THE APPRENCTICE.
Damiana - Year Two.
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Greetings Damiana - get your swag bag packed for the 2nd year of the journey. We are off when you are ready.

Here is a little Philosophy for the road.  Bread without butter is a dry affair. and of course a story also takes the mind off the mental feet and gets one into thinking mode. Spring is the Season of 'up and doing'.

I had many major sticking points as I tried to understand more about the herbs, those things that science could not teach me � Each and every herb, culinary or medicinal has a profound stimulatory effect, (Up or down) and this on quite different organ systems which are of a greater mass than they. It was just as the great Paracelsus had said ;

These powerful effects are not random, and moreover � they affect different people in different ways, although there is one premier usage e.g. Diuretic or Cardiac etc., with the correct dose for type the effect is Universal. Many different tribes and Nations of Europe would use the same herb for different purposes and some times  for the same purpose, this because they were genetically different peoples but with different levels of intergrated blood lines.  Tribes are bonded by blood line. Natures sublime genetics! Paracelsus had understood that when he said;' I write for Europe and do not know if Asia and Africa may profit from them'. What fumbling children we are with our science. Remember the old Alchemical aphorism. 'As above, so below'. Hierachys of order of complexity from micro-organisms to Galaxies. Each of which takes a different time to complete its life cycle. So in a way it would be fair to say ... 'Consciousness in other dimensions'. To call it chance is the ultimate denial. A darkeness of the mind which when coupled to an ideology of hubris and superiority, it  has evil consequence such as the proliferation of war and the consequent bestiality as mankind debases itself.

Then to this puzzle of biological idiosyncrasy we add the self evident fact, of that self same quality in the herb, and that the herb would differ in its composition, and this according to not only to the sky above but also on the qualities of the moisture of which It sustained its life, obviously the composition of the soil is a major factor. The herbs colonise areas of soil and mingle with other families of plants with which they can form symbiotic (help one another) relationships. As you may envisage the relationships are many. literally a web of life within which the herbs and we included live .. albeit on very different time scales for example the annual herb is born, it grows, then flowers, seeds and dies (but lives in its seed) all this in a short season. Historically we take 70 full seasons to do precisely the same thing.

The plant roots extracts its food minerals from the surrounding soil, Ground moisture acts as a solvent and will take on the qualities of the soil of which it is part. So the plant literally drinks the  minerals. A lukewarm, water infusion of soil (maximum of 35C). Which with its teeming life forms is a wonder in itself. This life then becomes part of the plant. And when you consume the plant ... then also by transmutive alchemy the plant becomes part of you. Life eats life ... to preserve good health. eat the bulk of your diet as low down the raw food chain as posssible. 

If we look to the aerial parts, stalk, leaf and flower. What astounding synergy, a miracle of order on a phenomenal scale. The plant scientists have produced some fascinating insight into the life of a plant. At this point of our knowledge,  that is how it will remain, just small insights, of which, I am sure, if  'Vitalism' were added to the equation, then many perplexing things would made clear. Such order must be the function of something far higher. Dr Rudolph Steiner, famously said; 'The laboratory table must once again become an altar'. He knew that the intellect divorced from its heart is only a Cyclops, and absent of any show of humility to the higher order of Nature of which we are a part. We must nuture our sureness of the sacred view of the little known Universe .. in that way the roots of the folk tradition remain firmly embedded in our common mothers breast.

"It is well we remember that although science is clever,
it cannot do what a single blade of grass can do".
Apologies to Thomas Edison

The green plants are Natures Alchemists no less! Science cannot do it. From sunlight and carbon dioxide the green plants make Starch via the medium of Chlorophyll which is chemically related to our blood. (Haemoglobin)

Chlorophyll is a green pigment which is to be found in the leaves and stems of plants. It traps the sunlight for the photo synthetic process, this enables the plant to produce starch. Upon Starch the 'Animal Kingdom" depends for its very life. 

The human brain, so frail, so perishable, so full of inexhaustible dreams and hungers,
burns by the power of a leaf.
Loren Eiseley. PhD

Medicinally, orthodoxy claims that chlorophyll is a mild bactericide with deodorant properties. For the natural therapist, it is also a chelation (Claw) compound and oxygen precursor of extraordinary efficiency, in other words it assists the body to excrete heavy metals by binding to them and it will also dissolve kidney stones. Therefore, its presence in medicinal preparations is to be encouraged as a detoxifier.

Chlorophyll decomposes in water, but is soluble in alcohol. Freshly juiced wheat grass from your own resources would be an excellent 24 hour fast. Notes need to be kept .. how much? How often? How does it affect me? Does changing the hour of the day to drink it make any difference to its effects? Those notes will be your guide when applying that type of healing to others.

Photosynthesis is sometimes described as a reverse respiration process, where carbon dioxide is taken in and oxygen is breathed out. In that respect it is interesting to note the similarity of structure between haemoglobin, which carries oxygen to the tissues of humans, and that of plant chlorophyll. Haemoglobin contains iron (Fe) at the center of its ring structure instead of magnesium (Mg) and contains two extra nitrogen atoms. As will be understood they are chemically related.

Within the plant, this is happening at 30,000 times a second, I believe the plants to be conscious in a different manner to our kind. There are some polygraph tests which appear to validate that, (The Secret Life of Plants) the plants respond to those that feed and water them. The Celtic Germanic and Viking peoples considered the herbs as little people and would ask permission before taking their life this to enhance or even save the life of a different life form. This was done with respect for the obvious powers of the plant. Black or White magic. It depends on who you serve.

"One perceives the fundamental essence of lif in the living,
not the inanimate, in that which is changing,  not in what is finished".
Goethe.

For the sake of illustration, �a cardiac herb will also affect the kidneys as well as the heart and of course that is how our internal economy functions, a symmetrical ripple throughout the body. The Synergy of a single herb is revealed as it mimics precisely the natural functioning of the human and animal organisms,  just like slotting in a piece of the jig saw puzzle into place. Quite obviously the physiological effects of a single herb is different across the Animal Kingdom. Healthy Humans taking homoeopathic doses is the safest and most accurate method of assembling the toxiological facts

The contemplation of these facts is to be recommended � because that glimpse of the symmetry of all life from greatest to smallest .. and this through the herb � is sure to make you an unreserved believer. If you love and respect your instruments, they will serve you well and alleviate much suffereng.

I commenced my apprenticeship as a Galenist ... that is, that I was a follower of the things taught by Galen the Greek, (c. 130 � 200AD); a most learned physician, he was Doctor to the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Galen also made some very valuable observations and contributied in great measure  to advancement of knowledge in Anatomy and Physiology. However some of the medical recipes from that time and ... until the late middle ages in Europe (almost 1500 years) were of horrendous size and complexity.  One thing is for sure, the Apothecary and Physician waxed fat on the proceeds of such cavalier herbal grape shot.

Every cause will have an effect. The Prime Cause or impact of the herb � produces an adjuvant effect � Ripples on a pond. Perfect! What a miracle of order. However if we mix two or more herbs together the ripples on the surface of the pond become ever more agitated, ripples crossing and recrossing  depending on the number of (herbs) stones that are flipped skipping into the pond of the human frame.

These are matters which you may prove upon yourself, observing of course the golden rule 'To test an unkown herb, ensure that you are healthy and take the herb in homoeopathic form. You must record your symptoms on all levels, emotional, mental and physical. A 12C potency should should be fine for the purpose. The synergy of a correctly prepared single herb is smooth and sure, and directed by Nature not man. Diagnosis it our task. Identifying the correct organ system that is imbalanced to an acute or chronic state is readily revealed in the iris of the eye. As Paracelsus would have it; 'everything within can be known by that without'.  More of that in a different tutorial.

During the endless pursuit of Herbology I was most fortunate to be taught the rudiments of Homeopathy by a lady homoeopath in the South Island of New Zealand. Her knowledge and clarity opened a lot of mental doors for me, and for which I am most grateful. I understood what a great physician Dr Hahnemann was and that he was also an extension of the teachings of Paracelsus. Dr Edward Bach also followed Dr Hannemann and used Paracelsian techniques. So my conversion from Galenist to Paracelsian was not abrupt, it was a journey aided by wonderful teachers. So I am a Paracelsian by conviction.

In matters of herbs, medical and ethical, I place my conviction in the words of Paracelsus and Culpeper. This from the experience of the three systems, Galenic, Homoeopathic and Paracelsian Spagyric .. The Paracelsian.names of the exemplars are like pearls on a necklace that glows with the higher light of a sane humane school of medicine.

Paracelsus � Hahnemann � Bach and to that illustrious trio, I would like to add an American name � that of John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. Uri Lloyd was described by Michael Moore, the Principle of the South West School of Botanical Medicine as perhaps the last American Alchemist. Certainly he was like the others .. 'A' Spagyrist' .. and was of formidable intellect and depth of understanding, a Master Teacher, and who with his �Specific Remedies� (single herbs) ploughed a Paracelsian furrow, then sowed the seeds of a dawning understanding.

A few words from the founder of the system, of which, the other methods of Spagyric are the branches on a great flowering tree;

(1) "All the remedies are on earth but we lack the men to gather them. They are ready to be harvested, but the reapers have not come. But one day the reapers of the right remedies shall come".

(2) "Blessed and thrice blessed is the physician who recognizes the Medicines in their living action, who knows how to obtain them and who knows that they are not dead. There are many medicines in the world which are already dead".

(3) "The Remedy is nothing but a seed which you must develop into that which it is destined to be".

(4) "In all things there is a poison, and there is nothing without a poison. It depends only on the dose whether a poison is a poison or not".

(5) "The Art of medicine consists in the extracting and not in the compounding, it consists of the discovery of that which is concealed in things, and not in compounding various things and piecing them together".

(6) "Nature is the physician not you. From her you must learn, not from yourself. She compounds the remedies not you. See to it that you find out where Nature has her pharmacies, where her virtues have been written down, and in what boxes they are stored".

(7) "And since the fit manner is not to be found in pharmaceutics, we explore further; that is to say that we must learn from Alchemian or Spagyria".

Ivor Hughes.
Auckland, New Zealand. March 2006.

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