Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living (35 page)

I think Grandma was right about a lot of things. She had such a close connection to Nature and she loved her daily gardening. Sometimes she helped Grandpa care for the vineyard. Plants and trees became for her a source of education about our life, which comes from Nature, and she learned how to lead a natural life and stay away from all the toxins, chemicals, and poisons that destroy our health. She taught us with her uncompromising commitment to everything natural, clean, and healthy.

I remember a quiet afternoon in the forest near our summerhouse when I was small. The birds were twittering. A dried twig crunched under my foot and interrupted the silence of the forest and the life of its inhabitants. A narrow path led me to a clearing that was bathed in sunlight. I stopped there and listened and noticed that the forest’s silence wasn’t really silent. There was an active life going on within it, indeed. The trees worked hard, bringing out phytoncides and specific fermentation to help people, birds, animals, insects, and themselves.

I found myself near an aspen. Grandma revered this powerful tree. I saw how she had listened to the tremble or “quake” of the aspen leaves. She said that when the aspen quakes, it is driving away “evil spirits” and keeping people from diseases.

The apple and laurel, on the other hand, in ancient times were called

“lightning conductors” and could divert lightning if they were planted near houses. This happens because of the trees’ miraculous ability to energize fields around them. Plants polarize the air and create electrical charges by exuding essential oils, which influence the formation of thunderstorms and lightning. 244 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Plants are our sponsors and amulets on the thorny path of our lives. In the golden times, it is said, verbena gave people love and a joyful mood; elder was a symbol of diligence; buckthorn protected people from witchcraft; the leaves of a fig tree were used for fortune-telling and its branches saved matadors from angry bulls.

The black mulberry tree is said to support success in business and is ruled by the planet Mercury, a sponsor of entrepreneurial people. It is believed that the ash tree brings happiness to the home. Aloe gives prosperity and long life to the people who keep this plant in their houses. It is easy to explain why. Aloe can live and blossom without water for several years. The tradition to hang aloe on doors or windows was popular in ancient Egypt. Cyclamen is well known as the plant amulet and a guardian from all troubles. This belief came from ancient Rome. From Hippocrates’ time, cyclamen was said to heal nervous diseases, stomach and intestinal disorders, colds, and rheumatism. I remember how Grandma invented her own natural treatments for sleeplessness and headaches. The simplest remedy was to keep pots of geraniums on the window sills. The secret was that geranium plants absorb all harmful substances and microbes from the air—even humidity and smoke. Scientists in Europe confirmed that phytoncides of this flower efficiently remove microbes and its aroma promotes sound sleep.

There is little doubt that plants and trees greatly influence our lives. All day long the forest sounds like a symphonic orchestra with mysterious signals sent by plants and trees to each other. Scientists continue their experiments to determine what these signals mean.

The Russian scientist, Victor F.
Vostokov, a world-known specialist of Tibetan medicine, believes that we can feel how “prana” or living energy flows from the top of a tree. I experienced the energy flow from a tree for the first time in a forest when I noticed that one tree stood out from the rest. Intuitively I put my arms around the tree and hugged it with al my heart. I felt its vibrant, warm biological field. I closed my eyes and envisioned its roots and the earth’s juices moving to the roots from underground. These vital juices of life had been flowing inside of its trunk to the top of its crown. I heard its rapid and unceasing run. It was early spring, when the motion of Nature’s juices can be heard clearly if one stops to listen. I felt the living energy fil the tree. It is the same with us, if we identify ourselves with a tree. We will experience in ourselves the movement of ascending and descending energy. In Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 245

this way we can “flush out” our neuroses and cope with life’s pressure. Many people, after communicating with a tree, feel at peace.

After having my first and unforgettable
tête-à-tête
with this maple, I stroked his trunk with my hand as if it were a growing child. I touched its silky, tri-pointed, and thin-veined leaves. They were trembling and passing on their joy of life to me.

When we feel upset or unhappy, experience a loss of energy, or are struggling with problems or disease in our lives, we must not forget to turn to our friends, the trees, for help. They are always ready to answer our call and infuse us with their revitalizing energy.

American poet Robert Frost expressed his love for Nature and trees in

“The Sound of Trees” and “Tree at My Window” with his lyrical language, as did naturalists Henry David Thoreau and John Muir.

Thoreau wrote in his first book a passage called “Autumn”:
As we lay awake long before daybreak, listening to the rippling of the
river and the rustling of the leaves, in suspense whether the wind blew
up or down the stream, was favorable or unfavorable to our voyage, we
already suspected that there was a change in the weather, from a fresh-
ness as of autumn in these sounds. The wind in the woods sounded like
an incessant waterfall dashing and roaring amid rocks, and we even felt
encouraged by the unusual activity of the elements. He who hears the
rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair. That
night was the turning point in the season. We had gone to bed in sum-
mer, and awoke in autumn, for summer passes into autumn in some
unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf.41

As a naturalist, explorer, and writer, Muir left us an enduring legacy. He founded the wel -known Sierra Club while lobbying as an activist and a writer for the establishment of Yosemite National Park. John Muir shares with us his observations and some of the wonders he found in the great forests of the West. 246 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

We all travel the Milky Way together; trees and men; but it never occurred
to me until this stormy day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are
travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive
ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are
only little more than tree-wavings—many of them not so much.
When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down
through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning
toward the cast, I beheld the countless hosts of the forest hushed and tran-
quil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout
audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to
say, while they listened, “My peace I give unto you.”42

In addition to Frost, Thoreau, and Muir, many others have penned their reverence for nature. In 1913, poet Joyce Kilmer graciously wrote of his love and admiration for powerful creations of nature in his beautiful poem
Trees
. He compared a tree with a poem and described that a tree “looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray”. I wonder, if it is a coincidence between this poem and a story in prose once told to me by Marion, a good and wise friend and neighbor? Marion is 84 years old. She is still a very beautiful, statuesque lady and carries herself with great dignity. I call her “My Victorian Lady.” You will not meet this special breed very often today.

When Marion was born in 1923 on a picturesque farm in Pennsylvania, her parents planted a small sugar maple near their farm house to celebrate her birth. So, Marion and Sugar, her tree-friend, grew up together. Marion played near her maple. She liked to stroke the smooth grey-brown bark that covered the trunk. She often hugged her tree and shared secret thoughts with it. One day, while Marion watched her mother tap the sap from the sugar maple and make her delicious maple syrup, she thought it must be painful for the tree to give all she had—her vital juices. She felt so sorry for her friend. She hugged her tree with all her heart and asked her how she was feeling and what she could do for her. The sun shone through the bright green leaves at the top of the tree. Pale green leaves below shimmered with a satin finish sparkle reminiscent of invisible silver stars in the sky that sometimes can be seen in the daylight. The sugar maple stood like a pretty young woman, lifting her strong leafy arms to the sky. Her leaves trembled slightly in unison with the wind. Then Marion heard a quiet, tender murmur. Her tree-friend was sending back to her all she had to give, her positive energy and strength. Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 247

My good friend, Jan Marie Werblin Kemp, recalls how childhood visits to her grandmother’s country home fostered in her a profound love of Nature and especially trees.

I climbed the steep quartz gravel drive to my grandmother’s house, past
clumps of the tiniest purple forget-me-nots, smatterings of bright yel ow
daffodils, mammoth stalks of purple velvet hol yhocks, white “snowbal ”

bushes, pink peonies, ice-blue hydrangea. The air in spring was alive with
the buzzing of honeybees, fluttering butterflies and hummingbirds.
And, in a clearing, atop the hill, barely visible from the winding road
that cut through Maryland’s rural pastures in the 1950s, sat my grand-
mother’s brown-shingled house nestled in a sylvan setting—sky-high
poplars, red maples, blue spruces, mighty oaks and chestnut trees.
I often heard them speak as they bent under the weight of the wind.
Acorns crunched under my feet as I walked beneath the oaks, and a
blanket of soft fragrant needles beckoned me to lie down and rest beneath
a blue spruce that swept the clouds away with its feathery branches.
Deeper in the woods, where the air is heady and rich with oxygen, a
fallen log lay rotting on parched brown leaves. A microcosm of life had
made that log its world. Lichens crowned the crumbling bark; worms
wound their way in and out of round holes. And from the disintegration,
new tree shoots pushed out from the rich brown humus the dead tree had
become. As I studied that log, I realized that I was learning an immense-
ly valuable life lesson. Within the serenity of the forest, alone with the
log, I learned that living organisms never die, they merely change their
form. Trees, like humans, are sacrosanct and eternal.

Mother Nature built a bridge of communion between plants and us on our birthdays. Come to your tree. Snuggle up to it and listen carefully to the quiet rustle of its leaves. Bond with your tree and it will share its magic with you. If you have even a small piece of land near your home, plant your own tree and enjoy its energy.

As a child I thought that all artists were humans, but I was wrong and I’ll tell you why. I drew primitive pictures of flowers and trees and unusual plants. When I became a journalist and traveled a lot, I always carried with me an 248 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

album and crayons. New drawings appeared in my sketchbook: old buildings in various cities, people’s faces, scenery. These sketches always reminded me of visits to unknown places and meetings with interesting people. When I drew Nature scenes, I discovered fresh beauty in each new picture. In my sketchbook appeared trees covered with a young, delicate green coat in spring’s forest and bright, sometimes fluorescent flowers and golden wheat ripening in the fields in summer. In autumn my album held pictures of rust-colored blooming wild flowers and countless red-yellow-orange-green leaves, falling everywhere and celebrating the last days of their lives.

One day I realized who the true artists were. I understood that the most talented artists on earth are not people, but al the seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer, and fal . We human beings just duplicate what Mother Nature created.

On the first day of fal some years ago, this autumn-artist had used already al of her unique palette of colors: green and yel ow, gold, orange, and burgundy. I came to the smal pictorial vil age in Moldova, in the southeastern part of Europe, on assignment from a newspaper for young readers. This vil age was wel known, thanks to an old gigantic oak tree that lived high upon a hil . On the world map this small country looks curiously like a bunch of grapes and is situated on the major European crossroads. For many centuries Moldova attracted numerous invaders: Scythians, Hottentots, Huns, Golden Horde of Tatars, and Mongolians. From the twelfth century this grape country was a part of the Great Roman, Ottoman, Russian tsar’s, and Soviet empires, and Romania.

I stood near the Herculean oak on a hil . In the heat of the summer he covered the vil age and its inhabitants in shaded coolness, taking them under his wide and branching crown. Even travelers passing by would stop near the old oak to rest. In the fal the land near the oak was covered with a blanket of his lacy, colored patterned leaves. In the winter the oak stood and met with great joy the rare and timid sunbeams which sometimes appeared in the heavy, gray sky. Fall came to the village with September and the first toll of the school bell. The day was warm, dry, and sunny, and after lessons a group of seventh graders took a walk in the forest that was bedecked in full crimson-gold attire. Autumn, the great artist that she is, generously spent all her rich and beautiful colors to adorn the trees. She covered maples and lindens with gold brocade. The birches she painted with ochre, but the leaves of the aspens she rouged with red. Pine and fir trees were renewed with rich dark-green color. Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 249