We All Want Peace*

Everybody’s running around with two fingers up– if they aren’t busy lifting just one finger at the driver that just cut ’em off. Even so, that driver really just wants peace. We want to know that we’re going to get to work on time, that rent will be paid, that our electricity won’t be shut off, and that we’ll be able to put gas in that car so we can do it again tomorrow. (I use “we” loosely, here– different folks have different struggles) At the core of our beings, we want to feel “secure,” knowing that we’re protected from hunger, cold, and loneliness.  We want peace.
What’s funny is that our language doesn’t tell us what peace is just by looking at the word. It’s kind of a nebulous “good thing” out there somewhere that nobody seems to have (unless they happen to smell like weed, and even then, it’s only for as long as the high lasts).

Shabbat Shalom!

A few thousand years ago, and still today in some places, the word for peace was a real, concrete picture of that nebulous thing we all want. Originally, the Scriptural, Hebrew word was “Shalom,” spelled “Shin-Lamed-Vav-Mem.” (second word in the pic)

The Shin is the picture of the two front Teeth. Lamed is a picture of the Shepherd’s Staff. Vav is the Tent Peg, and Mem is Water. The Teeth is an image of protection and defense. The Shepherd’s Staff provides guidance and direction, pointing the way out for the sheep to find everything they need. The Tent Peg is the picture of securing or “nailing down.” Water is our source of life. Shalom is defined in Jeff Benner’s Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible , word #2845, “Complete: Made whole or complete by adding or subtracting. ‘To be in a state of wholeness. Also to restore or make right through payment or restitution. ‘A state of being whole, complete, or full. Also an offering of restitution or payment. ‘A greeting as a desire for completeness to another.”
Shalom is “The protection of the Shepherd, nailing down the water.” We are at peace when we are protected and provided for by our Creator, and when we are made “complete.” In order to be “complete,” we need air, water, food, and shelter. Without land to grow food on, we are incomplete, and the land is incomplete without the humble people who care for it, watching over it with sensitivity to see that seeds sprout in it. Finding those humble people gives the rest of that picture of completeness– we’re no longer lonely 🙂

*Originally posted January 28, 2010 on my old blogsite

Ain’t Life Traumatic?!

Life hurts. Whether you’ve been in a car wreck, in an abusive relationship, through emotional trauma, took a few too many hits in sporting events, poisoned yourself with city air pollution, toxic houses, pharmaceutical medications, or what-have-you, it hurts like the dickens.
There are a lot of traumatic events I’ve been spared, and I’m SO thankful for that!
I have experienced all of the above, and, due to the amount of toxins I’ve been exposed to, I can’t use pharmaceutical medications AT ALL anymore– they only make me feel worse now.
SO– there’s a bright side to all of that 😀
I don’t have to live in incessant pain!
I have a list of natural tools that I keep in my medicine cabinet that keep my body nice and happy and healing– without drugs.
Top of that list is Arnica. It’s a beautiful little flower Designed to work great as a homeopathic remedy for trauma of all kinds.
I use potencies as follows:
For minor boo-boo’s, 30X or 6C… or let the kid shake it off– no biggie.
For something that’s ‘gonna leave a mark, 30C
For something that’s ‘gonna leave a mark for a week or more, 200C
For something that’s likely to send us to the ER if it doesn’t look better fast (or if we just got out of the ER), 1M. So far, we’ve been well-blessed, and the Arnica 1M has worked beautifully on every major injury we’ve had, and, with 4 kids, we haven’t been there in about 8 years. The 1M is also good if  having flash-backs or insomnia or other psychological repercussions from trauma, or if the trauma is very old– great for that broken bone or torn ligament that never felt right again after it “healed.”
It’s a homeopathic medicine, which means it doesn’t operate on a substance basis, but rather on patterns left over in the water into which it was dissolved. That means two things:
A. It doesn’t interact with any kind of medication, which is great for people who are dependent on pharmaceutical medications.
B. We can’t use coffee or strong mint or tea tree oil or camphor or other strong smells when you use it, we can’t touch the medicine itself before you put it in our mouth, and we can’t store it at high temperatures or near electrical equipment or magnets. Any of these things can render the medicine ineffective– it messes up those patterns.
Arnica also comes in topical, gel form to put on bruises & help them to heal faster– a friend says it’s great for if you’re headed to Jamaica for your honeymoon and just banged your leg on the car door. I haven’t used it for that  specifically, but I have watched bruises disappear much more quickly than I’d expected using it… or sometimes not appear at all, if I got it on there fast enough 🙂
The key with this remedy is to take AS NEEDED. We use the LOWEST effective potency, and only take it when the symptoms come up. If the pain is getting better, we don’t take any more. If it starts to get worse or hits a stand-still at healing, we take another dose.
It’s the perfect “shell-shocked soldier” remedy. If I had my way, 1M Arnica would be standard-issue at the VA… But who am I?

Arnica isn’t the only tool in my basket, but it has been a vital one. For more on things that have been helpful for me personally, see my other posts. Arnica also doesn’t fit everyone’s trauma picture. Some people are better served by Aconitum or another remedy. Finding the remedy picture that fits the symptoms set is crucial. There are thousands of different homeopathic remedies made from natural substances, each of which has a unique “personality” for helping “fine tune” different aspects of health that can be “knocked off-course.” I’ve loved “fine tuning” in my own home to find the beautiful people inside those “rough spots” in life.

As with all of my “non-medical, non-advice”, I’m no doctor or pharmacist, which means that I’m not licensed to treat, cure, prevent, heal, or otherwise mitigate any disease. It also means that nobody paid off the FDA to approve the stuff I use. So do your own research, and find what works for you 🙂

For folks interested in more info on the history of homeopathic medicine, here’s a link to more info:
http://www.homeopathic.com/Articles/History

The Chicken Doctor

Dr. Leavesheal here: in-home, private care physician to family, dog, and miscellaneous chickens!

We have gentle giants in the chicken world. Critters fly over the 6-ft fence, even if their feathers are trimmed!

Littlest Hen got into the compost bin (probably a few days ago), and got a-hold of somethin’ bad– non-chicken food. So my chicken-whispering twiddle-be-buttons brought her in yesterday, and want me to raise the limp pile of feathers from the dead. Tears in babies’ eyes, and I ‘gotta try… so we break out the Carbo Vegetabilis (homeopathic medicine. I call this one “bringum back from the deadum”– good stuff if you need it).  To clarify, the bird was still alive, but just barely. Feet & comb had turned yellowish (normally has gray feet & a red comb), couldn’t stand up, or lift its head, may or may not have been unconscious. Swollen legs & feet. NOT a happy bird… and twiddle-be-buttons know, without a doubt, that Mamma can “fix it” LOL! OY!

So I give the limp pile of feathers a 200C of Carbo Vegetabilis, and in about 15 minutes, it’s awake and lifting its head. Another 15 minutes, and it’s trying to stand up. Eventually, it’s kinda wobbly, but standing there. Not pecking at any food or anything, but it’s upright. So it doesn’t get better from there: just kinda stagnates at that wobbly standing up stage. So I give it another dose of the Carbo Vegetabilis 200C, and it perks right up– pecking at food, eating well, scratching and preening. Healthy-looking critter 🙂 Babies are all-smiles, and the world is right, “…and peace returns to the castle.”

So we watch said barn animal in my living room for another hour or so, and I’m thinkin’ it’s time for healthy-looking chicken to return to other healthy chickens, and I have the twiddle-be-buttons take critter back out to the chicken yard. Sounds logical, right? I mean, the thing does its poop-pee combined chicken thing, and that’s got to be cleaned up as often as it happens in here, whereas out there, it’s just good stuff given back to the land… sounds like a happy ending to me…

Well… fast-forward another few hours, and the babies are out there checking on it, and in they come, teary-eyed again, and Littlest Hen has a bloody gash in its neck, some kind of grey liquid dripping from its beak, and its feet & comb have turned yellow again, with legs & feet swollen. Definitely unconscious this time, and not looking good, but, again, still alive, and, again, twiddle-be-buttons have full confidence in Dr. Mom. This time, Dr. Mom’s not feelin’ so very confident, but again, with babies’ tears right there watching, ‘gotta try!

So this time we do a few doses of Carbo Vegetabilis 200C , 15-20 minutes apart, and when it’s strong enough to lift its head and do the wobbly-standing-up thing, we give it a dose of Arnica 1M for the trauma / injuries. (different from the topical stuff– never do the topical stuff on an animal: it’s toxic if they lick it off) In between doses of Carbo Vegetabilis, we put some olive oil on the wounds. Long story short: we have a functional chicken, scratching, pecking, preening, who is enjoying lots of attention from smiling babies, and healthy chicken-treats… walking around my living room! LOL!  Life is good 🙂

For more info on homeopathic medicine, check out this free, online intro to homeopathy course:

http://www.hpathy.org/homeopathybasic.asp

Arnica and Carbo Vegetabilis are two of thousands of different remedies for different health pictures, which work equally well for animals and humans 😀

If you’re interested in homeopathic treatment for poultry, specifically, there’s a free e-book:

http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=YUVPAAAAYAAJ&dq=free+homeopathy+poultry&lr=&as_brr=5

Oh and Standard Disclaimer:

I’m  no doc, and don’t pretend to be one. I am therefore not legally licensed to diagnose, cure, treat, prevent, or otherwise mitigate any disease, and neither is the stuff I generally choose for healing… but then, I’ve not been educated indoctrinated by boards with big pharma reps on them, either   so do your own research and find what works for you

Happy learning!

Arthritis Adventures…

So I grew up eating pork & shellfish, stepped on a few rusty nails, dug up a septic system when I was a kid (forced labor LOL!), had a run-in with a chemical something-or-other in an on-campus apartment in college, and spent a few decades running around getting Rx’s from docs for various ailments, which didn’t work, and then hunted down natural healing & detoxes, which finally did. After that mess, I’d finally got my body back, and I hit another “chemical something-or-other,” with a husband and 4 babies in-tow! My best guess is that it was an ex-meth house made over like a dream-home rental. At any rate, that sent me into a tail-spin, and fast. We got outta there, quick as we figured out it was the house, and I’ve been healing since.

One of the things the doc tried to pin on me was Rheumatoid (autoimmune) arthritis. He told me I had fibromyalgia, and that my “something-or-other” was high. I asked him what it was, and he said, “Oh, it’s a big word. You don’t need to worry about that.” …um, yeah… that went over like a lead balloon! I’m no doc, and don’t pretend to be one, but don’t tell me that somethin’ in my body is “too big a word”, and that I “shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it.”!!! I was livid! All done with that doc, LOL!  My body got a LOT better once we got out of that house, but it took time and a LOT of work to make the headway that enabled me to become a strong, active, and even athletic woman again.

With that nut-shell background, a bit on what has been helpful for me in fighting the symptoms of severe, crippling (had to be carried when I could no longer crawl) arthritis:

MSM: methylsulphonylmethane– organic sulphur. No USRDA on it. Too much can give loose bm’s (which is a place where the zeolite can come in handy), but when I’ve been hurting badly, 2,000 mg every 2 hours has helped immensely. 3-5,000 / day maintenance dosage seems to be about right for me now. Also a nice anti-cancer tool.

FYI (by Garden of Life) or Rejuvenzyme (cheaper, but same strength of stuff): It’s pineapple enzymes, but super-potent: stronger than regular bromelain. Works better than Ibuprofen, and without the side-effects.

Wild Yam Root: terrible tasting stuff, and it took a good bit when I was in real pain. I’d take 2 heaping Tbsp of it every 2 hours, alongside the MSM when I needed it. I ordered it in by the pound b/c it’s cheaper that way, but it’s like swallowing gravel, so I had to be sure to have plenty of liquid on-hand to get it down. Again, an anti-cancer tool.

Ginger Root (Rhizome for technical folk): STRONG-brewed tea– great anti-inflammatory stuff. I was doing 3 quarts / day of about a heaping TBSP of ginger root powder per quart of hot water. Be sure to cover it while it brews to keep in the healthy stuff– steam can leach out some of the best properties in teas of all sorts. Also great for warming up cold tummies, and great for digestion.

Aloe Vera: 2-6 ounces / day– recipe here, and another post I wrote on it, with the Ancient Hebrew pictograph here. I’ve seen this plant do some beautiful things, both inside and out! Another anti-cancer tool in my basket!

Cod Liver Oil: 4 Tbsp / day– more info on my experiences with it & what king here. Great for weight loss and detox, too!

Zeolite: Great for drawing toxins out of the body. Slows down bm’s a bit if you have difficulty with diarrhea. Special kinds of minerals are just amazing tools!

Arnica: (only if you have some form of trauma you’ve dealt with) I was at the 1M level, as-needed for quite a while, but have since healed, got a reaction (“proving,” meaning that I’d healed at that level, and needed to move down to a lower potency) at the 1M level, and moved down to the 200C level, eventually had a reaction at that level, and was able to move down to the 30C level, again, as-needed. Only need it very occasionally now 🙂  More info on different potencies and how I use them here.

Diet : No GMO’s, No sugar, no grains except for brown rice, no legumes, TONS of Brassicas (broccoli, kale, collards, maca, etc.), no “unclean” animal meats (pork, shellfish, etc.), and for a while there, no dairy or eggs. Later on, I’ve been able to incorporate eggs & dairy back in, slowly and carefully– no hormones or antibiotics, no blood spots in the eggs, and the milk has to be RAW, and CULTURED– raw-milk organic cheese, or keifer, for example.

Sauna / Sweat: Great for getting rid of pesticides and petrochemicals– my joints LOVE sauna sessions. More info here.

Exercise / gentle movement, increasing as able– this one started out as moving whatever small appendage I was able to move in the mornings when I would wake up in the toxic house. Eventually, I’d be able to move another finger or toe next to that one, and so forth, until I could crawl, and then walk (most days). During that time, it was a choice– I could lie there and just quit breathing, or I could move a bit, even when it hurt. I recommend moving… as gently, and as much as possible 🙂

Heat at night: When I was living in the toxic house, I found that my lymph fluid would kind of “freeze up” in my joints– I’d wake up in the mornings with lumps everywhere– fluid that “got stuck” All but two are gone now– one in my right hand, and one in my left leg. Still working on those, but they don’t impede movement anymore 😀 Anyhow, I warm a cotton bag filled with rice or other grain in the oven or microwave ’till it’s as warm as I can touch, wrap it in a towel to hold the heat all night, and put one on my guts (where lymph fluid is supposed to drain into so that it can be eliminated through the normal channels), and one on whatever joints were worst-off, and elevated those joints, so the lymph fluid would flow back down toward the gut for natural elimination. I invariably woke up with better functioning when I started doing this.
I’m currently working on a book– if you have time to investigate any or all of those links (yeah… I know LOL!), I’d love feedback on what is / isn’t clear, helpful, etc– The book will be entitled, My Body Knows Torah… And I’m Not Jewish! (btw, for my Christian friends: Torah is the first 5 books of the Christian Bible)
OH… and the disclaimer thing:

I’m  no doc, and don’t pretend to be one. I am therefore not legally licensed to diagnose, cure, treat, prevent, or otherwise mitigate any disease, and neither is the stuff I generally choose for healing… but then, I’ve not been educated indoctrinated by boards with big pharma reps on them, either   so do your own research and find what works for you

I’m also no rabbi, so please don’t take my experiences and path as your Rx for Kosher living