Lynn OBrien April, 2009

With the rise in prices all over the place, from groceries to gas to clothing, we should all be seriously considering how to be more self-sufficient. I am not talking about refining your own bio-diesel, although that is becoming increasingly more common. I am talking about making a space in your life for bringing back a little of what our ancestors did on a daily basis.

Even if you live in suburbia-type dwelling, in a rural town or in a downtown high-rise, a little of Nature can be brought into your life and home, cutting a little from your food budget and reducing greenhouse emissions.

Consider a patio garden, where you could grown fresh herbs and maybe a few vegetables that you use on a regular basis. Compost kitchen waste, (do not include, meats, dairy, animal waste, or eggs), newspaper, stale coffee, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags with used tea, eggshells, leaves and spent flowers off of other plants; make your own organic garden compost to help provide nutrients to the soil. If you live where you have a lawn, be wary of using cut lawn clippings if they have been treated with fertilizers or other chemicals.

Composting helps to reduce garbage in landfills, which also helps reduce the number of animals that can be killed each year due to eating and being in landfills. This reduction in landfill waste will help reduce greenhouse gases. Growing your own foods can also help reduce the number of trips to the grocery to purchase produce, thereby reducing more emissions from your car. You can find many different styles and instructions for making your own compost container. The one we currently use is a 25 gallon Rubbermaid garbage can that has about 20 holes drilled into the bottom and about 1/4 of the way up the sides. I put in all my kitchen waste, except for the forbidden items, and leave it out in the sun to “cook”. The heat helps it break down quicker, along with liquid added, like water or coffee, and an occasional stirring.

If you’re lucky enough to have space, and the law allows, you could also look into raising chickens for eggs. All you need is some ground space, a chicken coop, and a couple of hens. Chickens make great bug eaters and the fresh eggs taste different than those you get from conventional, industrial raised chickens. Check with a local feed store to see what kinds of chickens they have available and to get tips on raising them.

Many of today’s meats contain potentially harmful antibiotics and steroid-type “additives”; many of us eat these on a daily basis, like chicken, pork and beef.(2) One common trick is to put carbon monoxide in with red meats when packaged to help them retain their red color longer, making them more appealing on the store shelves.(1)

If you have children, getting them involved in helping you with your garden, and maybe your chickens, will help them learn where their foods come from, and can teach them responsibility. It is good to get them out in Nature once in a while, and helping outside for 30 minutes each day is great exercise.

So look around you, where can you set up a garden patch and start planting? It can be as simple as a windowsill garden, or as complex as a full production garden of a variety of vegetables and fruits. Would it be a benefit to your family? Of course it would, and you would be helping Mother Earth as well!

MotherEarthNews.com is a great place to find all the information you need to start your own home garden or homestead project. Check them out today at http://www.motherearthnews.com. Sign up for free newsletters and get wonderful information at the tips of your fingers!

I urge everyone to take a few minutes out of their day and think about what you can do to make your world, and the world you live in, a little bit healthier.

(1) Mother Earth News, Shocking News About Meat, June/July 2007

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-06-01/Shocking-News-About-Meat.aspx

(2) Mother Earth News, What You Need to Know About the Beef You Eat February/March 2008

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2008-02-01/What-You-Need-to-Know-About-the-Beef-You-Eat.aspx

Mother Earth News, The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness, February/March 2009

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx

Tags: Herbal, native, natural, wise, woman

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OSusun S. Weed November, 2008

What’s Science Got to Do With It?

Once upon a time, healing was considered an art. Healing was understood by all to be a complex interaction between the patient, the healer, the community of living people, the communities of the plants and animals (and insects and rocks and fish), the communities of the non-living people (such as ancestors, spirit guides, and archetypes) and that mysterious movement known by so many names: Creator, God/dess, All High.

The healing arts included a keen knowledge of human behavior, a thorough knowledge of plants, a flair for the dramatic arts, especially singing/chanting and costuming/body painting, and a comprehensive knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry. (If you think these areas are not arts, look at the system used by Traditional Chinese Practitioners, which includes such “organs” as the triple heater and a dozen different pulses.)

does not preclude or oppose science. Science is, after all, only the honest testing of ideas and the ability to observe clearly the confusing relationship of cause and effect. The best of science is deeply indebted to art. understands that science is left-brained and art is right-brained, and a whole brain includes both.

Science, however, is not so easy with art. Science believes art is superstition. Science believes art is fuzzy, soft, not replicable, and therefore untrustworthy. (It is interesting to me that the Liberal s University I attended – UCLA – required students to take a variety of science courses, but the Science College I turned down  – MIT – did not require students to study the arts.) Science defines itself as factual and art as fantastical.

Truly great scientists understand the need to honor intuition along with information. But the world is rarely run by the truly great. So bit by bit, the art of healing is denigrated and the science of healing is venerated. The healer spends more and more time interacting with machines and drugs and technology, and less and less time with the patient; more and more time studying books and less and less time learning about the strange, symbolic, provocative powers of the psyche. The healer focuses more and more on fixing the sick individual and less and less on the patient’s need for wholeness in self, family, and community.

The herbalist becomes a biochemist. The pharmacist no longer needs to know botany. Herbs are presented as drugs in green coats. And the active ingredient is the only one worth mentioning.

Is this what I want? Is this what drew me to herbs? Is this what fascinates me about herbal medicine? My answer to all these questions is absolutely NOT. While acknowledging the usefulness of science, I maintain the right-brain’s superior abilities in the art of healing. I defend the rights of the miracle-workers, the shamans, the witch doctors, the old-wife herbalists, the wise women, those who have the skill, the personal power, and the courage to midwife the changes – large and small, from birth to death and in between  – in the lives of those around them.

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medicine. Magical plants. Psycho-active plants. There is a thread here, and it goes a long way back. At least 40,000 years. The plants say they spoke with us all until recently. Forty thousand years ago we know our ancestors were genetically manipulating, hybridizing, and crossbreeding specific psychedelic plants. And using them in healing. Maria Sabina, one of the 20th Century’s most renowned shamanic healers, went into the forest as a small child and ate psilocybin mushrooms because they spoke to her. She healed only with the aid of the “little people” (mushrooms) and she healed not just body but soul. In the Amazon, the students of herbalism, of healing, are apprenticed to psychoactive plants as well as to human teachers.

There is a lot of talk lately about the active ingredients in plants. I’ve had many a chuckle as product ads claim to have the most of this or that only to be superseded by the announcement that a new, better, more active, active ingredient has been found.

For example, when Kyolic Garlic was shown by Consumer Reports to have virtually no allicin (the “active” ingredient), Kyolic countered with an ad campaign claiming superiority because it contained a different, stronger, active ingredient.

For instance, most standardized St. John’s/Joan’s Wort tinctures are standardized for hypericin. But the latest research shows that hyperforin is the real active ingredient!

To illustrate: an article several years ago in JAMA on use of Ginkgo biloba to counter dementia explained that no active ingredient from among the several hundred constituents present had been determined and it was, in fact, likely that the effect resulted from a complex, synergistic interplay of the parts. An article in the New York Times, however, cautioned readers not to use ginkgo until an active ingredient had been established.

It happened to me: An MD on a menopause panel with me told the audience that no herb was safe to use unless its active ingredient was measured and standardized. What can I say? To me the active ingredient of a plant is the very part that cannot be measured: the energy, the life force, the chi, the fairy of the plant, not a “poisonous” constituent. To the healer/artist/herbalist, the active part of the plant is that part that can be used by the right brain to actively, chaotically, naturally, “jump the octave” and work a miracle. This active part is refined away in standardized products, for the real active part is the messy part, the changeable part, the subtle part, and the invisible part.

Does science have anything to do with it? Certainly! The process of identifying specific compounds in plants, replicating them in the laboratory and mass-producing them as drugs cannot be replicated by or superseded by any healer or herbalist. Preparation of standardized drugs protects the consumer (usually) and protects the plants from over-harvesting (although the net effect on the environment may be detrimental).

If we put into the lap of science anything having to do with measuring and certifying, then surely I beg science to be the guardian of the purity of the herbs we trade in our commerce, knowing that art is the guardian of the purity of the herbs we gather ourselves. (A tip from the apprentice book: When harvesting, put only one kind of plant in a basket. This allows one to quickly and easily notice if an interloper has been mistakenly introduced.)

This story doesn’t have an ending, for it is ongoing. The dance of health and illness, of art and science (and don’t forget commerce) has no pause. So the ending of our tale is not happy, but neither is it sad. Take a look; the real ending of the rainbow is in your own heart.
You can purchase Susun Weed’s books at:  http://www.ashtreepublishing.com/

Tags: crone, science, wise

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