A great deal of information about the traditional uses of plants is still intact with the tribals[3]. But the native healers are often reluctant to accurately share their knowledge to outsiders. Schultes actually apprenticed himself to an Amazonian shaman, which involves a long term commitment and genuine relationship. In Wind in the Blood: Mayan Healing & Chinese Medicine by Garcia et al. the visiting acupuncturists were able to access levels of Mayan medicine that anthropologists could not because they had something to share in exchange. Cherokee medicine priest David Winston describes how his uncle would invent nonsense to satisfy visiting anthropologists. [4]

see Video recording in ethnobotanical research

In his 1993 book, Food of the Gods, Terence McKenna offers his perspective on Ethnobotany with a theory on how Psychedelic plants (particularly the psilocybin containing mushrooms), helped early hominids evolve into homo sapiens.

Plants are mystical beings with the intelligence of the cosmos in their cells.  We have a profound symbiotic relationship with plants. They have the ability to charm, nourish, intoxicate and heal us with their various individual properties.  Plants in all their myriad forms communicate with us through our senses and through other, more abstruse means, telling us about their attributes and functions. They are adaptable, mysterious and alchemical.

For Instance:

 The rose is beautiful and fragrant. It can enchant us and cause us to spend resources and hours cultivating and appreciating them.

The poppy, when refined, yields an intoxicating opiate that can make us commit crimes to obtain it.  It is also used to relieve pain.

Certain plants give us a lift, like the coffee bean or coca leaf; some bring on hallucinations, like peyote or forms of wild mushrooms.  Some plants, like the Iboga shrub in Africa are used as a once in a lifetime rite of passage to enlighten and transfigure the initiate.

Seeds and leaves, fruits and nuts, sprouts and vegetables all serve to nourish us and the animals that share our planet with us.

Corn is worshipped by the Navajo Tribe and is used in religious ceremonies.  In the mountains of Peru, a culture places the potato at the heart of their society and religious life.

Various herbs, plants, grasses, weeds, roots and fungi have mysterious healing properties when used to restore balance to our bodies when we are ill.

Plants transform our lives and are the basis of our survival.  Yet, by and large, our modern civilized society has under-appreciated them, exploited them and ignored their warnings, their value and their innate wisdom.  We find a usefulness for a single variety of plant—like corn, for example—and then over-cultivate it, genetically modify it and grow it in monoculture, thus altering its natural form.  This has been our approach to food in all its forms. 

We see the result of our warped food system in the form of diseases, overweight, animal and plant extinction, ecological ruin and pestilence—and yet, we don’t really see the obvious cause.

Plants are meant to be cared for in symbiosis with their natural state, which is to be grown in diversity alongside other plants, in harmony with nature. 

We can begin to turn away from the harmful, exploitative relationship that we have to our environment and the plants that share it with us.  We can return to our natural place in the web of life by starting to listen to the whisperings of the alchemical plant life around us…listening for cues to our mutual survival and most beneficial evolution.

Blue elderberry is extremely useful if you feel a viral infection or influenza coming on. The flowers of the plant can be used dried as a tea infusion, add some peppermint and perhaps some yarrow–a time-worn, medicine-woman remedy. Steep for about 7 minutes and drink 2 or 3 times daily.

 Elderberry can be used for other health issues as the flowers and the berries have anti-inflammatory, antioxidance  and diaphoretic properties.

Elderberry syrup can speed recovery time of an infection and can also be used as a preventative medicine to improve resistance to colds and flu.

Red and Blue elderberries can be found in temperate climates all over the world and it thrives in forested regions.

Red elderberries should be cooked, as in their raw state they can produce nausea.  The roots, stems, bark and leaves should be avoided as they contain cyanide-type substances whcih can be poisonous.

However, those who habitually sell out their love for their belief in fear may unconsciously attract to themselves their own personal armageddon-like experience. But there are too many of us awakening to our freedom of choice for this to happen globally.  The New Shamans and ascended masters assure us that the light is overtaking the darkness on our planet – as a growing number of us are claiming our mastery.

Instead of being a victim of the cultural reactive fear trance, we are learning to consciously choose our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Regardless of the news, we are choosing the experience of being  divinely protected, peaceful, loving, abundant, and joyful.  As you see and feel what is happening around you, you are either choosing to  forget who you are and react,  or choose who you are deciding to be. Allow the old reactive energy to leave you swiftly as you continue to choose who you really are. 

We are all coming home to the truth of our loving, sooner, rather than later.  This is the gift of swift cleansing.  Its time to get to it.  There is no time to waste! May the real you show up in all your glory!

Fresh, organic food is always delicious.  There are innumerable ways to create appetizing delights from produce that can be grown in the garden or found in your local food co-op or farmer’s market. 

Here is one of my favorite simple recipes for a tasty Green Smoothie that will help re-balance your body chemistry.  It is very purifying,  nourishing and surprisingly palatable.

Kathy’s Green Delight:  

• 2 cups of Spinach
  1 Fuji Apple
  1 Organic pealed cucumber 
  2  stalks of Celery
  1  Banana
  2  cups of  water or apple juice
  1 inch of ginger
                 Yield : 2 quarts

As the green movement gains in popularity, it’s obvious that attitudes have changed.  We are opting for sustainability in our lifestyles — recycling, using energy efficient everything, buying organic foods, growing sprouts and feeling good that our efforts will help save the planet.  But without a more inclusive and holistic endeavor, these small (though valuable) gestures may prove to be too little, too late.

In this new age and time we must now learn how to become even greener and to live sustainably…our future depends on it.  We can all incorporate simple sustainable practices into our lives: planting trees,  riding bikes or walking to work, buying locally grown produce,  keeping chickens and baking our own bread.  We can learn about  composting and designing a beautiful and nourishing herb garden.  We can teach our children by setting an example and having them participate in our new ways of life.

In this way our contributions toward greening up will be more than stop-gap measures.  We have begun to look something like the Little Dutch Boy, plugging the holes in the ever-weakening dike of our global climate systems and eco-structures.  But if we truly adopt a permaculturist approach,  we can to start to lower rising atmospheric levels of CO2 down below the red zone.

There is indeed reason for optimism—if we embrace a dynamic and radical change.  The first line of defense for the preservation of our earth is to replenish, restore and revitalize our food and water systems.  But this implies a personal change for each of us in the way we approach our entire way of life.

 This is why I promote a sustainable way of life that is in accord with nature and with science:  the way of permaculture. 

Permaculture is a modern reinvention of Tribal people’s ancient practice of living harmoniously on and within the land.
 
Permaculture or permanent agriculture is a lot like the way that native peoples have always lived.  They integrated the plants and animals indigenous to the land upon which they dwelled.  They cultivated crops as food sources and created living structures and systems that harmonize the natural landscape around them, integrating and blending organically with their environment.  This ancient way of life represents a beacon and a blueprint for our own collective and individual return to sustainability.

Permaculture shines a light on the horizon of technology as advances in agriculture have opened up a kind of neo-cultivation.   Civilization’s best influences have made it possible to use more efficient methods of food production.  But with a permaculturist approach, modern methods harmonize science and nature–sustainably.

Global warming caused by the overuse of fossil fuels is trigging a series of cataclysmic weather events that have already destroyed lives, threatened species and ruined landscapes and oceans.  These events alone have made it obvious that we have to make big changes or go the way of the dinosaur and face extinction.

Other abuses that humankind has imposed upon mother earth have sent eco-systems spiraling out of control.  We are facing the consequences of our careless treatment of our home and yet still we seem largely oblivious to the crushing blow we are dealing our planet.  But we can and must embrace a way of life that will cure our dying civilization.

We cannot afford anything less than to take total responsibility, both collectively and individually.  We need to change our indulgent ways.  We have moved too far away from nature…now we need to return.

The way of permaculture is, I believe, the way to heal our culture, our earth and ourselves and to re-awaken our deepest, most innate selves.

*References: http://permacultureprinciples.com/  – http://www.permacultureusa.org/category/why-permaculture/global-warmingclimate-change/

It is crucially important to pay attention to the foods we eat.  The more processed, refined and manufactured our food is, the harder it is on our eco-systems and on our bodies.  Natural food is what we are created to consume.  Natural food means:  fresh, local, organically grown or raised and free of synthetic chemicals and processed ingredients.

Because all the systems of our planet are interconnected, we cannot ignore the impact that one corrupted bio-complex has on another.  We cannot deny the effect that fuel over-consumption has on our environmental and climate systems. We can’t afford to turn a blind eye to the damage that telecommunications-generated electromagnetic radiation does to our health.  We can’t overlook the danger that over-fishing our oceans poses to the harmonic balance of our living organisms or that chemicals and pesticides have on our drinkable water.

Our eating habits, the cars we drive, the products we buy, are all choices that we make that affect our world.  Every tiny savings of fuel and every organically-grown food purchase helps.  No gesture is too small when it comes to the web of life.  Each small step we take that reduces the amount of toxic material we put into our environment will help lower the rate of global warming and restore our natural habitat by just that much.  

Melting ice-caps, rising sea levels, coastal flooding and climate-change related disasters are among the consequences of our exorbitant use of gas, coal and oil.  As worldwide consumption of fossil fuels increase year after year, so does the rate of atmospheric pollution and the production of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide.  A perfect example of careless industrial practices is the recent BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.  The disastrous effects from this obnoxious oil company fiasco haven’t begun to be calculated.  The toll on sea life, loss of people’s livelihood and the ecology of the ocean itself will certainly be incalculable.   When is enough going to be enough?

This is why it’s vital that each one of us begin to learn a way of life that will start reversing the trend of runaway ecological disaster.  We must each begin moving toward a simpler, more conscious way of life.  We need to walk or ride bicycles more, drive our cars less, recycle, reuse, reimagine and practice sustainable living.  Each of us must learn to flow with the rhythms of life. We must choose to live closer to the earth, feel its heart beating and blend with our beautiful home, this planet…in harmony with the natural world.

I also offered a gourmet cooking school in which customers could gather their own organic vegetables and fresh herbs from the extensive gardens on my herb farm to prepare in their recipes held in my cooking classes she held at her cooking school. Spring Valley Gardens was featured in many national publications including being on the covers of the professional trade journal ‘Grower Talks’ and ‘Horticulture’ magazines.