My Healing Yard, Take 2

Come along, time for another healing walk through the back yard.

A couple of weeks ago, the boys were mowing the lawn.  Suddenly the lawn mower quit. I immediately wonder: lawn mower ill or kids quitting when the job is not half finished? Jake yells to me:  "Mom, come over here, please."  I go over to see this nice sized patch of purple flowers he has neatly mowed around.  I was not sure what they were but glad he left them intact, knowing that next year the patch will be bigger!

So, my sister googled the image, a few days later, when I find some in my Mom's yard.  This purple beauty is Self-Heal (Heal All), a powerhouse healing plant from the Mint family!  Good for: sore throats and mouth sores, fevers, diarrhea, skin wounds and sores, a diuretic for kidney ills, and conjunctivitis.

This humble plant contains antibiotic, hypotensive (lowers blood pressure), and anti-mutagenic (think cancer) properties. Traditional Chinese Medicine considers it a cooling plant and uses it to treat the liver (inflammation) and aid circulation.

Thanks Jake for seeing these 'lil flowers in the lawn and knowing to protect them from the hungry lawn mower!

Self-Heal growing next to a friend, White Clover.

White Clover:  Colds, coughs, fever, and vaginal infections. Flower tea is used for arthritis and gout, health conditions in the same family.

White Clover

Wild Strawberry leaves were once used as a nerve tonic, for bladder and kidney ailments, jaundice, scurvy, diarrhea, stomachaches, and gout. Fresh leaf tea was used for sore throats. Berries are eaten for scurvy and gout... something tells me to eat them just because they are yummy! Root tea was used to treat gonorrhea, stomach and lung ailments, irregular menses, and as a diuretic. What a humble little plant!

My yard is carpeted with Wild Strawberry plants. I have caught the cat's eating them on many occasions, bet they were self medicating their bellies!

Rhubarb root is delightful for constipation as it stimulates the liver to release bile which promotes colon cleansing. The root helps lower cholesterol, is an antiseptic, relieves spasms, has anti-tumor effects, is a diuretic, and a general tonic for good health. 

Rhubarb stalks are a good source of calcium, anti-oxidants, are a laxative, and a purgative.  Rhubarb is high in dietary fiber, protein, vitamin C, vitamin K, B complex vitamins, potassium, manganese, and magnesium. Rhubarb is a rich source of polyphenolic flavonoids like beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin.  Hey, rhubarb is a "superfood" that does not have to be imported thousands of miles!

Caution: Do not eat the rhubarb leaves... TOXIC ALERT!  The triangular leaves are extremely high in oxalic acid, which can cause severe illness in people, resulting in the common belief that rhubarb is poisonous. If the plant is subject to extreme cold, the dangerous acid can migrate into the stalk, so be sure to store rhubarb in a warm or temperate space, just like the climate it normally grows in.

My Rhubarb patch, looking a little ill this time of year!

Bee balm: My patch is a mix of wild and cultivated.  I planted it to feed the hummingbirds and have found it attracts bees, dragon flies, butterflies, and various other flying insects!  It is Wild Bergamot! The leaf tea is used for colic, to expel flatulence (gas) and parasites, colds, fever, stomachaches, nosebleeds, insomnia, and heart troubles. It was used with measles to induce sweating and "fever" the virus out of the body.

Bee Balm

Plantain: Here is a plant for your skin!  Got some pesky bug bites?  Chew up plantain leaves and put the chewed up "poultice" onto the bites.  Let them sit for a bit and soothe the bug bites.  This is back yard first aid!  Plantain is used to heal all sorts of skin issues, sores, and ulcers as it stimulates the healing process.

This plant is another healing powerhouse, used as a prominent folk cancer remedy - healing plant in South America. My yard is a cancer healing center!

Plantain is a confirmed antimicrobial.  This is what we should be making hand sanitizers out of, not toxic chemicals and over used and abused antibiotics.

Plantain's seeds (the seed stalks are an easy way to identify this plant) are mucilagenous and used to reduce cholesterol.

Plantain

Wild Geranium: This fun little plant grows atop my septic tank.  I am not sure I would ever want to harvest it from this spot...

Wild Geranium's root is used for stopping bleeding, diarrhea, dysentery, hemorrhoid relief (seems to me it would be healing to varicose veins as well), for gum disease, kidney and stomach ills, and as a diuretic. The powdered root is used to heal canker sores, apply topically. Externally it is used as a cancer remedy.

Wild Geranium

Motherwort

Motherwort: This plant, hanging here on my front porch (above picture) was an awesome gift from Martha Pickard's farm, (Nourished Roots Certified Nutrition Specialist).  I am going to tincture it as Motherwort is a wonderful healing plant for the female reproductive tract: promotes and regulates menstruation, as an aid in childbirth, as a uterine tonic, and for menstrual cramps.  I would mix it with Red Raspberry leaf and Stinging Nettle leaf for an amazing uterine tonic and female reproductive tract healing remedy.

Motherwort is also used for asthma, as a sleep aid, for heart palpitations, for sciatica, fevers, spasm, nerve pain, and stomachaches.

Motherwort is equally awesome for the heart, nourishing and strengthening the heart muscle and its blood vessels. It is a remedy for most heart diseases and rapid heart rate (tachycardia).  I would blend it with Hawthorne Berry for heart-loving nourishment!

Below is the pint of Motherwort tincture I have brewing.  The Motherwort demands respect when handling, like Stinging Nettles.  It has sweet, little, biting blossoms whorling about the stem.  Handle carefully, lest you get picked!

Thank you Jane for always keeping a supply of organic vodka at Village Wine & Liquors, Potsdam.  Keeps my tincture "squeaky clean!"

I would be horribly remiss if I did not mention my best herb friend here... Stinging Nettles. Yes, that is a gallon jug of Nettle, Red Clover flower, and Strawberry leaf tea.  Thank you John Casserly for the big bag of dried Nettles.  What a gift!

Herbs ARE very healing to body, mind, and soul.  The herbs nourish the physical body with vitamins, minerals, and healing chemical constituents that we really do not need to know their every name... just know that they work.  Herbs heal the mind because of the thinking you do to learn about their healing properties. Learning about herbs is a mind soothing activity. You are taking self-responsibility for your own health and acknowledging, at a very deep level, that you are not at the "hands" of fate and genetics.  You can do something, everyday, to make yourself feel and function from a vibrant space.  Herbs heal the soul because... well, look at my friendly connections just in this post.  My sister, Ginny, googling Self-Heal and teaching me a new plant, Martha gifting me with Motherwort, John gifting me with Nettles, and Jane gifting me with always having organic vodka available. Every time I use these healing gifts, I will think of my dear friends.  Self-Heal will always flash my sister into my mind. Herbs keep me connected with the best people and that is very soul soothing!

Creeping Wood Sorrel: This is that fun plant kids pick to eat because it is sour tasting. I ate plenty as a kid! Perhaps it is a wise, intuitive, healing action for kids who need the vitamin C after a long winter in Northern NY!  

Traditionally, the leaves were chewed to relief mouth sores, sore throats, and nausea.  Fresh leaves are poulticed and used on skin sores and ulcers, as well as cancers. Leaf tea is used for scurvy, urinary tract infections, and fevers. Caution:  Large doses may cause oxalate poisoning (much like the rhubarb leaves above).

Creeping Wood Sorrel, notice the tiny yellow flowers.  When in full bloom, flowers will be all over them.  Maybe flowers are another characteristic that attracts kids.

I hope I have helped you to look at the plants in your yard from a different perspective, a healing point of view.  I always feel so sad for the lawn that people try to mold and shape into nothing but pure grass by cutting down and digging up plants and applying toxic chemicals.  When we leave nature as it is, bio-diversified, we have a healing oasis right out our back door (front door too!).

If you sit on the lawn, so you are close to the ground, and look at just a 2 square foot space, you will be amazed at the biodiversity of plant life in just that small space.  Even more fun, try moving about your yard, sitting in different spots along your journey.  By the end of your adventure, I bet you can find 50 to 100 different species of plants!

Go ahead, take a walk and look into your grass. Sit down and really look.  I bet you can find many, tiny plants interwoven with the grass blades, struggling to come to life. That is your healing garden!

Blessings, Paula

Self-Heal... another pretty picture!  I see Wild Strawberry leaves, plantain, white clover, and wood sorrel intertwined in here!

My Healing Yard

If you have ever wandered up my driveway to socialize, have dinner, perhaps a healing session or a holistic class, or maybe an evening campfire, you know my yard's wildness!  The first 2/3's, moving up my driveway, is wild and free.  My backyard is overrun with wild plants.

When my Dad visits he always asks: "Do you want me to come over with my lawn tractor and help you mow this place?" He loves to taunt me about my weeds.   (Shhh, never call them weeds to their "blossom." Such rudeness hurts their feelings!)

My yard, a disaster to my Dad, is a healing oasis to me.  I nurture wild plants that will heal asthma to zits, cancer to psoriasis, provide birth control options, heal your body's inflammation, and everything in between. Annoying weeds they may be to most, to me they are my humble, healing friends that I protect with the gentle fierceness of a mother. And, they graciously feed butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and so many more wild creatures!

(All of the healing hints I will give, below, for my beloved weeds are but the tip of the iceberg for what each magical plant can be used for. Every plant has so many healing uses!)

Here we have Mullein (It is the tall plant with the yellow flower stalk), an amazing healing plant for asthma and your body's glands.  Mullein oil can be rubbed over the thyroid, the ovaries, the testicles, or any gland and you can take mullein tincture to nourish all your glands from the inside of your body.  

Yeah, I have a few cats about the home who like to get into the photo ops!  The Milk Weed, hanging out here with my friend Mullein, is also good for asthma, constipation, and is reputed to be anti-fertility by the Mohawks.  Milk Weed makes a fun, pink jelly for smearing on winter toast... don't forget the butter! 

Got zits?  Try Dandelion leaf and root tea.  Add some Burdock Root and Red Clover flowers to this mix and you have a gentle liver and skin nourishing blend.  

Of course, I would add my best friend Stinging Nettles to the above and every healing herb recipe. It just makes good nourishing sense to add nettles!

Red Clover Blossoms!

Dandelion's useful parts: leaf, flower, root.  Burdock Root.. you have to dig it OR buy some from The Kent Family Growers or Birdsfoot Farm!

Dandelion leaves... and underneath the leaves, for fall harvesting, are the roots.

Cancer?  The above blend does wonders to cleanse/nourish the liver and blood so your immune system can do its job in healing and removing cancer from the body.  Add some peppermint (below) as its healing oils and chemical constituents are amazing healing energy for digestive tract issues!

Thank you, Robin, for this wonderful mint variety.  Seems the deer like it too!  Smart animals.

Want to increase fertility and your ability to conceive?  Try a tea (medicinal strength infusion) of Red Raspberry leaf (below), Red Clover Blossoms (picture above), and Stinging Nettles (below). The link above has a "recipe" for a liver detox infusion.  Follow the same principles when making your "Fertili-Tea."  No simmering of the infusion is needed as you are using all leaves and flowers. Just steep the infusion overnight.

Red Raspberry Leaf, while you are collecting leaves for making tea... eat the berries!

Stinging Nettles, nestled up against my home.

Want to decrease fertility? Chicory Root tea (below) decreases sperm count.  Milkweed (see above) decreases female fertility.  Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Carrot (below), decreases female fertility and prevents pregnancy.

Red Raspberry Leaf (above) nourishes the uterus and reproductive tract throughout a female's life cycle.  My plant intuition says it has to be nourishing for males as well.

There are many herbs to control fertility, enhance pregnancy and birthing, and nourish the reproductive tract. That is a whole book waiting to be written OR grab a copy of Susun Weed's Childbearing Years.  This is a great place to start in learning female reproductive herbs.

Chicory:  the root is used as a medicinal infusion to decrease sperm count.

Queen Anne's Lace flower head: the seeds are used to prevent pregnancy.

The below Black Eyed Susan patch adorns the yard behind my house and garage (and you are only seeing about 1/5 of this flower patch!).  I leave it wild purely to heal my heart and soul (and my cat's as well... all 4 cats seem to love their wild flower jungle!).

Native Americans used the plant for internal parasites, skin wounds, earaches, snake bites, and the common cold.

Wild plants are wonderful.  Befriend one today!  Paula

PS  Stay tuned for Healing Backyard Plants, Pt 2

AND

The Healing Powers of the Great White Pine

Summertime and the Living Is Easy

Summer is an amazing time to revitalize mind, body, and soul.  

How can we not feel amazing with the:

• sun shining brightly,
• warm rains on occasion,
• birds singing,
• frogs and crickets chirping,
• fire flies blinking at night,
• local produce pouring off the farm stands,
• green grass and wild flowers coloring our world happy,
• sultry, warm nights swimming in the moon light...

May your summer be filled with warmth, good smells, and happy memories!  Hugs, Paula

Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

Frost, my Siamese Mutt Cat, doing her version of Downward Facing Cat Pose. She IS a natural at Yoga!

Why I Love Yoga…and other thoughts on local, whole foods!

And you are now thinking, what does yoga have to do with the food?  My answer is quite simple. When we create mindfulness through a regular yoga practice (or any other form of body awareness exercises: Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Tae Kwon Do), we consciously make healthier choices in all areas of our lives.  This means healthier food choices. 

Back to yoga.  Why I love yoga… because it works!  It works on many levels, see my above comment around food choices.  The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj and means to yoke or bind. Yoga is often interpreted as a method of discipline that brings union (yoking or binding) to body, mind, and spirit. Yoga is the study of the Self.  Yoga gives us tools to improve our lives by stripping away the illusions that block us from connecting with our true self, with others, and with life itself.

Yoga is a whole food that nourishes body, mind, and soul.  Food is sacred to the body; it nourishes and sustains us.  Love is sacred to the mind and heart; nourishing the very part of us, our spirits, that gives to others and back to ourselves.  Yoga is the breath of the soul; keeping our life force strong and our 3 parts (body, mind, soul) in harmony and union.

Getting down to the brass tack: I am an exercise enthusiast.  Those who know me, know this well.  As long as I am not sitting still, I am happy.  The list of activities I have engaged in goes on and on and blurs together over the years and decades of my life. I love and have loved them all.

For many years I was into serious weight training and I felt that I was very strong.  When I started to do yoga, I was humbled.  I could not push up into a back bend.  My arms would just not do it.  After a few weeks I had the back bend thing down.  Years later, I now do reverse push ups.  Push ups from the back bend pose!  The strength I have gained is through my whole body (mind and soul!).

Over the years I realized my yoga strength ran deeper than that.  My choices around food and other lifestyle habits became more conscious in a health promoting way.  I paid attention to eating with awareness, chewing food well, eating only what I needed, and stopping before I was stuffed.  These habits around food and food choices slipped in the back door; all part of the study of self (ha ha, yoga!).  All those years of doing yoga transformed the way I interacted with myself and the world around me and I did not even perceive it happening.

Positive things I noticed around food: not needing to fill my plate to the brim or returning to the potluck table for another round of food, being satisfied with enough, passing on the desserts as sweet foods no longer dominated my taste buds, feeling abundance and satisfaction with light meals, and reveling in the flavors / colors / textures / and gift that each meal brings.

When we stop the constant chatter inside our heads and still our minds through mindfulness activities (yoga and other body awareness exercises), we tend to make choices that are in alignment with what is best for our health without feeling deprived.  This is because we have learned to live in the present moment and are aligned in body, mind, and spirit.  That is the awareness that Yoga brings to our being.

A cluttered "chattery" mind and a body that is not aligned in mind, body, and spirit tends to make decisions based upon impulse and cravings without regard to what is best for long term health.

When we quiet our minds, we use our emotions to our advantage.  When our minds are busy, our emotions use us.

Change is defined as the process of becoming different, substituting one thing for another, biological metamorphosis, personal development especially if seen as personally "life-changing". Consciousness is awareness of one's own existence and behaviors, inwardly attentive and mindful.  Conscious change involves will and deliberateness, altering self in an intentionally conceived manner.

When we discover that something we are doing in our lives no longer serves our higher purpose as a human, conscious change is how we evolve.  When we discover that the lifestyle and food choices we have made, consciously or not, are not reflections of our higher selves, we move to make change.  We realize our bodies are not vibrating at our highest level of health and we seek out ways to change this:  to heal current symptoms and weight issues and prevent lifelong degenerative diseases from interfering with our vibrant quality of life.

Remember that life is always for us!  Life force energy is always moving towards the positive, health and healing.  It is humans who tend to go against the grain of nature and turn this flow of energy against ourselves.  If you allow yourself to be in this flow, positive things will just happen.

Yoga, or any body awareness type exercise, aligns our bodies, our minds and our spirits so we make life giving choices.  Yoga helps us to become normalized in our eating, to reach a pattern of habits that are normal and healthy for us.  Yoga (or any body awareness exercise) help us to walk into the Potsdam Food Coop, Nature's Storehouse, our local farm stands or supermarkets, and we can make choices that feed and nourish every cell of our being.  We walk out with life giving, whole foods to nourish ourselves and our families.

Update 3/2/2020: over the 8 years since I originally wrote this article, I have learned much info about how science has proven “how” Yoga works. Here is one article that is simple and to the point on Vagus Nerve Toning and Health. The words, in the image below, exemplify how toning the Vagus Nerve improves our wellbeing.

Simply put into words by Donna Farhi, world renowned Yoga Teacher: (image compliments of Trillium Center for Yoga & Health, Potsdam, NY)

A book to inspire you to create conscious living in your life.

This means you no longer make choices based upon emotional triggers. You instead make choices based upon inner wisdom and peacefulness.

Your Ticket to Inner Peacefulness, Buy On Amazon

Namaste  

 

PS  

Update 7/31/2019 I created and teach my Sacred Circle Yoga Mentorship because I see what a daily Yoga practice does for one’s health. This Whole Food / Functional Medicine Health Coaching Mentorship encourages you to add Yoga (any kind of poses and deep breathing habits) to your daily Lifestyle Medicine to retrain your body-mind-spirit to a place of peaceful calm. When we walk the Earth in peace & calm… we are capable of making the best decisions for our purpose on this planet. See the Donna Farhi image above.

Update 4/23/2018  Happy Earth Day!  This post has been used and published in several newsletters and journals in the 5 years since I wrote it. My wish is that the gift of Yoga, mindfulness, reaches out to help many heal emotional issues around food, food choices, and eating habits.  I have since created The School of Self Healing home study courses on weight loss, sugar addiction, and whole food eating that embody the mindful / yoga habits to support your feeling whole and happy in the healing choices you make. Much Love to All.

More Why I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Yoga Blog Posts, Yup, click on the "blue" back there. Enjoy reading as much as I enjoy sharing my Love of Yoga.

Update on 4/29/16 Great quotes from the book "The Little Red Book Of YOGA WISDOM" Thank you Shelby of Five Elements Living Retreat Center for always keeping my heart and soul open to inspiration.

• Yoga is the martial art of the soul and the opponent is the strongest you have ever faced: Your Ego. - Unknown

• Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. -Ram Dass

• Yoga exists in the world because everything is linked (connected). -Desikashar