Experience as Teacher

I like herbs.

I’m fascinated by them really. Finding a new plant and learning what it is.

“Hey that one with disky yellow flowers is Tansy!”

Learning what they are is used for

“Has a peppery taste. Used to keep flies and other bugs away. So they work like those little clips that people wear to scare off bugs with their what appears to be pocket fan.”

And then learning what other people have to say.

“Don’t eat it. It’s ok, you can eat it. Etc.”

I love learning about the different ways of preserving them. Drying, Infusions, Tinctures.

Just the names wells up bright colors and spicy scents of Arabic Bazaars in my head with shawled and gauzed women making infusions. All the while men and women bustle about in near a cacophony of noise bartering and trading. Some infusions for healing, some for wealth, and the most popular of all. Love.

Images for tinctures conjure a lonely hunch backed Irish herb wife, bent over their peat moss fire places preparing tinctures to turn little boys into toads, and back again. Or force changelings to go back to their colony, returning their real child in the meantime.

Take away the warm fluffy “I love herbs because they are pretty, and smell good” and there is another very practical reason I love herbs.

They work.

Uncle Sam’s gift to me upon graduating with my Bachelors was to revoke my health insurance.

Thanks.

So for the last two years I’ve been getting creative about avoiding the need to go to hospitals and doctors. Don’t get me wrong, if I shatter my leg, I’m going to the hospital, and fast! But if I’m starting to come down with a bug, even a hard to identify bug, I’m taking care of it myself, thank you very much.

And there is no better way to learn than by living. And so, while it’s one thing to sit and skim through an herb book reading that this is good for this and that is good for that. It’s another thing to live it. And that is what I am currently doing.

I have a cold.

And you know what I found? The more I keep my body well stocked in nutrients, they better off it is. Nutrients are not the same as food. I can go to McDonalds and get food. I also get calories, lots of them. Fuel for your cells to burn up as it moves and lives. Gasoline.

But what about all those other important fluids that keeps a car running. The ones that we ladies sometimes want to pretend it doesn’t exist. What about your engine oil, your transmission fluid, and all the others. You don’t need a lot of it. And if your machine is working well, you only occasionally have to continually refill it.

So do we.

And that is what nutrients do for us.

Vitamins, that somehow or another provide out cells with some vital thing to make the difference between a healthy, running cell, and a weak, sick one. Antioxidants, Enzymes, Minerals, all the stuff that a cell needs to survive,

Real vitamins can be found in food. Real food can sometimes be found in grocery stores.

*Warning* Not all food in grocery stores are real, with real nutrients, and stuff your body, as an engine, needs to function highly. And lets face it, as Americans we demand that our bodies function highly.

On the first real day of my cold, I took a few tablespoons of elderberry syrup, to try my best to nip it in the bud. I felt it coming a few days before. But this was the first time I did anything to counter it. I also made myself Ginger Tea. It was made for me before and did wonders. I just hoped it would again.

I finished my ginger tea at work. A coworker mentioned to another that I was drinking Ginger tea to fix my cold. She meant no harm by it, but I wanted to correct her.

“Actually my body, being the wonderful organism it is, and always seeking its own equilibrium and vitality doesn’t need me to ‘fix’ this virus. What it does need is me boosting up my immune system as much as I can. Eating oranges, and spinach for vitamin C. Drinking lots of water. Making sure I’m taking my vitamins. Anything positive I can do to help by body fight this thing. I’m there. I’ll look it up. Try it and see what helps in supporting my body and returning it back to the balance of health.

And so this blog is about learning new things. Trying them out, and the process of going from looking at The Complete Medical Herbal by Penelopy Ody when you are 14, to where I am now, at 25. And the learning how to be a (mainly) self-taught herbalist.

One other very important thing is sleep. Which I have been getting precious little of recently, which is my own fault.

Sleep. And so I will bid you adieu.

Honey honey

When I first started preserving herbs I picked some stalks and hung them upside down in my parents living room which is heated by a wood stove. Good wood heat, the dry warm kind of air circulation that is perfect for drying plants.

I was so in love with how they looked hanging there I kept them there the whole winter. A little memento of the wild of outdoor life inside, reminding us winter-enclosed people that spring will come someday and bring back with it that riot of life.

I don’t recall what those first herbs were. Possibly mint, more likely weeds taken from the back field that happened to have flowers.

I do recall that I left them there, in their wild glory, so long that my mom decided that three months of dust had rendered them useless, and she threw them away.

While drying herbs is still my fall back way of preserving herbs, I am now exploring others, like tinctures, salves, and honey!!!

 Pretty much whatever prevents those pesky little things like slime and rot getting in. This includes alcohol (Yay!!!), salt, and also sugar.

I guess freezing also can be included. I did freeze a few basil leaves last year. But they mysteriously disappeared, maybe thanks to my basil-hating sister. How can you hate the smell of basil?

I’ve been enjoying preserving herbs in different ways lately. Especially honey.

Who doesn’t love honey, that sweet, sticky golden goodness that reminds you of liquid sunshine. Even if you don’t care for honey in particular, when thinking about it, I can’t help but think about Winnie the Pooh and get a happy little smile on my face.

So last week I made Lemon Balm honey. Or started it, it’ll probably take at least two weeks to finish.

 But think about it, lets say you put honey in your black tea as a sweetener. Lemon Balm helps to even out the highs and lows of your emotions and keep you overall more happier.

Now your tea sweetener is doing double duty as an emotional pick-me-up as well as a caffeine fix. Lemon Balm sugar for coffee, you say? That can be done too!

Tonight I started Sage honey.

Sage soothes sore throats, for those of us who are public speakers, teachers, or just have a hard time adjusting our vocal cords to the crisper fall air.

Not to mention, honey coats your throat to provide a barrier and give a chance to sooth the sore, raw parts of your throat. I think we might have something here! 

Lemon Balm

My room smells like Lemon Balm. For those of you who have never smelled it before, it is a soft, citrusy, happy scent. Yes, happy. It’s used by some herbalists as a natural mood enhancer. Some herbalists, and some amateur herbalists, like me.

I had a friend who drank lemon balm tea for two weeks straight. She told me that nothing, Nothing bothered her. How fantastic. No road rage, no annoying kids, no frustration. Amazing. So ever since I’ve gone to making myself some lemon balm tea on days that I feel like I just don’t quite have the patience to get through the day without causing serious bodily damage to someone, or something. It’s worked every time. I'm not in jail yet for assaulting a lamp post that decided to step so rudely in front of my bike as I speed along late for work...again. 

Did you know the word amateur roughly means “for the love of it” Amour = love. I do love herbs. They are gentle enough that most of the time you don’t realize their effect, until after when you look back and realize that you didn't go spastic on anyone, even though you felt like you wanted to when you first woke up.

Lemon Balm gently uplifts the spirits.

I’ll have good dreams tonight.