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

the trunk of the pine. “Do you hear me, my friend? Please take away forever any il nesses and misfortunes from my family!”

My grandma believed that if you knock on a tree, no one can bewitch you with the “evil eye.” She was sure that if you pass a tree and touch a branch of it, any harmful aspects of your life are sifted through the tree’s chlorophyll and the tree then gives off a fresh flow of energy that transforms any negative energy affecting your life into positive energy.

One day when I was a child, our next-door neighbor came to our house to consult with Mama. While she was waiting, she spoke with me about my crafts. Suddenly Grandma came into the house and right away took this woman from me, asking how she could help her. When our neighbor left, Grandma said, “Go outside and knock on the tree!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“This lady has ‘bad eyes,’” Grandma answered. “Do you understand me?”

I went outside to our pine and knocked on it three times. My grandma trusted in the power of thought. She believed that if you feel that you can do something to prevent harmful things in your life from happening; you just might be able to do it.

Grandma felt closely tied to the trees, and the same day she explained to me what she meant when she said the woman had “bad” eyes. She felt that some people are born with the ability to bewitch others by looking at them and thereby passing on to them negative, destructive energy, which at some time could adversely affect their life. She believed passionately that trees can save us from it and she could tell many stories to prove her theory. I began to observe people’s eyes in a different way. I look at the expression in their eyes. Are they cool or warm, kind or wild, caressing or loving, romantic, thoughtful, smart, or foggy? Are these eyes strong, powerful, or quickly running from one subject to another, like checking everybody and everything?

Are they slow moving and pensive?

“People’s eyes are the mirror of their soul,” Grandma liked to say. She was absolutely right. I have noticed that when people are happy, their eyes shine. 240 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

If they are unhappy, their eyes have no light within. I

adopted Grandma’s practice of knocking on a tree to

drive away the evil eye. And again and again I have

noticed that trees seem to come to the rescue. When

I asked Grandma when she started to believe that

trees could rid us of troubles, she told me that she

had read about this centuries-old tradition in old

books, inherited from her grandma. She trusted this simple human wisdom and experienced the healing

energy from trees that she touched in her own life.

She became confident that it worked for her.

Grandma told me that in ancient times soldiers would search for a tree to touch to draw from its energy source for faster recovery from battle

wounds. The Druids, the wise priests of the forests

in Great Britain, were some of the first to believe this. Pine and oak were considered the most effective

in “green therapy.” Ancient soldiers tried to “drink” a

tree’s energy before they took part in fighting on the battlefields of bloody wars. Trees helped them because they are sacred creatures—Nature’s messengers.

I was so inspired by the soldiers’ story that I painted a picture in watercolors of how I believed that scene might have looked. I never was a great artist, but Grandma loved it and hung in our house. She was proud that teaching me about the world of Nature often brought positive results. I tried to show her how grateful I was.

Grandma often talked to her plants. She told me she always knew what kind of mood they were in. I watched her sometimes. She would speak to her plants as if they were human.

“Why do you speak with flowers, Grandma?” I asked her one day. I was careful not to be unkind to her. I didn’t want to say, “Hey, Grandma, that looks and sounds crazy!”

Grandma answered, “It is difficult to explain, but I tamed (domesticated) them and they always remind me to be cheerful.”

Then Grandma broke into a story, which she called “Three Daughters, Three Trees.”

Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 241

A “fisherman lived with his wife on the seashore, nine miles from the small town of Alushta in Crimea,” Grandma began. “They were kind, honest, and hard-working people and always ready to give

shelter to occasional travelers and share their last piece of bread with people less fortunate.

“It is said that the locals highly respected the fisherman and his wife. But the people’s good opinions were countered by the bad opinions of the couple harbored by their own children, their three daughters.

“The oldest daughter, Poplar, was unattractive, short and clumsy, and hostile in nature. To disparage her parents, she would listen in on their private conversations and repeat what they had said to everyone in the seaside village.

“The second daughter, Pomegranate, was obsessed with the color pink. She criticized her parents because she was not beautiful with rosy cheeks. She imagined that if she became a rose, passersby would stop and look at her with admiration.

“The youngest