Some call them weeds.... A closer look at the Dandelion

Some might call this beautiful specimen a weed but others are in the know, it packs a punch as an herb.... more to come soon!
Every part of the dandelion has healing properties. On a whole it is known for its benefits of the liver and kidneys. Dandelions have a high concentration of vitamins and minerals; both the leaf and root are also considered a restorative and an adaptogen that helps the body build and reserve energy.
The root is a powerful liver detoxifier and also benefits the female reproductive system as it helps to regulate and balance hormone production.
The leaf is very alkalizing, a great diuretic and excellent for kidney and urinary issues. It is one of the best remedies for these issues as it is high in potassium and a rich source of vitamin A and C, iron and calcium. It is also a mild liver tonic and great for cleaning the blood and lymphatic system.
Lesser known benefits include those found in the flowers which can provide relief of mild pain. The Sap found in the stem is antibacterial and antifungal. It can be useful on scar tissue and acne and has even helped to get rid of warts.
And last but not least the seeds are antibacterial for the lungs.
This is just a brief overview of the benefits of using a holistic dandelion remedy. I feel that it is more beneficial to your body to use a remedy that uses all of the parts as nature creates everything in balance. Even if you only require certain components it is important to note that your body will much more readily absorb its healing qualities and find balance more quickly if the remedy is in balance.  I also feel that using the entirety of the plant gives it higher vibrational and energetic quality.

Herbs: Boosting Your Immunity Part 2

Herbs: Boosting Immunity Part 1

Update: Reiki in the Hospital

 I wanted to take a moment to give you a little update on my friend in the hospital.

As I had mentioned when I originally went to see him it was my intention or plan to give him a Reiki Level One Attunement, but when I got there it didn't seem right so instead I opened his chakras and brought the Reiki symbols down into his crown and then wrapped him in the energy like a Reiki vortex (just to give you a visual) and then I asked that the energy stay with him for as long as he needed.

I am happy to report that even though he has gotten out of ICU that day he went home 3 days after this, and now he is doing much better. His wife thanked me and said that it had been all uphill since I had visited in the hospital and he said that he would be back to fishing within the next 2 weeks :)

I mentioned that I had felt he was on the up and up when I visited; however, I can't help but feel that Reiki had a hand in the speed of the recovery, remember that it was only that morning that both his wife and son had come to accept that this could be the end. Reiki can be an amazing tool in healing physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Growing a Kombucha Mother Week 2

 Well, I'm not totally sure where I went wrong but it doesn't seem to be going so well this week. It doesn't really look like much is going on in there. My mother hasn't grown at all so I have decided to make a new batch of sweet tea, and add the mother as perhaps she doesn't have enough food.

I have made the tea just the same as the previous batch and added about 3 cups of the Kombucha mix that I had made and put the rest in a jug in the fridge to drink. I added the mother back into the jar and it seems to be sinking. A quick google search told me that it is ok if it sinks and that it should float back to the top later on. It has been several hours and I am yet to see a change. I would certainly appreciate some input!

Growing a Kombucha Mother Week 1

Well, it certainly is growing. I really just tried it all out as an experiment. But it seems to be working!
As I mentioned in my first post, I had bought the Kombucha originally to try out its affects and benefits for digestive health, which I believe is so important for your overall health. If your body is stuck using all of its energy digesting foods, especially the mis-combined, difficult foods that so many of us eat today then other bodily functions can be weakened or not given the energy that they need to function to their fullest potential. I have been focused on cleansing and supporting my body for a while now and this Kombucha stuck out to me but what I have been learning about it is incredible. It has very powerful detoxifying properties and is a source of vitamins and minerals including B1, B2, B6 and B12, C, amino acids, enzymes and several pro-biotic organic acids.

Here is what it looks like after it has been brewing for 1 week:

You can see how a film has developed on the top. That is your Symbiotic Culture of Yeast and Bacteria or SCOBY, you may see this called a 'Mushroom' in other places but its not a mushroom at all, its Yeast and Bacteria. The yeast here is not conducive to Candida so there is no need to be alarmed, although you may want to be cautious and start slow should you have problems with Candida. Here is what it looks like from the top view:

It looks kind of like brains doesn't it? You can see though how it has formed a pretty thick layer, this is Live Culture lives off of the sugar and caffeine in the tea. I stuck a straw in there to see what it tastes like and it was sweet and tangy like cider. I thought it may be a little too sweet yet, but thought that was a good sign that there is still adequate sugar for this culture to live off of. Check back to see what it looks like a week from now!

Growing a Kombucha Mother

I was recently at the health food store and I was looking at the items that they had in their digestive health section, I was looking for a herbal tea concentrate that I am very familiar and used to purchase, but now I have moved and this local health food store didn't carry it. I found a bottle of Kombucha, and thought I would give it a try. I was actually on my way to work so I tried a little bit of it, and it reminded me a lot of Apple Cider Vinegar, then as I was watching some Health Youtube videos that I subscribe to I saw a video in the related topics on Kombucha and I watched it and then spent far more time than I should have watching videos on how to brew your own Kombucha and how to grow your own mother etc. I watched a whole bunch.. it was like the whole world of Kombucha had suddenly opened up!

I realized that I could grow my own Kombucha mother and brew the tea at home. And as I got so excited about how I could do this I forgot to even read about what it does and what it is good for! Ha! There isn't really a lot of information about it, although the main thing that I was interested in was its affects for your digestive health, it is known to promote healthy flora in the digestive tract but there are so many other benefits which can be explained more thoroughly here.  (Please check it out, it is amazing!)

Nothing scientific, which doesn't really concern me, the best things for you are natural things that usually haven't been tested. So I thought I would start making my own Kombucha which really is fermented tea that is raw and still active. Here is how it started:

You will need a large glass vessel (this jar is perfect, but anything like it will work - must be glass though!), a stainless steel pot (cannot be aluminum), a wooden spoon, 3/4 of a gallon of water, 1 cup of sugar, 5 tea bags (I used 3 black and 2 green), a bottle of Kombucha, a piece of cheesecloth and an elastic.

Put the water into the pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat off and stir in 1 cup of sugar, you want to make sure that it all dissolves. The Kombucha lives off of Caffeine and Sugar so you want it all to dissolve.

Then add the tea bags and let it steep for a while. Everywhere I saw said about 5 minutes, but I just left the bags in until the whole mixture had cooled. 

Once it has cooled, remove the tea bags and add to the jar. It was warmer then room temperature when I did this, but I did let it cool for several hours. 

Next add your Kombucha, I purchased this from a health food store, and I used about half of a 16 oz bottle, which I had left sitting out with the lid off on my counter for several days. I did this because I read that a mother will grow right from that, but after a couple of days there were threads of cultures but not a film like I was looking for, and I thought that it probably couldn't really grow without any food so I did all of this. And it is working (after only 2 days there is already a film where my SCOBY is growing)

Then fasten a piece of cheese cloth with a rubber band and put it in a fairly warm place that will get absolutely no direct sunlight. Some people say a dark cupboard, I put it on top of my fridge for the added warmth. It can be exposed to light, just not direct sunlight, no windowsills for the Kombucha!

Then just let it hang out. I will update you on how mine is coming, and also I will document how it benefits my health so please check back to see how it is going!

My thoughts on the Swine Flu/ H1N1 Vaccine

This is such a hot topic and I have to admit I am one of those people who feels very passionately about the Vaccine and the flu in general. This is because I had the flu last July. I was hoping that most people would be awake to realize what is going on, but as I keep hearing of friends lining up to get the shot I feel like speaking up a little bit.

There are a lot of sites making claims and as most of my research has come from the net I will tell you what I know to be true first.

I went to a 4 day music festival in early July. I was there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then on Saturday, and it was Saturday that I first felt a tickle in my throat. I figured I had been singing along and what not so a scratchy throat was to be expected. Sunday my throat was quite hoarse, again to be expected and Monday I had the sniffles and realized it had been a cold. I kicked myself because usually at the first sign of a cold I eat some garlic, get some extra rest, maybe gargle a little salt and wake up the next day feeling great. Once the sniffles set in though it takes a little more effort to get better.

I consider myself a very healthy person, I very rarely get sick at all; even despite my boyfriend having a horrible immune system and being sick all of the time. Well in July; by the Tuesday I felt absolutely terrible! So weak and achey and tired and very congested. I went home from work at noon; fell asleep on the couch right away, woke up at 6 pm and went to bed for the night. I slept for about 24 hours, only to wake up violently hacking up a lung. Not a pretty scene I know. The next day was the same, everything ached, every muscle, my eyes, my ears, my head, even my toes. And I felt like I would never get better. I couldn't even watch TV because that was too much stimulation. All I could do was sleep more. My boyfriend dragged me to the walk in clinic across the street. It was hard just to get up to go to the bathroom because I was so achey let alone cross the street! He said that I displayed every sign and symptom of the H1N1 and put me on home isolation for a week. I even had to wear a mask around my BF. That night I made a concoction of a couple table spoons of turmeric, a wedge of lemon, and a squeeze of honey. I drank it which I thought tasted like carrots from the garden, with dirt still on. But my taste was pretty weak due to the congestion. I went to sleep because that was all I could do.
The next day I felt a world better. Not cured my any stretch of the imagination but I had some energy back, my head felt better - I could actually think. I slept a lot this day too but felt like I was recovering. The next day was Friday and I felt fine. Not fine, I still felt like I had a cold but it was really just a few sniffles. And by Monday the sniffles were gone.

So to sum it up, it was bad but it really was just a flu.

Now on to the vaccine: Is it worth the risk?

I know what the flu is like and while I wouldn't wish it upon anyone; I would take the flu over the vaccine any day because I don't know what the vaccine will do.
I have found that it contains Thimerosol which is 49 % mercury; this movie was quite enlightening on the affects of mercury. To quote it: If water has two parts per billion of mercury it is unsafe to drink, if any substance has 200 parts per billion it is toxic waste and the average vaccine has 50,000 parts per billion of mercury. That means that if the Dr or nurse drops the vial and it breaks it would have to be treated like toxic waste. Why would anyone put any sort of toxic waste in their body. It also contains a squalene adjuvant which you may read about how it is safe; what they don't tell you is that when administered through a vaccine they body cannot analyse and process squalene effectively and this has been linked to autoimmune disorders; affects can range from mild night sweats to seizures and have been linked to various disorders including MS.
I have also found a whole host of other peculiar ingredients but cannot for sure claim that they are in there but they include cat and dog cancer cells.
It seems like the vaccine is poison? And why would your doctor want to poison you?
For two reasons. One he doesn't know any better then what he is told, and two he doesn't care to know differently because doctors receive huge kick backs for writing prescriptions. Does he feel bad about this? Probably as bad as a logger who cuts down a tree - that tree was a truck payment and zing there is a family vacation.
Who else is benefiting from this?
The Media, right now we are apparently in a recession and anything the media can grab onto equals dollars.
Big Pharma, this one is obvious, but what not be so obvious is that they won't only benefit from the vaccines being sold, but if any conditions 'mysteriously' develop after being vaccinated those people will most likely turn to medications thus fueling Big Pharma yet again! Those sneaky bastards!

Clearly I am anti vaccine and really I could go into further depths of why but I encourage you to do some of your own research. Look in as many places as you can and weigh the risks. I'm pretty sure you will see the scale tipping strongly to my side but it is important that you find this out for yourself. And because you researched and asked questions not because you are now a statistic for H1N1 vaccine complications.

Before I end this I want to mention something else; that alot of health care workers are refusing the vaccine too. I spoke to one nurse who said she would not get it because there were to many questions surrounding it and not enough answers; and I have read many reports that are similar.

I am going to share with you some site that I found to be interesting; please note though; that my info in this blog did not come from any of them.

Here is a resource that I just found and believe to be very reliable:

Care 2

And some other info I found interesting:

http://www.theflucase.com/
http://www.autoimmune.com/GWSGen.html
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/swine/swine-flu-vaccine.php
http://www.zimbio.com/Autism/articles/42/MERCURY+RISING+EVERY+PARENT+MUST+KNOW+VACCINES