Many years ago, when we first moved to Carrollton, I dragged my mom and sister to a seminar at The Herb Shoppe.After years of frustration in fighting my way through the medical system, the idea of having more control over my health appealed to me. I thought it would be useful to find herbs that could be used in treating my asthma.
However, that wasn't what I learned. The herbalist pointed out that my questions were looking at herbalism through a conventional medicine point of view. After all, if I had an ailment, I went to the doctor to find out which drug to take. I was looking at herbs the same way.
This woman--I wish I had written down her name--began to teach of how the body can heal itself. She said that Type II diabetes is likely caused by years of eating refined sugars and flours, and how the body isn't designed to process something that is already that broken down.
She said our body's first defense is sleep and made the correlation that when we start to get a cold or flu, we usually feel very tired, long before other symptoms kick in. She also mentioned how damaging it can be to take medicines to suppress the symptoms so we can keep working instead of allowing our bodies to rest and repair.)
All of this created a mindshift for me. After all, my genetics are a recipe for high blood pressure and diabetes (thanks mom and dad) and if I had a fighting chance to avoid it, I knew I needed a strategy. My study of herbal medicine led me into exploring lots of other alternative health methods. It definitely played a role in my decision to go vegetarian.
Today, Kathy-of-the-mom-bows sent me an e-mail about the signatures of whole foods. "The Doctrine of Signatures" in herbalism is that God gave men visual cues as to the uses for different plants as medicine. (For example, kidney beans are actually good for kidneys.) Until I got the e-mail, I had forgotten about it. It's sort of a beautiful concept.
If it interests you, I found the source of the e-mail online.
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