If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.
- Tung-Shan
I had to read this twice before I understood the meaning. Perhaps I read too quickly. I had awakened to the understanding of this quote and others. Not only because I read slower to grasp the understanding, but because I have become the 'butterfly' or 'moth' I always wanted to be. I hatched from a deep sleep. I feel I have emeerged. I am the man I always wanted to be. Do I have faults ? Do you have faults ? Who doesn't have faults, character defects and imperfections. Remember there is no perfection in this lifetime. This life time is a preparation for what is to come in a new life. It is life on life's terms. It is sometimes unfair. Life has its good and bad days. We all have had these times. If you feel you do not, then you haven't gone deep within yourself. Reflection of one's life for me happens usually at the date of my sober anniversary, when a loved ones dies or on a daily basis while meditating. I have been meditating longer these last four weeks. I feel there must be a message that I have not heard yet. I can be surpirsed as I have no expectations of the message. In the past I would have looked at my life and what I do not have. Today I look at what I have. I have gratitude for what my higher power has bestowed on me. I have a full life. I am not concerned with the riches and the wealth. I have a two handfuls, maybe three of gifted individuals who enrich my life on a daily basis. I am never bored, nor do I desire anything more. With all life has to offer, in nature alone one should nto be bored. See life to its fullest extent. For today: Take a breath of fresh air, and smell the last of the flowers till spring !
I have believed that if a Higher Power puts a disease on this Mother Earth, he also put a plant that is here that can cure it. Medicine has looked beyond the plants. I am grateful for technology and medicinal advances but man has lost touch with this inborn or inherited plant knowledge. As those who have worked with plants their entire life leave this Earth, they take with them an abudance of knowledge. It is my hope that more individuals start to record these older herbalists and healers. If I could do soem thigns over -- I woudl seek out an elder in a commubnity and learn what they have to teach me. Modern medicine hasn't scraped the surface of plant knowledge. Never underestimate the Power of Plants.
As you have read, I think you know now that the food value of wild plants, in my experience is far better than anything you wil find in a common sueprmarket. maybe not better the Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York on Union or in Itaca, New York.
You know you or your family has eaten too many processed foods in the last twenty years. There is still time to change that.
I am a healer. I am a beliefver in life. I have become to understand that Mother Earth is never alone. We are all united. It sounds religious, but this is spiritual. I am not a religious individual at this point in my life. I am a devout Spiritualist. I try to seek out peace, love and joy in everything I do.
Last night among an Italian family, I started to look aroudn the room. I could tell who eats better, who exercises and who takes too much sun. I started to think about what my grandparents ate and what my children were fed by their grandparents, Nonna and Nonno. My Poppy always prided himself in his fresh grown tomatoes, squash, chickory, basil and peppers. I remember the chickory flowers as if I could smell them. I did smell them last night. I remember a vivid blue color. What surpirsed me is that I haven't seen a chickory flower in more than a decade. I ate chickory as a child in all of my salad because it was there. I never knew the medicinal value of the plant. I was raised that you eat what is served on your plate. It is much different than today. I hear parents make different foods for everyone at the table. No so when I was a kid.
So I decided on Chickory. Chickory ( Cichorium intybus )
Common chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a bushy perennial herbaceous plant with blue, lavender, or occasionally white flowers. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched buds), or for roots (var. sativum), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. Contents [hide]
Common chicory is also known as blue sailors, succory, and coffeeweed. It is also called cornflower. You might know it as Red Endive. The leaves are stalked, lanceolate and unlobed. The flowers are unmistable. I feel they look like Blue Dandelions. The flower heads are 2 to 4 centimetres (0.79 to 1.6 in) wide, and bright blue. There are two rows of involucral bracts - the inner are longer and erect, the outer are shorter and spreading. It flowers from July until October.
Wild chicory leaves are usually bitter. By cooking and discarding the water the bitterness is reduced, after which the chicory leaves may be sauteed with garlic, anchovies and other ingredients.
Root chicory (Cichorium intybus var. sativum) has been in cultivation in Europe as a coffee substitute.The medicinal use of Root chicory contains volatile oils similar to those found in plants in the related genus Tanacetum which includes Tansy, and is similarly effective at eliminating intestinal worms. I have seen the odler population consume chickory after an extensive travelling.
Chicory is well known for its toxicity to internal parasites. Other herbs that might be used for parasites include Wormwood ( Artesmeia ) , Black Walnut and Cloves. It is variously used as a tonic and as a treatment for gallstones, gastro-enteritis, sinus problems and cuts and bruises.
Try chickory--you might like it. I prefer to eat it steamed and staurated with allium. Allium is garlic for those that do not know.
Until tomorrow...
For Gregory and Alyssa
When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk
No comments:
Post a Comment