FEBRUARY 2016
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Healing Wise ...
with Susun Weed

Wintery Cold

Green blessings – with frosty edges.

It is finally cold. Really cold. Wintery cold. Frozen north cold. Freeze your cheeks off cold.

Last night it got down to 12 degrees below zero Farenheit. Today it "warmed" up to 11. Warm enough for me and my gym partner Yvette to take a walk. Okay, a short walk, but a walk nonetheless. Tonight it is already near zero and the sun has just gone down.

If you have indoor plumbing, then you must heat your house when it is below freezing, as frozen water in the pipes breaks them and creates watery havoc. I heat with wood. No backup, just wood. To keep myself (and my plumbing) warm, I must feed the wood stove.

When it is this cold, I must feed the stove every three hours, all day and all night. After a few days of being awake every three hours, one achieves a dream-like state, a place of heightened awareness, a softening of one's boundaries. The task takes on a deeper meaning and its story arises, wordlessly.
 
This year I am burning ash. American white ash. Fraxinus Americana. The royal wood. A valued, prized, firewood. It is said that green ash burns as well as seasoned ash, and that a piece of ash produces more heat for its size than any other piece of firewood. And I have cords of it.

That makes me happy. That makes me sad. I have cords of ash to burn because the emerald ash borer, a small insect, has killed every ash tree in my woods. Sad. I have cords of ash because my neighbor farmer John cut some of the dead trees and, with the help of his horse, brought the logs out, split them, and left them for me to stack. Happy.

Life is not divided into good and bad, positive and negative, nice and naughty. Life is an olio, a mixture, a cauldron swirling with the tides of our changing desires. I heat with wood because it keeps me connected to the plants and their gifts. I heat with wood because it keeps me connected to the earth and her gifts. I heat with wood because it breaks my heart every time I open the stove door and add another of piece of ash to the fire.

It breaks my heart open to life. It breaks my heart open to joy and love. Here is a piece of a tree. It grew from a small seed. Earth fed it. Sun fed it. Mycelium fed it. The wind ruffled its leaves. The rain watered its roots. The birds loved it. Here it is in my hand, going into the fire, to burn, to release the earth, the sun, the mushrooms, the wind, the rain, the birds, to release them as passion, as heat, to keep me (and my plumbing) from freezing.

Green blessings are everywhere.


Yarrow Skin Wash

Yarrow is a good companion plant in the vegetable garden. Its root secretions are said to be strengthening to other plants and actually make them more disease resistant. Yarrow is also said to keep ants and harmful insects away.

Yarrow makes an excellent skin wash, its astringency making it particularly beneficial to oily complexions. Pour 2 cups of boiling water over about 1 cup of crumbled dried flowering Yarrow tops, cool, and strain. Pat on the skin. This wash soothes chapping and minor irritations as well.

To dry Yarrow flowers: Gather freshly opened flowering stalks, breaking them off at the base. Tie in bunches of three or four and hang upside down to dry, in an airy place, away from direct sunlight. When they are thoroughly dry, remove the flower clusters carefully and discard the rest of the plant. Store the flower clusters in jars with tight-fitting tops, away from the sun.


Susun Weed’s books:




Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Author: Susun S. Weed.
Simple, safe remedies for pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and newborns. Includes herbs for fertility and birth control. Foreword by Jeannine Parvati Baker. 196 pages, index, illustrations.
Retails for $14.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com





Healing Wise
Author: Susun S. Weed.
Superb herbal in the feminine-intuitive mode. Complete instructions for using common plants for food, beauty, medicine, and longevity. Introduction by Jean Houston. 312 pages, index, illustrations.
Retails for $21.95
Order
at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com




NEW Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way

Author: Susun S. Weed.
The best book on menopause is now better. Completely revised with 100 new pages. All the remedies women know and trust plus hundreds of new ones. New sections on thyroid health, fibromyalgia, hairy problems, male menopause, and herbs for women taking hormones. Recommended by Susan Love MD and Christiane Northrup MD. Introduction by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. 304 pages, index, illustrations.
Retails for $22.95
Order
at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
For excerpts visit: www.menopause-metamorphosis.com



Breast Cancer? Breast Health!

Author: Susun S. Weed.
Foods, exercises, and attitudes to keep your breasts healthy. Supportive complimentary medicines to ease side-effects of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or tamoxifen. Foreword by Christiane Northrup, M.D. 380 pages, index, illustrations.
Retails for $21.95
Order
at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com






Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way
Publication date: June 21, 2011
Author: Susun S. Weed
Simple, successful, strategies cover the entire range of options -- from mainstream to radical -- to help you choose the best, and the safest, ways to optimize sexual and reproductive health. Foreword: Aviva Romm, MD, midwife, 484 pages, Index, illustrations.
Retails for $29.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com





Abundantly Well - Seven Medicines The Complementary Integrated Medical Revolution
Publication date: December 2019
Author: Susun S. Weed
Seven Medicines build foundational health and guide you to the best health care when problems arise. Includes case studies, recipes, exentsive references and resources. Introduction by Patch Adams illustrated by Durga Yael Bernhard 352 pages, index, illustrations
Retails for $24.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com

 

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