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

in the sand. I brushed the sand away and an oval shape like the eye of a mystic animal emerged. Clever Remedies to Outsmart Headaches @ 129

I showed these pieces to a local artist and he made for me a pair of beautiful earrings with silver hooks. I feel energized when I wear them. When I look at them in the mirror, it is as if the amber slowly comes to life, shining like two warm human eyes, as if they are asking us all to plant beautiful flowers and take good care of them, to save a mighty oak tree in a city, a noisy bird in a cage, and a silver star falling down into the sea.

Folk medicine has other remedies for headaches too. Wise elders in Russia told me these ancient myths and superstitions about snakes and their role in curing a headache:

r1. Tie a snakeskin around your head to relieve a headache. r 2. To get rid of headache, “kil it.” For example, in Russia people shear a smal lock of hair from a person who is suffering from a headache and tie it to a mountain ash tree or to an asp. This

“method” was popular in Germany too.

According to Russian folk medicine, however, homemade herbal compresses, nastoykas (infusions), decoctions, ointments, and poultices were most often used to treat headaches. The following suggestions are for external use. r 3. Wash and attach four fresh leaves of burdock to your forehead and your calves. Relax. Or apply leaves of coltsfoot to your forehead to soothe headaches and hot flashes of menopause. To take control of a headache best,

begin to listen to your body.

130 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

L ong ago under the midnight blue water of the

Baltic Sea stood a magnificent, white amber castle

with doors of gold and windows of diamonds. Jurate, the

goddess of the sea, lived there.

One day she called a meeting of beautiful maidens, nymphs, and sirens. She told them, “Dear friends, my father Praamzis, the god of the sky, earth, and the sea, gave me these waters of the Baltic Sea to rule. You know that I have never hurt anyone in my life, and we have lived in peace for a long time. But there can be no quiet, happy life anymore. Kastytis, an evil fisherman, takes my innocent servants, my darling fishes, from the water and allows them to die on the shore. I must punish him. I will throw him into the coldest depths of the sea.”

The next morning a hundred amber boats took Jurate and her guests in search of the fisherman. The day was bright and sunny and the sea was calm. The trees and flowers were blossoming profusely on the shore, echoing the beauty of the songs sung by the goddess Jurate and her handmaidens. The amber vessels sped along until soon they were at the mouth of the river, watching the young, handsome angler empty his net after a good catch. Suddenly he heard the haunting voices of the women. In the center of them stood a statuesque young woman with glistening skin and long, shimmering silver hair. She stood radiant upon a fountain of sea foam, which when struck by sunlight created a sparkling blaze of aurora borealis lights at her feet. She saw Kastytis, who stood entranced on the shore, and she fell in love with him.

“I am Jurate,” she said. “I am the goddess of the Baltic Sea and I am immortal. I had come here to punish you for catching my fish, but I will not kill you if you will promise no longer to harm my water kingdom and to pledge to me your love. If you refuse me this, you will die.”

Clever Remedies to Outsmart Headaches @ 131

The young fisherman knelt before Jurate and promised to love her forever. “From now on I’ll meet you every evening on the top of the mountain that I have named after you—Kastytis,“

said Jurate.

When Praamzis discovered that Jurate had fallen in love with the young human fisherman, he was outraged. He commanded

Perkunas, the god of thunder, to toss a lightning bolt into the sea to destroy Jurate’s palace. Perkunas killed Jurate and chained Kastytis to a rock at the bottom of the sea.

To this day, whenever there is a storm at sea, the pitiful cries of the young fisherman can be heard as he tosses out honey, orange, brown, and white fragments of amber that wash up with the tide—the remains of Jurate’s castle. It is said that lucky beachcombers can still find these stones, created fifty million years ago from the tears of evergreen pines, mourning the sad destiny and lost love of Jurate and Kastytis.

Learn to spot your headache triggers

Researchers tell us that headaches are the most common type of pain that people experience. Headaches come in all different sizes and are caused by many different stimuli. Learn to recognize your headache triggers and symptoms, perhaps by keeping a diary, in which you record the date of your headaches, the length and severity of your headache, foods and fluids you consumed prior