Planets in Retrograde -- The Basics
By
Rebecca Brents

Astrology Coaching
Live Your Life by Divine Design

Astrology Coaching puts YOU in control of the life you were born to live!!

Take a journey through your birth chart as never before.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Enroll in
Astrology Coaching
TODAY!!

Cut through the confusion.

See clearly

Think better

Make informed choices

Discover why the Tarot has intrigued, informed, and interested spiritual seekers for centuries.

What is your life''s biggest question?

Get a reading on Your Situation

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

Recommended Book from Amazon

The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
By
Lynne McTaggart

Astrology is for Believers.

With an open mind and a knowledge of Astrology you can watch your life unfold in ways that make sense.

You can recognize the subtle knock of real opportunity and the soft voice of invitations to personal growth because you know they're coming, where to look for them, and what they'll look like when they appear.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

	Medicine Wheel of Plant Uses Part 3 by Susun Weed SusunWeed.com
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

    Email This Page to a Friend    

Medicine Wheel of Plant Uses
Part 3
by Susun Weed

Page: 1 2 3 4 5

The taste of the East, place of newness, is sweet and bland. Mother's milk is sweet and bland. The cereal crops (wheat, rice, corn) are sweet and bland. The East is Food, and it connects to the realm of the herbivores. The plants of the East give us NOURISHMENT.

Salty is the taste of the South, place of sweat and blood. Seaweed and miso are salty, just as amniotic fluid is salty. The South is Tonics, and it connects to the realm of the ocean. The plants of the South are a TURN ON.

In the West, place of death and the ancestors, the taste is intensely bitter, horribly bitter, inedibly bitter - a bitter that increases even after you spit it out. Bitter as gall. Medicinal drugs are bitter. Poisons are bitter.

The West connects to the realm of the mushrooms, those non-flowering plants that live on dead and decaying matter. The plants of the West can CHANGE YOUR MIND.

And in the North, place of deepness and clarity, the taste is aromatic. Here are the herbs you buy at the grocery store; most of them are in the mint family. These are the herbs your mother uses, the seasoning herbs, the ones loaded with aromatic oils. The realm of the oils connects to the North. And the plants of the North give us WISDOM.

In the following four articles, we will look deeply at each of the directions, its taste, the Goddesses who guard it, the realms it opens, and the lessons each has to teach us.

The Four Moving Questions:

The answers to these questions will change where a plant appears on the medicine wheel.

1. What part?

The leaves and berries of Phytolacca americana (poke) can be eaten, the roots and seeds are used cautiously as medicines but are considered poisonous. The petioles of rhubarb are eaten, but the leaves and roots are not. Burdock root is sweet, the leaves are incredibly bitter. One of my pet peeves: Herbals that tell me to use a particular plant but give no clue as to the part of the plant I should use.

2. When harvested?

The amount and type of constituents in a plant differs at different times of the year. Perennial roots store winter food in the form of carbohydrates. Dig poke roots in the fall after the first frosts (cold weather concentrates the carbohydrates into the roots) and tincture it immediately in 100 proof vodka, and the alkaloids will be buffered by the sugars and starches (which precipitate out and must be shaken from the bottom up into the liquid before use).

Roots dug in the spring will have a higher percentage of alkaloid, and may be more poisonous or more medicinal, depending on the plant. Even rhubarb changes as it grows (oxalates concentrate in it throughout the growing season), so it usually harvested only in the late spring, early summer.

3. How prepared?

If you harvest the right part of the rhubarb in the right season, but serve it raw instead of cooked, it would be unpalatable. If you harvest poke leaves at the right time (early spring), you could still poison yourself, unless you cook them in three changes of water.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5

Enchanted Spirit assumes no liability for health care recommendations or treatments discussed by individual authors whose work is published on our website.

The information here is offered to help in your research and investigation of possible ways to manage your own health care issues. Common sense as well as solid professional advice from your own trusted medical care specialist or personal holistic health care practitioner should always be part of managing your health care choices.

Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.

Susun is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women's health. Her four best-selling books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women around the world. Learn more at SusunWeed.com

Susun Weed is a contributor to the Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women's Studies and the author of four highly acclaimed herbal medicine handbooks. She has been at the forefront of the herbal renaissance for 35 years.

By Susun S. Weed, author and herbalist. Write to: susunweed@hvc.rr.com for permission to reprint this article.

Visit Herbal Medicine and Spirit Healing the Wise Woman Way. For 500+ pages of women's health articles, recipes, and women's wit and wisdom.

Visit Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way. For women who want to maintain breast health and for women diagnosed with breast cancer. This site is designed with the purpose of empowering women in their health care choices.

Visit Menopause Metamorphosis. Gentle solutions for body, mind, and spirit: alternative approaches, herbal remedies, wise woman support. Your body knows more about menopause than your doctor does!

Legal Disclaimer: This content is not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, condition or symptom. Personal directions and use should be provided by a clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare practitioner with a specific formula for you. All material on this website/email is provided for general information purposes only and should not be considered medical advice or consultation. Contact a reputable healthcare practitioner if you are in need of medical care. Exercise self-empowerment by seeking a second opinion.

I can't seem to bring myself to say, "Well, I guess I'll be toddling along." It isn't that I can't toddle. It's that I can't guess I'll toddle.
~ Robert Benchley ~
Born September 15, 1889

Please click on the titles to visit these fine areas of Enchanted Spirit

---

	PO Box 1080 Sandia Park · NM · 87047

Enchanted Spirit is a non-denominational spiritual center of healing, support, self-improvement, personal guidance, education and writing. We publish multi-media works of New Age thought and information to encourage serenity and growth in individual life choices, advance the universal search for life's meaning, and promote tolerance for positive ideas from all philosophies and religious traditions, believing as we do that truth is where you find it.

---

This site is hosted and maintained for Enchanted Spirit by

Catweasel Ink

Copyright © 1999 - 2008 by Enchanted Spirit and Catweasel Ink.
Contributed works copyright by their respective authors. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction specifically prohibited.

Last updated April 26th, 2004

Rebecca is not available
right now.


Please check back
later
CLICK HERE FOR
MORE INFO

Astrology and Karma?
Sure!

Your Horoscope holds important keys to why you are here, what you came to contribute, who you came here to be.

Get direction.
Get information.

Put your life on course as never before!! Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Order a
Karma and Destiny Reading
TODAY!!

Sometimes getting the right answer means asking the right question.

Life is full of hints, signs, and advice ... if you know where to look and what you're looking for.

Astrology and Tarot are tools that blend free will and useful information into new dimensions of thought ... so you can discover your best options. But the choice to act is always yours.

Work with all your possibilities.

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny
By
Janet Attwood, Chris Attwood