The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the roof on my building has stopped leaking rain into my living room. All of that can mean only one thing: It's springtime! And, according to the yogic tradition, that's the best time to clean up one's act. So I decided to do a cleanse.

The only other time I've "cleansed" was last year when I did the master cleanse (you know—10 days of nothing but lemonade, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper). It was cool in a meditative way, but my body didn't really enjoy the starvation aspect. When I learned that Scott Blossom was doing a one-week ayurvedic cleanse at Yoga Tree Hayes that involved food, I was eager to take part.

I am now on day five of the cleanse, which is intended to balance our doshas, or vital energies. Everyone is eating a dish called Khichari, which is basically mung beans and a whole grain (rice, barley, millet, or quinoa, depending on your dominant dosha) mixed with various vegetables and Indian spices.

Don't know what a dosha is? Ayurveda is a huge health science, but in short it tells us that there are three doshas in every body which can be identified by both positive qualities (when they are in the right proportion) and negative qualities (when they dominate). For instance, vata brings creativity and nervousness, pitta can be identified by motivation and temper, and kapha suggests both steadiness and sluggishness. The idea of this cleanse is to bring your doshas into greater balance. (To determine your own dosha, you can fill out Yoga Journal's dosha questionnaire.)

Scott is a yoga teacher and a doctor in ayurveda (as well as Chinese medicine), so he has vast knowledge about cleansing the body. By midweek, many of us were not feeling so great because of all of the toxins or ama that's been stirred up, but Scott's been great about helping us to understand what's going on and how to work through it. We have also been meeting in the mornings to chant, do a digestion-based practice, and ask questions.

The cleanse ends this weekend with a "purgative" dose of castor oil (whoa!) followed by a day of fasting and meditation. It has been such a great experience to cook fresh food all week, limit my Internet browsing (required for the cleanse), and increase my knowledge tenfold of the Rainbow Grocery herb aisle. I am, however, starting to salivate just a little at the thought of Thai food, raisin bread … and chocolate.

Anyone else doing a spring cleanse? Let us know how it's going!