Refresh

Do you know where this is?

 How do you refresh in any given day?

A short power nap?  Internal Arts?  A spritz of rosewater over your face?  A spin around the block?  Computer games?  Art?  Music?  Calling a friend?  Spending time in nature?  Playing with children?  Connecting with animals?  Cooking, baking, eating or drinking?  

For me it is cold fresh water.  The fresher and colder the better!
Splashing cold water in my face or taking a cold shower when I am tired completely refreshes me.

When I was four years old my mother took me up a 4000 meter high mountain in Austria.  It was a hot summer day and above us was an impeccable blue sky.  It was my first major climb.  My mother, who grew up in that area, wanted to show me the beauty of the mountain, it’s life and waters.  Whenever we came across fresh mountain water we would sit down and take a break.  We drank and splashed the fresh, cold and lively water all over us.  I never forgot the refreshing and vivifying effect of it.
A few years later, on another mountain, she encouraged me to take a dip in a mountain lake.  OMG!  14/15 degrees Celsius, I thought I would stop breathing!  I did not stay long and afterwards I experienced the pulsing circulation, the prickling sensation on the skin and the gradual warming of the body.  I loved it!

 A cold shower changes the chemistry of the body.  It is like turning the page.  Tiredness, moodiness, sluggishness can be turned around and the need to transition from one activity to the next can be helped with a little cold water.

Mountain lakes and waters are hard to come by here in Chester County but when I turn on the faucet or the shower for a short refresher during the day or after a long day to get ready for the evening, I imagine the quality of the waters in the mountains, and I see the spritzing, bubbling, white crested flowing and moving of the water and I am grateful for every droplet.

Like roses after the rain are plumped up, refreshed and are even more beautiful, so I feel the beneficial enlivening quality of cold water.

Try it!

The first one to tell me where the above picture was taken will get a free massage.


~Claudia