The class I am taking on Medicinal Herbs is located at a Natural Foods Store called "Miller's Natural Foods, " in Bird-in-Hand. This link is to a nice write up about it from PA Dutch Country Blog.
Rosanna is our teacher, she is Mennonite and there are two other Mennonite ladies, an Amish lady, an "English" lady and we Rabe women! The Amish lady and one of the Mennonite lady's had their young children with them, and other than the nursing babies who were hungry, those kids were quiet and very well behaved, for two hours. It must be from all that practice of sitting quietly in church!
Rosanna started out by saying a key to treating your family with herbs, is to ask yourself "What is the issue." For example, "Why does Kyle have a fever?" Then the key is to not try to mask the fever but to work with the fever to bring healing. For every degree of temperature over normal your white blood cells speed up (I am not sure if she meant they move faster or increase in number- I will try to clarify that this next week) - thus causing them to overpower the 'infection' or what ever is causing fever. We learned that using certain herbs or herbal teas will help work with the infection both to support it (after all the fever is helping the body to fight) and to help break the fever. So interesting.
We also learned about what the different herbs do for the body. Of course not all are herbs but plants or even bark or flowers. Slippery Elm is good for the intestines if you are having issues. It coats soothes the intestines.
Did you know that garlic is called "Russian Penicillin"? It is good for many things that ail you...crush it let it sit out in the air for 5 minutes. The add it to olive oil. Warm the oil and then use it in ears for ear aches, it can be used as an antiseptic on cuts, to fight athlete's foot. Very useful!
The biggest 'Ah ha' moment for me was 'thinking about what is going on in the body.' If you have vomiting or other intestinal issues think of "why." Why is the body purging. Usually it is because of some kind of toxin in your system, like food poisoning for instance.
This next week we are going to learn to make tinctures. Black Walnut tincture can be used to fight athlete's foot too. Also apparently good for teeth problems...
More to come....
5 comments:
I would love to take a class like that. One of my best friends studied herbs for years and has been a good source of advice (but she lives in Texas and available only online).
Your post made me smile since you are going to Bird-In-Hand. It seems like only yesterday (instead of two summers ago) we met Stephanie's family in Intercourse, PA to spend a week at a cottage there.
They usually pay for us to come to their place or meet somewhere else once a year (not this year with the new baby).
It was such a lovely area and we enjoyed all the restaurant options. I told her I could ALMOST leave the Midwest to live in Lancaster County. :)
You might be interested in knowing that according to Wikipedia elderberry concentrate has been proven to fight the common flu. It said that jellies probably wouldn't be as effective. But I thought it was kind of interesting given the class you are taking. Maybe your instructor could tell you more.
I'd love to take a class like this too. Hard to find a *normal* person offering an herbal class, where I live. sigh. So, I'll vicariously live through you and delve into further info via internet. :o)
The athletes foot malady. Black walnut tincture? I wonder if that's in the herb blend that Shoshanna Pearl offers..? Probably.
I'm enjoying reading about your experiences with this class.
jAne
Sounds like a very interesting class. I didn't know it was at Miller's. If soccer season hadn't begun, I might have been interested in trying to get into these classes.
Very interesting! I've always found this subject fascinating. I have a few books on herbs that touch on this subject but would like to know more.
Manuela
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