Herbal medicine is the medicine of the people. It is simple, safe, effective, and free. Our ancestors used - and our neighbours sorrounding the nature all the more application - plant medicines for curative and health maintenance. It's easy. You can conclude it too, and you don't itch a measure or any determinate training.

Ancient memories occur in you when you actualize to practice herbal medicine. These lessons are designed to nourish and activate those memories and your inner herbalist so you can be your own herbal expert.

In our headmost lesson, we learned how to "listen" to the plants by focusing on how they taste. In class two, we explored simples and water-based herbal remedies. In the third lesson, we learned how to call upon guarded (nourishing and tonifying) herbs from added dynamite (stimulating and sedating) herbs. Our fourth lesson dealt with poisons; we learned how to conceive a tincture and we place stable our Herbal Medicine Chest. The fifth lesson fashion us forging herbal vinegars, and the sixth, creation herbal oils.

In our behind lesson together, we looked at our thoughts approximately healing; we discussed the Scientific target of fixing the broken machine, the Brave justification to cleanse the toxins from our polluted bodies, and the Calculating Woman craze to nourish the wholeness of the rare individual.

In this, the eighth lesson, we reimburse to the herbal pharmacy, to practise healing sweets: herbal honeys, syrups, and cough drops.

In our hard by lesson, the ninth and remain of this series, we testament endure our exploration of the ideas extreme healing with a tour of the Seven Medicines.

HONEY

Honey has been regarded as a healing substance for thousands of years. Greek healers relied on honey water, vinegar water, and honey/vinegar drench as their meaningful cures. An Egyptian medical content senile to about 2600 BCE mentions honey 500 times in 900 remedies. What makes honey so special?

First, honey is antibacterial. It counters infections on the skin, in the intestines, in the respiratory system, or throughout the body.

Second, honey is hydroscopic, a far-reaching tete-a-tete denotation "water loving". Honey holds moisture in the habitat where it is put; it can all the more compose moisture gone of the air. A honey facial leaves skin smooth and deliciously moist. These two qualities - anti-infective and hydroscopic - accomplish honey an paragon healer of wounds of all kinds, including burns, bruises and decubita (skin ulcers), an astonishing soother for sore throats, a effectual ally against bacterial diarrhea, and a counter to asthma.

Third, honey may be as aerial as 35 percent protein. This, along with the readily-available carbohydrate (sugar) content, provides a relevant surge of compel and a counter to depression. Some sources say that honey is equal, or superior, to ginseng in restoring vitality. Honey's proteins very benefit healing, both internally and externally.

And honey is a source of vitamins B, C, D and E, as beefy as some minerals. It appears to strengthen the unsusceptible action and benefit prevent (some authors speak to cure) cancer.

Honey is gathered from flowers, and alone honeys from particular flowers may be deeper serviceable than a blended honey. Tupelo honey, from tupelo tree blossoms, is altitudinous in levulose, which slows the digestion of the honey forming it bounteous felicitous for diabetics. Manuka honey, from Advanced Zealand, is certified as antibacterial. My "house brand" is a rich, black, locally-produced autumn honey gathered by the bees from golden rod, buckwheat, chicory, and other fierce flowers.

Raw honey and contains pollen and propolis, bee and flower products that hog defined healing powers.

Bee pollen, according to honey, is a concentrated source of protein and vitamins; unlike honey, it is a fine source of minerals, hormonal precursors, and fatty acids. Bee pollen has a nickname for relieving, and with consistent use, curing allergies and asthma. The pollens that causation sensitive reactions are from plants that are wind-pollinated, not bee-pollinated, so any bee pollen, or any honey containing pollen, ought to be helpful. One researcher commence an 84 percent decrease in symptoms among allergy sufferers who consumed a spoonful of honey a generation during the spring, summer, and fall plus three times a week in the winter.

Propolis is make-believe by the bees from resinous tree saps and is a cogent antimicrobial substance. Propolis can be tinctured in pure grain alcohol (resins effect not dissolve hale in 100 evaluation vodka, my cardinal election for tinctures) and used to counter infections such as bronchitis, sinusitis, colds, flus, gum disease, and tooth decay.

WARNING: All honey, on the other hand particularly fresh honey, contains the spores of botulinus. While this is not a holy mess for adults, children under the interval of one year may not posses sufficiently belly acid to prevent these spores from developing into botulism, a lethal poison.

HERBAL HONEYS

Herbal honeys are specious by pouring honey over recent herbs and allowing them to merge over a interval of indefinite days to assorted months. When herbs are infused into honey, the water-loving honey absorbs all the water-soluble components of the herb, and all the erratic oils too, most of which are anti-infective. Herbal honeys are medicinal and they taste great. When I examine at my shelf of herbal honeys I aura analogous the richest adult in the world.

Using Your Herbal Honeys

Place a tablespoonful of your herbal honey (include herb as flourishing as honey) into a mug; add hot water; stir and drink. Or, eat herbal honeys by the spoonful prerrogative from the jar to soothe and cure sore, infected throats and tonsils. Smear the honey (no herb please) onto wounds and burns.

Make an Herbal Honey

• Coarsely reduce the contemporary herb of your choice (leave garlic whole).
• Put chopped herb into a wide-mouthed jar, filling nearly to the top.
• Pour honey into the jar, working it into the herb with a chopstick whether needed.
• Add a immature exceeding honey to fill the jar to the mere top.
• Cover tightly. Label.

Your herbal honey is ready to benefit in as dinky as a age or two, nevertheless will be and medicinal provided allowed to sit for six weeks.

Herbal honeys imaginary from fragrant herbs fabricate enjoyable gifts.

Make a Russian Blasting Remedy

• Fill a slender jar with unpeeled cloves of garlic.
• If desired, add one bare meager onion, chop in quarters, on the contrary not peeled.
• Fill the jar with honey.
• Name and cover.

This remedy is ready to employment the beside day. It is taken by the spoonful to ward off both colds and flus. It is sovereign against sore throats, too. And it tastes yummy!

(Garlic may further take botulinus spores, however no man has ever gotten botulism from this remedy. A regional restaraunt poisoned patrons by worry garlic in olive oil near a close stove for months before using it, though.)

Make an Egyptian Wound Salve

"I deliberation at first off this would be dreadful part to deposit on an accessible wound . . . Instead, the bacteria in the fat disappeared and when pathogenic bacteria were added . . . they were killed conscientious as fast," commented scientists who tested this formula institute in the decrepit Smith Papyrus.

• Combine one tablespoonful of honey with two tablespoonsful of biological animal fat.
• Put in a brief jar and label.

Increase the wound-healing bent of this salve by using an herbally-infused fat.

Make a Remedy to Counter Diarrhea

• Fill one glass with eight ounces of orange juice.
• Add a pinch of bite and a teaspoonful of honey.
• Fill another glass with eight ounces of distilled water.
• Add teaspoonful of baking soda.
• Drink alternately from both glasses until empty.

Make Dr. Christopher's Burn Healer

He recommends this for burns covering excessive areas. Conduct the burn constantly wet with this healer for elite results.

• Place chopped new comfrey leaves in a blender.
• Add aloe vera gel to half cover.
• Add honey to cover.
• Blend and apply.

Best to dash off alone as even as you can adoption in a day; store additional in refrigerator.

Fresh Plants That I Convenience to Cook up Herbal Honeys

Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

Comfrey phase (Symphytum off.)

Cronewort/mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

Fennel seeds (Foeniculum vulgare)

Garlic (Allium sativum)

Ginger root (Zingiber officinalis)

Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana)

Lavender (Lavendula off.)

Lemon Balm (Melissa off.)

Lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla)

Marjoram (Origanum majorana)

Oregano (Origanum vulgare)

Osha root (Ligusticum porterii)

Peppermint (Mentha pipperata)

Rose petals (Rosa canina and others)

Rose hips (Rosa)

Rosemary (Rosmarinus off.)

Sage (Salvia off.)

Shiso (Perilla frutescens)

Spearmint (Mentha spicata)

Thyme (Thymus species)

Yarrow blossoms (Achillea millefolium)

HERBAL SYRUPS

Herbal syrups are sweetened, condensed herbal infusions. Cough drops are concentrated syrups. Alcohol is often added to syrups to lift prevent fermentation and stabilize the remedy. Cough drops and lozenges, having less water, deal in hearty without the appendix of alcohol.

Bitter herbs, expressly when able in a quite bantam dose, are generally fabricated into syrups: horehound, pusillanimous dock, dandelion, chicory, and motherwort spring to attitude in this regard.

Herbs that are exclusively convincing in relieving throat infections and respiration problems are as well frequently prepared into syrups, mainly when honey is used as the sweetener: coltsfoot flowers (not leaves), comfrey leaves (not roots), horehound, elder berries, mullein, osha root, pine, sage, and lush cherry bark are favourites for "cough" syrups.

Using Herbal Syrups

A potion of most herbal sirup is 1-3 teaspoonfuls, taken as needed. Share a spoonful of bitter syrup honorable before meals for boon results. Booty cough syrups as frequently as every hour.

Make an Herbal Syrup

To bring about an herbal syrup you will call for the next supplies:

• One ounce of dried apricot herb (weight, not volume)
• A disinfected dry quart/liter jar with a tight lid
• Boiling water
• Measuring cup
• A heavy-bottomed medium-sized saucepan
• 2 cups sugar or 1 cups honey
• A sterilized jar with a inconsequential neck and a pleasant lid (a cork stopper is ideal)
• A slender vodka (optional)
• A nickname and pen

Place the plentiful ounce of dried herb into the quart jar and fill it to the top with boiling water. Cap tightly. After 4-10 hours, decant your infusion, saving the liquid and squeezing the herb to excite the extreme of the goodness away of it.

Measure the dimensions of liquid you compass (usually about 3 cups). Pour this into the saucepan and bring to a boil. Decrease the heat until the infusion is aloof barely simmering. Keep on to simmer until the liquid is reduced by half (pour it outside of the pan and into the measuring mug immediately and then to check). This process can catch diverse hours; the decoction is not spoiled if it is reduced to less than half, but it is ruined if it boils indurate or if it burns. Care for a hurried eye on it.

When you retain reduced the infusion to less then two cups, add the sugar or honey (or sweetener of your choice) and bring to a rolling boil. Pour, boiling hot, into your jar. (Sterilize the jar by boiling it in govern saturate for a hardly any minutes decent before filling it.) If desired, add some vodka to preserve the syrup.

Allow the bottle of syrup to come to amplitude temperature. Fame it. Store it in the refrigerator or grip it in a chilling place.

Make Herbal Cough Drops

You must beget a syrup with sugar, not honey to build cough drops, but you can advantage uncooked sugar or brown sugar instead of hoary sugar and it will drudge honest as well.

Instead of pouring your boiling broiling syrup into a bottle, carry boiling it. Every minute or so, blop a bit into brisk water. When it forms a tough ball in the algid water, these days turn off the fire. Pour your express thick syrup into a buttered apartment lodgings dish. Cool, then reduce into microscopic squares.

A dusting of powdered sugar will garner them from sticking. Store hermetic in a chill place.

Make Throat-Soothing Lozenges

• Situate an ounce of marshmallow root powder or slippery elm bark powder in a bowl.
• Slowly add honey, moving constantly, until you obtain a thick paste
• Roll your slippery elm gum into bitty balls
• Roll the balls in extra slippery elm powder

Store in a tightly-closed tin. These will direct for up to ten years.

Plants That I Appropriateness to Constitute Herbal Syrups

Comfrey leaves (Symphytum uplandica x)

Chicory roots (Cichorium intybus)

Dandelion flowers or roots (Taraxacum off.)

Elder berries (Sambucus canadensis)

Horehound leaves and stems (Marrubium vulgare)

Motherwort leaves (Leonurus cardiaca) pick before flowering

Plantain leaves or roots (Plantago majus)

Osha root (Ligusticum porterii)

Pine needles or inner bark (Pinus)

Sage (Salvia off.)

Wild cherry bark (Prunus serotina)

Yellow dock roots (Rumex crispus)

Outlook up

In our at the end lesson of this series, we will look the Seven Medicines: Serenity Medicine, Comedy Medicine, Impulse Medicine, LifeStyle Medicine, Herbal and Alternative Medicine, Pharmaceutical Medicine, and Hi-Tech Medicine.

Experiment Unit One

Make a manageable syrup, using single one plant. Constitute it once with honey, once with blanched sugar, and once with a sweetener of your choice, such as barley malt, agave syrup, molasses, sorghum syrup, or maple syrup. (See record for suggestions of plants to use.)

Experiment Numeral Two

Make a syrup with three or augmented plants. Choose plants that are community to your area, or ones that you can most easily buy.

Experiment Quantity Three

Make three or aggrandized not difficult herbal honeys using contrasting parts of plants, such as flowers, leaves, roots, or seeds. (See file for suggestions of plants to use.)

Experiment Cipher Four

Make an herbal honey with a plant comfortable in constitutive oils (such as sage, rosemary, lavender, or mint). Fling it as a wound treatment. Endeavor it on baby burns. Stab it as a facial masque. Draw up your observations.

Experiment Figure Five

Make one or extended of the recipes in this lesson.

Very interpret

1. Adjust a tricky dock iron tonic syrup consequent the guide in my volume Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year.

2. Construct "Peel Power" succeeding the method in my tome New Menopausal Caducity the Erudite Woman Way.

Modern attempt

Compare the stuff of honey from the supermarket, organic honey, unprepared honey, and herbal honey by using everyone one to treat the equivalent problems and carefully record your observations.

Susun WeedPO Box 64Woodstock , NY 12498Fax: 1-845-246-8081

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