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

“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