Spring has sprung as nature’s magic unfolds before our eyes. Winter’s barren land is now a carpet of flowers and greens. Shopping at the farmer’s market puts the freshest veggies of the season on your plate but how else can you connect to nature’s rhythm? Sprouting edible seeds! Seeds carry almost everything needed to form into a plant. With a little water, the seed is awakened and life springs into action. Eating sprouted seeds is a way to capture the essence of spring and a plethora of nutrients.

You’ve probably passed by packages of science experiment-looking sprouts in the grocery store or buy them regularly paying a premium because you know they are good for you. With a little daily attention, you can sprout your own seeds for a fraction of the cost. Look in the bulk section of the grocery store for dried lentils, mung and adzuki beans. Packets of radish, alfalfa and clover seeds can be found in specialty grocery or garden stores and online.

What you’ll need:

• Wide-mouth glass quart jar
• Mesh screen/cheese cloth with rubber band OR sprouting lid (found online)
• Filtered water
• Seeds

How to sprout:

1)     Place 1-2 tablespoons of seeds in jar.

2)     Fill jar with water and soak seeds for 8 hours or overnight (out of direct light.) If you don’t have a sprouting lid, simply place a piece of folded cheesecloth or mesh screen over jar’s mouth and secure with rubber band.

3)     Pour off soaking water and fill jar with fresh water, then strain again. Keep the lid on while you strain, as to not lose any seeds.

4)     Twice a day (morning and night) fill the jar with fresh water and drain. Place jar in a dark corner of the counter, away from direct sunlight. When using small seeds, it’s best to keep the jar tipped upside-down in a bowl. No matter how well you think you’ve strained, too much water can be left behind, making the seeds mushy.

5)     After a couple of days, seeds will form little tails. The sprouting has begun! Keep draining twice a day but now place the jar in direct sunlight so they can absorb the sun’s rays and boost chlorophyll production. The entire process should take 4-6 days depending on seed type and room temperature.

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The next day, before we leave, we spend time at the Foyer des Orphelins d’Haiti,  an orphanage not far from the airport. The cramped gray-walled quarters, beds without mattresses, and, especially, the kids’ desperate need for attention and touch and anything else we might give, bring us all to tears or to that state in which we knew if we would but let them, they would come. There are 70 kids who live in the orphanage and 100 more who go to school there each day. Already, the principal tells us, 60% of the older kids who have participated in our groups, are calmer, more focused. We will, over the next few months, have 10-week-long small groups for all 170, and do whatever we can to help the orphanage’s caring, committed, and overwhelmed staff provide enough food and guidance so that these kids will have the best possible chance at life.

Being in the Foyer we cannot help but realize, once again, that there are hundreds of thousands more kids in Haiti who are so unfairly burdened and limited, that there is so much to do, economically, socially, and politically, as well as psychologically.

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In Port-au-Prince the next day, Kathleen and Catherine have the opportunity to see the small groups—with kids, teenagers, and adults—in action, to hear which technique has been most helpful to each person, to feel the closeness that develops over the weeks of regular meetings.

Then, to their surprise, there is a ceremony: Linda speaks with passionate gratitude about Don deLaski’s kindness and generosity, and I present a plaque in his honor to be hung on the wall of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s Port-au-Prince office. After, all of us –the Port-au-Prince leadership team, forty people who’ve come for groups, and assorted friends and family—sit down for a skit.

The play of course is in Kreyole but even without Regine’s skillful translation the message is pretty clear. As played by Spencer, a large, committed, and very funny accountant, I am deeply moved by the 2010 earthquake, determined to see if we can be of help. Spencer’s got my passion and perseverance down, and also, hilariously, the way I, increasingly hard of hearing, punctuate my queries with “What?” Edris, in a dark suit and tie, plays Don, miraculously transformed from a 25-year-old black Haitian to a kindly 75-year-old white American man. “Don” agrees that we have to help, and that he will give us the money to make it happen. “I” call Clairetida, who is playing Amy, and Jennifer, who is doing Lee-Ann, to move things along. They are pitch perfect too, “Amy” all heart, “Lee-Ann” ready to make it happen. It’s an “origin story”.

After the applause dies down, there is, of course, dancing. A performance by young children, with Linda’s two girls doing solos, then three of the nursing students who are in our group, and then all of us, children and adults, Haitians and Americans.

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Jacmel, a seaside town famous for its crafts, is a three hour drive south across the mountains. At the side of the road are chickens, donkeys and the occasional stray dog, behind them banks of vegetables in stalls; overhead, blue, purple, pink, and orange flowers, and, beyond, ranks of mountains marching off toward the horizon.

In 2010-2011 we trained 120 clinicians, educators, and religious leaders in Port-au-Prince. In 2012, we began the work in Jacmel with an equal number of community leaders drawn from towns and cities all the way to Les Cayes, two hours away. They completed the Advanced Training last November and have begun to use their skills in classrooms and hospitals, with individuals and families, vegetable sellers, storekeepers, and farmers who come together in town squares. Our Port-au-Prince leadership team has been supervising them individually, by phone, and in monthly two-day visits.

Fifty of the Jacmel trainees, a remarkable turnout at fairly short notice on a workday, come to a program that Linda and I are leading. They sit in a circle, the bright white shirts of priests punctuating the many colors of teachers’, nurses’, and psychologists’ shirts and dresses. We discuss a dozen ways to use soft belly breathing: to invite sleep or quiet nerves before an exam, or take some distance from the nightmares that still wake so many in this area. A teacher shares a recurring dream of fire coming to consume her family. We work with images of water to cool it, and explore potential dialogues with this disturbing symptom, and ways to move the body to free her from the nighttime paralysis. And then, of course, we shake and dance. Afterwards, quiet now, we consult with the internal Wise Guides who are so warmly welcomed by our eager, imaginative participants.

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Before we leave for the countryside we visit classrooms at Notre Dame de la Guadeloupe where our Haitian team is currently leading workshops. After workshops, which take place in classrooms, have been offered to all 700 students, we’ll begin 10-week-long small mind-body groups for all the kids, and the teachers and administrators as well.

This is a process that has worked wonderfully well in a number of other schools in Port-au-Prince. The teachers and administrators consistently tell us that the kids who come through the groups are less stressed out and less prone to the nightmares and angry outbursts that have plagued them since the January 2010 earthquake.

It’s a treat to see the classrooms grow quiet as the kids practice soft belly breathing, and then burst into movement as our Haitian leaders teach them shaking and dancing. They’ve also added a new exercise since my last visit. They use guided imagery to encourage the kids to imagine that they are butterflies lifting free for a moment from the problems of poverty and overcrowding that are all but universal; after the imagery everyone stands and waves their arms, enjoying the feeling as well as the image of flight.

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With me in Haiti is Kathleen deLaski, a former journalist and AOL executive, whose father Don has made possible everything we’ve done in Haiti. Since Don’s death a year ago, she has headed up the family foundation, and now wants to experience firsthand the program that Don so generously and lovingly funded. Her daughter, Catherine Grubb, who is studying neuroscience, is with us, as are Lee-Ann Gallarano, who manages our Global Trauma Relief program, and Laura Milstein, our Development Director. It’s Laura’s first trip to Haiti, as well as Kathleen and Catherine’s. Linda Metayer, the psychologist who leads our Haiti program, has organized our visit.

An auspicious beginning for our trip: We meet with President Bill Clinton at the Karibe hotel. He’s in town, he tells us, to look at some innovative agriculture projects and, as always, to encourage foreign investment in Haiti. We have a chance to talk to him about our work which he appreciates and wants to learn more about.

The next morning we meet with René Domersant, the psychologist who heads up mental health efforts for Haiti’s Ministry of Health, and has also been part of our leadership team, as well as his boss Dr. Jocelyn Pierre-Louis. They are hoping that we will be able to train key Ministry people in all ten of Haiti’s districts so that our work with ongoing stress and psychological trauma can be integrated into the Ministry’s work at every level. It’s wonderful to feel their support as well as that of Bishop Pierre Andre Dumas who heads up the Catholic Church’s social welfare activities.

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