On Natural Medicine
The first time I consciously thought about natural medicine, was when I was a kid and had my first dog. We were next to inseparable for almost fourteen years and I learned many things from her.
When I first saw her eat grass, I did not know what to think. I was young as I said and I did not know that dogs eat grass. I found the whole experience quite strange. It was something new to me but when I looked more into this subject, I discovered that dogs indeed do eat certain types of grass – it helps with digestion.
At least two decades have passed since then and now I am a faithful believer in natural medicine. I know that Mother Earth provides medicine for any and all of our ailments/illnesses. I personally do not see doctors. I have not visited one in somewhere around eight years and I feel great!
I am not a medicine man or a shaman but I do try to learn from anyone who is in the know on this subject and I heal myself. I use medicine herbs to heal and regenerate regularly. For example, I use bath infusions with cedar, sage and wormwood in order to relax, heal minor cuts, bruises and such (spending time in the forest may result in things of this nature). I recommend bath infusion to anyone and everyone. My great-grand-father kept this habit into his nineties; he was one of the healthiest elderly men I have ever known.
In my opinion, healing has to come from within. We have to heal ourselves and we cannot look at medicine as something that will heal us. No, we use the medicine herbs in order to help us, heal ourselves. It is our Mind, Body and Spirit that heals, the natural medicines only help us but for example if we do not have faith in our own ability to heal – healing will not occur. Healing starts with our Mind and Spirit. We have to Will our Healing.
There are countless natural medicines for whatever the need is. Not long ago I learned that the gum/sap from a Spruce tree, mixed with grease, can be used by people who suffer from arthritis. Simply rub the mixture on joints or parts of the body where discomfort exists and the pain will subside. This combination of grease and sap from a Spruce tree can also be used to numb specific areas of the body.
To stop bleeding or heal cuts, one can use the stem, roots or flowers from the Yarrow plant. This I learned from the Native American people, here in Canada but from my own background (Dacian/Romanian) and from the knowledge passed on orally by my ancestors, I can say that You can stop bleeding by covering a cut in spider web. I know it may sound strange but I learned this when I was a kid, from elders in my grandmother’s village in the Carpathian Mountains and it works.
I also remember burning myself when I was a kid and my grandmother cut a potato in half and told me to keep the inside part of the potato on the burned area of my skin. It soothed the pain for sure! Many people in my grandmother’s village had knowledge of how to use natural medicines in order to heal. That is where I also learned that in order to cure a headache one can chop-up some cabbage, sprinkle some salt on it, wrap it up in a cloth and place it on the forehead. In that tiny village up in the mountains of Romania, this was common knowledge; there was nothing strange about it.
There is a lot of information about natural medicine if we search for it and I do encourage people to give medicine herbs in specific, a chance. Such herbs will not have the negative effects which some pills and medicines from the pharmaceutical industry have. Mother Earth has provided us with all that we need – we just need to pay heed.
All the best! I wish everyone well.
Note: My photographs, Florida, United States, 2011