Summer in Galilee; by Juliette de Bairacli Levy suggested by Susun Weed

Susun Weeds offer link;
http://www.grandmotherherbalmedicine.com/

Amazons link;
http://www.amazon.com/Summer-GALILEE-Juliette-Bairacli-Levy/dp/1888123060/ref=tmm_pap_img_popover#_

milk thistle, (Silybum marianum).
Smiling over spilt milk, milk thistle link;
http://www.senorcafe.com/archives/food_wine/smiling_over_sp.html

more on milk thistle;
http://www.treatment-skincare.com/Nutrition-Diet/Milk-Thistle.html

milk thistle and other herbs for HCV;
http://www.godsremedy.com/hepatitis/prodadd.htm

Here comes the Dawn....

In the localist of local forests I found you.
You, and my spirit combined. The noises around disappeared there.
I felt the intense passion of you! Hugging~~~
The devotion is tantamount!
Patience waned, and today I see the knoll all green,
As if planted with precision, but it was only dumped
And Sunday cleared of the winters debris and blackberry vines.
Thank you Mother!
I will call you every day Mother, call you everyday. I sing
I will call you every day Daughter, call you everyday. You relied.....
(TY S.Weed, & C.Daughter)
Have a wonderful spring!
Living is King, Life is Queen
Livelihood is community compassionately stringed.
Devotion to these three, patience to let it be, intensely passionately waiting!
Spring


©Allisonians please ask permission to use my photos or writing

Julie Charette Nunn, Crow's Daughter interview with Susun Weed

AND Susun is in Seattle,WA!
WiseWomanRadio
http://www.wisewomanradio.com/interviews/nunn.html

Crow's Daughter website;
http://crowsdaughter.com/

Standing Stone Healing and Art;
http://standingstonehealingandarts.com/default.aspx

Woman and Wisdom Comfrence
PHONE: 206-782-3363
http://www.womenofwisdom.org/

and Susun will be in Eugene,OR as well! :D

St Joan's Wort, aka St. John's Wort, Hyperacum Perforatum

©AllisoniansPlease ask me for permission to use my photos or writing before you purger, (Plagiarize) yourself. As pledges be. silly silly

Free Introductory Webinar from WWU; Thea will be teaching a class called Love Your Liver.

Free tele-class Love Your Liver - Saturday Jan 29 - 10am EST


Register for this introductory class, listen live or receive the playback link and listen at your leisure. Webinar event "Love Your Liver: Spring and the Wood Element" with Thea Summer Deer.

Upon registration for this event, go to your wisewomanbookshop.com account and you will have access to the download pdf with access info for the free event. Email wisewoman@herbshealing.com if you need the pdf emailed to you directly.

In this one hour presentation we will discuss why the liver is so important for optimum health and its relationship to the Wood Element as described in Traditional Chinese Medicine. We will look at the role of the liver in health and disease from the perspective of TCM Five Element Theory. This will serve as an introduction to the 12 week course by the same name for those who would like to learn more, and also as a forum for actively enrolled students. We will hear from students who have completed, or are in the process of completing, the Lesson One assignment, which is: You will begin to dialog with your liver and journal about your health, identifying blocks that keep you from experiencing a greater flow of life force energy.

Thea will also be discussing three herbs in this presentation: Yellow root/Xanthorhiza simplicissima, Self Heal/Prunella vulgaris, and one of the herbs (Red Clover/Trifolium pratense) from her upcoming book with Bear & Co, The Wisdom of the Plant Devas: Herbal Medicine for a New Earth.

After registering for the free tele-class, go to Thea's slideshow at Wise Woman University: Burdock Loves Your Liver if you like the free lesson, register for Thea's 12 week Love Your Liver online course - only 75 Dollars..

Love Your Liver with Mentor Thea Summer Deer
This 12 week online course will benefit herbal practitioners at any level, and individuals who want to heal and support their liver for optimum health.

This twelve week online course, Love Your Liver: Spring and the Wood Element, contains information I hope will someday be taught to our children as a matter of course so they grow in the knowledge that healing takes place in the context of relationships.

Course start dates:

Jan 1, 2011 - with later dates as well
Go to the link for more information  there;
http://www.herbalmedicinehealing.com/store/item_view.asp?estore_itemid=1000543
Knowledge is power and empowered people make empowered choices. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the choices that effect health and wellbeing. We have not really been taught how to take care of ourselves or what it means to have a longevity plan.

Our current system of health education, put in place by government and corporations, do not necessarily have our best interests at heart. Our current model of health care itself is steeped in the heroic and mechanistic model. Chinese Medicine, on the other hand, is an empirical system of knowledge that has been in place for thousands of years.

When we marry the best of our current models of medicine with the healing modalities of the ancients, a bigger picture emerges: one in which the whole person is seen in a new light of understanding. This course will explore a holistic approach to taking care of one of the most amazing organs in our body.

COURSE GOALS:
• Gain a basic understanding of the Liver, how it functions, increase awareness around this vital organ.

• Begin to look at Liver Imbalance from the perspective of Chinese Five Element Theory, specifically the Wood Element which governs the liver.

• Understand the relationships between physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual health.

• Gain a deeper understanding of the importance of aligning with the natural rhythms of the earth.

• Acquire tools for recognizing and diagnosing patterns of imbalance, specifically Liver Imbalance.

• Put the lessons learned in this class into practice through dietary and lifestyle recommendations, and herbs that specifically support the liver.

• Learn how to increase vitality and longevity for yourself, your family or your clients.

• Have fun learning using the methods in this class which include journaling, dancing and cooking.

• Take your practice to the next level by examining a cases study and presenting one of your own.

Thea Summer Deer is a clinical herbalist, educator, writer, and musician. She began practicing midwifery in 1978 and was a founding mother of the South Florida School of Midwifery.

Her involvement in Alternative Medicine spans 30 years as owner of Mindbody and Evolutionary Press, and as the Executive Director of Resources for World Health. She is a graduate of the Botanologos School for Herbal Studies.

Mother, grandmother, avid cook and gardener, Thea is also an award winning songwriter performing in the acoustic duo, Thea & The GreenMan.
register here for 12 week course.

Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Pharmacy
Excerpt from pages 151 - Healing Wise

Dandelion Wine à la Laughing Rock
Our year's supply...
2gal/8 liter crock
3-5 qts/3-5 liters blossoms
5 qts/5 liters water
3 pounds/1.5 kg sugar
1 organic orange
1 organic lemon
1 pkg/8 grams live yeast whole wheat bread toast


DIRECTIONS:
Find a field of dandelions in bloom on a glorious shining day. Follow the honeybees to the finest flowers. Pick them with a sweeping motion of your parted fingers, like a comb. I leave the green sepals on, but get rid of all stalks.

Back home, put blossoms immediately into a large ceramic, glass, or plastic vessel. Boil water; pour over flowers. Cover your crock with cheesecloth. Stir daily for three days. On the fourth day, strain blossoms from liquid.

Cook liquid with sugar and rind of citrus (omit rind if not organic) for 30-60 minutes. Return to crock. Add citrus juice. When liquid has cooled to blood temperature, soften yeast, spread on toast, and float toast in crock. Cover and let work two days. Strain.

Return liquid to crock for one more day to settle. Filter into very clean bottles and cork lightly. Don't drink until winter solstice.

Preparation time: A week's worth of effort yields a drink not only delightful but good for your liver, as well.


Well, maybe next year. I need a couple of crocks. It's another addition to an already excedingly large list. Tootles.
Cheers,
Alli

Pine Needle Tea; by Susun Weed

The warming air of this verdant May morning touches my senses with pine. In the sweet-scented shade of a towering white pine much like the one I now sit under, the Peaceful Nations buried their weapons. I breathe deeply, asking their ancient wisdom to flow into me with the refreshing pine smell.

The nations of the Adirondacks (a word which means "tree eaters") ate the inner bark of White Pines as one of their primary winter foods.

I slice a strip from the underside of a small limb, thanking the tree for its gifts of nourishment. The antiseptic sensation in my throat as I chew brings to mind "Pine Brothers' Cough Drops." I feel my lungs open, my throat open, my sinuses open, warmed and stimulated by White Pine, lofty yet generous tree.

Europeans didn't eat White Pine (at least, not at first). They cut the straight, tall trees (150 feet was not an uncommon height and there are records of 200 and 250 foot trees) and sent them to the shipyards, where they masted huge sailing ships.

But eat Pine they did. Old records reveal numerous English settlements where virtually all of the colonists died of scurvy (lack of vitamin C) during their first winters in the "New World." Compassionate Native Americans suggested a daily tea of Pine needles, one of Nature's richest sources of vitamin C, and saved the colonists' lives. Pine needle tea has become one of my winter favorites, as well, staving off not only scurvy, But colds, congestion, and the flu.

The sticky sap I pry loose from the pine cone near me was chewed, no doubt, by Indian youth. It contains an (FDA approved) substance nearly 2000 times sweeter than sugar. I savor its surprising intensity, remembering winter sore throats soothed and sore gums strengthened. (Myrrh is a distant relative.) Mixed with grease, the sap is a superb sealant for canoes and water vessels.

As I close my eyes and savor the sweet, pungent taste and smell of Pine, I remember a story I heard from a woman who guides canoe trips. One of the participants ran his aluminum canoe into a rock, splitting the canoe and gashing his thigh deeply from knee to hip. Emergency care was 4-5 days away. They bound his thigh with limber strips of fresh White Pine bark and continued on. "I still marvel," she told me, "at the speed and ease with which That very nasty cut healed."

"Pine Tar Salve" reads the label. Looks black, like my hands when I handle fresh cut pine, or my clothes when I sit on the wrong stump. "Works like heck," says my neighbor. "Put It on dog sores, cat fight wounds, boils, ulcers, blisters. Draws out splinters, stys, and pimples. Soothes burns, hemorrhoids, and itchy bites. Even cures you of poison ivy. Give It a try."

I'll be in good company if I do. The Native people of North American valued no single healing/nourishing plant more highly than Pine. They used not only the sap, But also the boiled mashed inner bark, to heal the inevitable injuries of an outdoor life.

Icelanders of the fifteenth century took the sap mixed with honey to ease lung troubles.
Oriental herbalists use knots from their pines as medicine, especially praising the decoction (with Tang Gui) as a remedy for arthritis.

Is there a Pine growing by you? It's very likely. Take a moment; to the Pine, great tree of peace, tree of healing. Joyously feel the blessing of the trees. Breathe in the calming yet exhilarating scent of Pine. Truly, the trees shall heal us.


More......

http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/Weed_letter_Dec-01.htm

Herbs that Ease Anxiety and Fear; Nettle, Oatstraw, Motherwort, and more...

In this series of articles adapted from her best-selling book New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way (available through www.ashtreepublishing.com, herbalist Susun S Weed shares her favorite herbs and home remedies for dealing with fear, anxiety, nervousness, grief, depression, rage, fatigue, and sleeplessness. Her Wise Woman remedies are simple and safe to use, easy to find and buy, and amazingly effective.

Fear and anxiety are closely linked, but quite different. Fear is focused, anxiety is diffuse. Fear is health promoting and protective: It keeps us from jumping off cliffs. Anxiety can destroy health and increase our vulnerability: It shortens our breath, narrows our blood vessels, and interferes with the functioning of the immune system. Fear is useful energy; it calls to our courage. Anxiety is useless; it promotes feelings of insecurity, helplessness, weakness.

Notice the difference in yourself between fear and anxiety. Whenever possible, find the fear hidden in your anxiety and let it call forth your strength and power. The following remedies can help you make this transformation.

Bach flower remedies are easy to carry and use. A dose is 1-4 drops, taken as needed. One or more of the following may ease your anxiety: Aspen (anxious about the future); Mimulus (anxious about the past); Red Chestnut (anxious about the safety of others); Elm (overwhelming anxiety); Rock Rose (anxiety that escalates into panic).

The smell of roses has been used for centuries to ease anxiety. A touch of rose essential oil on the seam of your sleeve will wrap you in calming fragrance all day. To magnify the effect, have a massage with rose-scented balms. Even one massage can cause a marked decrease in anxiety for weeks afterwards.

Yoga postures, yoga breathing, and quiet, focused meditation are excellent ways to tonify (and soothe) the sympathetic nervous system. Regular practice alleviates anxiety, often permanently. If you feel so anxious you think you might burst, try the lion pose. Open your mouth very wide; even wider! Stick your tongue out; even further. Open your eyes really wide; bigger. Rotate eyes left, then right. Breathe deeply and exhale fully up to ten times. Keep the shoulders and the forehead relaxed. This pose unblocks the throat, releases facial tension, relaxes the breathing muscles, and relieves anxiety.

Stinging nettle infusion strengthens the adrenals: relieving anxiety and building focused energy. Depleted adrenals often over-react, giving rise to sudden sensations of anxiety, fear, and nervousness. Use bulk herb, not tea bags, not capsules. Put one ounce by weight (about a cup by volume) of the dried nettle herb in a quart jar. Fill the jar to the top with boiling water and cover tightly. Let steep for at least four hours; overnight is fine. Strain herb out and drink the remaining liquid. Iced nettle infusion is particularly good. The taste is green, like spinach broth, and is better seasoned with salt than sugar or honey. Refrigerate your nettle infusion after straining it and drink it promptly as it is likely to ferment is kept for more than two days.


Oatstraw infusion is another favorite of those who want to feel less anxious. Preparation is the same as for nettle infusion; remember to avoid tea bags and capsules. The taste of oatstraw is softer and more mellow; you will enjoy it warm with a little honey. Green oat tincture is much more powerful than oatstraw infusion. It is especially useful for those whose anxiety is combined with excessive nervous energy. Or try a hot bath with lemon balm or oatstraw; an ancient remedy for bad cases of the “nerves.” Ahhhh. . . .

Motherwort tincture is my favorite calmative. It is not sleep inducing nor mind numbing. A dose of 10-20 drops can safely be taken as often as every ten minutes, if needed, to calm and soothe sore spirits. "Like sitting in my mother's lap," one satisfied user commented. Motherwort tea tastes terrible and is not very effective; likewise the capsules are not useful. Motherwort tincture can be taken every day if you wish, but you will find that you don't need it as you have used it for a while.

A dropperful of St. Joan’s/John's wort tincture is the remedy to reach for when you are on edge and feel like anything will push you over it. The dose can be repeated safely several times an hour if needed. This nerve-nourishing and nerve-strengthening herb relieves the immediate anxiety and helps prevent future distress as well.

Herbal tranquilizers are safer than prescription tranquilizers, but are best reserved for occasional use. Valerian is the best known. Because its action can be quite strong, it is best to begin with a five-drop dose, which can be repeated every 10-15 minutes until you are calm (and probably asleep). To avoid addiction, use valerian root as a tea or a tincture, not in capsules, and take it for no more than three weeks. Skullcap tincture is less addictive and often more effective. The dose is 10-20 drops of fresh plant tincture or 1-2 dropperfuls of dried plant tincture. Skullcap can also be sleep inducing, but it is rarely habituating.


Exercise is a ready remedy for overwhelming anxiety. If you feel like running away from it all, running or skating or walking briskly might be the very thing to do. Fifteen to twenty minutes of heart-pounding exercise will use up your excess adrenalin and “eat up” your stress.

Extreme fear or anxiety may lead to hyperventilation. If you are breathing rapidly and shallowly and feel spaced out you can 1) breathe into a paper bag until normal breathing resumes or 2) hold your breath (you can actually put your hand over your nose and mouth) for a count of 20; then breathe out as slowly as you can.

Calcium keeps the nerves steady. A glass of warm milk is an old wives' trusted ally for relieving anxiety. Stinging nettle is an excellent source of calcium when brewed as an infusion; one cup can contain as much as 500 mg of calcium. Oatstraw infusion is also loaded with calcium, with one cup containing up to 300 mg. Soy beverage can have the opposite effect -- that is, it may increase anxiety -- due to its ability to disrupt thyroid functioning and interfere with calcium metabolism. One herbalist who consumed large quantities of soy "milk" and soy protein bars wound up in the hospital with an irregular heartbeat and severe anxiety. If you think you are lactose intolerant, drink no more than four ounces of milk at a time, or use yogurt instead of milk. (Yogurt is generally free of lactose.)

Of course you don't want to do all these things at once! But you could join a yoga class, use nettle or oatstraw infusion daily, and have a bottle of motherwort or skullcap tincture handy for times when you are exceptionally anxious. By working with strengthening herbs and exercises, you not only relieve the bothersome symptoms but improve your overall health. That's the Wise Woman Way.
This article appeared in the December 2001edition as the first of a featured ongoing column by Susun Weed at http://www.awakenedwoman.com/

more on motherwort from Susun;
http://www.susunweed.com/Article_Motherwort.htm

TY my dear friends for sharing you insights and herbal introspective and more...
With much gratitude and love,
Allison

Susun Weed and Skullcap; indirectly ~ my adventures ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And thanks be to my wonderful friend who introduced me to Susun, indirectly through some of her work such as this excerpt. If you are whimsically inclined you will for sure enjoy her writing. If you are more traditional thinking, you may come away with some criticisms. This is my journal entry. It is not a critical analysis.
Namaste~~~
With much gratitude, Alli
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Skullcap
Herbal Adventures with Susun S Weed

by Susun S. Weed

I promised to meet you deep in the woods during a summer thunderstorm. That's my favorite time to pick one of my favorite mints: mad dog weed, also known as skullcap. I always keep a bottle in my firstaid kit, just in case. Here, you take the basket and scissors, I have the vodka; let's make some skullcap tincture.

If you're going to come with me to hunt for skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), may I suggest you take off your shoes. Skullcap grows in wet places and the mud feels nice between your toes. No sense in searching for her until the nights are warm. I usually harvest skullcap in August here in the Catskills, when she is at the peak of her growth and flowering.

I'm blessed to have skullcap in my wet woods. She is somewhat rare, and difficult to find. She's very shy. And likes to hide. Most people who look for skullcap come away empty-handed. But if you don't find her, you will very likely find Lycopus, wolf mint, sometimes called mountain mint.

Where skullcap is sprawling and lanky, hardly trying to stand up, wolf mint is erect and short. Skullcap has blue-purple flowers, while wolf mint has little ruffs (whorls) of white flowers around the stem. Despite these differences, Lycopus is considered an excellent substitute for skullcap.

These mints need to be tinctured fresh. Drying skullcap or wolf mint evaporates most of the delicate components that make these plants so gently effective. So I use only the very freshest plant material. That's why we're taking the vodka to the skullcap. We're going to make our tincture in the woods. Even a short delay between harvesting and tincturing weakens the final product.

If you can't find skullcap, you may want to try growing her. She is fussy, and very demanding. Unlike most mints, she likes rich earth, but not too rich. She wants wet soil, but not too wet. And she likes dappled sunlight but not too shady, and not too sunny either, please.

Let's sing as we walk to the skullcap "swamp." Singing is my favorite form of prayer. And I want skullcap to hear us coming and welcome us. Aha! Here we are--feel the squishy warm mud underfoot?

See if you can find the skullcap among the life root (Senecio aureus) and forget-me-nots. Look not only for her blue-violet flowers but also for her strangely shaped seed pods. They are said to look like skulls, but you will have to use your imagination to see the resemblance. Perhaps she got her name from her ability to relieve headaches. Or because, if you take enough skullcap, your head droops like her flowers and you sleep.

Because there is so little skullcap, even where there seems to be a lot of it, and because drying it makes it nearly worthless as a medicinal plant in my estimation, I don't make tea or infusion with it. Remember that even if we harvested a pound of fresh skullcap, it would dry down to a mere four ounces. Instead, I preserve and maximize skullcap's properties by tincturing her. And since I use skullcap primarily for pain relief, it's great to have a fast-acting tincture.

I find a small dose (3-5 drops of fresh skullcap tincture) takes the edge off a simple tension headache in a few minutes. A larger dose (10-15 drops), taken three or four times at the beginning of a major headache, can often stop it from coming on or moderate its pain and length. A really large dose (a dropperful or 15-25 drops) will make you very sleepy. So, be very cautious.

But you don't need to take skullcap tincture by the handful to get to sleep. As little as ten drops in a cup of warm milk (or hot chocolate) is quite effective. Lighting a candle, cuddle up in bed, drink your skullcap nightcap, and get ready for pleasant dreams.

People addicted to sleeping pills (and other addictive substances) find skullcap tincture an ally when they are ready to get off drugs. Make sure there's a glass of water with another dose of skullcap already in it next to your bed, in case you need it. Then blow out the candle, say your prayers, and good night.

Skullcap tincture relieves almost any pain, especially when the nerves are involved. Try skullcap when bothered by sciatica pain, neuralgia, toothache, eye twitches, or ringing in the ears.

Skullcap was a powerful ally for me when I sprained my wrist far from home on a camping trip. The pain was so intense I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep. But a dropperful of skullcap put me out. Every time the pain woke me--probably a dozen times that first night--I took another dropperful and went back to sleep almost instantly.

Skullcap works well with St. Joan's wort (discussed in a previous SageWoman). These friends, taken together, ease migraines, relax stiff muscles, and relieve pain throughout the body.

If I'm in a stressful situation, I take 1-2 drops of skullcap in the morning, right after I get up. It seems to strengthen my nervous system, and doesn't make me at all sleepy.

If you buy skullcap tincture, and it is made from dried plants, multiply my doses by ten to get the same effects.

Listen to that thunder roll across the mountains. They say it's Rip Van Winkle playing at nine pins with the wee folk. Time to head back to the house, where we can pull out the last two remedies in my first-aid kit. And we'd better move fast or more than our feet will be wet.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question and Answer:

Dear Susun,
Thank you for your wonderful article on comfrey leaf in SageWoman. I ordered a pound of comfrey leaf from Frontier, assuming it would be the cultivated kind. But it was labeled Symphytum officinale. I spoke to someone there, but she didn't seem to understand my question, and said that even if it was the cultivated type they would still stand behind their warning of "external use only."

This spring I will plant comfrey so I won't have to rely on Frontier, but in the meantime, I would like to begin the infusion. Should I trust the label and assume it is the wild variety, or should I just go for it and hope that it has no toxins? By the way, your website is awesome.
Nicole

Dear Nicole;
I think the Frontier comfrey leaf is mislabeled. I think everybody's comfrey leaf is mislabeled. Symphytum officinale--a small plant with yellow flowers--is rarely grown in North America, and never sold, so far as I can determine. So, despite the label, what you have bought is most likely an S. uplandica cross.

I'm not surprised there's so much confusion. I was taught the comfrey in my garden was Symphytum officinale, and passed on that misinformation for many years. That's what all the books say. But when I got involved with the Henry Doubleday Research Foundation in England, I learned that I was wrong. And when I finally saw wild comfrey growing (in Germany), it was obviously different from the big pink-purple flowered plant in my garden--and every garden I've been in.

I did once see wild comfrey in a garden. I was called in to help them get rid of it; unfortunately, an impossible task.

So I sincerely believe that the comfrey leaf you bought from Frontier is uplandica, whether they know it or not. I buy the very some organic comfrey leaf from them. That's what I use during the summer when the apprentices, students, and I go through 3-5 gallons of infusion a day. During the winter, when I'm alone, I use my home-grown comfrey.

To maximize alantoin content, I harvest the flowering stalks of my comfrey: that's the stalk, leaves, and flowers. I store the dried herb whole, but take the time to cut it up as small as I have patience for when I brew it into nourishing herbal infusion.
If you want to play it safe, or if you sense that you shouldn't use the comfrey you bought, then you could add it to your compost (the worms love it). Instead of comfrey, you could use mullein infusions and linden infusions.

There are so many green blessings.
Susun

PHOTO COURTESY OF;
Mollie Kellogg