"Friends are God's way of taking care of us."
This is a true statement for those friends who are true friends. I think we should be careful what we pray or meditate for. If you are praying for true friends that is fine. What is a true friend? Someone who is there through thick and thin, bad and good times and sickness and health. Your best friend is yourself first, and your husband/wife/partner. Be a friend to yourself. This way you know how to treat others as you would want to be treated.
I am very blessed in this aspect of my life.
I have read that 'herbalists' rarely get ill. I think this is true. As herbalists we exercise our immune systems all the time. I exercise my immune system every day by seeing ill patients. Towards the end of seemingly endless days I shuffle home.
It seems every day a new plant arrives for Rick--how wonderful to always have fresh flowers. I have the pleasure of having fresh flowers in the office every week. I know some individuals may be allergic, but flowers represent life and easily distract me from self-pity over working so late (my addiction or energy thief).
Making tea can be a hobby. For some it is their life. I find this with herbalists. He/she has picked fresh herbs- dried leaves or roots.
Simple tea is a water extract of herbs. It can be known as an infusion. We all have made a cup of tea. Most of us make it from tea bags. In the last ten years I have grown to prefer fresh herb or organic dried herb teas from Frontier, Mountain Rose or Flower Power. Actually I can go to the hall closet on the second and third shelf and pick a labeled tea I might want from the jars of herbs have grown over the last 5 years.
A good method is to pour hot water over a tablespoon (1 - 2 grams) of ground or chopped dried herbs in a cup, cover and allow to steep, then strain and sip at your leisure. I know you will say that can be messy, et cetera. There are now ceramic cups with strainers (see above). I love these cups. This way you do not have to use a metal tea ball. I do have a special metal tea ball with a bee on the chain which I like to use. To make pots of teas there are some common ratios. This is weight of tea to volume of water. Some prefer 1:16 which is 1 oz of dried herb to 16 oz of water.
For me there is something soothing and serene about going to the herb garden (in our case, the herbal pots on the terrace) and picking fresh mint, lemon balm, or spearmint and making tea with either the flowers or leaves. My favorite thing is to pick the mint/spearmint and finely mince the leaves and place in a quart jar. I then fill with just boiled water, and let stand till cool enough to drink. This is great. There are other herbs that extract well in the fresh form. Some of these are angelica, dandelion, catnip, calendula and lemon balm. There are others, but these are the ones I utilize.
Then there are some herbs that are better as cold teas rather than hot These are marsh mellow and blessed thistle. For this I have used 1:32 ratio which is 1 ounce in moist dried herb wrapped in a cheesecloth to 32 oz of cold water. Place the cheesecloth in the jar.
There are some teas to which you may want to add sugar. I am not fond of this. I would rather you add agave or wild flower honey. It provides more palatability, but it can also subvert or change the activity of the herbs.
It is all a matter of taste. I know if you are drinking artesmesia (wormwood) adding any form of sugar defeats the purpose.
Until tomorrow...
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