Home Grown Medicine Cabinet

If you make the decision to activate your innate self-healing mechanisms, stay away from the medical system, eat healthily and live as naturally as you can, without doubt your health and vitality will improve. Nonetheless, even if you enjoy excellent health (as we do) you might find you need a little extra support every now and then. We avoid the medical system (it is the plague) and pharmaceuticals by choice and this post is about the home grown and natural remedies we have come to rely upon.

Disease is dying and it will take the medical establishment with it, along with all those who identify with their disease. Your body is naturally self-healing and always finding balance within itself and your environment. When you intentionally root yourself in the land, you energize the subtle web that weaves all life and the plants you need at that time appear. We have noticed this year after year and so I now make plant medicines from what shows up, even if I don’t need it at that moment. (Related events no longer occur in linear time.) Often, I don’t need it at all, but it is for a friend – wild lettuce being a fine example. Nature is abundant in her solutions, so there are many plants that will help bring each condition back into balance, you learn which is best for you through trial and error.

Trained herbalists (I am not that) have been keeping this web alive for generations and there is now sufficient tensegrity in the neural network of the planet for us to access that work as individuals for ourselves. There is no going back to the allopathic system, but we can use the references as back up during this transition time, while we hone our instincts. As you switch on your own pharmacopeia where you are, you make it easier for others to do the same where ever they are, which in turn strengthens the web and starves the medical mafia monster and all who feed off it.

We are all self-healing and as soon as you set off on that path, you’ll find out precisely what you need to do to switch on these abilities within yourself.

The two pharmaceutical exceptions we keep to hand are:

• Betadine/Povidone iodine for wound cleaning (it is the cheapest and most effective solution)
• Piriton (or similar) antihistamine, in case anyone gets stung and has an adverse reaction. (See Wasp Medicine.)

Most frequent minor ailments

There are the most frequent minor ailments we have experienced over the past seven years:

• cuts and bloody wounds
• insect bites and stings
• nettle rash
• sprains, strains, aches and pains
• burns
• cold sores
• eczema/dermititis
• internal parasites
• indigestion
• stress and trauma

Natural medicine cabinet staples

These are the salves, tinctures, powders and preparations we use most:

• yarrow powder : for cuts, wounds and indigestion
• plantain (plantago) salve: insect bites and stings
• St John’s Wort: for burns, nerve pain, aches and bruises, eczema
• Melissa (lemon balm): calming and soothing, cold sores
• Usnea barbata (Old Man’s Beard): sore throat and infected wounds
• Wild lettuce: back ache, acute muscle pain
• Walnut tincture: internal parasites
• Ground pumpkin seeds: internal parasites
• diatomaceous earth: parasites
• Apple cider vinegar: digestive issues
• cannabis oil (not CBD, just cannabis in coconut oil): topical application for aches and pains and mild sedative/relaxant taken internally
• rose oil: calming, mild sedative good for separation anxiety in dogs

Bioenergetic tools

• Meridian tracing: for aches and pains
• Tapping: acute pain and injury
• Tuning forks: biofield tuning

Cuts, scrapes and bloody wounds

This is mostly the dogs and cats and the occasional bird or lizard we manage to free from the cats.

For open gashes, I stuff the wound with yarrow powder, made from dried flower heads, ground in a coffee grinder. It keeps for a year or so and I always keep a jar of it to hand.

The dogs have had a few unforgettable lessons from the wild boar. Izzy was gashed not long after we moved here and that was the first time I learned to use yarrow. She was almost feral then and there was no way we could get her in the car to the vets to be stitched up – no choice but to follow my instinct and I stuffed the wound on her shoulder and repeated it as often as I could and she healed within a week.

A few years later, a boar gored Freya quite badly one night. We took her to the vets the next day, which was probably a mistake, as she ripped open the stitches the following night and the wound got infected. We saw skin grafts and many more problems on the cards if we took her back, to the vets so we decided to take care of her ourselves. When you commit, the pharmacopeia activates.

I used Usnea Barbata (Old Man’s Beard) tincture for the infection, which cleared it up in 24 hours. Then I made a dressing of yarrow in coconut oil, which we applied twice a day – deep open wounds need to be kept moist while they heal. It took five or six weeks and she healed with barely a scar – the biggest issue was keeping the flies off and her from licking the wounds.

I also make a wound salve, with plantain, St John’s Wort, calendula, lavender, yarrow, beeswax and olive oil. It is soothing, accelerates healing and sticks easily to wounds on animals (including humans).

Mosquito bites, insect stings and nettle rash

Plantain salve provides near instant and long-lasting relief from bites, stings and nettle rash and beats anything you can buy over-the-counter hands down.

Intense, histamine reactions to insect stings, such as wasp, bee and hornet stings are nature’s own medicine. Histamine is a neurotransmitter that helps in the processing of emotional fear. If you have used anti-histamines regularly, or H2 blockers as I did with ranitidine for my stomach ulcer for 20 years, wasps and hornets might come to help accelerate your healing processes. I learned this through several bouts of wasp attacks and hopefully I’m sufficiently balanced now for them to have lost interest. (They smell your biochemistry.)

There is no harm with taking an anti-histamine now and then, but if you feel strong enough it is worth allowing yourself to go through the inflammation stage without interference, so that your body can learn how to bring itself back into balance. Anti-histamines are one of the few pharmaceuticals we keep on hand, just in case.

Sprains, strains, aches and pains

Luckily, we have only had to deal with mild sprains, strains, aches and pains. Often these occur when something is out of kilter emotionally or psychologically – it is your body’s way of talking to you – and if you deal with it immediately it will not develop into something more serious. For example, knee twinges are not an indication of advancing age, but drawing your attention to the fact that you are reliving a pattern of feeling unsupported. The right (dominant) knee relates to a fear of moving forward into the unknown and the left indicates a feeling of something or some one from the past holding you back. (Reversed for left-handers.) Very often, self-talk based on simple acknowledgment and reassurance will cause the pain to dissolve. (Place your hands over your belly and say: it’s OK that’s finished.)

Shortly after my mother died, I had stiffness and swelling in my middle finger on my right hand. A doctor would most likely have diagnosed arthritis, but it was actually my pericardium meridian (heart protector) calling for attention and meridian tracing resolved the problem in about a week.

St John’s Wort oil or salve works as well as arnica to bring out a bruise. It is also helps relieve back ache, or nerve pain applied topically or taken as a tincture. It’s cooling effect helps reduce inflammation, especially for any injury involving the spine or nerve pain.

Muscle aches from over exertion respond well (ie the pain dissolvess) to meridian tracing, tapping and biofield tuning.

Wild lettuce tincture has an opiate like effect and is particularly good for acute muscle pain and injury. I gave some to a friend a few weeks ago who was off work with a back injury and on pain-killers that he didn’t like. Within three days he was back to work with no pain at all. Another friend hurt her back the night before going on holiday and didn’t think she´d be able to go; she took the wild lettuce tincture, passed out and was fine the next day. Wild lettuce will knock you out, so your body can get on with its own healing and repair.

For the dogs and cats, I usually use cannabis oil rubbed onto the sprained or strained area, which they will then lick off and it will send them into a restorative sleep/trance for a couple of hours.

Pain is caused by the fear, stress or anxiety related to an injury or sickness, rather than the physical trauma itself. Once you resolve the fear, healing can progress relatively painlessly in most cases.

Minor burns

I keep a small jar of St John’s Wort steeped in coconut oil in the fridge to apply to burns. It is immediately cooling and will prevent blistering in most cases. Coconut oil is the only oil that can bee used on burns.

Stomach upsets

We don’t get them much. Diluted apple cider vinegar is good. Yarrow or pennyroyal tea, with a little Melissa is soothing.

Stress and anxiety

Freya is our resident stress cadet; she is the most likely candidate for accidents and injuries and she’s also the first to let you know if there’s any unacknowledged emotions floating around. She’s the ultimate biofeedback device and that’s why I promoted her to teacher – which helped her a great deal. Many negative emotions (so called) are the body’s cried for water, food, rest, oxygen, or old habits that need to be let go. These days, you don’t need to dwell on the emotion or even know what it’s about; the energy thrust is all for letting go. When we take good care of ourselves, we are relaxed and happy, and she is too.

Rose oil is great for separation anxiety in dogs and general anxiety in people. A little dab on the back of Freya’s head helps her manage her emotions and a drop on a shirt front or sleeve will dissolve the worries of the world that are not your concern. (Actually, it is the feeling of separation that is the root of the problem and when you dissolve that you have helped countless unknown others find solutions to their problems too.)

Melissa tea and St John’s Wort tincture are also great for stress and anxiety.

Infection

Most of what we consider to be infections are actually the body’s own healing responses in action. (Contagion is energetic, rather than physical.) Sometimes, as in the case of an open wound, these mechanisms can go into overdrive and the healing process needs more support. This happened after Freya was gored by the boar and ripped her stitches out; the wound got infected, was oozing and began to smell. I used Usnea Barbata tincture several times over a 24 hour period and the infection cleared up.

I have also used it on sore throats and gum infections. These are mostly bacterial imbalances and natural, home-made tinctures from your own environment have the best informational and biochemical make-up to bring your own microbial colonies back into balance.

Parasites

This could be a more detailed post, one day……Meanwhile, until we’re done with the big clean-up of the world, everyone and all pets and other animals have parasites. They are not a big problem unless you have too many of them, and you don’t get too many of them if you are happy and healthy, so our approach is based on keeping them under control rather than total elimination. (We used worming tablets once and it was a terrible experience for Tulku; never again. See: Itching for a Fright.)

We use at various times, (mostly around new moon and full moon, in line with parasite breeding cycles) walnut tincture, ground pumpkin seeds and diatomaceous earth.

I use organic pyrethrum (not be confused with synthetic pyrethrin, which is not the same at all) as a spray on rugs and furniture, for fleas. I also use organic neem oil, pennyroyal sun oil (not the essential oil: see Pennyroyal, Sehkmet’s Gift) and yarrow tincture spray, as stopical application for flea prevention; they helps in the height of the summer, especially of you mix it up a bit, as the effect are only temporary.

Of course, everything is only temporary.