January 2, 2012
Greetings from Susun
This month I wish to draw your attention to the mint family, which is well known for its many delicious-tasting, and strongly- scented plants. Most of the mint family plants are excellent anti-spasmotics, anti-infectives, and nourishers of the nervous system. Many mint family plants are hardy to frost and can be used all winter, or until the ground is covered with snow. I use winter mints mostly as salad greens, but, even in the cold of the winter, they can be harvested for teas, vinegars, honeys, scented oils, and smoking mixes.
For salad greens: I pick a leaf or two, here and there, according to the size of the plant, to enliven my wintertime salads. Although there is no nutrition available from raw greens,there are worth eating. Fresh, unwashed wild salad greens give us something even more important than vitamins or minerals: soil bacteria, which add immeasurably to the health of our gut flora and thus to our overall health and vitality. (One kind of soil bacteria has recently been found to kill cancer cells!)
For teas: I put a spoonful of honey and some fresh mint-family leaves in a big cup and fill it up with boiling water. Drink immediately. When ? After meals. While soaking in a hot bath. When spending time with a friend. Sometimes I eat the leaves after I drink the tea.
In the coming weeks I will give you specifics on making winter vinegars, honeys, scented oils, and smoking mixes.
green blessings,
Susun Weed
susunweed.com
The Green Report, January 3rd, 2012 by Susun Weed
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) can be smoked to relieve menstrual cramps; catnip tea or catnip honey in hot water works well too.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) leaves in salads or as a tea help brighten grey winter days. The tincture strengthens the nerves.
Wild mint (Mentha aquatica) tea eases indigestion from rich holiday meals and sparks ones interest in leafy greens when added to salad. A hearty addition to a smoking mix.
Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), also know as creeping jenny, ale hoof, and that-*!#!*-weed-in-my-garden is always willing to lend a hand to cheer you up and soothe your nerves. I add her leaves and flowers to salads all year long. Midwives use the tincture of the plant in bloom to hasten delivery of the placenta. Lovely in smoking mixes.
Bergamot (Monarda didyma) can be found both wild and cultivated. I prefer the red-flowered variety over all others for use in salads, honeys, vinegars, teas, and smoking blends, but the purple- or magenta-flowered ones may be used to your tolerance for the taste of oregano.
Wild oregano hunkers down but is still available for salads. Since my wild oregano is rather scentless and kinda tasteless, I use the purple-flowered bergamot when I want rich, sharp oregano flavor.
Lavender, rosemary, and thyme (Lavendula off., Rosmarinus off., Thymus off.) overwinter in the ground or the greenhouse for most of us. They appreciate a winter pruning unless you cut them back late in the fall. Use your prunings to make vinegars, honeys, teas, and to dry for smoking.
Seal-heal (Prunella vulgaris) is also heal-all. This scentless mint grows everywhere: in the city and the country, in the lawn and along trails in the forest. The leaves are a little tough for salads and useless for teas or honeys but add flavor to smoking blends.
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) is not acceptable in salads, teas, or honeys due to its bitterness. It makes a tasty vinegar though if harvested before it starts to flower. And an important herbal medicine tinctured during flowering, so tolerate it in your garden, please.
Ajuga (Ajuga reptans) is generally cultivated, scentless, tasteless, and not medicinal. It does add a beautiful color to the winter garden.
Nettle (Urtica dioica) looks a lot like a mint at this time of the year. The sting and the lack of scent will set you straight though. Added to smoking mixes, it has a mild hallucinogenic effect.
Women’s Spring Equinox Retreat
We invite women to gather for retreat and replenishment on Isla Mujeres, an island in the Mexican Caribbean, sacred to Ixchel, the Mayan Moon Goddess and historically a place for healing rituals among the Mayan people.
Our abode will be the NaBalam, an intimate, informal hotel on the beach where landscaped trails, tropical gardens and the beauty of the ocean will provide a perfect setting for the retreat. Yoga and ceremony at ancient Mayan site.
More information at www.islawomensretreat.com or email kfrlisw@aol.com
The Rose Family by Susun Weed
Herbal medicine is people’s medicine. And people’s medicines are the medicines of the earth: the common weeds. Weeds, though often reviled, are powerhouses of nourishment, medicine, magic, and beauty. Their medicinal qualities, when wisely extracted and used, can counter major as well as minor disturbances of health.
But do beware! Eating weeds has been known to awaken the “wild woman” within. A wild woman may run with the wolves, or even howl with them. Who knows what she’ll do if she eats weeds and gets loose!
Weeds in the rose family – Rosaceae – can certainly be triggers of wild and out-of-bounds behavior. Wild roses are particularly noted for inciting wild sensations in women. Look at how they spread their long limbs and intoxicating scent over everything. And what could be more feral, more dangerously wild than a blackberry patch? Brambles are in the rose family. At my brother’s Oregon homestead, and along roadsides down under, blackberry canes grow as thick as my wrist and more than twice my height … overnight. That’s wild – untameable, uncivilized, uncultivated, unconquered – indeed. Who knows what will happen if you inhale their perfumes, consume their flowers, make teas of their leaves, bite into their fruits …
But inhale, consume, drink, and bite we do. The rose family lavishes such abundant love and rich fruitfulness on us – who could resist her gifts? Who could refuse Rosaceae as juicy and delicious as peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, apples, pears, quinces, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, rose hips, and almonds? Who would disdain to use Rosaceae as safe and effective raspberry leaves, hawthorn hips, peach pits, cinquefoil roots, and agrimony tops? Who is unaffected by the love magic of a deep red rose?
Thorny, exotic, and deeply nourishing to all the senses, the rose family invites you to a friendly, sensual, love-in. Come, I’ll introduce you.
Almonds (Prunus dulcis). The only rose whose seeds we eat. One of my first teachers told me to “Eat three almonds a day to prevent cancer”. She was right, too. Almonds contain numerous phytochemicals that are known to counter cancer. More prosaically, ground almonds are a superb skin scrub that removes blemishes while nourishing the skin deeply.
Apricots (Armeniaca vulgaris). Both fruits and pits are highly regarded as anticancer helpers. The FDA says apricot kernels are poisonous; nonetheless, you can buy them in Asian markets and through underground networks of those who believe in their value. Unsulphured dried apricots are a regular part of my anticancer lifestyle; I don’t eat the pits.
Apple (Malus communis). An apple a day keeps the doctor away and cancer at bay. Apples and apple products – apple sauce, apple juice, apple cider vinegar – contain special fruit acids that not only block cancer formation, but also help prevent recurrences after treatment.
Red cherries (Prunus), purple plums (Prunus), and red rose hips (Rosa rugosa). The dark, rich colors of rose family fruits indicates the presence of especially potent antioxidants known to counter heart disease, cancer and cognitive decline.
Hawthorn (Crataegus species). Flowers, leaves, and fruits are all medicinal. Tincture of hawthorn berries is used worldwide to help lower high blood pressure, relieve congestive heart disease, and counter arteriosclerosis. A tea of dried hawthorn flowers and leaves is said to strengthen the heart muscle, ease anxiety, and sooth the grief of a broken heart.
Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria). Flowering tops of this garden weed are dried and brewed into a tea considered helpful for diabetics and others with spleen, kidney, or liver stress. Agrimony is most often used to ease the pain of gallstones and acid indigestion. Salve or oil of fresh agrimony in flower is said to relieve varicose veins.
Blackberry (Rubus villosus and other species). Root is a good choice for an astringent tincture. Prolonged use of a tea of the leaves is said to cure not only simple diarrhea, but even serious intestinal problems such as gastritis, colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome. If you chew fresh blackberry leaves to heal your bleeding gums, you’ll be following a tradition which goes back to Biblical times.
Cinquefoil (Potentilla canadensis and other species). Roots and leaves, flowers and seeds can be made into a tincture or dried and brewed as a tea. Cinquefoil remedies provide a mild astringent action sufficient to check diarrhea, nose bleeds, and bleeding gums. Potentillas are wonderful in the garden, too, and many cultivars are available. They flower freely and continue flowering for months, even in dry, poor soils.
Raspberry (Rubus strigosus, R. ideaus and other species). Leaf infusion is a famous helper for pregnant women who want a well-toned uterus, and thus an easier birth. Raspberry infusion is used to prevent miscarriage when taken at the beginning of pregnancy, ease labor pains during the birth, and increase milk supply after. Some midwives rely on it to prevent postpartum depression. Fresh raspberries preserved in apple cider vinegar are a delicious heart tonic. Tincture of fresh raspberry offers fragrine, a tonifying alkaloid which strengthens the uterus and helps the hormones dance.
Rose (Rosa rugosa, R. canina and other species). Hips preserved in apple cider vinegar are a tasty immune system tonic. The buds of rose leaves put up in half glycerin and half water yield a superior hormonal tonic. My favorite rose treat? Rose petals preserved in honey. What a delicious way to strengthen my heart, my nerves, my glands, and my immune system. A cold compress of rose water is a lovely way to relieve a headache.
Rowan (Sorbus species). This most magical member of the Rosaceae family is also called mountain ash. It is said to protect high energy spots and to act as a guardian to the “gates between the worlds”. The fruit is so high in vitamin C that it gave its name – sorbus – to the synthetic compound sold as vitamin C: ascorbic acid.
With their delicious fruits, powerful medicines, fragrant flowers, aids to beauty, and sweet magical sparkles, the Rosaceae have something for everyone. See if there isn’t one growing by your doorstep, in your garden, in a vacant lot, along the road. Smell it, eat it, enjoy it. Let yourself be a little wild. Join the wild wise women who are reweaving the healing cloak of the Ancients and spreading green blessings.
Read more from Susun and others at the ByRegion Healers Newsletter here
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NEW! – Mushrooms Seekers DVD
MUSHROOM SEEKERS is both documentary and diary of the filmmaker’s introduction to wild mushrooms.
55 minutes movie plus 30 minutes extras. Susun Weed is a featured star of both the documentary and the dvd “extras”.
Published by wwezine on January 2nd, 2012 Tagged YouTube Videos
January 23rd, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Hi Susun, Just finished reading your deeply informative article on the Rose family… I didn’t know that Mt. Ash were in it! But there’s so much more Magic to these plants…from one of Matthew Wood’s books I learned of Potentilla’s magical energetic ability to dispel meddlers.. it sure works! One year when we were beset with “helpful” pushy people, I hung a bouquet of our backyard wild cinquefoil inside our front door… abruptly we were left alone by all and had the space to develop true friends in the next years. Whew!! There’s much more… making and taking flower essences of these Rose family members is a good way to meet their spirits. The wild multiflora rose that grows out-of-bounds everywhere in my region (called a nuisance weed!)makes the most wild & crazy liberation booster of any essence. She simply cannot be held in or held back and she will happily transfer those qualities to a wound-up,bound-up person. There’s more of course – everyone of those plant’s spirit’s is a delight to meet with in their own right, and a woman can only benefit from knowing them. Happy January!
Mara Smith