When fiery cayenne takes the pain away - Home Medicine Cycle 37

It's counter intuitive. If you've ever bitten into a cayenne pepper or even eaten something with too much dried cayenne powder in it, you surely are no stranger to pain. And yet cayenne pepper can also take pain away and combat some of modern medicine's most distressing foes.

Creative Commons image by Chris Vaughan

Many herbalists carry cayenne tincture in their first-aid kits to stop heart attacks. Some go so far as to say that if you want to know only one herb, you should know cayenne because it simply saves lives. Here is a recipe for tincture which can be used with cayenne.

In emergencies patients have also been saved from heart attacks by a teaspoon of cayenne pepper from the spice shelf mixed in a cup of hot water to make a kind of cayenne tea. Cayenne pepper has been used by doctors for heart disease and as a supplement for cardiovascular health.

Several studies have shown cayenne to be effective in preventing heart attacks, managing diabetes and mitigating painful symptoms caused by chemotherapy treatments. One study in 2005, even showed cayenne killing cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. 

On the tongue cayenne may burn, but on unbroken skin or even the lining of the stomach the burning turns to a soothing, tingling warmth. Certain types of stomach discomfort--including dyspepsia and ulcers--can be quieted with capsules of cayenne pepper powder taken both immediately for first aid and as a regular supplement for people suffering from chronic conditions.

One of the most widespread uses of cayenne as an herbal medicinal is for the treatment of joint pain, including arthritis. Rubbed on the skin, cayenne juice or ointments made with it feel warm or even hot. The sensation is generally soothing but the skin technically registers pain from the burning of the cayenne and a neurological process causes the nerves under the skin to suppress the sensation of pain in the joints below. 

With it's heating properties, cayenne also breaks up congested mucus. Cayenne can thus be effectively used to treat viral infections like the flu whenever there is a lot of mucus congestion. The spicy juice or tea made with cayenne can also sooth a swollen and painful throat when sweet lozenges have a much smaller effect. And some of the most irritating dry coughs can be stopped with cayenne. Some use it to prevent migraine headaches. 

Cayenne has been found to be effective against some fungal pathogens. Still I must bust a few myths here. An old globetrotter's legend claims that cayenne and other hot peppers kill food-born bacteria and parasites and thus eating spicy food may be a way to stave off traveler's diarrhea or even food poisoning in areas where the sources of food may be sketchy. Unfortunately, this myth is baseless. Cayenne, despite all its fire is much less effective as a disinfectant herb than many humbler plants. 

However, the rumor may have been started by the fact that many cultures have used cayenne as an aid to digestion for hundreds of years. The hot peppers in your food, particularly cayenne, do provide health benefits to the stomach, but this has much more to do with aiding metabolism, relieving intestinal gas and encouraging the healthy motion of the intestines. That feeling you may have that bland food makes you stuck and some hot peppers tend to get things flowing... well, that actually is based on some amount of fact.

The fact that cayenne boosts metabolism hints that it might be helpful in maintaining a healthy body weight but the issue goes further than that. A study at he Laval University in Quebec found that test subjects who included cayenne pepper in their breakfast later felt less appetite for further food and thus had a lower calorie intake over the whole day. Cayenne appears to suppress appetite over a matter of hours, although many people enjoy the taste of it initially.

Cayenne can be eaten in food. The dried powder can be added to water or tea or put into capsules and taken as a supplement. For joint and muscle pain a massage oil can be made from 1 tablespoon cayenne, 2 tablespoons crushed mustard seed, 1 tablespoon fresh ginger and 1 cup olive or almond oil. Set the mixture in the sun in a glass jar to infuse for two weeks. Then strain the oil and use it to massage painful joints and muscles. DO NOT use this oil on broken or raw skin. Even so, it may sting initially but is often found to relieve pain better after multiple uses. 

Lady's mantle of humble beauty and healing wounds - Home Medicine Cycle 36

Lady's mantle is one of those good, simple herbs that is easy to spot and recognize. It also has very specific medicinal uses. All in all, it is one of my favorite herbs--dependable and helpful.

Lady's mantle leaves with their distinctive shape - Creative commons image by Chris Cardew

The most interesting thing about lady's mantle is the shape of its leaves. They look a bit like a fan but the easiest way to describe their shape is that they look exactly like what the name says they are. They look like a medieval lady's cloak--if you turn them upside down. Once you've handled a lady's mantle leaf and thought about how it looks like a cloak, it is very unlikely you'll ever have trouble identifying it again.

Naturally, medieval Christian herbalists with their propensity to ascribe meaning to the shapes of herbs--if nothing else as an aid to memorization--decided that lady's mantle was the herb of St. Mary, the holy virgin, because it looked so much like a traveling cloak. it also has a reputation for saving people from terrible wound infections and it's even useful in women's health. Whether or not you believe the shape of a plant has anything to do with anything, remembering this anecdote can remind you of the plant's properties.

Lady's mantle flowers - Creative Commons image by Victor To

The most important medicinal quality of lady's mantle is the healing of wounds. Partly the healing comes from properties of the herb that dry the wound out and thus prevent infection. Other chemical compounds in the leaves help to slow bleeding. A strong tea (decoction) of fresh or dried leaves makes a good wash for scrapes and cuts. I have not encountered it used in a salve and it's possible that the compounds of this herb don't keep well. It is taken internally as a tea or tincture at times to slow bleeding and to moderate excessive menstrual flow. In Sweden the tincture is used for diseases that cause convulsions or muscle spasms. 

This is a gentle plant that usually grows wild in the corners of my garden. I don't have to cultivate it and I just pick it while I weed. Lady's mantle grows best in cool moist climates such as central and northern Europe. 

The way of the gatherer

Wildcrafting is the ancient craft of gathering wild medicinal and edible herbs. It is a craft with skills and standards--not a momentary impulse to tear up an interesting plant. The rules needed to ensure both personal safety and a good supply of wild herbs in future have been known for thousands of years. Wildcrafting is more a long-term study of plants and a careful use of them than it is a single harvest. 

I have written a lot about how to grow medicinal herbs and make your own medicine from them. This is my primary focus, because our wild environment is already under enough strain and many herbs which you can grow in your garden are endangered in the wild. 

Creative Commons image by  Elizabeth Ashley Jerman

However, many people do not have the luxury of space to grow a garden. Yes, anyone can grow a few herbs in pots, but that won’t truly supply you with all the fresh herbs you need. And in this age of toxic food, there is also the need for chemical-free food. Beyond that, there are some herbs that are very difficult to cultivate and other herbs that are simply so prolific in the wild as to make cultivation a ridiculous idea. As a result many people still turn to gathering medicinal and edible herbs in wild places.

The ethical practice of gathering herbs and edible plants and mushrooms is called “wildcrafting.” Much the way I have called garden herbalism “homecrafting,” the term wildcrafting implies not only the act of grabbing some leaves off of a bush while you’re out on a walk. It is a craft, a practice, and as such it has both skills to be mastered and standards to be met. It can be great fun and connect you to the land in a wonderful way, but it is also a serious responsibility. 

Although some people will go out an pick wild huckleberries once a year, this isn’t true wildcrafting. Neither is picking a plant just because you think you saw it on a blog post about herbs. Wildcrafting is a craft that you have to practice diligently or it can become quite dangerous. 

My husband was a paragliding hobbiest for ten years. He abandoned this hobby when he found that he didn’t have time to do it more than a few times a year. He observed that those paragliders who were injured and (in the case of one of his friends) killed in a fall were those who did not practice regularly and thus became rusty. Wildcrafting is similar. There are poisonous plants that can and will harm the fair-weather scavenger. I personally knew someone who died from eating poisonous mushrooms. And if you are lucky enough to avoid that, poorly practiced herb gathering will ensure that the herbs will not be there when you return.

I can’t cover all the plants you can gather and exactly how to identify them or what to be wary of in a blog post. For that, you need a good plant guide book and you need to study botanical identification criteria. Plant identification is a whole science in itself and before you embark on wildcrafting, it’s advisable to learn at least a bit about it and then to be aware of the limits of your own knowledge.. You don't have to be a plant expert to wildcraft, but if you're not an expert it's a good idea to use guide books and be meticulous about identification. 

Beyond identification, there are some general tips for beginning and experienced wildcrafters that can make your experience safer and ensure that you and others can continue to harvest the wild bounty of the earth. 

Creative Commons Image by Sterling College

Practical tips of the wildcrafter:

1. First, determine if you need to wildcraft. Echinacea is going extinct in the wild in North America due to wildcrafting and yet it isn’t that hard to grow and it's fully potent when grown in your garden or an empty lot. Whenever you can, grow your herbs yourself. This is better for the environment and safer. You are much more likely to be sure of your plant identification if you have once seen the plant grow from a seed, tended it, smelled it and tasted it fresh. However, there are some plants that grow very successfully in the wild but are difficult to cultivate. St. John’s Wort and plantain come to mind for me. I’ve tried to grow both with no success. So, I wildcraft them—St. John’s Wort in the empty lot next door and plantain in my own yard. It’s wildcrafting, even if it’s in your yard, if you didn’t plant it. 
2. Observe whether or not the plant you want is prolific in your area. If, like my St. John’s Wart and plantain, it is then you can safely gather it in moderation. Even if it is prolific, it is important to only gather at most one third of any given stand of the herb. This is the only way to ensure that you won’t have to go further and further afield each year as you force your herb to retreat far from human populations.
3. If the herb you want is not prolific, you may still be able to gather it, but you need to be very careful in doing so. Make sure it is not a legally endangered species, where gathering it may incur stiff penalties and make it even less likely that the herb will recover in your area and become available to you. If you can legally gather it, be certain that you don’t destroy the only plant in the immediate area. If the herb is scarce, you should avoid taking the entire plant at all costs. Even though the roots may be the most potent part, it is best to take the flowers or leaves and not all of those. You can return again for more of them. If there are seeds, scatter them before taking the flowers. Rather than limiting yourself to one third a stand, it is best to count at least ten plants before taking a scarce herb. 
4. Find the best place to gather: 
   • Never gather near a road. Gather at least 20 feet from small roads and 100 feet from larger roads. 
   • Do not gather within sight or smell of chemical or plastics factories.
   • Do not gather the first plants you see of a particular herb. Ensure that there are enough plants before beginning to gather them. 
   • Try not to gather in areas where you know other wildcrafters go. You can easily “overgraze” an area even if each individual wildcrafter is responsible. 
   • Be aware of the fragility of certain environments. Don’t gather on steep slopes where plants have a tenuous hold. 
5. When possible it is best to focus on herbs that are prolific in your area. Many herbs have similar properties and if one herb is scarce, you can choose to use another one with the same uses which is more prolific in your climate. While arnica is great for bruises, it is scarce in many areas and comfrey will work just as well.
6. When you really need a specific herb, you have to know the plant and its preferences. Read about the specific plant and put yourself in the plant's roots in your thoughts. Be aware of what type of environment the plant likes--whether damp and shady or dry and rocky. Does the plant like disturbed areas or the true wilderness? Does it grow well near evergreens or not? Does it tend to get choked out by grass? The more aware you are of the type of environment where the plants you want do well, the easier your search will be.
7. Gather only as much as you need. It can be difficult to estimate how much of an herb you will need. In the beginning, it is best to gather only small amounts. Test to make sure you are not allergic to them and then determine how much of an herb you will actually use. When you see that you have a lot of a particular herb left over, gather less of it the following year.

Creative Commons image by  Karen Roe 

Setting out on a wildcrafting expedition:

1. Make sure you wear long pants and bring some gloves. Nettles, thistles and thorns always tend to be worse than you expect. 
2. Bring some sort of bug repellent. I prefer natural substances. A dab of geranium essential oil on your hair and lower back will (and any four-legged companions) will keep ticks away. Vinegar smeared on your skin will cut down on the mosquitoes.. 
3. Wear a hat and a shirt with shoulder coverings. Bring sunscreen. We have simply damaged the ozone layer too much to be entirely free in nature. 
4. Bring water. Even in areas that are not arid, you can become dehydrated quickly and there is virtually no more surface water that is safe to drink on the planet. 
5. Bring a small first-aid kit. Even though you are going out where the medicine is, it is good to have a role of bandages and some disinfectant (St. John’s Wort or Yarrow tincture work well) on hand. My family has been injured more than once using sheers while wildcrafting.
6. Speaking of sheers, bring sheers and clippers. This is not cruel to the plants. On the contrary! Tearing plants with your hands is the worst thing you can do. A plant can recover much more easily from a clean cut with sheers or clippers than it can from being pulled and torn.
7. Carry a reputable plant and mushroom guide with you. Do not gather mushrooms if you are not absolutely certain of their identity. I personally would never gather mushrooms based only on a book. I would need to have experience gathering them with someone who had experience with that particular type of mushroom. But depending on your level of skill, you may be able to gather using a book. With herbs, it is still important to be certain of the plant identification. Use only a small amount of any herb you have identified through a book to be certain it is not a poisonous look-alike and that you don't have allergies.
8. Use all of your senses. As you go on more and more wildcrafting expeditions, you will become proficient and find that plant identification is best done with taste, smella nd touch as well as by sight. While the taste, smell and feel of the plant cannot be conveyed well in a printed guidebook, your experience with these other senses will make subsequent identification much easier and safer. 

Creative Commons image by Sarah Zucca

Ethics and Common Sense

1. 1Many wildcrafters have a practical, earthy spirituality. Whether it is religious or scientific, we know that we are dependent on the earth and that the plants we gather are not unlimited. The ecosystems we walk in are fragile. That is why true wildcrafters always give thanks in some way or another. This can be simply sitting quietly for a moment to absorb the environment of the herb you need or it can be a specific religious practice, often a prayer or an environmentally friendly gift. Either way, giving thanks is not simply good moral hygiene, it will also make identifying herbs much easier for you in practical terms because the mindful practice of it will clue your brain on how to find and identify the herb more easily in the future. 
2. Leave each gathering place in better shape than you found it. Collect some litter, cut back dead stalks to allow new ones to grow, clear out non-native species from around a delicate native plant, plant a native-species start you’ve grown or use rocks to slow erosion in a hard-worn gully. This is partly another form of giving thanks and partly it is a practical step to ensure that your local environment will produce more useful herbs. 
3. A note on commercial use: With very few exceptions, I don’t believe that wildcrafting should be used to make medicines or food for sale. I don’t buy products labeled as wildcrafted. It may sound romantic, but the impact of such commercial gathering is extremely harmful. Some exceptions may be found among native peoples who are  skilled in protecting their source of livelihood over many generations and thus do not harm the environment in the way that industrial production does. Another rare exception may be found with herbs that are invasive and very prolific. I urge you to use wildcrafting only when you have no other safe source of an herb and to use it for your own close circle to mitigate the impact.

Good luck and may your adventures in wildcrafting be pleasant, useful and safe. 

Chickweed: A tasty, early spring green with mild medicine suitable for kids and adults - Home Medicine Cycle 35

“You want us to eat weeds?” the eight-year-old gasped in horror.

“And flowers?” the ten-year-old added.

“It tastes a lot like spinach, except better,” I coaxed.

The older girl tried one and her skeptical expression slowly changed like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

Her younger sister would have none of it. 

Creative Commons image by Dean Morley

But I’ve been around the block a few times and I don’t give up easily. I got the girls gathering a small bowl full of the starry flowers and delicate early spring leaves from the massive chickweed patch behind my greenhouse. 

I used to not have any chickweed at all. Now I have a carpet of it in parts of my yard. Be careful what you wish for. I have been known to plant certain weeds—to the horror of my neighbors—due to their medicinal properties. But I didn’t even plant this. I really did just wish for it and it came. 

Once we had our tasty little herbs, we went down to the house and I set the girls to buttering slices of bread, while I preheated the oven. They put small handfuls of chickweed on the bread and covered it with a slice of cheese. The younger girl put only a few tiny leaves on her sandwich.

We put them on a baking tray and pushed it into the oven. Then we set to work writing down what chickweed is good for. That was the girls’ ESL lesson. They aren’t specifically supposed to be learning about herbs, but their mother is open-minded and I have the luxury of doing fun things with them instead of classical school work.

Chickweed is a diminutive herb and “weed” is the operative term for finding it. It loves to invade my garden. It's tiny starry flowers are distinctive. They are really five cleft petals but they look almost like ten individual petals, the cleft in the middle of each petal is so deep. It will grow in full or partial sun very early in the spring before even the grass starts growing again. This is part of what makes it so valuable. It provides the earliest spring greens, before even dandelions and nettles. And it’s packed with vitamins and minerals. 

Creative Commons image by Dawn Endico

Chickweed can also be dried and used as a medicinal tea for coughs, hoarseness and constipation (it works as a mild laxative). It’s a good post-partum tonic and helps with kidney problems too. New research is coming out showing that it is also an effective antihistamine, which could end up being its most popular medicinal property in the future. Medicinally it is probably best used dried as a tea. 

It can also be used fresh as a poultice in the field if you happen to get a scrape or cut outdoors in the spring when it’s plentiful. It has good healing properties for the skin, including healing itchy rashes of various types. A clean rag soaked in chickweed tea laid over the eyes while resting is a good cure for pink eye.

But it really is quite delicious and nutritious as well. 

Five minutes later my young students were smelling the good smells coming out of the oven and even the skeptical one was interested. We pulled out the sandwiches and they were snatched up in moments. My daughter came in and ate both her share and her brother’s. It’s a good thing there’s more where that chickweed came from.

“It’s really good!” the younger student said, her eyes wide with amazement. “We have to make this at home.” 

“I don’t think we have this weed in our yard,” the older one said anxiously.

“Don’t worry. You really probably do have it and if you don’t, it seems to come when called,” I told them. 

The Connection: Spirituality and Herbal Medicine

I once entered into a formal discussion with an emergency-room doctor on the topic of the risks and effectiveness of synthetic pharmaceuticals versus homemade herbal medicines. 

At the outset, he would only engage in the discussion if I agreed to one condition. I could not use any argument that was based in spirituality, ethics or ecological concern. It all had to be science, based on promoting human health. I am confident of the science behind herbal medicines and interested in seeing more high-quality clinical trials with fresh herbs, so I agreed.

Brigid, Christian Saint and Celtic Goddess of Healing - Creative Commons image by Cosette Paneque

Unfortunately, the discussion broke down anyway but the talk was very helpful and informative to me while it lasted. In the end, it was matters of belief that got in the way, but it was about trust in the intentions of pharmaceutical companies rather than about my spiritual or environmental beliefs. 

The doctor showed me that often a company will conduct seven or eight clinical trials to prove a drug is safe and effective, but only publish the one study that was favorable to their drug. To him, this meant the drugs had scientific backing but companies also have a profit motive, so  it's better to look at more than one study. To me, it was proof of the utter corruption of the scientific method and it discredited the entire industry and the concept of clinical trials as the definitive measure of safe and effective medicine. 

I, on the other hand, presented the documented findings of generations of herbalists as a source of information about medicinal properties, asserting that clinical trials (when done without corruption) are better but long-term, geographically diverse and corroborated records from practice are also admissible as evidence, if large institutions haven't gotten around to studying a particular  herb or don't use fresh herbs in their studies. And all evidence must be questioned and examined. The doctor rejected this and insisted that the only information worth any consideration comes from clinical trials. 

Those are the types of issues that stand in the way of understanding between doctors and herbalists. And yet I still believe there is much to be gained from the exchange of ideas across such a divide. In fact, that doctor unintentionally taught me something far outside his field of expertise. That is how much spirituality, ethics and my connection to the earth is part of my experimentation with herbs. The experience of completely isolating myself from those considerations for a time, gave me a deeper understanding of that connection.

Yes, I can document the health benefits and safety of herbal medicines based on clinical trials and herbalist records. At least with the more popular and widely studied herbal medicines I can. One can approach herbs from a purely logic-based perspective and still get great value. 

But if you aren’t involved in a thought experiment or a theoretical debate, it is better to look at the whole picture. Here is the other side.

What does spirituality have to do with herbs?

Healing used to be the province of druids, priests and abbots, inexorably linked to spirituality because A. there was no health insurance or any reliable way for healers to get paid, so medicine was done as part of the ethical practice of those who believed in good deeds for spiritual fulfillment; B. spiritual people were the most educated and had better records on medicinals than anyone else; C. religious institutions that became less spiritual and more political and profit-oriented quickly realized that offering healing was a great way to attract people who were desperate and earn their loyalty, and D. medicine often doesn’t work and lack of success could be blamed on fate or the will of God. 
 
But despite the corruption of the spiritual connection to healing, there is a core of real spirit. In the far distant past, the connection of people to the earth and to spirit was inseparable and people learned about herbal medicine in the same way that they learned about the movements of the planets in the sky or the growth of trees or the flowing of rivers. The uses of herbs for healing were part of the earth and the earth was the core of original spirituality. 

Herb altar - Creative Commons image by Latisha of Flickr.com

To this day, some of the best records on using herbs as medicines come from ancient spiritual scholars. While religious institutions may have less than selfless motives for opening hospitals, most of the individual healers who kept records in such places over the centuries had an authentic interest in healing, as evidenced by their words and conscientious notations when they knew that it would primarily be future generations who would thank them, rather than their contemporaries. 

When I study herbs and seek their healing potential, I can feel a direct connection to the gardeners of Christian monasteries, Native American healers, African shamans, Chinese monks, Celtic Druids and all the others who have passed down their bits of knowledge, corroborating one another’s findings across time and distance, often working in great difficulty but recording their findings in obscurity, so that we can now benefit from that accumulated knowledge. 

And in the end, it is difficult to quantify, study and logically define, but even those who argue for a science-only approach will admit that a person gains health benefits from simply experiencing nature. Studies show that people have better health outcomes if they can see a natural scene from a window or if they sit in a garden, than when they are in entirely built environments. No one knows why. Science can document the result, but not the means...yet. 

So, when proponents of the science-only approach insist that the fact that something comes directly from the earth must be disregarded as a beneficial factor, I am confused. We may not be able to prove why a connection to the earth helps health. But we know that it does. The part we don’t understand is the place where many of us fill in spirituality. I believe that the earth is alive and that plants have soul and active energy. 

Yes, I even believe that plants are meant to aid in healing, not just that they do so by the sheer chance of a molecular lottery. And this is anathema to the vehement atheist. 

“Who ‘intends’ such a thing?” they demand. “Do you have to believe in God to be healed? Are you arguing that praying helps?”

That would be "Gods" in my case, but no, I don’t think that you must believe in anything. However, studies have been done showing that even distant, anonymous prayer does aid in healing IF patients are also given high quality health care. Statistically at least. Those for whom someone unknown and far away prays do better in high risk surgeries. And it doesn't appear to matter what Gods those in prayer address or if they address any God at all or simply sent their healing wishes directly to the sick person. 

While spiritual connection does appear to help, we are still stuck with the old adage that the universe helps those who help themselves. And that is where herbs come in. We don't know whether some divine being infused herbs with specific healing tendencies or the herbs themselves attain self-expression through healing or herbal healing is part of the interdependent pattern of the universe. But we do know the results. Herbs often contain compounds that are precisely designed for healing. And some herbalists observe that plants near human habitations change their chemical composition depending on the sicknesses affecting the nearby population.

You can choose to use herbs without thought for the deeper levels of reality. You can choose to base your herbalism only on scientific studies. But you can also choose to give thanks for the gifts of healing given by plants and take spiritual inspiration from them. It is a choice.