Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

golden amber. I slipped it around my neck, fell in love with it, and did not want to take it off. I bought it on the spot and wore it out of the shop. At that time I did not know a lot about the healing properties of amber, but I knew that I felt comfortable wearing it.

Over the years I have learned that this sunny stone helps people feel joyful, inspires love, and stimulates the intellect. Amber necklaces or earrings are said to cleanse the body and mind of negative influences and to purify the air in the room where it rests. When I realized that wearing amber had relieved Clever Remedies to Outsmart Headaches @ 127

my headaches, I became extremely interested in this unusual fossilized resin, its history, and Lithuania “the land of amber,” where it originated. The land of amber

Lithuania, a small, scenic country on the Baltic Sea, dates back to the fourteenth century. Its colorful fishing villages, rapid rivers, thousands of crystal blue lakes, and thick green forests draw many visitors. One summer I stayed in Nida, which is located very close to Klaipeda, one of the biggest ports in Lithuania. Nida, however, is one of the largest and the most beautiful fishing villages on the Curionian Spit, a narrow peninsula separating the Curionian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Formed about six thousand years ago, it stretches about 98 kilometers long. Over many centuries severe, cold northern winds shifted golden sand and created what looks to me like the largest sand dunes in the world. Some of them, like Angiu Kalno and the Urbo Kalno, are approximately a thousand meters high. From the top of the dunes a magnificent view unfolds of the Baltic Sea with its midnight blue waters, as well as the Curionian Lagoon framed by the bright, leafy woods sparkling with morning dew. Until the fifteenth century coniferous and deciduous forests covered this area, but then people began to cut the trees to build vessels, furniture, and houses. This created a big problem, and Mother Nature reacted in kind when people used some of her natural resources irrationally. The trees’ disappearances lead to severe sand shifting and, as a result, the fast-moving sands swallowed 14 villages.

The people undertook the first project to plant new forests in 1825. Fortunately their hard work paid off and the sand stopped

shifting. Today the area boasts more than 17,000

acres of pine forests. The range of large sand

dunes stretches for about 43 miles and reaches

into the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, an

area considered the largest amber field in the

world. Kaliningrad’s famous Amber Museum

houses one of the largest collections, consisting of six thousand pieces of jewelry, boxes, and some fragments of the legendary Amber

128 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Room, which was a part of Catherine’s the Great summer residence near St. Petersburg, Russia.

When I first arrived in Nida, I was instantly charmed with the tiny, sleepy fishing village of only two thousand residents. It seemed a world apart from civilization, but it was exactly what I wanted. It still held its virgin purity and serene beauty. It was still not touched by modern urbanism and still displayed beautiful wooden architecture.

I had a small room in Nida’s resort for youth. At night we would sit in a pine grove near a campfire with local girls and boys and share stories about Lithuania, the land of amber. They told sad and romantic myths and legends about heroic knights and lost love and about the magic of the emerald pine forests. But I remember most the tales they told about amber, the stone of the sun, the tears of the gods, the gold of the sea, and magnificent amber forests and giant trees dripping beads of amber.

I awoke at 6:00 a.m. with a headache and took a walk on the beach. I passed pines that surrounded the hotel like solemn guards. In the still morning hours an elderly Lithuanian woman had already set up a tent with amber souvenirs and handmade jewelry. I looked at what she had to offer, but because of my headache, my eyes were blurry. I rubbed my forehead and the woman said, “Put this amber necklace on and do not remove it for at least two weeks. These stones are the tears of the gods and they will help your headache.”

“I had hoped that a walk on the beach, the fresh breeze from the sea, and the smell of the pines would ease it,” I replied.

“Oh, it will, but this amber is a powerful healer. You need not pay me any money for this necklace. I am glad to be of service. Go to the shore, take a walk, and forget the headache. Imagine that you may be lucky enough to find pieces of amber. The goddess Jurate still weeps for her lost love, Kastytis, so you may find small amber drops there.”

I thanked the old woman and bid her goodbye, and then I walked 10

miles along the shoreline. The sea air was fresh and cool. The old woman’s amber necklace warmed my neck. I was focused on finding amber “tears”

washed up on the sand by the cold Baltic waters. As I made my way back to the hotel, I realized that my headache was gone. I stopped near the last dune before making the turn to the path in the pine grove and there it was: a dark spark of honey-colored light glistening