Empty Cereal Box

Views From Inside an Adoptee

June 14, 2006

Medicinal "Weeds" and Other Healing Things

All right. It's time to begin to write about things dear to my heart and soul. One of them is botanicals. Today I want to write a little about them and what they are coming to mean to me. Also something about the healing power of nature and the universe itself, the most perfect classroom I could ever want to have.

Euphorbia peplus (commonly known as radium weed) has been found "to cause sun spots, Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) and Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) to disappear, and drop off!"

I can testify to this. I had a small scabby spot on the back of my left hand that wouldn't heal. It didn't hurt, but it bothered me that it had been there for over a year. I never had it biopsied, but it wasn't "normal." I'd stumbled across a site that talked about radium weed. After more searching, I discovered that it is well-known by aboriginal people, who have used it for millennia to heal what we call skin cancer.

I thought, how on earth can I get hold of some of that? I did a little research online and discovered that it had been growing in my front yard all along. I used to pull it up and throw it away because it was, after all, "just" a "weed." I left the computer and assessed my live botanical supply, and there it was, as patient as ever growing among my plants and flowers. I pulled one of the plants and broke the stem. A thick, milky substance oozed out. I dabbed it onto the spot and repeated the procedure for a week or two, several times a day. A large blister-like swelling began to form where the spot had been. After awhile, I noticed the edges looked inflamed, as if infection had set in. Alarmed, I began to apply hydrogen peroxide (my medicine cabinet in a bottle). There was the expected bubbling and foaming effect. I repeated this for the next few days. The blister subsided. After several weeks, new skin began to form and the hole that had been there disappeared. Gradually my normal skin color replaced the new pink skin, and now I can barely see that anything was ever there.

The point is that with the advent of synthetic pharmaceuticals, we have lost touch with a huge herbal pharmacopaeia that includes wildcrafted plants and weeds that we know nothing about. Weeds that are strong enough to push up through concrete must have life energy that my intuition says we could learn a great deal from. I'm incredibly grateful to be slowly tuning in to the plant world through visionary "knowing". That is, I find that the more I work with plants, the more they "talk" to me with a wordless language, teaching me how to use them if I will only listen.

Just for another example, here is a plant that K (who has been cataloguing plants for a year now) calls "hotlips." Apparently it has an effect on regulating the menstrual cycle. I took this shot at Crystal Springs, the rhododendron garden in Portland.
Here is yarrow growing from a stump and some crampbark in K's yard in Portland. (Crampbark works for menstral cramps!)

And above is a photo of St. Johnswort in K's yard. This is good for depression and also called Hypericum, which made into an ointment is excellent for nerve damage and bruises.

In addition to listening to plants teach me about their healing properties, I must also talk about the healing properties of walking in nature. Especially in forests where there is an abundance of oxygen. Before we left San Francisco last month and drove north, I had a nagging cough. R took me to the Sunset district where a wonderful community of Asian culture flourishes. There we found a storefront that sold Chinese herbs. There were bags, piled upon boxes, piled upon crates, and shelves and shelves of jars and boxes, and packages printed in Chinese characters. I told the woman behind the counter my symptoms and she handed me two boxes. One was a syrup of Chinese herbs and the other was a small bottle of pills of Chinese herbs. She told me how often to take them and to drink more water, that I was dehydrated (as usual). The photo is blurry, but you can get an idea. The large red box is the herbal syrup. Together they cost something like $13. No charge for the "consultation."

On the road north I took the medicines for a day or two. By the end of the day, after we hiked all afternoon in Prairie Creek my cough had disappeared. I felt great. Unlike the days when my coughs would hang on for weeks. The herbs, exercise, and abundance of oxygen all healed me, I'm firmly convinced.

Just to share some more photos of our trip north, these were taken on our drive home. You've probably seen a million photos of the Big Sur shoreline, but here's one more. I took dozens of them, but this one is representative. It's just as beautiful as it's always been, ever since I first saw it a long time ago. There's something exhilarating about the drive along the edge of the continent, the rocky cliffs and the wild freshness where the sea meets the sky.

Below is a photo of a guy we met at a place called Willow Creek. "Willow Creek Steve" I call him. He lives off the land and has a magical healing sense about him. Some people might label him as a "crazy" guy because of how he looks and lives. I know better. He knows all about the area along that stretch of Highway 1 and makes his living selling jade, which he finds in secret coves. He has the patient and lovely knowing of a Buddah.

Here is a shot of some of the jade he had in his bag. He gave me a piece which would ordinarily have sold to tourists for $25 just because our souls understood one another. (Nothing romantic at all, just a "knowing.") The jade is polished by the sea. He spends three hours per stone with a hand drill making a hole for a leather string to fit through so you can wear the piece. Each piece is unique and beautiful and green. Such poetry!

Finally, below is a shot of the wonderful elephant seals basking on the beach at Piedra Blanca. I took a lot of shots, but this one gives you an idea of the numbers we saw, and this is just a tiny fraction. They are amazing mammals and the pups are adorable!



Tomorrow I want to talk about my friend Kendra and other things. I'll return to my passion for botanical healing off and on. I don't know about you, but lately I've been experiencing a momentous yet subtle shift in human consciousness. I will be writing about that too over the coming days and weeks.

4 Comments:

Blogger Amyadoptee said...

Wow that is so cool. I just love this kind of stuff. How did you get the music on your page? I want to do that too. Teach me -amyburt40@yahoo.com. I had an acupuncturist in Oklahoma that always made me feel whole after a visit with her

13.6.06  
Blogger Laurie (formerly known as Momseekingpeace) said...

I love herbs, I have not had to give my kids any "man made" cures yet, the natural stuff works so well and so fast.

The aboriginal people are so amazing. Have you ever read the book Mutant message down under? It's out of print now but an amazing book, the government tried to shush her. The author is Marlo Morgan. I think Ill add that to my favorite book list.
MSP

13.6.06  
Blogger Marie said...

adopteeamy-i know just what you mean about feeling "whole" from acupuncture and other natural healing methods. over the weeks i want to relate some amazing stories about my experiences with alternative health, especially herbs and homeopathy. a cranio-sacral therapy student is going to work on me today. i'll be reporting on that, which i've heard wonderful things about.

13.6.06  
Blogger Marie said...

mkp-no, never heard of that book, but i'm going to go to out of print book sites and look for it. sounds great! the aboriginal folk are treasures of incredible knowledge that western civilization has dismissed as bunkum. i respect them without reservation. they've had millennia to absorb their wisdom. i'm thinking i want to start another blog just on subjects like this one.

13.6.06  

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