Herbal medicine is the medicine of the people. It is simple,
safe, effective, and free. Our ancestors used -- and our neighbors
around the world still use -- plant medicines for healing
and health maintenance. It's easy. You can do it too.
In your first lessons, you learned how to "listen"
to the messages of plant's tastes, how to make effective water-based
herbal remedies, and how to distinguish safe nourishing and
tonifying herbs from the more dangerous stimulating and sedating
herbs.
In this lesson, you will learn how to make herbal tinctures.
You will make tinctures from fresh and dried roots as well
as from fresh flowers and leaves.
Then you will collect your tinctures into an Herbal Medicine
Chest and begin to use them. Shall we begin?
Tinctures
Act Fast
Tinctures are alcohol-based plant medicines. Alcohol extracts
and concentrates many properties from plants, including their
poisons. Alcohol does not extract significant amounts of nutrients,
so tinctures are used when we want to stimulate, sedate, or
make use of a poison. (Remember that nourishing herbs are
best used in water bases such as infusions and vinegars.)
The concentrated nature of tinctures allows them to act quickly.
It also makes them perfect for a first-aid kit or herbal medicine
chest: a little goes a long way.
I have dozens of tinctures in my cabinet. But these are the
ones I carry with me when I travel; they are the ones I don't
leave home without. This is my traveling herbal medicine chest.
by Susun
S. Weed
Introduction by Jean Houston.
Superb herbal in the feminine-intuitive mode. Complete instructions for using common plants for food, beauty, medicine, and longevity. Seven herbs -- burdock, chickweed, dandelion, nettle,
oatstraw, seaweed, and violet -- are explored in depth.
A Special Tenth Anniversary edition of this
classic herbal, profusely illustrated. 312 pages.
I just started reading your book, Healing Wise. Your
humor and approach to life seem so "down-to-earth",
just like your favorite powerful weeds. Thank you for sharing
and nourishing! ~ Diane
Griggs' best-selling and widely-praised Green Pharmacy is considered the standard work on the history of herbal medicine. Paperback: 168 pages
Includes recipes for a variety of remedies and personal care products, and devotes a chapter to the creative use of herbs in the kitchen for cooking and as natural cleansers and disinfectants.
Jessie Conaway, herbalist and experiential educator, takes you into the woods and out into her backyard to teach about wildcrafting and preparation and use of herbal remedies.
Topics covered include trip planning, wildcrafting tips, herbal traditions, backyard wildcrafting and herb preparation.
Herbs discussed are agrimony, balsam fir, blueberry, burdock, chaga, elder, goldthread, hazelnut, horsetail, mullein, partridgeberry, sarsaparilla, usnea, white oak, white pine, wintergreen and yarrow.
Chapter index included.