Chaga Mushroom Decoction for Anti-Tumor Benefits

Chaga, Inonotus obliquus, called birch bark fungus has many healing benefits.  Like many medicinal mushrooms, chaga has special benefits to the immune system and is an important ally for working with cancer.  It has been researched to help breast, cervical and lung cancers.

To extract the healing properties of chaga, you need to make a lengthy decoction.   Here is a recipe for a chaga decoction adapted from The Fungal Pharmacy, Medicinal Mushrooms of Western Canada by Robert Rogers that comes from a traditional Russian recipe:

Chaga

• Pour 2.5 liters of boiling water over 500 grams of dry chaga.
• Cover & let stand at room temperature for four days.
• Strain & refrigerate the first liquid.
• Take the chaga & grind to a mush.
• Add 2 liters of 50 degree Celsius water to the chaga mush & let stand for 48 hours.
• Strain second decoction.
• Add two chaga liquids together.
• Drink 200 ml 4X/day before meals.
• Optional:  Add 25-25% alcohol to the final product so it will last indefinitely, otherwise it must be prepared every 4 days

Garlic, Garlic, Garlic!

With all the media attention to the H1N1 virus, everyone is talking about remedies for preventing the flu. One of my favorite herbal allies for the cold & flu season is garlic.

Garlic has anti-microbial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. With a strong affinity for the respiratory system, garlic has been traditionally used for colds, flu, sore throats, coughs, and respiratory infections. Garlic has also been used for earaches, parasites, intestinal infections, fungal infections and weak digestion. Garlic also has great benefits to the circulatory system as it helps with impaired blood circulation and also helps to lower both cholesterol and blood pressure.

When I feel the first signs of a cold I start eating lots of raw garlic- up to one clove 3-5 X/ day. Garlic needs to be consumed raw to keep its anti-microbial benefits. My favorite thing to do is to cut it up and put on toast or on top of my food.

To lessen garlic breath, chew on some fresh parsley or cilantro. Personally, I like the smell of garlic! For children and for people to whom garlic can be irritating to the digestive tract, a nice way to consume garlic is to make garlic honey, syrup or fire cider. For babies and small children, mash several cloves of garlic, mix with olive oil and tape to the soles of the feet. Cover with socks and leave on for a few hours or overnight. The garlic is absorbed through the skin and moves quickly to the respiratory tract.

GARLIC HONEY
You will need: A jar, lots of garlic (2-3 heads), and honey.
Chop up or press the garlic and fill the jar.
Pour enough honey over the garlic to cover it. (Garlic may float to the top)
Cover, place in a cool, dark spot for 2 weeks.
Your garlic honey is ready. You may eat directly, or mix into some warm water. Enjoy!

ENCHANTED GARLIC SYRUP (From A Kid’s Herb Book by Lesley Tierra)
“This syrup is especially good for stubborn coughs, bronchitis, penumonia, mucus and lung congestion due to coldness (when there is clear to white mucus).”

Mix together thoroughly:
1/2 cup lemon juice (freshly squeezed is preferable
1/2 cup water
5 large cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp grated ginger or 1/4 tsp ginger powder
a dash of cayenne powder
1/2 cup honey

Take in teaspoon doses every two hours or as needed.

FIRE CIDER
Ingredients: Garlic, ginger, onions, horseradish, cayenne, mustard seeds, black pepper, honey.

Mix together in equal parts (or adjust to your liking):
Lots of garlic
Lots of ginger
Lots of onions
Lots of horseradish
Optional ingredients: Cayenne powder, mustard seeds, black peppercorns.

Chop, mince or grate all the fresh herbs. Fill into a glass jar.
Add additional ingredients.
Cover with apple cider vinegar.
Sit in a cool dark place for one month. Shake daily.
Strain, add one part honey to 3 parts of the vinegar mixture to help preserve.
Drink 1 tsp daily as a tonic. Increase to 3 X/ day when feel first signs of a cold.
Can be taken when you have a cold with cold symptoms (feel cold, clear runny mucus). Not recommended when you have fever and signs of heat (yellow mucus).

Elderberries

Where I live in Northern California, we are at the end of our elderberry season. They started ripening in early August. Last weekend I found a tree that still had some beautiful, blue-black elderberries.

Blue or black elderberries (Sambucus nigra)have traditionally been made into wine, brandy and cordials. It has long been a folk remedy for good health. Folks made their elderberry brandy in the late summer and sipped it throughout the winter. Recently, science has discovered that elderberries protect the cell wall against viral attack. That means they can help to protect your body against any virus, including H1N1.

Elderberries

Making elderberry brandy is easy! Just add fresh ripe elderberries to a jar and cover with brandy. Let it sit in a cool dark place for one month, then strain out the berries. Make sure you squeeze out the berries well. Then pour your liquid into the bottle of your choice and store. As it is preserved in brandy, it will last a long time.

To make elderberry cordial, I like to decoct (simmer) my elderberries in fresh filtered water. I usually do 1 part berries to 4 parts water. Then simmer down to at least 1/2 the original water. Strain the liquid, cool and add an equal amount of brandy. Finally, add honey (about 1/2 cup honey to 2 cups of liquid).

For example, if you have 2 oz of elderberry decoction, you’d add 2 oz of brandy and then 1 cup honey.

WARNING: Only harvest and eat the blue or black elderberries. The red elderberries are toxic! Make sure you identify them correctly before harvesting. It is easy to tell once they are ripe because the color is obvious.
Enjoy!

Making Flower Essences

Flower essences are powerful remedies for our mind, body and spirit. They are also very easy to make. The most common way of making flower essences is called the Sun Method.

Flower Essence Making, The Sun Method

1. The first and most important step in flower essence making is to find the perfect, vital, blooming flowers. Ideally you are in a place in nature or in your back yard away from cars, people, or other energetic distractions.

2. Use a clear, clean glass bowl or goblet. I have a few bowls that I only use for flower essence making.

3. To energetically clean you goblet, rinse it with cold water or smudge it with sage.

4. Fill the bowl with the purest water available.

5. Find the flowers you are going to harvest for the essence.
Make an offering and ask permission to pick them. An offering can be a song, a prayer, some tobacco, some candy (flower fairies love candy!), or whatever feels connected to your heart.

6. Pick several blossoms without touching them and drop them into the bowl of water. I like to use two small stones or sticks to grab and cut the flower blossom. (It helps to have two people for this step; one to pick and one to hold the bowl.)

Desert Lily Flower Essence

7. Some say to completely cover the surface of the water with the flowers. I say this depends on the flower. Be mindful if the plant is rare, endangered, if it only has a few blossoms, or there are only a few plants in the stand. Sometimes all you need is one blossom. Sometimes it is better to not pick at all, but to simply lean the flower down into the water while still keeping it on the plant.

8. Keep the flower water in as close to full sun as possible for at least three hours.

9. After three hours, check the flowers to see if they look wilted and “cooked.” This means that their vital essence has been transferred into the water and it is ready to be finished.

10. Strain out the flowers (and any insects that may have jumped into the water) and pour the water into an amber glass jar covering with an equal amount of brandy. This flower water and brandy mixture is called the mother essence.

11. Label your flower essence immediately. Include the name of the flower, location of harvest and date. I also like to include relevant astrological information, like “Sun in Leo” or “Summer Solstice.” Also note the potency of the essence: a mother essence, stock or dosage bottle.

12. Variations: You can make flower essences by the light of the full moon.

Herbal Medicine Making: Tinctures, the Folk Method

by Atava Garcia Swiecicki, Herbalist and Medicine Maker in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Fresh scullcap, ready to tincture

There are many ways to prepare and preserve herbs for daily use. One way is to make an extraction in alcohol, or a tincture. Alcohol extracts and concentrates many of the plant constituents and is also a great preservative.

The folk method for making tinctures is simple. Just buy some of your favorite hard alcohol (about 80 proof) like vodka, brandy or tequilla. Put your herbs in a glass mason jar and leave some room on the top. Cover the herbs with enough alcohol so that there is about 1 inch above the herb.

Now, place your herbs in a cool dark place and let them sit for one month. It is nice to give your herbs a shake every now and then to keep things well mixed.

The alcohol-herb mixture is called an herbal maceration. In one month, you can strain out the liquid by using cheese cloth or muslin. Now you can store the liquid tincture in the right sized amber glass jar.

The leftover herbs from the tincture making process is called the marc. I like to give my marc to my garden or guardian tree in the yard.

Full Moon Herbal Medicine Making

San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

On the full moon on August 5, 2009 I received my order of fresh, organic passiflora (passionflower) and scutellaria barbata(scullcap barbata) from Sonoma County Herb Exchange. I prepared the herbs outside by the light of the full moon. Both tinctures sat all night out in the moonlight by the Buddha. Full moon medicine making adds extra strength and magic to the final product.

I added a big piece of rose quartz to the passionflower maceration and a piece of clear quartz to the scullcap. In this way, the healing properties of these gemstones also becomes a part of the medicine.