Risky Medicine

American Cherry is one of our most beautiful and life giving forest trees.  In the primeval forest it was often 100 feet tall.  The ancient wood from those trees is found today in valuable antique furniture.  The tallest tree in my fence row is an American cherry.  I estimate it at 50' tall and today it is bearing an incredible amount of sweet cherries from within my grasp right up to its tallest branches.

 

  

You can actually see the red and ripening cherries in this photo.  They are a major food source for our songbirds.  For ourselves, the cherries are too small and too high up to pick for pies.  For me and for others who may be suffering from cancer they offer a subtle and risky treatment.  The cherries and their close relatives in the prunus family have cyanide compounds in their seeds.  This deadly poison can to a certain extent be resisted by healthy cells in our bodies.  Cancer cells however have no defenses against the cyanide.  This is the scientifically established basis for laetrile as a cancer treatment.  It is this treatment which has started and maintained cancer centers in Mexican border towns.  Our medical establishment has banned the treatment here and the government actually condemned and destroyed bitter almond groves which were the commercial source of laetrile.

              the distinctive bark of a young cherry tree

  

 

I researched the internet and found that the amount of cyanide in the different tree seeds was roughly the same and so I chose the cherries for my plant medicine.  The cyanide adds a second sweet taste to that of the fruit, but there is no mistaking its qualities.  I ate the ripe cherries and crunched the pits last year, but I re-experienced the power of this plant immediately and the first day I dared eat only two small fruits and felt my head swim from just this tiny effort.  Now four days later I am "confidently" consuming 20-25 each day.  I intend to stop when this year’s crop is gone.

 

 The greatest proponent of laetrile was the remarkable bio-chemist Dr. Dean Burk.  Burk earned his PhD from Stanford at age 19 in 1923.  He was a friend and colleague of Otto Warburg who twice won the Nobel prize for his cancer research.  Burk was a founding member of the National Cancer Institute and was the head of their cell chemistry division for about 30 years until his retirement.  I highly recommend his wiki biography to any and all interested in his life and beliefs.  I encountered him while doing research on water fluoridation which he not only opposed, but almost single handedly stopped in Europe, where he is greatly respected.  His name is rarely mentioned in today's cancer establishment, and I think that is near proof that cancer treatments which are not approved by the pharmaceutical companies and their investors will never be allowed by the AMA.

Water Medicine

                              Water Medicine

 About ten years ago  had the good fortune of attending a speech by the late Dr. Masaru Emoto.  If you don't know of him you may have heard that water crystals were photographed and that water responded to positive human thought by forming crystals of great intricacy and beauty.  I’ve read several of his books.  Much of our damaged drinking water and samples affected by negative thoughts fail to form crystals.  His body of work went beyond that, but the great implication was that water had memory and intelligence.  Further, that water is the most receptive element there is.  Consider the belief of many that Earth's water has arrived here on comets and the corollary that water has brought the memory and information of the universe.

Who are we?  What are we?  75% water at birth; 55% at death.  If we become ill it will have started at the cellular level.  Are we conscious of our cells?  Clearly our cells have intelligence, but we do not  communicate with them and only feel illness when entire organs are afflicted.  We do not know our water.

Dr. Emoto demonstrated with his photographs how much of our water has lost its memory and cannot form crystals.  The newest disgraces: fracking, aerial spraying of coal fly ash, pesticide run-off; what information is that conveying to our water?

If you look up "structured water" you will find that scientists and salesmen are asserting that if water can be tumbled and vortexed like a stream running over boulders it will vitalize that 65% or whatever percent you are.

Are any of us really well?  Are we who or what we should be?  How can we "be" when we do not know ourselves.

                   Dr. Hew Len's blue water bottles receiving Sunlight

 

Dr. Hew Len, a now well known Hawaian Kahuna and board certified psychiatrist has given us a phrase called the HO'Opono'Pono.  It goes:    “I love you, I'm Sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you.”

Bad Medicine for Bees

Bad Medicine for Bees

I write about plants but the great connection between all living things makes it impossible to limit the topic.  Can medicinal plants exist without insect pollinators particularly bees?

I was out in the garden early searching for a bee to photograph.  20 minutes and I saw none in spite of the incredible amount of plants flowering now on my place.  Later I went out again and found them on pennyroyal, itself a plant of medicinal interest like most of the mints.

 

Some of you know that I have been irritating our two local giant nurseries about their neo-nicotinoid or "bee killing" pesticides by publicly asking them to disavow their use.  Last year my effort made it into the Tahlequah paper, but the nurseries have not replied.  So at the OSU pesticide conference on Tuesday I heard some very interesting comments about the subject and have since done some research and have combined all this with my knowledge gained from professional chemical applications between the years 1975 and 1988 to give you this analysis.

The neo-nicotinoid pesticides were developed after I was involved with pesticides.  They were considered a vast improvement over the organo-phosphate poisons which were my primary weapon against insect pests.  The organo-phosphates which I used included malathion, di-methoate (cygon) diazanon, meta-systox R, and parathion among others.  Malathion is not especially toxic;  parathion is among the deadliest poisons ever developed, and gained notoriety for killing Mexican farm workers in California.  Some of them are considered to be systemic (they are absorbed into the plant and kill the consumer), others kill by contact only.  All of them have a horrible and penetrating odor, but they degrade relatively quickly and are less damaging to the environment than other chemicals.  They are largely responsible for my bladder cancer. 

I read that the neo-nicotinoids kill insects via pathways that are not toxic to mammals so humans can spray them with relative safety.  They are also systemic in their action, but unfortunately have a long half-life so that treated plants remain toxic to insects, both the damaging target pest and the honeybees which feed on the flowers nectar.  Germany was the first country to see the danger.  By 2008 the neo-nicotinoids were the number 1 pesticide world-wide.  German environmental scientists found that 50% of all insects had disappeared and so neo-nicotinoids were banned there in that year.

In our country also this data was well known and the EPA has been under heavy pressure to ban them here.  So far they have resisted and their use continues as before.  I paraphrase the conversation on the subject, "The nursery boys tell me they still use the "neo-nics" because the pyrethroids (another type) are under heavy fire and may be banned within a year. and they sure don't want to go back to the "OP's".  But Lowe's just came out and told the public that their plants will be neo-nicotinoid free within two years.  They're stuffing the nurseries just telling them, “You take care of the problem."”

You can be sure the nurseries don't want the OP's (organo-phosphates).  applicators aren't going to like the danger or the smell. Workers will not want to enter sprayed areas and the nurseries may have to open up plant spacing to get spray nozzles in instead of just blowing mist with giant 10 foot tall rigs over large plant blocks at 5 mph.

No wonder Greenleaf and Berry Company officials refuse to talk with me about the issue.  I worked 11 years as the groundskeeper at OSU Tulsa and at a 45 acre botanical garden in Houston and never sprayed insecticides.  Now I'm growing totally organic nursery plants at my place here.  Maybe they should talk to me.  Well at least they could go to OSU and read about IPM.

    

Chaga Medicine

Chaga Medicine

The nutritionists I've talked to about my bladder cancer have emphasized the importance of consuming medicinal mushrooms.  The mushroom most often mentioned in this regard is the maitake mushroom, but I have never used it.  Thanks to some good friends I've never met, I've had a three year supply of Chaga mushroom, Innonotus obliquus.  Like Maitake, Chaga is a shelf fungus.  Its primary host is the birch tree and so is found in lands to the far north where birch is common.  it is a well known medicinal throughout Northern Europe and Russia and is also eagely sought and sold by mushroom hunters in the northern US and Canada.

 The pieces of chaga here were chopped from a tree in Vancouver, probably with an axe.  Most of that conk remains on its dying or dead birch tree.  I love the moss growing on the mushroom... what does that tell us.  The main mycelial body is the russet color tissue and that is extracted with hot water as a tea.  Apparently it can be extracted much more efficiently if the extraction is done with high pressure, so I will be trying that with these pieces.  The russet part is known to be highly immune supportive. Black parts of the mushroom (or chitin) contain the cancer killing properties and are extracted with alcohol. 

The extraction begins by soaking the hard piece in water for a day. The chaga floats, so it is weighed to sink.  The soaking water becomes a beautiful brown color and isvery mellow to drink.  After the soak the chaga can be chopped or ground for boiling and then strained and put into alcohol.   At first I used a lot of alcohol in the extraction and several time got "tipsy" consuming enough for my good health.  This is not standard practice.  Actually at the time of consumption the alcohol extract needs to be diluted to less than 40 proof so that the liver does not sense a need to remove it from the bloodstream.

Alexander Solzhinitzin (sic) wrote his famous "cancer ward" an autobiographical account of he treatment of his cancer with Chaga in Russia.   I'm sorry not to have read this yet, but apparently it cured him and Chaga is a big part of my healing.  What a beautiful thing.

It turns out that shelf mushrooms are not poisonous at all, but are often so hard as to not be considered as food.  I bet they are all medicinal.  I found a white conk on a dead and unidentifiable tree in Tulsa.  It was as hard as chaga and I managed to pull and pound off some small pieces which I boiled at home finding the mushroom to be edible and the broth to be hearty.

Conscious Medicine

Conscious Medicine

I haven't had time to describe the visit Crystal Bridges Museum and the Plant Medicine tour we took on their beautiful grounds ten days ago.  It became intertwined with a book loaned to me by my friend Jessie Vincent, entitled "Creek Indian Medicine Ways".  The book was authored by David Lewis Jr., the last of "Initiated" medicine men (and women) of the Creek Nation.  There were three classes of medicine men described:  the main, the carrier, and the specialist.  The specialists were medicine men for the sacred ceremonies of the tribe.  The carriers were persons fully knowledgeable about the gathering, preservation and administering of plant medicine.  However, only the main, initiated, medicine people could visualize the properties and actions of the plants.  Only they could be said to "understand" the plants and to formulate treatments based on their understanding.

 The book included a list of plants used in the medicine.  This list corresponded only partially with medicinals discussed on the tour and only partially with the much larger list of medicinal plants in my several reference books.  Mr. Lewis states categorically that the medicine of several different plants had to be combined to synergistically treat illness.  This idea of combining qualities is also key to plant medicine treatment by other cultures and traditions.  Mr. Lewis goes on to say that the plants themselves will not truly cure without the "words" of the initiated healer.  With this statement Lewis raises the standard of treatment to the level of consciousness.  I could gain no formulas for healing at all from the Lewis book and had no way of truly understanding it.  Nor did Lewis intend for me or any other to be able to use his book as a guide for treatment.

Stephen Buhner, author of "The Secret Teachings of Plants" is a westerner, living in Vermont, who like Lewis heals from direct knowledge of plants along with a strong sensory perception of the patient's needs.  These two healers are not of course unique.  More famous was Edgar Cayce and there are many others including those who faith heal with their hands and the spectacular Chinese healers whose tradition gave us Qi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan.  Probably every culture in every corner of the globe where special sensitive people were educated to connect with life, there were healers whose consciousness was the greatest part of the cure.  

Lewis says that this level of healing consciousness was taught to the apprentice; that it took work to achieve the knowledge and insight.  In the Middle East 130 years ago Georges Gurdjieff asks his father, "How did he learn to become an Ashokh?"  the father replied, "from his father".  the boy then asks and where did he learn? "from his father and so on, all the way back to God".  In the Creek tribe and in the land by Mt. Ararat and in all the holy places of the indigenous cultures people were educated to sense real life.

I was educated to be successful in the unreal world of American capitalism so I am only now trying to expand my perceptions to this connected life.  Jessie Vincent told me to hold he yarrow, to breathe it in for 20 minutes...that then I would begin to understand what yarrow was and could do.

As Above So Below    

The Plants Alive model of the Earth and Moon:  1" = 2,000 miles

  

  

    

Stinging Nettle

Stinging Medicine

I first encountered this plant at Circle Lake Retreat Center in Houston.  It was a powerfully painful and numbing experience.  Over the next five years I worked to eradicate it, even learning how to carefully pull it up without being stung.  Then I happened to read about the many excellent qualities of nettle, and, filled with remorse tried to find it on the property.  I had no luck, my perseverence in weeding was more capable than my understanding.

  

 So, last spring I purchased this plant of nettle, Urticaria dioica which came all the way from Maine and by its thriving has apparently forgiven me.  When it is bigger I can harvest the root, make a tincture and help keep my prostate gland and urinary tract healthy.  The leaves are quite edible and according to German research are very anti-inflammatory, particularly helpful for arthritis.  It is also anti allergenic, cleansing, and detoxifying, an excellent choice for arthritic pain.

As a potherb it is full of good ingredients and steaming or boiling takes away all the sting.  Just don't try to eat it raw!  Here is the same plant six months later.

   

Plant Medicine, the Meat Question

Plant Medicine, the Meat Question

I frequently see articles on Facebook urging us to quit eating meat.  The banner headlines usually assert that meat animals are damaging to the environment, that their intestinal gases are a top threat to the ozone layer and in particular that they consume a phenomenal amount of water leaving us humans thirstier and thirstier.

Perhaps the authors of these articles are well meaning, but they write without complete understanding.  On a physical level our planet’s greatest need is for a healthy green carpet on its surface.  Depending on the climate this green carpet is either forest or pasture.  Where there is aridity, only grasses and forbs are able to cover and protect the soil beneath.  In those places a healthy sward of grass gathers the sun’s rays and converts them to life sustaining protoplasm and energy.

Great Nature requires a multitude of species to harvest the bounty from the sun and human beings will not soon be eating grass.  The great prairies and savannahs must have great herds of herbivores and must have their urine and methane rich feces as well.  If a pasture or savannah feeds life and if the waste products of that life are returned, then the soil becomes richer and the pasture grows more strongly.  If nature were left alone to be the herdsman we would eventually have more herbivores rather than fewer.

In our industrial form of agriculture unfortunately manure is poisoned and too often ends up in our waterways, the one place it shouldn’t go.  The land is asked to give without being replenished.  The meat produced by this agriculture indeed should not be eaten.

However, if we are able to consider food, both plant and animal, as it should be we could measure both kinds with the concept of “vitality”.  One remarkable way of measuring vitality was devised and implemented by two Frenchman, Andre’ Simonton and Andre’ Bovis. (Secret Life of Plants, ch. 18).  A pendulum of special make is held over the food substance and the combination of type of food, freshness, and manner of preparation combine to create a radiance which will both deflect and spin the pendulum.  Larger deflections are then a statement about the vitality of the food. 

The Frenchmen’s results were curious.  Fresh fruits and vegetables were all high but smoked pork scored as high as any other food, while other meats were low. Wood stove baked whole wheat bread was very high and commercial white bread very low.  Over cooked vegetables, pasteurized milk and milk products were very low as well.  The complete results are in Simonton’s book, “Radiations des Aliments”.  My supposition is that animal products should be from very healthy animals and handled and prepared with care or they may well devitalize the consumer.

Certainly the recommendations of almost all health/nutritional professionals  is not to eat meat if you have cancer or other chronic illness.  I myself consume my own fresh free range and non-gmo eggs, dairy which is mostly raw, and almost no meat.  I do have some “food demons” which are of great interest to me, because they prove to me my lack of inner unity.  I am no icon of dietary excellence and offer this only to promote consideration and sharing.

There is one final, rarely mentioned, aspect to this debate which I want to mention.  I grow a lot of my own organic vegetables and eat them fresh.  I would grow more except that it is so difficult for me to prepare their beds in a sea of invasive and non-native Bermuda grass.  This is just me, as I have no tiller, tractor, or round-up spray, only hand tools.  But even if I had sod busting power, how would I produce olive oil?  Lacking an oil press, or even the ability to harvest enough vegetable seed to supply oil, the only cooking fat I could hope to attain on my own would be lard.  So long as the world holds together, well off individuals can purchase a healthy and satisfying vegetarian diet.  The authors of anti-meat articles are among this group.  In less modern times farmers and gardeners embraced the raising and consumption of meat, poultry and dairy animals because of the reality of their place in nature.

So what is the proper diet of man?  Plant tissue has cell walls and the magnesium of chlorophyll.  Meat tissue has cell membranes and the iron of hematophyll.  Meat is formed from consumers of plants and so is one note separated on the octave of nourishment.  Opinions abound, but to me one certainty is that is only consciously raised and prepared food can properly nourish us.

Most Beautiful Medicine

                                           Most Beautiful Medicine

When we plant it in our flower gardens we usually call it Coneflower, and recently plant breeders have offered electric colored cultivars in stunning shades of orange, red and pink.  I don't have photos of those, but you can find them on the internet I am sure.  The one I originally planted at the house is named Pink Parasol.

Coneflowers are among the most reliable of perennials and bloom over a long period, slowly losing their spring brightness.  For the market, I plant seed in the fall and about half my plants bloom the first year.  By year two all are in full array,.  Since I have planted saved hybrid seed I've been seeing different forms including a white one.

Medicinal practitioners and cough syrup manufacturers usually call this plant by its Latin name, Echinacea purpurea.  Although the flowers have minor health uses, to get the real medicine, you must pull up the plant and take its roots.  Like many root medicines older plants are more potent and Echinacea root should be harvested from a plant at least three years old.  This spring I had an infection on my leg and pulled up a younger plant which had only a small ring of black tissue within the root.  The extent of this coloration may define its potency.  Nevertheless the poultice I made seemed to warm and heal. 

Healing skin problems is one of the major uses of Echinacea, but Chevallier writes that it is the most important immune stimulant in Western herbal medicine, used for infections of all kinds, especially chronic infections.  Chronic fatigue syndrome is particularly mentioned.  Colds, flu, skin disorders, and respiratory problems are effectively treated.  Isn't this a plant we all need to be growing?

It looks especially lovely with blue spiderwort as a framework

  

  

  

I also was pleased to read that the ornamental cultivars are probably just as potent as the threatened plants in the wild.

Give me a call if you want to plant some!