Viewing entries tagged with 'psoriasis'
COMFREY Symphytum officinale
Comfrey was first brought to my attention after the birth of my son more than thirty years ago. My domiciliary midwife, the wonderful Joan Donnelly was a staunch advocate of eating weeds and comfrey was one of her favourites. She was a picture of health and as well as her weed salads she used to knock back tablespoons of cayenne pepper to keep any bugs at bay. Undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with and she was a guiding light in the homebirth movement in this country. But I digress... comfrey also a force to be reckoned with, there's no getting rid of it once it establishes itself. Every little rootlet will grow a new plant. I used to curse it when my garden was tiny. Now I welcome the huge clumps it makes and I have created gardens around it. In early spring when I am planting seedlings or planning to make a comfrey tea for the garden I can never get enough of it! It has had some very bad press during the last few years for causing hepato-toxicity in laboratory experiments with rats, but there's no need to throw out the baby with the bath water. Problems can occur from ingesting the roots, in quantity. Topically it is one of our most marvelous healers for all manner of wounds and injuries from the skin through to the ligaments and the bone, nicely backed up by placebo double-blind trials I might add! For more details read the full post.
CHICKWEED Stellaria media
When I was seventeen years old I become a vegetarian as well as a skillfull forager. I was the salad queen. It seemed as if I could make a salad appear out of the ether. I would wander through backyards and gardens, searching through hedges picking this and that. Without fail I could produce a bowl of tastiness that was not only packed with goodness and seriously delicious, but also a delight to look at. Full of edible flowers and weeds. Most times chickweed was the base ingredient. When my eldest was a toddler chickweed was a staple of his diet, in salads, sandwiches and soups. Yup, those were the simple times. Recently my mum was reminiscing about my weed salads, and I wondered why I stopped making them. There's probably lot's of reasons and having a massive vege garden that provides generic salad greens is the main one most likely. You've worked so hard to cultivate them, of course you consume them, that's obvious. But I can see myself when I'm much older and gardening is not so easy. I'll be more than happy to go back to my old ways of foraging, gathering a bit of this and a bit of that. For more details read the full post.
RED CLOVER Trifolium pratense
Every fortnight as I write my plant blog I experience it as a little journey. First there's the resistance to the work, then the slow drawn out beginning where I'm still in resistance mode then the buckling down. Then comes the pleasure of immersion in remembering, gathering and sharing information. This fortnightly blog discusses red clover and it's virtues. I got sidetracked looking at the statistics for cancer treatments, herbal or medical and it got me to thinking. One of the sites I looked at recommended to walk bare-footed on the bare earth. And you know there is a lot to be said for just that and all that comes with it. I remembered when I was a child, you only wore shoes to school or if going "out" somewhere special. You experienced so much through the soles of your feet. You stepped out boldly onto the rough grass, the un-expected prickles, the possiblity of bee-stings, the toe-stubbing stones, the hot sand or footpaths, the cold puddles, the deliciously squidgey mud and so on. There was so much sensation, pleasure or pain to be experienced through your feet. Then as we grew we covered our feet and in a way we disconnected from our natural selves, the child, the primitive. Not surprisingly those who are on a journey to heal themselves of cancer or other chronic illnesses will often find the need to reconnect and heal the child within. Becoming re-acqainted with the familiar plants and weeds of our childhoods is undoubtedly another way of reconnection with the earth and our natural selves. For more details read the full post.
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