An Ancient Herbal Remedy for Modern Pain Relief

Boswellia serrata tree

   I was talking with my friend James the other day.  He is in his sixties and recently retired.  We go to exercise class together and try to keep each other motivated and on track.  But for him, keeping motivated is a real challenge, because of pain in his joints:  he has the usual wear and tear osteoarthritis that many people develop as they age. His shoulder, neck and feet are all affected, and this makes exercise difficult.

     He has relied on ibuprofen as a pain reliever for years, but recent blood tests showed that his kidneys were not doing well, so his physician recommended he discontinue the drug ( this is a common issue with medications like ibuprofen).  Tylenol is safer, but doesn’t seem to work for him, and he was getting a little panicked about what he could do.  He knew I was a professional herbalist, so he asked me for suggestions.

     I suggested three different herbs that he could try out.  Since every person is different, not every herb works for every person.  I provided some capsuled samples:  Willow bark, Chinese Corydalis and Boswellia serrata, also known as Indian Frankincense.  I suggested he try each herb, one at a time and see what worked best.  I expected Willow would be most effective, but was surprised when he reported that Boswellia was most effective.  He took it at bedtime and noticed that he was sleeping much better.  He finds that it is a good alternative to ibuprofen and also his doctor reports that his kidney function is much improved.  

    Boswellia is a medium sized tree with spreading branches;  it grows up to 45 high in its native northern India.  The medicinal part is actually a resin:  the wild crafters take off strips of bark.  The tree then oozes out copious amounts of a clear yellow resin, much like pine sap. This resin is allowed to dry and is then collected.  In India they typically powder the resin chunks, roll it up into little pills and swallow it.  Here in America it is probably best to take a capsuled product.

    Boswellia is also known as Frankincense; there are at least 45 different varieties of it.  Boswellia Serrata comes from India;  it is also the variety most commonly used in herbal healing.  Ayurvedic medicine in India goes back at least 4000 years and there are written records of Boswellia as medicine going back 2000 years.  So it has a long traditional use.  

    Modern medicine is beginning to do research on boswellia and results are promising: it seems to be effective in reducing pain and stiffness.  It may be useful for a wide range of musculoskeletal issues, including arthritis, bursitis & tendonitis, low back pain and more.  It may be especially useful for people who have autoimmune diseases with inflammation, such as colitis or rheumatoid arthritis.  Since it is a potent anti-inflammatory it may also play a key role in preventing cancer.  

     Chronic pain is a huge problem for many people and modern medicine is not fully effective in addressing it.  It is worthwhile to look at ancient remedies to see if we can find safer and equally effective alternatives.

Janet

Resources:

=Starwest Botanicals sells bulk powder:   http://www.starwest-botanicals.com/category/frankincense/

=The Capsule Connection sells a great capsule making machine here:  https://www.capsuleconnection.com/

=Youtube has a great video on how to make your own capsules:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo92dGCt1Rc

=Or you can buy pre-made Boswellia capsules:  two brands I recommend are Now brand Boswellia Extract and Source Naturals brand.  

    

     

At Tongue Point: Goodbye to Summer

     It is the end of September.  Glen and I are sitting on the viewpoint  at Tongue Point, a rocky finger of land poking  north into the Straits of Juan de Fuca, just west of Port Angeles.  We have been camping at this lovely site for a few days, enjoying the last days of a fading summer.

     Around dusk we decided to finish off our day by taking our camp-cooked bean tacos and sitting out at the  outlook.   This day  has been a dream of a sunny day, now fading into dusk.  The sunset in the west is sensational.  I remark that this is a watercolorist’s dream (I dabble in watercolors).  Glen shoots back, “Or a nightmare!”  And I have to laugh.  How is possible to catch and hold such unearthly colors?

     This place  is that rare thing along the the Washington seacoast: an easily accessible rocky shore.  This is  very different  than the long sandy stretches of Ocean Shores or Long Beach: here the salt water from the Pacific rides east for  60 miles in great rolling swells that crash upon the rocky shore.  All night, bedded down in our warm camp beds, we hear and feel the BOOM POUND THUMP of big swells pushing in a full tide and breaking at last on the stony reaches of the point.  

     These rocky beaches provide an excellent place for a sea garden of kelp to establish itself and flourish.  We were here last spring for a brief visit and there was no sign of this garden; we have the photo to prove it.   Upon our return this fall, the bull kelp is thick, floating and swaying  some 20 feet from shore. 

    During its summer life,  the kelp provides a floating mat island, and many birds take advantage of it; several gulls with crops  full after a day’s feeding, perch on the kelp, facing west and watch the sun sink into the hills.  A lone Great Blue Heron manages to balance itself on the mats !*! and continues to fish even in the last minutes of light.   The bobbing bulbs of kelp look like so many seal heads and we are fooled, over and over again.  

      The rocks provide another  feeding habitat that many rock shorebirds specialize in using. This is the country of Black oyster catchers: as we watch the sunset, they vocalize back and forth  from rock to rock, a mournful piping call.  

     This is a season of migration and transitions:  we watch Pigeon Guillemots in their white winter coats, getting ready to fly to the north Pacific for the winter.  Other birds come in to stay:  small bands of Scoters and other sea ducks move into the Straits for the winter.   

    This is a place of breathtaking beauty.  This is a time of saying goodbye to summer.  There are so many feelings:  a feeling of mourning for summer lost, of reveling in in the beauty laid out before us, of anticipation for  the change of the season.  My heart is full.  

      The sun continues to sink, painting the sky and the water, too, in ever-changing colors.   We watch and wait, until finally, the water turns black. 

Janet

Resources:

•  All photos by Glen Buschmann  

The Barrida

     As an energy healer, I am always keeping an eye out for good ways to clear out the energy field, cleansing and revitalizing it.  There are many ways that the shamanic healers know & use: the barrida is one of my favorites.  It is simple & effective and you can do with herbs right out of your own garden.

     Barrida is a Spanish word and refers to a broom.  In this technique, we take powerfully protective and cleansing herbs, bundle them together in our hand and use this makeshift broom

  

Barrida Herbs:  Rosemary, Bay, Rue & Mugwort

to sweep through our energy field.  We move from the top of the head down, directing the energy back into Pachamama, Mother Earth.  It is similar to smudging with burning herbs such as sage, but I prefer the barrida in many ways because I love the smell of the fresh plants.

    

    I have favorite herbs I put into the barrida.  Here are some of them:

 Mugwort:  this herb grows all over the planet, in different varieties.  And nearly everywhere it grows, the indigenous people used it for protection.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, our local variety is called Coastal Mugwort or Artemisia suksdorfii.  But any variety of mugwort does the job.

 Rosemary is one of three herbs that the curanderas of Mexico put into their barridas.  Though Rosemary came from the Mediterranean coast, the Spaniards brought it with them to Latin America, and the indigenous tribes immediately embraced it.  It is one plant I grow near my front door, for its protection qualities.

Rue is yet another key herb in the barrida, providing powerful protection.  It has a strong, almost noxious scent and thus it thought to repel harm.

Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis) is one of my personal favorite protection herbs.  It too grows near my front door, and I rely on it for to help keep me safe.

     Once you have used the barrida to sweep through your energy field, you then discard the branches.  I put them on the compost pile and simply leave them in the garden, where the earth

will cleanse and recycle them.

    This is a great technique. Give it a try!

Janet

Resources:

Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs               Scott Cunningham

A Kitchen Witch’s  World of Magical Plants & Herbs    Rachel Patterson

You Tube on Limpia & Barridas:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1zSFyN8I4M

The Cookie Lady

     Some years ago I got a call from a friend of mine.  She had just moved into an old house in Olympia;  this house was about 80 years old and throughout its long history, had been built and lived in by one family.  The last member of this family had lived in this house for most of her life, but had recently died.  So my friend was able to buy this wonderful old home, which sits on the Eastside hill of Olympia, overlooking Puget Sound.

    My friend was settling very nicely into this house and really enjoying her new space.  But one day she came home and went into the small office just off the kitchen.  As she walked into that room, she was very startled to smell the distinct scent of newly baked cookies.  She walked around the house, trying to figure it out.   The smell eventually dissipated and my friend went on with her house projects.

     However several times over the next few weeks she came home once again to the smell of fresh baked cookies.  My friend is a gifted intuitive and she began to wonder if her house had some sort of ghost presence.  So she gave me a call and I went to her house to do an energetic space clearing, but also to check in with the possible ghost.

     This sort of work is commonly done by shamanic healers.  We travel via shamanic journey into the Spirit World and invite the ghost in for a conversation.  Now this work should only be done if you have been well-trained and have excellent protection; not all ghosts are benign.  However, this ghost was.

     I met the spirit of a woman who had died very suddenly while living in that house.  Because of the unexpected nature of her death, she did not know she was dying, and she got lost between this world and the next world.  Her spirit was still waiting in the house, waiting for her family members to come home.  This woman was a very nurturing, hospitable sort of person in life;  in death she was making cookies to welcome her family home.  Only of course, they never came.  She was very confused and sad.

   We had a long conversation.  I gently explained to her that she had died.  I offered her the opportunity to make a crossing into the next world, where her family would be waiting for her.  She was happy to accept my help.  I took her to the crossing place and explained to her what to do.  I watched her cross the bridge into the next world. That world across the bridge was enveloped in clouds so I could not see it,  but I could hear the cries of welcome and joy as she made her way.  Her family was indeed waiting for her and they took her in with great love.

     Back here, in the old house in Olympia,  we finished the energetic space clearing.  The wind blew in through the open windows and doors and the sun shone in like a blessing.  My friend had a strong sense of welcome from the house, as if it finally was hers.  

      That was the last time my friend smelled cookies in her house.

Janet

Resources

•  The Unquiet Dead by Edith Fiore
•  Sacred Space by Denise Linn

•  Butterfly photo by Nancy Partlow

Chasing Winter's Cough Virus

Herbs for Cough Chasing

     At this time in the heart of winter a particularly nasty cold virus is racing around the planet.  In my bioregion in the Pacific Northwest, waves of this virus are knocking people off their pins.

This particular cold seems to start with a slight sore throat and immediately moves into the lungs.  Even people with strong, normally healthy lungs are complaining that they have a major cough:  the phrase I’m hearing is that “ it feels like I’m trying to cough up a lung”.  

     
     People also notice the usual over the counter cough remedies aren’t helping much.  The other issue is that this virus seems to linger much longer that the usual 7-10 days:  many people are reporting this virus is hanging on for three to four weeks.

      This is not influenza;  most people do not have a fever or achy muscles/joints which are two key symptoms of the flu.  However the nasty cough is obnoxious and really interferes with sleep, energy and people’s quality of life.  

      So here is a great herbal remedy that I’ve been recommending;  several people I know and work with have tried it and are getting great results. One friend remarked that her cough cleared 24 hours after using this remedy.  

                    Cold/Cough Chaser tea

•  take one fresh lemon and squeeze out the juice, putting in a sauce pan

•  take one thumb-size piece of fresh ginger and grate into the juice

•  take 3 cloves of garlic and mince or press into the juice.

•  Add two cups of water to the juice/pan.

•  Add honey to taste

       Bring this mix to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes so the ginger and garlic is well extracted.  Then cool the tea enough to be drinkable and drink it down.  A word of warning:  it doesn’t taste very good.  But it works!

     If you are concerned that the virus is moving into a bacterial bronchitis or pneumonia, you could also add:

•  1/2 teaspoon oregano

•  1/2 teaspoon sage

•  1/2 teaspoon thyme
•  1/2 teaspoon rosemary

       Though these will not improve the flavor, they are great antimicrobial herbs.  

     Now just a reminder:  if you develop a persistent high fever, chest pain or shortness of breath, seek medical attention.  Herbs can only go so far.  

Janet

The News of Winter

The News of Winter


9th Century Irish Poem

I have news for you
The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone.
Wind high and cold, the sun low, short in its course.
The sea running high.
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost.

The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry.

Cold has seized the birds wings;
Season of ice:   this is my news.  

Janet

Shamanic Egg Cleansing: a Gift from the Doñas

Tools for a Shamanic Egg Cleansing

       A few years ago I had a great opportunity to study with two traditional healers from northern Peru.  Given the name of the “Twins”, Doña Olinda and Doña Isabel were raised in the mountains and deserts near  Chiclayo, Peru; here they learned to work with the sacred lagoons of the Andes as well as the rich plant life in the desert along the sea coast.   They learned traditional healing from their indigenous heritage as well as some healing tools brought to Latin America by the Spaniards.  They blend all these things together in their medicine:  plants and prayers, energy healing, shamanic techniques.  They are curanderas and shamans.  

     As part of their teaching, I had the opportunity to participate in some of their healing work.  This is always part of the path of the healer: we learn by getting healing treatments and finding out what works for us.  We then take the best of what we have learned and use it with other people.

     I didn’t know it at the time but I really needed the work of Doña Isabel and Doña Olinda.  I had grown up not knowing how to take the best care of this body I had been given.  The idea of self-care was like a word in Swahili: a  foreign concept beyond my grasp.  I knew I needed to take much better care of myself, yet felt powerless about doing so.  There was low self-esteem at work:  I’m not worth the trouble.  There was a sense of futility:  what is the point when stuff is going to happen anyway?  In a weird way, it felt frivolous and self-indulgent to focus on self care when the world had so many other things at stake.  I had known for many years that I needed to take better care of myself, but I was stuck.  And so it went.

     It was in that weekend with the Doñas that this thinking started to shift.  In a shamanic journey around these questions, Spirit told me that my time on this planet is a journey of body as well as  mind and spirit.  It is a profound gift to have this human body and I have a responsibility to take good care of this gift I have been given.  I was also reminded that people who are dying often express great regret that they did not take better care of and enjoy their body more.  These ideas were very illuminating for me.  

     Perhaps the most transforming moment for me in that weekend came when the Twins did a shamanic egg cleansing (limpia) on me.  This is one of the most important healing tools they have:  they took a fresh (hen) egg, blew prayers into it and then moved the egg in circles all around my body, top to bottom.  As they did so, I could feel the power of their work, pulling out old stuck energy from me.  I started to cry and then could not stop.  For me it felt as if the egg was clearing old grief and pain that I had carried for 50 years.  Finally they finished by taking a branch of rosemary and sweeping down my energy field, in a process called a barrida.

     After they finished clearing my body, they broke the egg into a glass of clear water and did a reading.  From the photo here, you can see what this might look like: a  yolk sitting at the bottom of the glass, the egg white in a pattern above it and the water it sits in.  My egg was nowhere near so healthy:  the yolk was disintegrated and looked as if it had been in a blender.  If I hadn’t been crying before, I would have started then:  that egg was thrashed.  But the Twins sat with me and gently explained what they were seeing: old patterns from childhood, a near-death experience, my struggles with my parents.  They saw it all.  They helped me see it and understand my life and my choices in a powerful new way.

     And that work transformed me.  It was two weeks later that I woke up from a good night’s sleep and decided it was time to learn how to do better self-care.  I didn’t have a clue what that would look like, but I was no longer stuck in hopelessness.  I decided it was time to lose weight and in the process learned that it really does work (for me) to focus on calories and portion size.  After years of being sedentary, I started to exercise and found new pride in my increased mobility.  I learned Qi Gong and found great relief from the inflammatory arthritis I’ve had for 20 years.   I explored different stress management tools and found some that worked very well for me.  A nutritionist helped me realize that I have Celiac issues so I stopped eating wheat.

     Now two years later, my life has been transformed, in what my spouse calls the “new & improved Janet”!  I am 50 pounds lighter.  Sleep apnea is gone and high blood pressure has resolved.  My blood sugar is now normal.  I go to the gym 3 times a week for a Silver Sneakers exercise class and walk one mile without difficulty.  My energy is much better and I get through a normal day without exhaustion.  I can even dance a little and do some hiking:  all these things were impossible 2 years ago.  The horizons of my life were shrinking as I aged, but now they are expanding and I am exploring all the new things I can do.

     This is the gift from Spirit, offered through the skilled and loving hands of the Doñas.  This is the beauty of shamanic egg cleansing:  a powerful healing tool that finds that which is broken in us and helps make us whole.  

     Now this is work I do on others, passing the gift and the healing forward.  I offer it to you.

Janet

Resources

•  Shamanic Egg Cleansing by Kalyn Bastion Raphael

•  Woman Who Glows in the Dark  by Elena Avila

•  The Twin Shamans web page:  http://www.twinshamans.com/about_us.html

•  You tube of one healer’s egg cleansing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbK6jd-U8I