Emotional Uproar

 Emotional Uproar

excerpt from New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way

Step 1. Collect information . . .

Premenstrual, pregnant, premenopausal, and menopausal women rage and weep. Like it or not, you'll probably find your emotions harder to control as you enter your menopausal years. Men given hormone therapy (against prostate cancer) weep and rage too!

Step 2. Engage the energy . . .

* Take time for yourself when you find yourself crying, yelling, raging, depressed, out of control. Create your own sacred space, even in a closet, where you can be alone, without responsibilities, where you can be safe to have every one of your feelings.

* Begin (or deepen your commitment to working with) a journal as a way to care for yourself and your emotions. The Change is an opportunity to value your emotional self and to nourish all of your feelings, from grief to bliss, rage to outrageous.

* Universal healing energy can help when your emotions are roaring. Channel it through your hands to your heart or womb; hold yourself.

Step 3. Nourish and tonify . . .

* My remedy of choice for women dealing with premenstrual emotional uproar is motherwort - the calm, fierce-hearted mother who helps you find your center in the wildest of emotional storms. A dose of 5-15 drops taken several times when you're upset will bring calmer feelings quickly. A dose of 10-30 drops taken twice a day for a month can help prevent mood swings.

* Let a cup of garden sage tea with honey restore your emotional center and soothe your irritated nerves. It is even said to cure insanity and relieve hysteria. In Chinese herbal practice, honey is used (in tea, not cooked) to soften the energy of the liver when it is hardened by rage, frustration, and anger.

* Pamper yourself. Get a massage. Cuddle with someone you love.

* Moods don't swing so much in women who nourish their nerves and even out their blood sugar levels with lots of calcium.

* Slow-acting liferoot flower tincture (5 drops) or slower-acting vitex berry tincture (25-40 drops), taken daily for a week or two premenstrually for several months will help you unravel your emotional snarls.

* Black cohosh root tincture eases menopausal flashes and is said to cure hysteria, too. Try 10-20 drops once or twice a day for a month.

* Keep a piece of licorice or ginseng root handy to chew on when you feel like chewing someone's head off.

Step 4. Stimulate/Sedate . . .

* Valerian root, as a bath or tincture (15-20 drops as needed) is a powerful sleep-inducing sedative that also eases uterine cramps. Avoid long-term use.

Step 5b. Use drugs . . .

* Feeling moody? Mood-altering drugs, legal (tranquilizers, anti-depressants, alcohol, coffee, cigarettes) or illegal (cocaine, opium), create dependence.

Step 6. Break and enter . . .

* Psychoactive plants (such as marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, and mescaline), when taken in a safe setting, offer radically different results than mood-altering drugs. Instead of dependence, they foster self-worth, helping the individual to break open new neural pathways and establish easier flows of emotions and energy through both the physical and subtle bodies.

excerpt from New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way

www.wisewomanbookshop.com/product-page/new-menopausal-years

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Nourish Wholeness

 Nourish Wholeness

excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines

Nourishment is the basis of health and the fuel for healing.

Nourishment is more than what we eat and drink. 

Sights, sounds, smells, sensations, emotions, and energies, meals, stories, ceremony, safe space, affection, honesty, and beauty nourish us. Lifestyle Medicine is choosing what we allow in.

How simple Step 3 would be if we had only to look on the light side and concern ourselves with joy and ease and the absence of problems. 

Abundant health is wholeness. Wholeness includes our shadows, rages, fears, and mourning cries. Opposites intermingle and engage to create health/wholeness/holiness.

We love all of ourselves. We nourish and strengthen all aspects of ourselves: good/bad, positive/negative, attractive/ugly, sane/crazy.

When we encounter “difficult” feelings — abandonment, betrayal, deprivation, inadequacy, jealousy, desire, greed, rage, embarrassment, loss, fear, revenge - Step 3 advises us to “feed the demons.” 

Nourish those emotions, listen to them closely rather than try to shut them down. Respond to their needs.

 If given a safe home in us, unsavory aspects paradoxically nourish the best parts of us and we become abundantly well.

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excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines, pg 91

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Nettle infusion

 *Nettle*

is amazingly rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals, especially the critical trace minerals: anti-cancer selenium, immune-enhancing sulphur, memory-enhancing zinc, diabetes-chasing chromium, and bone-building boron. A quart of nettle infusion contains more than 1000 milligrams of calcium, 15000 IU of vitamin A, 760 milligrams of vitamin K, 10% protein, and lavish amounts of most B vitamins.

To make a nettle infusion: Measure out one ounce of the dried herb. Boil a quart of water. Put the dried herb into a quart jar and fill to the top with the boiling water. Stir with a wooden spoon and add water until the jar is full to the top. Lid tightly and set aside to brew for at least four hours, or overnight, whichever is easier for you.

To use: Strain and squeeze the liquid out of the herb. Be sure to refrigerate your infusion, as it will go bad at room temperature once it is done brewing. (If that happens, I use it as plant food. And you should see how my roses adore it!)

Nettle infusion is delicious over ice. Its rich green taste is not at its best when served hot. Adding honey can make it taste quite strange. Some folks like to add a little apple juice to sweeten it. Or stir in some miso, for a salty drink. However you consume it, do drink it up within a few days, as nettle infusion doesn't last.

Green blessings surround us, even in the middle of winter. 

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Learn more in Susuns Online course:

Nourishing Herbal Infusions - Drink Your Way to Health

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Sweet Earth Soup

 Sweet Earth Soup

8-10 servings

A rich hearty soup for a main course.

3 TB olive oil

1 lg onion, chopped, 3 c

3 cloves garlic, chopped, 2 TB

1 lg. burdock root, but into thin rounds, 2 c chopped

1 large handful dried sea palm fronds or kelp, 1 1/2 c soaked

1 lg. potato, chopped, 2 c

1 lg. yam, chopped, 4 c

1 tsp sea salt

2 TB tamari or to taste

5 c water

3 tbp ground fenugreek

1 1/2 tsp ground coriander3 c raw cashews

3 c water

chopped scallions for garnish

Break the sea palm fronds into pieces no longer than 1" Soak in water to cover for 20 minutes, then drain and compost the liquid. Set aside soaked sea palm fronds.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a heavy skillet. Saute garlic and onions 5 minutes or until translucent. Add burdock root,and saute until onions are translucent. Add fenugreek and coriander and saute one minute to mix the spices in with the oil. Add sea palm fronds, yams, potatoes, salt and 5 c water. Bring to the boil, and simmer, covered, 30 minutes until the vegetables are cooked.

Blend the 3 c water and 3 c cashews until creamy. No mash will remain. Remove cooked vegetables from heat, add 1 c of the boiling liquid slowly to the cashew cream, stirring constantly. Now add this back to the soup slowly. Taste for salt and/or tamari.

If necessary, return to a very low flame and heat to serving temperature. Take care not to boil. Garnish and serve immediately.

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Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg

 Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg

The aroma of winter is wood smoke and evergreen. But winter holidays smell spicy. Herbs that grow only in the tropics — such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, allspice, and vanilla — are called spices. Their aromatic oils and volatile esters entice us with delicious smells and mouth-watering tastes. And spices warm us from the inside, as if we had ingested the tropical sun on a cold day. Spices help preserve food and counter a variety of illnesses, too. Come, sit and warm your feet by the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the dense green forests where aromatic spices grow. ..

* A cup of Cinnamon tea .. eases menstrual cramps, soothes sore joints, relieves gas pain, and allays that feeling of fullness after a big meal. A sip or two of cinnamon tea before meals improves digestion and prevents acid reflux. Those who drink cinnamon tea regularly will have less cavities, stronger gums, and fewer insect bites.

* Chewing cardamom seeds freshens the breath and improves digestion. Herbalists consider cardamom effective for helping the liver, the appetite, the stomach, and the intestines.

* Modern medicine validates Nutmeg’s ability to inhibit diarrhea and slow down the action of the gastrointestinal tract. Folk medicine agrees, using nutmeg against diarrhea, dysentery, inflammation of the mucus membranes, flatulence, and vomiting. Nutmeg has also been shown to effect prostaglandin synthesis and to be a particularly potent antimicrobial. It may also be anti-rheumatic.

Green blessing are everywhere, especially in your spice chest.

Happy Holidays!

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* Read the whole article here*:

www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/October09/healingwise.htm

Simple Green Pesto

 Simple Green Pesto

excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines.

This simple pesto has only four ingredients. It keeps up to three years in the refrigerator. 

Pesto preserves the herbs antioxidant power. 

Dandelion leaf pesto is bitter and tangy. 

Chickweed pesto is mellow and grassy; use new growth. 

Shiso or tulsi pesto is aromatic and romantic. 

Garlic mustard pesto is bitter and spicy and delicious. 

Garlic scape pesto is heaven on earth. 

There are no specific amounts; use what is abundant. 

Chop herb coarsely with a knife. Peel garlic and mince. 

Half fill a mini-prep or blender with herb. 

Add extra virgin olive oil to cover well. 

Add minced garlic and some salt. 

It is important to use salt. It acts as a preservative and it helps turn the green leaves into a paste (pesto). 

Puree/blend well. Add more oil as needed. 

Add more herb, more salt, and more garlic, too. 

Pack almost to the top of a tall jar. Tap lightly to remove air bubbles.

Pour more olive oil over the top. Label on lid, refrigerate. 

excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines.

www.wisewomanbookshop.com/product-page/abundantly-well-seven-medicines

Achieve Instant Calm

 Achieve Instant Calm

Here are a few easy ways to calm jangly nerves, achieve greater overall calm, and cope on-the-spot with stressful situations. For instant calm, try these following simple calming exercises, herbal allies, and movements, and learn how and why they work so well.

* Unfreeze yourself: Curl up in a fetal position (on your side with knees drawn up), breathe deeply, and hum. You may want to rock back and forth. Concentrate on what feelings want to emerge. Do not be surprised if grief is what you are really feeling. 

* Focus your eyes: Look at anything, steadily, with concentration, and breathe deeply. Feel a warmth in your upper abdomen; breathe; focus. 

* Conjure an image of safety: Imagine a huge image of safety, such as a cowrie shell, the palm of Buddha or Christ, a giant mother’s lap, or a cloud of pink light. Surround the object of your anxiety with this image. Fear locks up movement and speech; a clear visualization can unfreeze you. 

*Take an herbal calmative: Tincture of red clover is a profound relaxer and soothing calmative. Its salicylic acid content (similar to aspirin) makes it an excellent pain reliever, too. Motherwort is also effective. Motherwort is not sedating, but calming, leaving you ready for action, not flying off the handle or bouncing off the walls. Try 10 to 20 drops as soon as you feel your nerves starting to fray or just before a stressful event. Repeat every five minutes if needed.

* Try yoga postures. Yoga postures, yoga breathing, and quiet, focused meditation soothe the sympathetic nervous system instantly. Regular practice alleviates anxiety, often permanently.

Excerpt from New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way.

https://www.wisewomanbookshop.com/product-page/new-menopausal-years