Learning Herbs

Physician Heal thyself

 Physician health thyself is the old adage and indeed I personally always take my health or dis ease as a challenge to put all my resources and skill to the test!!!

I fully believe that herbs along with nutritional and lifestyle changes can create Ease and Health with everything, often being nursed and taken care of when we are down is integral to this journey to Optimum health.

Today I am suffering with a horrid gum swelling and infection, my lymph nodes are hard and painful and my  mouth is throbbing. I cannot bite down or chew anything as it feels very uncomfortable and painful and has done for about 30 hrs so far.

The Great Eliminator Point

My supportive partner, responded to me whining on the sofa last night and begging in a small childlike manor to be ‘Nursed’ by using his skills of shiatsu; pressing several points including The great eliminator (see picture). He also suggested to me hot salt water gargles and garlic, prescribing 6 cloves a day, to be crushed and taken hole but not on an empty stomach. He rather unervingly added that if it was not better within a week I would need in his words; ‘To Nuke it with hardcore stuff.’ This statement sent me into slight panic, what did he mean? 6 cloves of Garlic daily surely was super hardcore??? Part of me seemed to think he was talking about anto-biotics….My ego was dented, doesn’t he know who I am? A herbalist with capabilities of healing herself…..with some support and care from friends and family.

So my action plan when I woke this morning; which includes vast amounts of polypharmacy!

I stopped eating solids from yesterday and have had regular juices with organic vegetables, ginger and turmeric and smoothies with natural bio live yogurt, bananas, various soft and lots of turmeric, taking garlic in between smoothie sips.

Rubbing lavender and calendula externally onto my swollen lymph.

I made a mouth wash with Propolis, Myrrh, calendula and clove essential oil and boy is it strong.

Taking Echinacea, Calendula, Propolis, Elderberry and Swedish bitters internally with high strength vitamin C and Rieshi mushrooms.

And now I am going to bed to heal it all in the next couple of hours hopefully……phew

Making Smudge Sticks from our Native Smoke…..Artemisia

Harvesting the Lady Mugwort today for many things but gonna make me some smudge sticks now…….

She is an essential medicine in our materia medica with countless amazing healing properties and also one of the herbs in our hand prepared smudge sticks. The lady Artemisia has the power to work her magic in our dreams, sending us, both coded and clear insights, to grasp onto as we wake from slumber. She is a moon Spirit and duality is written all over her form with her dark green leaves contrasting with the silver underside.  She has soft flowers, filigreed leaves and willowy movements in the breeze while her deep red backbone stems are strong and upright. Full of contrasts, clarity and, mystery.  She is protective and nurturing and deeply connective to the constant changing cycles. She clears and opens channels to our brains, connecting right and left hemispheres, rebalancing our pineal and pituitary gland activity.

The magic of the pineal gland

The pineal gland has been likened to the seat of consciousness.  It becomes active when we are in deep rapid eye movement sleep, creating our dream world.  The release of melatonin at night balances out the sleep wake cycle, keeps us balanced, connected with the cycles of day and night.  Mugwort can stimulate pineal gland activity thus bringing our dreams alive.

Smudging

Smudging is a common name given to our ancient, indigenous, spiritual tradition sometimes called sacred smoking. Its a powerful spiritual cleansing technique which calls upon the spirits of various sacred plants to clear, clarify, purify and to restore balance. We mix mugwort with purple sage, yarrow and rosemary in our smugesticks.

Smudging with our native herbs allows us to effect the world of subtle spiritual energies. By using the spirits of these familiar powerful, healing plants we deepen relationships with mother earth and thus ourselves.  Our bodies, homes, offices and green-spaces vibrate with invisible energy currents that are strongly effected by outside forces, both physical and spiritual.

Smudging allows you to wash away all the emotional and spiritual negativity that gathers in your body and your space over time.  It's a little bit like taking a spiritual shower!  The effects of smudging are instantly noticeable, banishing stress and providing energy and peace.  The air often twinkles with vibrancy after a good smudge.

Smoke

People the world over have been using plants to generate smoke to produce beneficial effects.  Smoke is used to drive off insects and to prevent disease.  Smoke also is deeply symbolic, it ascends to heaven, as if bringing any prayers and intentions up to the gods with it.  From the incense of Asia and Europe to the sage and cedar of the indigenous Americans, the smoke generated by plants has a primordial history of use as part of spiritual practice. 

Making smudge sticks

There is nothing more powerful than using sacred tools you’ve made yourself and smudge sticks are no exception.  You can put all of your energy and thought into the herbs as you harvest them, the tying of the twine around them and then the drying and burning at the end.  They are great for gifts or to use with patients and clients if you have a practice you follow.

While you are harvesting and making the smudge sticks remember to use the intensions of uplifting vibes, purification and protection.

1.  Firstly you need to harvest your herbs.  We use mugwort as our base.  She is abundant and really keeps the smudge stock alight with the way she burns.  Find a good patch where’s she’s got lots to give. Harvest just as the plant has flowered.  We were keeping our eyes on a patch 2 years ago up a pedestrian country lane, waiting for the right time for the plant and the moon.  We finally harvested her and the next day, unbeknown to us, the farmer came and mowed down the whole wayside.  Phew, close call but the moon was looking out for us.

As the mugwort is so connected to the moon it is nice to harvest when the moon is full.  The moon draws up all of the energy and constituents within the plant to the tips.

Depending on the size of the plant you have chosen, we usually harvest from about half way down the stem, above where she looks like she could divide off and keep growing if the weathers right.  Ou will need the pieces to be at least 30-40cm long to make nice fat smudge sticks.

2.  Next choose what you want to go in with the mugwort.  We usually head to the garden for this.  Yarrow, sage and rosemary are our favourites but we’ve also used wormwood, once we used some white sage a friend was growing.  The aromatic herbs tend to burn well and provide the most cleansing and protective actions.  The aromatic herbs are high in essential oils which are the plants own defense system.  The oils burn well with lovely aromas and provide all the protection that they did for the plant.

3. Lay out a good bunch of a combination of your herbs but mainly mugwort out in front of you.  The thickness you choose depends on your choice and the weird and wonderful shapes of the finished products often reflect the character of the person who made it!  It probably wants to be a bunch the thickness that will fit snugly into your thumb and first finger joined tip to tip to make a round.

4.  Match up the stems approximately but you can trim them afterwards and then holding the base of the bunch in one hand slightly twist the bunch with the other and bend it over so that the ends of the bunch come back down to where your first hand is holding the bunch.

5.  Now place some twine (green garden twine is nice or you can use nice coloured embroidery threads) around the end and bind a couple of times around before starting to work up towards the end being careful to include all the ends of herbs as you go.  It needs to be bound tightly as the herbs will shrink as they dry but their needs to be good gas between the spiral of thread going up the bunch to make sure that it can breathe to dry properly.

Work up and then back down winding the thread around so that as the thread burns away it still crisscrosses to stop it from unraveling before you reach the end of your smudge stick.

6.  Do a few nice tight rounds at the bottom before tying it tightly with the loose end.  Place an intension clearly on each knot as you tie it.

7.  Hang your smudge stick in a warm dry place to dry, near a wood burner or in an airing cupboard and keep giving it a feel to check its dry.  The length of time taken to dry will vary depending on how thick and tightly you’ve made and tyed your bunch and on where you hang it.

Using the smudge stick

Smudging a house

Choose a time where no one but family who live there are about for 24 hours then clean and tidy and generally have a good clear out, preparing a few bags to give away.  Then put some good tunes on, light a candle in each room whilst asking for support from your guides and spirits. Light your smudge stick by pushing back some of the thread and holding a flame to the end.  When it starts to take you can gently encourage it by blowing on the herbs til lovely embers forma nd the stick starts to smoke. Start in the North top corner of the house and work through each corner nook and cranny, North, East ,South, West in each room saying a mantra as you go.  Something like ‘clear the old vibes and make space for new energies’. Its nice to pay special attention to the doors saying ‘let all whom enter do so with peace in their hearts and exit with filled with love’.

Smudging a person

Start at their feet and gently blowing on the smudge stick or wafting it with a big feather or wing start to work up around the body spiraling as you go.  Pay special attention to the womb or pelvic area, the heart, the third eye and the crown.  Finishing here.  Remember to whisper or chant a suitable mantra as you work.

Find out more about this amazing herb at our Sensory Workshop @ Atlantis Spiritual Centre Crews Hill -

https://www.facebook.com/events/106299589716059/

Seed SistAs

Seed SistAs

We have begun our transformation in the Seed SistAs from the Wild n Wicked Witches, black hats moving to full skirts with many pockets filled with various Seeds…it is very exciting, off to the Radical Herb Gathering -

www.radicalherbalism.org.uk/2015-gathering/programme-2015/


Working with The Seeds of Inspiration

We are focused on Seed politics and Food sovereignty. This years workshop @ the gathering shall be run as a ritual, using our innate sensory perceptions to connect with 3 seeds used a lot in our herbal practice and meet these individual plants: Oats, Rosehips and Fennel. We shall be looking at how we can use seeds to elicit change and where our individual power lies, within the politics of Food and Medicine today.

Dock

I am Seed

Here in this Moment all around me Dies,

I Stop,

Slow,

In my Heart is the Potential,

All-Consuming Passion for Regeneration.

Contained but Bursting. 

Give me Water,

Fire and Earth,

I will Transform. 

Comfrey

Come down from your lofty heights

Withered ways

Primrose Seed Pods

Nourish me

As I in turn hold the Promise of Nourishment.   

The Axis between the Worlds,

Fulcrum

Holding Court with noone but Me Myself & I. 

I Balance all the Energetic matter from the sands of Time

With the Foresight,

The Promise,

The Potential,

The Future. 

Perfect Preparation

Seed Sowing in Da Orchard

A team of amazing volunteers gathered together to sow the first wildflower seeds onto the muddy stripped fields that are to be Northaw Community Orchard …..

The land was dug up n all of the massive brambles and assorted rubbish removed, then it was walked and bramble roots picked out 

 We mixed 100g of wild flower seeds in 2 handfuls of builders sand and sowed a bowlful per 20m squared 

 It is a total privilege being part of a community group and hanging out with people that want to give, be outdoors creating positive change Thank you to everyone involved.

We plan to plant 75 trees mixed fruit and nuts which will go in next Feb, have a community bee project on the land and run educational workshops

We are looking for artists to come and create beautiful natural pieces, anyone any good with a chain saw? Because we'd love some benches…..

HOT HORSERADISH ROOTS...

Horseradish     Mars

It’s creeping towards the start of the freezy winter months and all things warming and spicy are the order of the season.  We’ve just been digging up horseradish root with our apprentices in preparation for the winter roots weekend in November.  Its a hot herb of Mars. 

Eva discovers hidden hot treasures beneath the ground

      

Horseradish is really circulatory and stimulating.  It is so hot that when you chop it up, the enzymes release mustard oil into the atmosphere and sting your eyes.  I was wearing goggles to chop it yesterday. When you chew a small amount, once the heat has subsided, has a distinct bitter taste which is responsible for encouraging the digestion by stimulating the liver and pancreas.  Great for helping to digest rich meat dishes!

It is said that the oracle of Delphi said to Apollo that Horseradish is worth its weight in gold.  She was right; it’s a hugely valuable plant both medicinally and as a condiment.

We use it as part of our Ache Ease balm to bring circulation to a damaged or inflammed joint or as a rub for tired achey muscles.  As you've heard it can be very irritant so it is best to mix with some other oils.  In our Ache Ease Balm we also use comfrey and heather oil.

Making Horseradish oil

Chop it up as thinly and as small as possible soon after harvesting.  If you wait too long and it becomes too dry and it is nearly impossible to chop.  This time I placed the chopped pieces into a brown paper bag and in the airing cupboard for 3 to 4 days to get most of the moisture out.  If you put the root in the oil still moist, the oil will go rancid.

Horseradish slices in almond oil

It then goes into a clean jar and covered in oil.  Almond oil is our oil of choice but any oil will do.  Olive is thicker with more smell, grape seed very light.  As it starts to mix and absorb the oil, the horseradish releases sulphurous gasses which you see as bubbles rising to the surface of the oil.  Every couple of days its important to release the lid to let the eggy gasses out....After 2 weeks you can strain  the horseradish out of the oil through a muslin cloth and store your oil to combine with other oils of your choice.

Foody ideas

We have kept a big lump of the root back to use in stews and on sandwiches.  The root needs to be kept wrapped up so that the air doesn’t get to it (this stops it from loosing its spicy volatile oils and going bitter) and stored in the fridge.  It can just be taken out and a small amount grated into stews or sandwiches.

Conscious harvesting

After harvesting we planted fennel seeds and gave thanks

Charli lovin' the horseradish

www.sensorysolutions.co.uk/apprenticeships

Sugar Free Rosehip Syrup recipe

Rosa canina is a beautiful delicate flower, turning to red sexy hip gracing many of our hedgerows. Growing abundantly often intertwined with her equally protective and prickly cousin Hawthorn. Her pale pink heart shaped petals give us a clear indication of one of her medicinal virtues – to sooth any anxieties especially of the heart and issues of love and grief, her hips full of vitamin C nourishing and nurturing.

Her delicate floral flavours are uplifting and cooling, her scent attractive and calming. It is important to take care whilst harvesting as her barbed shaped thorns can be oh so vicious –we take it as a no nonsense message to move on to another bush. Her sexy fruity hips out right now in Autumn, encompass the reproductive system in their juicy red nourishing shells filled with thousands of seeds – When preparing these it is important to be aware that the tiny hairs are extremely irritant and in fact are the origins of itchy powder.

Rosehips are renowned for treating arthritic complaints with great results interestingly especially the knees.  Perhaps the mode of action for this is through her amazing effect healing the gut, as well as the anti-inflammatory effects she imparts.

Emotionally we have used the the rosehips especially in syrup from to put nurture back in when you’ve been giving out to others.  This is a particularly maternal quality, the constant Giver.

Ingredients:
• rosehips
• apple juice concentrate
• spring water

Method:
1. place the washed rosehips in a large pan
2. cover with spring water
3. bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 mins
4. mash it all up with a potatoe masher
5. Put it through a food mill (see picture)
6. Pour through a jelly bag/or muslin square
7. Add the apple concentrate at a ratio of 2 parts apple to 1 part rosehips and boil rapidly for another 5 minutes. Pour into hot sterile bottles and seal immediately.

Antimicrobial Aromatic Potion to ward of Colds and Flus

Our garden path is lined with the most delightful scented aromatic herbs and it is a constant wonder to the children and adult’s alike hands are trailed along and wonderful smells released each journey up or down it. Amongst others you’ll meet the uplifting, protective, rosemary, calming lavender, pungent thyme, heady sage, smoky wormwood, tasty marjoram and sweet myrtle. All aromatics are anti-microbial in their very nature the high scents are often part of the plants own protective system to ward off pests and illness. Aromatic after the word aroma just means smelly!

Today I have decided to make a tincture to go towards making the next Tonsil Tickler Throat Spray of ours. The way I make tincture is very simple. I choose the herbs I want in it, so in this layer cake there is calendula, daisy (lymphatics), rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, myrtle (aromatics) lavender (anti inflammatory aromatic) Nastursium Flowers, Borage…..delicious and so pretty a mix.

I harvest the plants on a dry day after the morning dew has evaporated, the moon is nearly full so all the energy  of the plant is at full power….

Then I chop up the pack as much as possible into a jar and cover with good quality  vodka, label and date the tincture and one lunar cycle later strain the herb out and what is left is your tincture.

I shall be making elderberry syrup to add to this potion in the autumn and then I shall mix it all up together.

Herbal Kids

Magical Lemon Balm - Anti depressant, Anti Viral, Cold Sore Healing ……..n many more!

May Full Moon and what a treat we have with wonderful sunny warm weather a prefect day for a garden harvest, I love to harvest the Ariel parts of plants inuring the full moon when I know all the energies in the herbs are pulsating upwards to bathe in maximum light. I was in my shed dispensing and noticed that last years lemon balm (Melissa) tincture was almost finished so what better time to replenish stocks…

The Lemon Balm is in full leafy glory at this time of year and each time I wander up my garden path, brushing past various aromatics, the sweet sharp lemony aromas makes me smile. I found a glass jar then holding an intention of calming, uplifting healing, began harvesting juicy leaf tops whilst opening my voice and letting words flow through me. I found myself singing about community love and support and the importance of self-nurture. Each plant has a song and I find it great fun to let my imagination and creative play free whilst working with plant energies.

Once the jar was full of green, delightfully smelling leaves I covered half the jar with Vodka and the top half with 80 percent alcohol from a holiday aboard. I want to have a higher strength alcohol to extract some more of the volatile oils. I am going to put this tincture out side in the moon light, standing on a picture of symbols for love support community and self care for the next 3 nights before straining, I have a mantra to speak to the potion, ‘ With Great Love and Respect I ask for Powerful Healings, Calming, Uplifting Support & connection between all Life. Thank you.’

Lemon Balm is a very easy herb to grow one of the Mint family (recognisable by their square stems) it is quick to establish in the garden and move around taking over beds (I don’t mind too much!).

Lemon balm’s Greek derived scientific name “Melissa”

Is from the fact that it is a favourite of bees and in

Ancient Greece sprigs of lemon balm were placed into beehives to attract wandering honeybee swarms we now know that one of its citrusy scents mimics the homing pheromone of bees. It is delightful to watch the honeybees drinking her nectar on summer days.

It is thought that during the 10^th century the Arabs who had it as a valued part of their Materia Medica for many hundreds of year’s prior introduced the plant to Europe. So thank you for that wonderful present!

Lemon balm seemed to be a favorite of William Shakespeare; lemon balm was used as a secret messenger or code, in the language of flowers, between lovers to signify sympathy. And is written into several of his plays.

Recent scientific studies have proven the anti-viral effectiveness of lemon balm specifically in shortening the healing time of herpes cold sores and outbreak of shingles (we have it in our lip balms with hypericum another great anti-viral herb) & there are ongoing research programme in the treatment of Grave’s disease, hyperthyroid, and Alzheimer’s/dementia. 

Native Superfood Kale….Delicious Curly Kale Crisps…

On my Raw adventuring I am delighted by curly Kale crisps, happily tucking into a bowl of them with an evening film when the world around eats dorites….

I have purchased a food dehydrator and this new recepies of dried tomato and cashew Kale crisps is my favourite this month.

Ingredients:

 

•                1 large bunch of kale, stems discarded and leaves ripped up

•                30 grams homegrown dried tomatoes, soaked in water to soften for at least 1 hour

•                1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for at least 1 hour

•                2 large garlic cloves

•                2 tbsp fresh lime juice

•                2 tbsp yeast flakes

Method

•  In two separate bowls, soak the sun-dried tomatoes and cashews in water for at least 1 hour, I left them over night but it can be done quicker if you need.
• ·       After soaking, keep the tomato soaking water. Drain and rinse the cashews.
• ·       In a food processer then mince up the nuts and add crushed garlic and the rest of ingrediants including the tomatoe water
• ·       tear the kale into pieces in a large bowl. Pour the sauce on top of the kale and stir with a spoon. Then toss the spoon and get in there with your hands to massage the sauce into the kale until well coated.
• ·      Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• ·      Dehydrate for about 8 hours at 115F.
• ·       EAT

History

In the wild, the Brassica oleracea plant is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe but Kale has been cultivated for over 2,000 years. In much of Europe it was the most widely eaten green vegetable until the Middle Ages when cabbages became more popular. Historically it has been particularly important in colder regions due to its resistance to frost. In nineteenth century Scotland kail was used as a generic term for 'dinner' and all kitchens featured a kail-pot for cooking.

Kale was grown as a staple crop in the the Scottish Islands due to it’s extreme hardiness, and was given protection from the elements in purpose built Kale Yards. Indeed, almost every house had a kale yard and preserved kale in barrels of salt, similar to sourkraut in Germany. They also fed it to livestock through the winter. Kale continued to be extremely important until potatoes came to the Islands towards the end of the 18th century.

Superfood

Portion for portion kale is hard to beat when it comes to the number of nutrients it contains and a great choice for those wanting to enjoy a healthy balanced diet. Kale is an excellent source of vitamins K, A and C, as well as containing useful amounts of manganese, copper and phytochemicals, which are believed to help against certain types of cancer.