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

in the magnificent Crimean Mountain Forest Preserve. There we had unforgettable journeys in oak, pine, and beech forests surrounded by mountains. This huge park was founded in 1923 as the Crimean Hunting Preserve. There people hunted and enjoyed the thick forests in a climate that healed body and soul.

On the northwestern side of the Crimean peninsula were the Swan’s Islands, where we walked through alpine meadows and emerald groves of pines, oaks, and hornbeams. Giant pines stood in all their mighty power and noble beauty. Their ruddy trunks and deep green needles towered above the other trees. They appeared to be close, but at the same time far away, wrapped up around the Crimean Mountains. Rocking gently under a warm breeze from the Black Sea, they witnessed through many sunny springs and summers the dreams and hopes of all the different people who visited the park. The energy of the pine tree, according to the Druid’s horoscope, corresponds to people who are born from February 19-28 and from August 24September 2. The Latin name for pine is Pinus, which means a rock, and like a rock, the pine is strong with a firm trunk and roots and does not demand any special treatment. The same can be said for “pine people.”

Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 235

My youngest son, Yuri, was born on August 29.

Now he is 24 years old. He is a young “pine” man. When he was a baby, I would give him baths infused with pine needles. Pine baths invigorate the body and can

be a blessing when we are overtired at the end of a workday. It can be especially beneficial to people who work in the sports and fitness fields.

Bathing in fragrant aromatic pine water can make you feel

alert, cheerful, and refreshed while restoring your energy. The aroma of pine comes from its essential oils, which act as a pain reliever, a disinfectant, and an anti-inflammatory agent. They stimulate the immune system and improve the metabolism.

If you are overtired, suffer from a headache, or want to improve your mood, try a pine bath:

r 1. Fil the bathtub with warm water and dissolve in it 3½ ounces of liquid pine concentrate or two ounces of pine powder. You can also use an infusion of pine needles. Take a warm, but not hot, pine bath for 10–15 minutes.

A pine bath is beneficial to us because the essential oils of this tree evaporate easily and fill the air with the smallest high-energy particles carrying an electric charge. When we breathe in ionized air, it greatly heals our body and it acts as a calming, natural remedy. This is important to know because many of us don’t realize that we are always undergoing a so-called green phytoncide starvation because we live far away from the forests. Only on occasion do we take a walk in a forest. People who live close to forests are more often able to walk in them. It is unfortunate that many of us rarely have the opportunity and pleasure to communicate with pines, our green giants.

Grandma kept on the window sill an opened, small glass bottle with essential oils of pine, linden, birch, lavender, or peppermint. It increased the biological activity of the air in our house and it made positive changes in our health. It helped to propel the hidden reserves of our bodies toward wellbeing. I try to live the way that Grandma did, and so bottles of these essential oils are a permanent fixture in my house.

236 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

One summer my husband, Greg, Yuri, and I went to Pitsunda, a small town on the shore of the Black Sea at the foot of a steep mountain in the high Caucasian Mountains. He was three years old and it was the first trip of his life. We enjoyed the month we spent there. It was a month filled with swimming and breathing fresh air or “heliotherapy,” as we like to call it. We relaxed on sandy beaches, bordered by huge boulders that resembled knights from a fairy tale. We took trips and walked in the shadowy grove of ancient pines in Pitsunda, which supplied shipbuilders for many centuries with the strongest wood.

This small town on the cape was founded by the ancient Greeks as a Middle Age city together with Port Piteous, in Greek Pityus. It still maintains parts of its ancient fort walls, which house the Byzantine era basilica, a cathedral built in the tenth century. We made the trip again and again through this ancient, sacred place that keeps the secrets and myths of one of the small parts of Europe from the Middle Ages.

We walked with Yuri every day underneath a canopy of lofty branches in this centuries-old pine grove. It was warm, cozy, and quiet. Yuri walked slowly, his tiny feet treading carefully on dried pine needles that formed a thick cushion on the ground. “Mama, I want to live here forever!” Yuri said. This had been his first meeting with a tree-friend that was predetermined by Nature on the day he was born. Yuri wanted to visit the pine grove everyday. As a small boy, he couldn’t explain why he wanted to go to the pines, but a connection already had