poured into the ear and held there for several minutes while the jaw, the ridge behind the ear, and the temporal bone are worked. Then the other side. The room gets very quiet during this part. Most people lose track of where they are.

The session finishes at the feet — warm oil and a kāṁsya wand across the marma points of the sole, long strokes to the calf, and a sustained hold that gives the whole treatment its downward direction. You leave with an oil, one instruction, and the strong recommendation that you not schedule anything afterward.

You aren't sleeping, or you sleep and wake at the same hour every night. You clench your jaw, or you've been fitted for a night guard. There's ringing, fullness, or pressure in your ears that no one has found a cause for. Your feet are cold and stay cold. You've spent the winter on screens and your nervous system knows it.

If you have a perforated eardrum, tubes, recent ear surgery, an active ear infection or any discharge, a head cold with congestion, or vertigo that hasn't been looked at. Write to me instead — there's a version of this session that works for you without the ear component.

Spots Six appointments

Rate $108

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