I've always thought of myself as a Kapha girl. I mean, I've never taken a dosha quiz, but just from the things I know about doshas I just pegged myself as a Kapha. Well it turns out I was all wrong. I finally took a dosha quiz and I'm a Pitta. Pitta, Pitta, Pitta. I know none of this makes sense to many of you, but stay with me here. In Ayurveda you are always more of one dosha than the others, but ideally you'd like to be kind of close to balanced in all three. The thing about these kinds of workshops is that you have a tendency to go into them assuming that you have some sort of major dosha imbalance. In other words you go into them thinking there's something wrong with you. Well, I learned this weekend that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm fairly balanced in all three doshas, but I'm strongest in the Pitta. I eat a diet that suits my dosha and do activities appropriate for my dosha. I'm doing most every thing right. You know what is wrong? My kitchen. My kitchen is all wrong for an Ayurvedic kitchen. See the evidence below.

That top square is how the layout of an Ayurvedic kitchen should be. That bottom square is a diagram of my kitchen. See the the problem here? I've got fire where I should have water and earth where I should have air. My kitchen walls are yellow which is a Kapha balancing color and the color swatch I've had taped to that wall for over a year is orange which is a Vata balancing color. Maybe I won't be painting that kitchen orange after all. In fact, from where I'm sitting, all I can think to do is gut it entirely and start over from scratch. I mean how hard could it be to move plumbing and gas lines?

OK, maybe that's a bit of an over reaction. That top diagram is the ideal Ayurvedic kitchen, but nobody lives in ideal conditions. There are ways I can fix my kitchen without calling in the construction crew. The first thing I can do is paint my kitchen a Pitta soothing color like green, blue or purple. Next I need to put something inspiring along with a small water feature in the north east corner. The water feature can be something as simple as a plant or a vase of flowers. Since I can't move my stove into the "fire" corner, I can put things that get hot in that corner. This is something I already do. My coffee maker sits there and also the rice cooker. Now, let's move to the earth corner. That's a good place to store things from your past. I'm doing OK here too. This is the area I store my dishes. My dishes are special, made by my mother, and spent three years packed away in storage. They represent something from my past. The air corner is where you should keep the things that you don't use too much. I use the fridge every day, but I store baking pans and muffin tins in the cabinet above.

So... nothing a little paint and inspiration won't fix. The first thing I need to do is figure out a paint color. I've been set on the idea of orange for a kitchen for a long time. Now I'm leaning towards eggplant. And maybe open up the cabinet above the stove to put cookbooks and something inspirational to look at while I cook. Easy, simple fixes and I'll have my very own Ayurvedic kitchen. Om shanti.