Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s a day to think about gratitude, and one of the things I’m grateful for is homeopathy. Here are a few reasons why:

 

T - Totality: Homeopaths look at the whole person, not just one organ or body part.  Disease is the whole body’s response to a disturbance in the vital force.

 

H – Hahnemann, the father of homeopathy: It’s thanks to him that the world has this beautiful healing method. Thank goodness for his persistence and genius.

 

A – Arnica: That wonderful healer of bruises that everyone seems to know about. Its miracle cures have helped to turn homeopathic skeptics into believers.

 

N – National Center for Homeopathy: Gives information about homeopathy to online surfers, and hosts a fantastic annual conference.

 

K – Keynotes: That visible “elephant trunk” that sometimes reveals the correct remedy. For instance, a keynote of Camphor is that a person feels cold yet wants to remain uncovered.

 

S – Succussion: The energetic level of the remedies is achieved by shaking (succussing) the substance in water.

 

G – Greatest gift of God: Hahnemann’s description of homeopathy—"given to us to enable us infinitely to surpass (old methods) in salutary help to suffering humanity.”

 

I – Improvement: I’m thankful for the improvements I have experienced through homeopathy.

 

V – Vitality: The goal of homeopathy is to recover a good state of vitality.

 

I – Ignatia: A remedy that can support one through the stages of grief.

 

N – Nature: Remedies come from nature and are consistent in their medicinal effects. As Emerson said, “Truth is simple, and will not be antique.”

 

G – Great joy: Homeopathy has inspired great hope and joy in the world.

 

In Praise of the Mimosa Tree

by Lucille Locklin

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer! It must come to an end, and some people are happy about the shift to cooller weather and others mourn the warmth. I'm in the latter category and decided to sing the praises of one of my favorites, the Mimosa tree, to help send off the season in style. I'm also memorializing the beautiful tree pictured below on the left; it was chopped down a few years ago.

I love the Mimosa tree and always have. To me, it represents summer since its lovely pink flowers come out in June. With the right sort of attention this tree can thrive, contributing beauty and a delicious light scent to the early summer months. [The lovely smell inspired me to try my hand at making essential oil this year. I didn't succeed, but will probably try again next year.] The leaves of the Mimosa are fern-like and very sensitive, so perhaps I love this tree so much because I'm very sensitive too. Perhaps I love it because I love an underdog, and one finds more bad than good about the Mimosa tree on the internet. Proof (if it's needed) that you cannot trust everything you read there!

Beauty aside, the Mimosa has also been made into a homeopathic remedy, first proven in the 1960s. [By the way, the catchy term "proving," in relation to homeopathic remedies, comes from the German word for "experiment," Prüfung; homeopaths experiment with substances in order to understand their curative properties.] In Murphy's Natures Materia Medica, Robin Murphy lists numerous conditions that can be helped by the Mimosa plant (and, as always, the symptom totality must fit):

Allergies. Backache. Blepharitis. Colic. Conjunctivitis. Coryza. Cough. Diarrhea. Enterocolitis. Fistulae. Headache. Hemorrhoids. Hydrocele. Hypersensitivity. Influenza. Otitis. Photophobia. Salivation. Scorpion, bites. Sinusitis.

Scorpion bites? Interesting! And so many other conditions ... clearly, the Mimosa has helped many people in the sixty-odd years it has been a homeopathic remedy.

People nowadays speak of inclusiveness, and this needs to extend to plants as well as people. There is no need to exclude such a beautiful tree as the Mimosa from our local landscapes and I, for one, would miss it dreadfully if I never saw it again. Like anything else, the Mimosa tree needs love or it suffers. If growing under the wrong conditions, it can look lanky and scruffy, its adolescent, too-thin trunk bent over, and it won't produce flowers unless allowed to mature. In more favorable circumstances, it grows into the beautiful trees you see pictured here. To end on a happy note, the Mimosa tree pictured on the right is still thriving.

In Love on the Vine, Fiona helps Lord Featherstone gather new plants to conduct experiments—provings—that will determine their medicinal value. If you haven't read the series yet and you want to learn a little more about homeopathy, I hope you'll give Love on the Vine a try!

First Aid for Campers

It's that time of year, when we start planning our camping trips. Lisa Amerine, homeopath and naturopathic physician, regularly hikes and camps in the Rocky Mountains and takes 16 remedies on her trips into the wilderness. If you like camping, keep reading!

By the way, if you are a camper who "hikes in," you know that every ounce added to the backpack is counted and needs to be reduced where possible. That said, you won't want to pack 16 remedy tubes in your backpack. Tiny (2x3) envelopes with 10 pellets of each remedy per envelope is all you need for the first aid kit. Use two pellets in a bottle of water if a remedy is needed. Let it melt and give it a shake before another sip is taken. That way, you save pellets for the next emergency.

I've provided some scenarios as examples, so you'll know when to use the remedies. Write the bold words on the envelopes next to the remedy name so you'll remember when to use them.

A bug flies in your eye (foreign object of any kind) OR you are frightened by something and the fright continues when the danger is gone - Aconite

You have sunburn OR you get a blister OR a mosquito bites you - Aristolochia

You hike too far and have muscle aches OR any incident puts you into a state of shock - Arnica

You get food poisoning or drink bad water - Arsenicum

You get a throbbing headache from too much sun - Belladonna

You eat too much junk and think you have appendicitis - Bryonia (and get out of the woods and to the ER asap)

You fall and scrape your knee OR cut yourself on the open can of beans - Calendula

You burn yourself on the pan of s'mores - Cantharis

You get dehydrated - China (and take a pinch of salt in 6 oz of water to balance your electrolytes)

You get altitude sickness - Coca

You crush a finger when you're hammering tent poles (or injure any part rich in nerves) - Hypericum

You puncture the roof of your mouth with the marshmallow stick OR a rogue tree branch gives you a black eye OR you get a bite - Ledum

You drink too much alcohol OR get indigestion from too many hotdogs - Nux vomica

You fall on the trail and sprain your ankle or wrist - Rhus tox

You bang your shin scaling a rock wall or your bunions hurt after 10 miles of difficult hiking (any injury to bony parts) - Ruta

You break a bone - Symphytum (get to the ER to get the bone set!)

Have you had something else happen while camping? I'd love to hear about it and I'll write back to tell you which remedy I would have used.

Most Regency romances don't contain information about homeopathy, but my trilogy does! The first one, Love on the Vine, contains several first aid remedies but no camping was involved. Read it to learn how a man's leg was saved from amputation!