Batamote

Batamote
     Signs and symptoms. In terms of healing and an etiology of dis-ease. How it presents. A puffy red raised warm to touch area, painful, uncertain, scary. discomfort. Bacharis glutinous (salicfolia) seep willow. 

                                              

... as a girl of thirteen she was visiting her mother's family in Sonora for the first time alone apart from the rest of her family. During the night she had been bit on the right lower forearm by an insect, maybe a spider. She wasn't sure. When she woke she was worried and afraid because she was visiting her grandfather's and had planned on staying a week and her Mom would come to take her back to Tucson. The ranch was a long way from everything. They had good food, water, horses but no telephone. Everything was different at the ranch. Time moved slower. She was happy. Now this. Her wrist was achy, warm, red and swollen. 

                                         

        When looking at a map it is important to find, you are here, where you are on the map. Then you can pick out a route, a path. Then the map makes sense. Plants at their most fundamental element are memories of place. She showed her arm to her grandfather and told him she was sad because she was making problems and would have to leave and go back to the city to see a doctor. Her grandfather was Yaqui with knowledge of healing plants. They walked together to the little stream to the horse coral. He showed her a plant growing there, and told her not to worry. He would make her better, with batamote. He showed her how to gather batamote, a plant growing near the wash at the side of their house where the horses watered. He placed the fresh leaves of batamote on the painful red swollen arm. Holding them in place with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped loosely so the skin could breathe. Plants link us and pull us in to a place saying to us, "This is where you are." "You are here." 
                                   
          Batamote, Baccharis glutiosa, is a southwest abundant perennial woody stem plant growing where water is close to the surface. A desert-riparian plant, desert riparian being used in the sense of an intermittent dry/wet stream usually dry. That may have cottonwoods, bottonbrush, Dodenaea, sycamores, mesquite, palo Verde, cat claw and an assortment of long thin lancelot leafed waxy aromatic plants. As such batamote initiates healing movement when applied to the surface of skin. It is a well tolerated and a useful medicine box plant. It's important when moving on a journey to have a map and orient yourself on the map. i am here. It furthers to have somewhere to go. 
                                

     En el siglo XVI, Francisco Hernández refiere: "resuelve admirablemente los tumores que han penetrado en las articulaciones o en los nervios y calma cuales quiere dolores quitando su causa. Las raíces machacadas, extraen lo que se ha clavado en la carne, provocan notablemente la orina y limpian su conducto, alivian a los que sufren cólicos, quitan las manchas en la cara, curan la erupción de la cabeza de los niños y la de todo el cuerpo, quitan las fiebres provocando sudor, reducen el bazo y mitigan el dolor; quitan la flatulencia, curan el empacho y resuelven los tumores.     

                                        

       In the sixteenth century, Francisco Hernández wrote, "it resolves admirably the congestion that has penetrated the joints or nerves and calms pain by removing its cause. The roots crushed, extract what has been stuck in the flesh. It encourages urination and cleanses the kidney.  It relieves those who suffer colic and empacho. With infants it can cure the red rash of the children's head and the whole body. It helps the body with productive fever by causing sweat. It reduces an enlarged spleen.  Remove the gas, flatulence and bloating of the stomach in empacho, curing the discomfort of the hard ball"   -translation by Paul Manski

       " Empacho is a term used in the south west and refers to stomach distress, Empacho is when food gets stuck in the intestines or accumulates around the stomach. It often manifests with a blocking in the epigastric area.
                                     

    There is a special type of emapacho that occurs with nursing mothers and their babies. Women and girls are often nursing, feeding babies and both their state of mind and what they are doing influences their milk. This can create colic in the baby drinking the mommas milk. Therefore fruits that are "cold" like oranges and watermelons, should not be consumed by pregnant women whose nature at that time is "hot". Likewise they should avoid windy places because the wind can enter the milk. In this sense, the ingestion of "cold" or "hot" food in the nursing mother can cause milk "curds" and harm the infant, just as if being in the sun too much she in excess or suffers a "cooling off" when wash or take a bath. Consequence of this is the "enlechamiento"  a variety of 'colic' that occurs when the child eats breast milk under the conditions listed, or mom offers her milk too frequently, too much,  or Mom nurses her baby after suffering a surprise event (shock) or a stressful event. In all cases, the milk is in lumps, and produces colic in the baby. The baby will be filled with gas and crying, if it progresses the baby will lose sleep and lose weight.
     If the Mom is frightened, or mistreated by her husband, if there is a lot of yelling in the house, this can spoil the milk. If the woman is angry or jealous she may spill bile into the milk, creating empacho in the baby. Empacho can also be caused by older women beyond child bearing years who is jealous of the Mom with her baby. Jealous of her youth and beauty, she may intentionally or unintentionally stare at the Mom or kiss the baby and create a special type of empacho which can be helped by this remedio, but it may require a cleansing by someone able to do so."
       
 http://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/10/el-empacho-remedio-nebada-poleo-hinojo.html      
                                  

     
        Batamote drew out the poison, soothed the pain and within a few hours swelling and redness was decreased. There was improvement. Things were manageable, coming back into balance. She continued to apply fresh batamote leaf directly to her skin, covering it with cotton to hold the leaves in place, just as her grandfather showed her. She liked that she was able to take care of herself. She decided that day that she wanted to help other people get better. She wanted to be like her grandfather. She walked down to the water and picked a few small branches and stripped the leaves placing them in bag.
                                        

    She showed me a small mark on her arm where she was bitten. To be honest i didn't see anything. She saw it though and remembered. It was still visible to her 50 years later. The wound, her grandfather, the ranch with horses, the cool water, the batamote and the healing plants.
                              

   Batamote is a plant with many uses, it draws out poison from insect stings applied topical as a poultice. It is anti-inflammatory. It grows along seasonal desert riparian zones creeks and washes. It's leaves are lacerate, like a lance or blade, pointed, soft with fine serrations along the edges. willow like, sometimes called a seep willow, though not a Salix or willow. An Asteracea, sunflower family member. As a hair rinse/wash it is said to increase hair growth and make the hair shiny. It helps women maintain a full head of hair and stimulates the hair follicle. Another topical use is the dried leaves powdered and applied to the toes for fungal infection, also washing the toes in batomote.
    Internally batamote addresses empacho much like poleo, Nebada, Poleo,  Menta de Lobo and Hinojo. It also acts on the stomach to re-regulate appropriate stomach acid and aid healing in GI ulcers similar to Conyza canadensis, by nourishing the delicate mucosa of the GI tract damaged by overactive colitis and chrohn's disease. Addresses the issue of leaky gut and restoring homeostasis. 

     

How it presents. What it feels like. Plants are graceful, grace abiding and compassionate. Often illness produces a "where am i?", uncertainty. What is going on?  'Lost but now i'm found'- plants then become amazing grace. Needing to go nowhere else. Meeting a disease process. Able to stay where you are.

                                      

                               

References:

Hernández, F. 1959 (1571-1576); Martínez, M. 1969 (1934); Sociedad Farmacéutica de México. 1952

   

El Empacho Remedio: Nebada, Poleo, Hinojo, Menta de Lobo and Hinojo, by Paul Manski 

http://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/10/el-empacho-remedio-nebada-poleo-hinojo.html

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