Damiana: Tutorial 6
year 2.
Tutor: Ivor Hughes.
Text : Pharmageddon Herbal. Module 7 ..
http://www.herbdatanz.com/courseindex.htm
In the Beginning.
In the beginning was the Mineral Kingdom. The precursor of all that was to come. The Mineral Kingdom has been roughly mapped via the Periodic Table, which is still under construction. Of the 100 or more elements a mere handful, around 20 are essential to all life forms in this place. So the great Cosmic Circle Dance began and around Carbon they danced and spun. And in primal coupling they gave birth to the Vegetable Kingdom, the green plants who from sea to mountain tops became the foundation of all that crawled, walked, flew and swam. Nature in her profundity spinning the green, silver and gold threads of life, and in delicate molecular embroidering of ever increasing complexity gave birth to man.
The green plants are the layer upon which we rest, without them we face the void. Science posits around 500,000 plant forms, of which we have intimate knowledge of perhaps 5% of that. Of that 5% they have been classified as food, artifacts and medicine.
Food, warmth, clothes, medicine. To them we owe a great debt which is rarely acknowledged in our plundering of our common Mothers breast. Our memories are short for there was a time when all cultures revered the herbs as demi-gods whose life was sacrificed for ours. For they were seen as sentient beings, with permission asked and thanks given for the sacrifice. It would seem that economic slavery has knocked such notions from our Western minds.
In our ordering of those plants which we use for food and medicine we tend to lose sight of the fact that food is also a medicine, in that the food plants also perform the essential service of preventative and restorative medicine. For we are built from those base minerals that the green plants provide. It is a common myth that herbs cure, whereas the truth is that they correct a condition, which if the underlying deficiency is not addressed the condition will reoccur. The herbs and green plants which we use specifically for medicine produce every known pharmacological reaction, and I suspect many more of which in our crude scientific probing we have no knowledge. Personal observation and contemplation are superior to science for it was the people themselves that have taught science the questions to ask.
Science just like organized religion is no more than a system of thought. A thin thread in the vast tapestry of life. Academic hubris and snobbery is the killer of all that is sacred. Take a long slow look at the world around you. See what it has become under the tutelage of Academia and their Corporate Masters. It went wrong when Science distanced itself from Art (Heart) and fell under the dominion of Mammon. It is only necessary to read the shadows of history to see how in every age as we dance to the music of the zeit geist, fashions change as one tyranny replaces another. But the people endure and those things essential for the survival of the specie are passed from parents to children in an unbroken chain of common sense which transcends the hubris and snobbery.
When studying the older Herbals such as Culpeper it will be seen that the same herb is used to treat varied conditions, but that each herb was also allocated to a Planet such as Mars, Venus and so forth, a brief introduction to the system may be found in parts 1 and 2 of Spagyric pharmacy here ..
http://www.herbdatanz.com/Chapter 01.htm
There it will be noted that a mineral is allocated to a planet. It should come as no surprise that each herb so classified is rich in the mineral allocated to a certain planet for example Mars with Iron. The question to be asked is; from whence came this knowledge? For what stands revealed is the outline of an extremely sophisticated system of medicine which displays a synthesis of Seasonal Solar/Physiological types which is quite breath taking. Here I refer you back to the opening paragraphs of this tutorial.
If you have studied aright then it will be recalled that the immortal Hippocrates (First do no harm) was credited with saying ..
�Having made these
investigations, and knowing beforehand the seasons, such a one must be
acquainted with each particular, and must succeed in the preservation of
health, and be by no means unsuccessful in the practice of his art. And if
it shall be thought that these things belong rather to meteorology, it will
be admitted, on second thoughts, that astronomy contributes not a little,
but a very great deal, indeed, to medicine. For with the seasons the
digestive organs of men undergo a change�.
Hippocrates 400 BC.
I am completely convinced as to the veracity of those words by the simple expedient of having noted them as fact within the workings of my own physiology. Prove it for yourself upon yourself. I am also totally convinced of the differing physiology of each Solar type and that each month in each season of the year produces a propensity to a shortfall of an essential mineral which is absolutely neccessary to the health of the individual types.
Around each essential mineral of the various herbs is a molecular complex which produces a particular pharmacological reaction ..
http://www.herbdatanz.com/glossary_therapeutic_terms.htm
Nature at all times strives for homeostasis within the bounds of her building blocks. If all the essentials are available to her she will create balance. Balance is achieved at all levels of health. By this I mean that if a mineral essential to the health of say the kidneys is deficient .. then the rest of the system must conform to that organ deficiency and it is here that the seeds of poor health are sown, for if such a deficiency is allowed to continue then that will result in other organ deficiencies and so the level of homeostasis is adjusted lower, much in the same way as the high jumpers bar, put in another way the senescence of a leaf is the prelude to it dropping from the tree. These are matters which one may prove to satisfaction by observation of the self.
As a herbalist I have never administered a herb to another without first trying it out upon myself. Without this knowledge what does one come to? I am totally convinced as to the Paracelsian and Homeopathic doctrine of the single (Simple) herb. Here I refer you to Tutorial 5 year 1. http://www.herbdatanz.com/foxglove_foxtrot_tutorial_5.htm and in particular to the words of Boerhaave and more lately the esteemed Professor Rene Dubos, Microbiologist. Polypharmacy is a dubious practice which has more to do with the health of the medical purse rather than the health of the individual being prescribed for. Again these are matters which may be settled by observation upon the self.
A little reflection will reveal that because the minerals required by the body are continually diminished by the interior economy they must be replaced upon a regular basis. To continually jerk the body about by the use of herbs to make good the shortfall is preposterous and will lead to exhaustion. Homeostasis can only be achieved by sensible diet. Use herbs as a corrective for that is the intention of Nature. Remember they are powerful agents with a molecular affinity for the life forms which rest upon them.
I refer you to the Pharmageddon
Herbal sections 8.68 through 8.73.
Ivor
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