Dogwood medicine

    

Red-osier Dogwood 

      Here as part of our study together, we will be talking about Cornaceae plants, dogwood family plants, which have been little used in western herbalism in recent history.  We will be exploring some traditional eclectic uses, ethnobotanical historic uses, and current TCM uses for the use of the fleshy berry of the Asiatic species. 
     

Bunchberry Cornus unalaschkensis

We will be looking at endemic species in the rocky mountain west and pacific northwest. We will take several breaks and also go into the field to look at how this plant presents in the wild, some harvesting considerations and my hope is that you can make a personal connection, a  personal contact with these important medicinal herbs which are seldom mentioned in modern herbalism today. As part of this seminar will be using some techniques I have been working with to experience these plants on a one to one basis. There’s quite a few ticks and mosquitoes out now and you may want to use the mix I showed you earlier made with essential oils and plants growing here. We will not be gathering any plants from this location, except for your notebooks and the exercise portion. 

     Cornus sericea, Red-osier dogwood, kinnikinnick, red twig dogwood, red willow, Creek dogwood, Family Cornaceaea, Dog wood family. Formerly called Cornus stolonifera, 

     Cornus means horn or antler, sericea comes from the latin sericatus- which means silky, describing the fine silky hairs found on the under side of the leaves. leaves and young twigs, stolonifera refers to bearing stolons, running stems, its lower stems that grow upright and when the branches bend down they grow roots where they touch the soil. Osier is a word for willows whose branches are used for making baskets or wicker furniture. Kinnikinnik an Algonquian, eastern tribe word, refers to its use in smoking mixtures, the dried bark mixed with leaves from Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, bear-berry, raspberry leaves and tobacco. In the journals of Lewis and Clark from 1806, “ Since their arrival at the mouth of the Columbia river (Portland) almost daily rains had drenched the men…their meat spoiled, some means of stretching their tobacco, dispatched two men to the open lands near the Ocian for Sackacome, which we make use of to mix with our tobacco to smoke, which has an agreeable flavour.” Lewis and Clark sent a sample of the kinnikinnick to then president Jefferson. 

Cornus sericea underside 

     Red osier dogwood is found in the northeast and in the western US from Arizona, where it’s found sporadically in higher mountain areas, as a kind of high forest woodland plant, more due to the predominant dry nature of the ecoystem, rather a quality of the plant.  Northward  much more common presenting as a lower elevation riparian plant growing in dense thickets in mid to north Cascadia, hence it’s name red-willow. 

     Be grateful for your privilege brought by spirit for where you are at here near the border, going free in a low population density area, on a property provided free and clear by spirit for western herbalism study.  I have seen that time and time, repeated again and again, duplicated in so many people’s lives, especially right now, more than ever before, land and learning situations drops into people’s hands when they are focused on this real work. I have to believe it’s being grateful for your privilege, celebrating that privilege and using it to advance your people’s well being, and enter a positive sphere based on love where you do no harm.
       

Dwarf dogwood habitat

      Here it is growing as a riparian plant, much like a willow, hence the name red-willow, as the stems and peeled bark can be used similarly to the willow Salix species for basketry. 
It grows about 7 feet tall with distinctive red stems that will help you identify it in winter. The leaves turn a deep red to orange depending where it is growing and the bark tends to redden also contrasting with the snow. It is a deciduous perennial.  It’s leaves are opposite, oval shaped, twice as long as wide, about 3 inches long, deeply veined with a center vein, 7-9 secondary veins begin at the center vein and run parallel to each other converging at the pointed tip. Flowers come in late spring, they are white, at the brach top end in flat cyme clusters, the individual flowers are 4-petaled and resemble tiny, tiny miniature Cornus florida, flowering dogwood flowers. 

     Another widely distributed western species of the Cornaceae family plant valuable for medicine in the area, Cornus unalaschkensis, bunchberry, our dwarf dogwood, has quite a different presentation. It’s range is Cascadia north and into eastern Russia, a circumboreal species. It is about six inches tall, a perennial, the most common of the dwarf dogwoods. Leaves are in 4’s or 6’s appearing in a whorl, but if you look closely they are opposite. Bunchberry spreads by woody rhizomes and is a plant of deep shade, often boggy wet moist deep shade northwest forest. The leaves are shiny dark green above, lighter green below, 2-3 inches long, egg shaped, with arching veins. The flower is a single appearing to have 4 white spade shaped petals, which are bracts, with small flowers in the center, which will mature to a tight bunch of 5-9 bright red berries with a single seed. There is a similar eastern species of dwarf dogwood C. Canadensis growing in similar wet forest conditions back east. 

Bunchberry patch

     Cornus unalaschkensis was used by the Abnaki as a analgesic, the Algonquin for colds and stomach aches, for fevers, all native peoples as a food berry, and by most in smoking mixtures. 

     The impotance of bunchberry as a folk medicine is due to the aspirin-like effects acting via a different pathway, the iridoid glycosides, corine, corvine, cornic acid, and other constituents. The dried berries have properties similar to TCM Shan Zhu Yu. The whole plant dried as a tea has anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, anodyne, antispasmotic, astringent, hypotensive, tonic qualities. To use the dried gathered leaf and portion of root, you may add 4-6 rounded teaspoons to a quart of water as a cold infusion, or 1 rounded teaspoon in warm, hot but not boiling water and drink, up to 3 times per day.

     As the mid 19^thcentury eclectics were centered in the original 13 colonies, they used mainly eastern woodland plants. Flowering dogwood grows from about the mason-dixon line into the  deep south territory. From eclectic medicinal handbooks written in the mid to late 1800’s Cornus stolonifera also known as C. sericea, was considered a substitute, replacement for the dried bark of Cornus florida, flowering dogwood which previously was in the official USP formulary. Flowering dogwood itself was a substitute for Peruvian bark, or cinchona bark, Cinchona offinalis. 

    So let’s look at Cinchona and get a picture of what the eclectics were attempting to approximate. Cinchona is a plant native to tropical rain forests in South America. Cinchona, also known as quinine bark, was used as an anti-fever agent for the treatment and prevention of malaria. Later the drug hydroxychloroquine was synthesized from chloroquine which in turn was delevoped from cinchona bark. Malaria an Italian word for ‘bad air’ was a European epidemic in the 1600’s which killed Pope Gregory XV in 1623, during the conclave to elect the new pope 8 cardinals died, and many Catholic church officials. The Vatican itself was in lock down for a time. Even the new pope pope Urban VIII caught the dieease coming down with fever, chills, jaundice and body aches. Jesuits active in South America at the time brought back cinchona bark and Urban VIII survived. At roughly the same time Oliver Cromwell the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Ireland also caught maleria but refused to take the Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit’s powder remedy and died. 

Dwarf dogwood

     Malaria was long a scourge of Rome, and the Italians believed it was caused by ‘mal aria’, bad air arising from fetid swamps. Their explanation is not far from the truth as the disease is spread by mosquitoes carrying a parasite, plasmodium spread by mosquito bites. Quinine bark, and refined medicine from the plant was the only known treatment for the next three hundred years. Quinine was not synthesized until 1944. Even though synthetic drugs like chloroquine initially were more effective in treating malaria, by the 1960’s Plasmodium falciparum developed resistance to the synthetic drugs while quinine had to be used again in parts of the world where malaria remains a health issue.  Quinine is still used today in quinine or tonic water for cocktails. Cinchona bark contains 5% quinine. 

     Comparing the dried bark in my hand to Cornus florida’s description. It is visually the same with a bitter astringent taste. Dogwood bark was used, “many years ago as a antiperiodic  in intermittent fever.”, for malaria-like periodic circular fevers, ebbing and flowing in a diurnal cycle, cooler in the morning with rising fever later in the day peaking towards bedtime.  That is certainly one possibility for you to use in your herbal tool kit. Besides the pain relieving qualities we’ll talk about later with bunchberry, periodic fever is a good use of red osier dogwood.  

     Ethnobotanical accounts was that it was used both internally and externally. Internally to treat diarrhea, fevers, externally for skin problems. Whenever we have an astrigent herb, that tightens the tissue this is a legitimate pathway you’ll want to explore. It’s important to note that multiple accounts of the fresh bark indicate it used as an emetic, while the bark dried as an infusion is less likely to have this property. So with the dogwoods we have here focus on the dried bark as a tea or cold infusion rather than a fresh plant tincture. In addition, as said before, was a kinnikinnick, or blended smoking mixture. You should try it that way, we’ll try a smoking blend at break, for those interested. The young upright stalks like willow, as fibre, cordage,  to make baskets and dream catchers, with its distinctive red color making the weave interesting, often alternating with willow.  In addition the dried berries were eaten mixed with other more flavorable berries, and as in Chinese TCM, in Asiatic varieties considered a tonic. 

Riparian Osier  Dogwood

      As we have seen consistently in mid 19^thcentury eclectics they often used native American herbs, usually from east coast forests to attempt to duplicate another plant used for a particular constellation of symptoms, in this case periodic low grade intermittent fever, as a quinine like compound. In this case both cinchona bark and southeast flowering dogwood with the end plant Cornus sericea, here in abundance in the American mountain west and Cascadia. Oftentimes there are dead ends, lack of reliable research, and one can often hope at best that in time others will take up the same task with better results for the future.  

      Dr William H. Cook writing in his Physio-Medical Dispensatory, 1869, wrote of Cornus sericea in this way: “The bark is similar to that of cornus florida, but partakes more of the characters of a pure astringent, and less of those of a tonic. It is also more stimulating than the other dogwoods. It expends a considerable influence upon the uterus, and is of service in atonic conditions of that organ. …It has been commended in dropsy and as an antiseptic, but its powers would be limited under such circumstances. “William Cook writing in 1869 does not mention Red osier dogwood’s use in periodic intermittent fever, and it seems to have dropped into a realm of folk herb use after that.

      Maude Grieve writing in her 1931, A modern Herbal, wrote regarding Red-osier dogwood,:” The active properties are similar to those found in Peruvian Bark, except that there is more gum mucilage and extractive matter and less resin quinine and tannin. It is tonic astringent and slightly stimulant, used in periodical and typhoid fever. Taken internally it increases the strength and frequency of the pulse, elevating the temperature of the body. It should be used in the dried state, the fresh bark being likely to upset the stomach.” 

       In my research there is no evidence that any of the North American Cornus spp have any quinine content. Yet the plant does have active plant constituents such as iridoid glycosides, corine, corvine, cornic acid, flavanoids, fumaric acid, tannins. Iridoid glycosides are regarded as a group of compounds that function as defense chemicals against eaters of the plants such as insects and mammals and against pathogens. Iridoid glycosides is the bitter taste in Cornus sericea. Iriod glycosides also have an anti-inflammatory effect and are present in plants like African Devil’s claw, Harpagophytum procumbens, figwort, proven effective in dealing with pain due to arthritic joint conditions.  

CORNAC

     Two common points stated by all sources are, that active plant constituent corine and others present are harmed by intense heat and secondly the fresh dried bark is emetic. So using the herb is by cold infusion of dried bark, roughly one half an ounce, 14grams or so of dried bark to a quart of water, left overnight in a quart jar, 3-6 oz of the strained liquid drunk 1-2 three times per day. Begin with less and experiment how it works, sometimes less is more.

     Regarding the dwarf dogwood, Cornus Canadensis now in the process of being renamed to Cornus unalaschkensis, or bunch berry contains corine, corvine, cornic acid and compounds have mild salicin like anti-inflammatory effects and according to Michael Moore from field notes, “Corvine is not as strong as salicylic acid, and it has a different transport mechanism in the blood stream. It’s a good anti- inflammatory for a person who’s become allergic to salicylates. It’s also a lot safer than other alternatives. The dried herb could be used as a simple tea. Each person's response to {comic acid} is different. A rounded teaspoon per cup might be needed to give the equivalent of one aspirin.”

      Finally, western herbalists are beginning to use the fruit as in Chinese traditional medicine TCM, an Asiatic Cornus officinalis is known as Shan Zhu Yu, is widely used as an herbal medicine. Cornus officinalis is a deciduous shrub and the fruits are used primarily. Considered an herb that stabilizes and binds  to reduce heavy menstrual bleeding, and unusually active secretions, sweating, urination, and in men premature ejaculation. It is used with other tonic herbs in formulas, as stopping or inhibiting secretions could be dangerous long term. The fruit without the seed, is antibacterial, antifungal, astringent and tonic. The fleshy pulp is used for the treatment of arthritis, fever, and many ailments. Good journey with this plant, and as always...share

William H. Cook MD, The Physio-medical Dispensatory, William Cook 1869

Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1931

Charles W. Kane, Medicinal Plants of the Western Mountain States, Lincoln Town Press, 2020

Charles F. Millspaugh, American Medicinal Plants, John Voston and company, 1892

Michael Moore, Medicianl Plants of the Mountain West, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2003

Michael Moore, Field Notes

Joseph P. Remington and Horatio C Wood, The Dispensatory of the United States, J.P. Lippincott Company, 1907 edition

Mark Turner and Ellen Kuhlman, Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest, Timber Press Field Guide, 2014

Redroot snow brush

Ceanothus velutinus, is in the Buckthorn Rhamnaceae family. It’s known as Snowbrush, because when it goes down with flowers, it's white as snow. It's also called sticky laurel, tobacco brush and red root. In western folk herbalism passed on face to face, all ceanothus are red roots. It has a range southernmost towards the jarbidge,  northward into Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Like several other plants, within this tradition many know and use: long tailed ginger, wild sarsaparilla, red cedar, huckleberry, it's a marker, pillar boundary plant, that says, 'this is where i am', this is the place, this is the bioregion. 

Rosa woodsi, Lupinus sericeus, C. velvutinus

     Snowbrush as a redroot is an evergreen fire tolerant shrub which will sprout from seed or from the remaining root crown after fire. Ceanothus is a greek word for a spiny shrub and velutinus means soft, velvety, referring to the short dense silky hairs on the dull green underside of the leaf, the top of the leaf is sticky, shiny and appears wet, glossy green. Leaves remain on this woody shrub all winter.

     https://youtu.be/KYLQFUkNrro
 Another red root growing nearby is Ceanothus sanguineus, the red stemmed Ceanothus has deciduous leaves that are less resinous although still astringent. Snowbrush redroot can be identified by its shiny sticky resinous, aromatic leaves, widely oval with round tip, 3 inches long finely tooth around the margins.

Fine serrated leaf edge

      A distinctive 3 veined pattern meeting at the base of the leaf, similar to other ceanothus. These 3 parallel leaf veins, most visible on the underside of the leaf, are an identifying sign in the redroots I have met and worked with from the sky islands in southern Arizona through to the Selkirks of southern Cascadia. It grows in dense thickets about 20-30 feet around, and grows to about 4 foot tall from a dense root structure. In late spring early summer it has thick rounded clusters of white fragrant flowers, sweet with a slightly soapy fragrance. It is often found in burned areas, and is fire dependent as it resprouts from a burned root crown and from seeds are aided in germination by heat from a fire. 
     

Underside leaf 3 veins

       When in bloom you can smell the sweetness of the flowers, from quite a distance away if wind is blowing. The leaves themselves put out a resin-like spicy vanilla aroma similar to valerian root, with strong wintergreen tone especially when the sun is shining on the leaves, the leaf when crushed resembles the leaves and root of Asarum caudatum, our long tailed wild ginger.. Taking the white flowers, mixing them in a bucket of water will produce a white frothy soapy lather from the high saponin content and you can use it to freshen up while skinning dipping for a bath. It’s good on the hands, face, hair or skin, or washing t-shirts and clothes in a camp. The clothes will smell slightly sweet with out the heavy crazy scent of store bought soap which seems to attract mosquitoes like a magnet. In a camp the smell of dryer sheets and the chemical petroleum fake clean smell of laundry soap takes on a nauseating tone in the woods. 

Sun facing leaf

      Unlike other redroots C. fendleri or C greggi, which grow in the south in Arizona, and New Mexico, the leaves are large and brilliantly shiny, sticky, leathery and aromatic. The leaves are more warming, with noted astringency that is immediately apparent, with a slightly sweet, salty flavor, vanilla valerian root, with strong hints of wintergreen. Astringents tighten tissue, and refers to a degree of pucker from tannins that with the qualities of the plant act on the body to do certain things it normally does on its own, with a push in the way of that process. 
     In a personal face to face, western herbal tradition the wide wet leaf red roots are considered alterative for both hepatic or liver, which can address processing feeding, nourishing the body, taking food from an outside to an inside, through stimulation of the liver, and spleen-lymph addressing swelling, low grade unresolving cycling fevers, chronic low energy and resisting wellness and recovery from both acute eruptions and low grade chronic imbalance in the recovery mode. Both bloods, red and white work both to move vitality and to resolve waste, move stuff and get rid of stuff. Consider combining snowbush with either or both dandelion and Mahonia roots to address the alterative action within the liver. In a respiratory issue you would want a lung mover to resolve phlegm like lobelia or a strong aromatic. Although in the red roots, as a stand alone remedy, snowbrush leaf in a tea has quite a bit of focus for respiratory grips and colds. 

Ceanothus velutinus- teatree snowbrush red root

     As an alterative in congested blood, both red and white bloods, we have an accumulation of waste products in the body which can not be effectively eliminated. This accumulation of waste products in the tissues clogs the elimination channels of the white blood of the spleen and the red blood of the liver. This backup leads to a backup and accumulation of fluid, swelling in the body, and it also has low energy which if chronic, effect the personality. So you have a person physically sidelined by illness which gradually eroded the vitality of the spirit. In general dampness can be seen in swollen lymph nodes, edema, swelling, and puffiness. As this new normal of congestion becomes the baseline, the inherent intelligence of the body attempts to rid itself of this sluggish damp. Often in accumulated dampness there is a low grade fever, chronic infections, chronic fatigue, low energy and tiredness. The tissues can not eliminate waste and the channels of elimination become clogged. While at the same time the building restorative pathways are blocked, its congested, things aren't moving. The vital intelligence of the body attempts to roast and burn away the accumulation causing a damp heat chronic condition, a secondary damp heat condition manifested as a physical condition. We have to be alert to dry constitutional conditions that would caution using drying red roots and adapt formulas according to constitutional conditions of the person rather than a one size fits all approach. The approach has to be fluid, creative and flexible based on what is happening with the person. Flexible based on what is actually happening as in descriptive rather what should be happening as prescriptive in a diagnosis based approach. The key is process rather than substance. In diagnosis models, the diagnosis overcomes the condition, in folk herbalism the condition overcomes the diagnosis.
   

     Snowbush redroot as a big leaf variety has more warming energetics than southwest redroots. As a remedy or tonic it is strongly water based in use. Meaning, it's useful as a tea, as a water based herbal. Both the leaf and root are strong medicine as a tea or infusion. It is heavier on aromatics with a spicy sweet astringent taste, compared to many other red roots. In matching a plant to a condition, you will be looking for stagnancy in condition. The spleen is the key to understanding snowbush and is the largest lymph node in the body. Snowbush is a valuable herb to have in good supply for most any formula. The leaves are used to resolve a fever by allowing heat to be dissipated, especially in round circular fevers that cycle coming and going. Many red root species do not have such a strong component in the leaf. When we hear of Ceanothus americanus leaf being used a leaf tea plant, it is hard to think of Southwest redroot as a tea plant. Southwest redroots leaf is often nearly tasteless with just a hint of astringency. Eastern Ceanothus called New Jersey tea is comparable to Snowbush. Both are big leafed, moist wet, north country aromatic forest plants with an immediate taste. Snowbush is so aromatic you can smell the aromatic sweet spiciness when sun shines on the leaf. This spicy sweet soapy scent is even more pronounced when it flowers, you can smell the flowers from a hundred yards away. The flowers of southwest redroots don't have this vibrant sweetness, when they are in flower it's more soapy. Ceanothus interigimus as a southwest red root comes close to Snowbush yet it's nowhere near the big leafed varieties. Ceanothus sanguineus, the red stem ceanothus which shares the same ecosystem here with a softer deciduous large leaf doesn't match the leaf medicine content and usability of snowbush either, probably because the leaf of snowbush accumulates active aromatic constituents. The leaf hanging on the bush all winter above the snow in the north gives snowbush a different dynamic than the in out breath of most root medicine family energetics. 

Snowbush red root meadow

     As a folk herb, and what I mean by that are herbs you pick and use with your kith kin and family, not store bought herbs which can come from anywhere and appear in a store, in a bottle with a shiny label. Mostly with store bought herbs you are buying the bottle and the label. So as a folk herb, snowbrush redroot is used for boggy warm swollen lymph glands, adjacent to the ears and neck, in the groin and armpits. The kind of dull achy feeling when you are low energy and recovering from some kind of bug. Useful in chronic conditions like low level infectious states that linger and don’t readily resolve, stuck conditions that don’t seem to move, that often manifest with a lethargic spleen. 

     Although I call it snow bush redroot, the leaves and stems are especially good in this variety with both aromatic and astringent qualities. The root is more astringent and potent, when gathering the root you’ll have to decide if you want to shave the red outer layer and just use it, as the larger roots are pretty knarly, regardless you want to process roots quickly as they become super rock hard. You can also mix up a batch using the leaf and root, a whole plant medicine which is probably the best way to go when on a medicine making run.

    Folk herbalists consider this a blood purifier focusing both on the red blood and on the white clear lymph blood which goes through the spleen, lungs and liver. Something like swollen tonsils that produces a blood poisoning with back up into the lungs, snowbrush redroot would be good for that, sluggishness with phlegm, to clear that dampness. Or a uterine congestion with painfulness in the breats, long dragging heavy periods. Or a chronic damp heat in the liver causing distention backing up into the pelvis with clogged elimination and constipation. You may want to add Mahonia and dandelion roots to the red root for this condition.  With this red root you’ll get the astringent tannins that tighten and tone tissue and the saponins that lubricate and help restore flow and create movement in conditions that tend to go damp and stagnant. It helps to balance the thick stickiness of the blood in stagnant conditions so the blood can do what it does better, move stuff around. As you recover from illness a lot of extra waste products are released that need to be flowed out, filtered out rather than just recirculation around in a funk. 

Ceanothus velutinus in flower, early June

     Snowbush red root acts strongly on both spleen and liver to get both the white lymph blood and the red heart blood moving and circulating. A strong aromatic red root not only has astringency, it also has a way to transform, eliminate damp. The body is like a doughnut with a hole in the middle, so that the inside of the doughnut is actually the outside layer. You can think of your mouth, oral cavity, throat, esophagus, trachea, lungs, large and small intestines – from one perspective they are inside the body, from another perspective they are the outside of the body, like the dough nut hole. Redroot enables this positive negative charge between the inside and outside of the body, what comes in and what goes out, on the level of the lymph and blood to be regulated and balanced so that waste elimination on the cellular level can occur. The inside and outside of the cell membranes can maintain the coming and going that needs to occur. 
   

Snowbrush patch

       Snowbush redroot helps to thin thick sluggish sticky blood so it flows better, reaches everywhere it needs to go. When the blood is too thick after a heavy fatty meal, all the blood goes to the center of the body, this can cause a liver stagnant headache, with a blood shortage to the brain. In these kinds of conditions you can add dandelion root and Mahonia  to red root to stimulate the liver to loosen up the blood and release bile so the fat can be broken down. 

    
     Red root is a tonic for the spleen and white blood lymph in sub acute chronic condition of infection, it can added to many formulas including sore throat and quincy with throat pain and swollen tonsils and tender lymph nodes at the throat. Especially once recovery is occurring but there’s been a set back. This often occurs after taking antibiotics and you have a quick recovery, then several days later after finishing the antibiotics, it feels like it’s coming back. During an acute stage red root can be taken in high doses, you’ll have to experiment but believe me you can take a lot when you’re sick. The root pieces can be boiled two or three times as long as your getting color. Make sure you dice up your red root as soon as you can, while you still can because in short time it turns into stone that you won't be able to work at all. Big pieces that you can't cut can be dumped in a pot of water and boiled for medicine. Thanks for reading and may the road come up to greet you! and as always...

Going Free

Going Free

an original 

All lyrics and music by Paul Manski, recorded 6/5/2020, all music vocals, bass, and guitar by Paul Manski based on Going Free a book by Jason Köhne

“ Going Free, going free, 

We’re gathering our tribe and family.

Going Free, going free,

We will never apologize, beg or take the knee. https://odysee.com/@WildHerbWays:4/GoingFree:e?r=5p2ttggf39mzS4CGDzrGdEb4aeELD91C

     https://youtu.be/_GfFFluu_Fg

Brothers and sisters, strong are we,

We will live out the truth,

Recapture our destiny.

We will walk confidently,

We gather to live the dream, truth

that is meant to be.

Going Free, going free, 

We gather together our tribe and family.

Going Free, I’m  going free,

I will never apologize, beg, or take a knee.

Our blood is great and good

I promise you will see.

Walking hand in hand,

In the forested north country.

We will take our place

And make a stand.

In the north with doug fir

Red cedar land.

Going Free, going free, 

We’re gathering together our our tribe and family.

Going Free, we’re  going free,

I will never apologize, beg or take the knee,

You’ll be my woman,

I’ll be your man

We’ll secure the existence of our children,

In this promised land.

I'm going free, going free, 

Gathering together our tribe and family.

Going Free”

By Paul Manski

Recorded June 5, 2020

Aralia nudicaulis- Alterative

Aralia nudicaulis: Alterative 
"It can be fairly problematic to get and grasp at a visceral gut heart mind level,  the commonplace antecedent terms from pre WW1 medico-botanical texts not because the green noise of the plants in our bodies as remedios has changed but because an archetypal block has been inserted in the group think of the hybrid technology-bio person to prevent the archetype from activating publicly. We see more and more of this when people gather together these blocking points, or taboo moments that monkey wrench communication..." -Paul Manski

Aralia nudicaulis f. depauperata 

Wild Sarsaparilla Family Araliaceae.  
      

Aralia nudicaulis spring

    The name Aralia is significant, it comes from the latin word, Aurelia, aureus, meaning golden, gold, referring to the golden roman coin, also refers to someone inherently beautiful with golden hair, blonde, and to most importantly Aurelia Cotta, the mother of Gaius Julius Caesar. Aurelia Cotta gave birth to her son Gaius Julius Caesar in 100BC at age 20. She had two daughters previous to her son, Julia Caesaris Major (older) and Julia Caesaris Minor (younger). Aurelia was quite loyal and devoted by blood to her children, her husband and her son's wife, which was a rare quality in Rome of the time where the state had become supreme, saving her son from execution when he refused to divorce his wife Cinnilla when ordered by Sulla. When Julius went into banishment at Sabina serving in the Roman legion, she took in his young wife Cinnilla and kept her until Sulla died in 78BC and Julius Caesar returned to Rome. 

She also sheltered and cared for Cinnilla’s child Julia after Cinnilla died in childbirth. She died on July 31, 54BC at the age of 74. 

Nudicaulis, nudus- naked, bare unclothed, -caulis, stem of a plant. 

    Aralia nudicaulis like her namesake Aurelia Cotta, the mother of Julius Caesar, is an alterative herb that protects and nurture lungs, where breathing occurs. In the upper chest encased by the ribs, the sparks of life are gathered. Here occurs inspiration both breathing in and the gathering of grace in the breath which is controlled and issued by the father, creator. It's impossible to understand the plants put here by Yaweh for our meat and healing, or the bodily processes from a dominant culture atheist science perspective. Breath is a spiritual gift which is the deepest and most essential portion of life, one can go weeks without food, days without water but only minutes without the source and spark of life, the wind or breath of the Father, which he blew into his children, which nourishes the entire body, just as Aurelia Cotta nourished and protected her son, her son's wife and their child, devotion to one's blood kith and kin is the most important factor in the life of a sovereign autonomous person. In addition her long protection of Cinnilla and her daughter Julia, indicates that this herb nurtures and addresses identity at the most fundamental level,  family, women, children, babies, the uterus, the female which also is indicated in Aralia nudicaulis’ use as a uterine tonic and in childbirth.  
     

Aralia first flowers

      Aralia nudicaulis has been understood as an alterative herb, and as such in promotes  alterative processes in the body. We’ll explore how this plant presents in the wild and how to approach the old eclectic term alterative in the present.

      Aralia nudicaulus is an acaulescent perennial herb, acaulescent meaning appearing to have no stem, in this case no readily visible woody stem. A perennial herb though deciduous, losing leaves in the winter and sprouting anew in the spring from a short woody below ground vertical root so you can age the plant by pulling back in this case the soft moist, red cedar duff and counting the ridges of the vertical root. Directly horizonal from this woody vertical root portion are long trailing roots abut ¼ in diameter, thin white, pale yellow aromatic, that in turn connect to other plants. From a trailing shallow rhizome network, the soft, fleshy green stems rise each spring, here about 20 inches tall 30-70 cm tall, forming a fairly dense mat of interconnected plants, woody at base where it extends above ground, growing under Thuja plicata, in deep shade, in moist soil on the border of riparian creek. The erect stems put out delicate purplish green, bronze moist and glossy wet looking compound leaves, in 3 leaflets at the tip in early spring, resembling superficially poison ivy, Toxicodendron spp and other plants in the family that cause contact dermatitis. Before the terminal 3 cluster of leaves, there is one pair of opposite leafs towards the stem. The leaves are egg-shaped-oblong, shiny glossy, smooth with a wet moist texture resembling early spikenard leaves in early spring. The leaves are regularly indented slightly saw toothed. The flower is an umbel, greenish white, that will have dark purplish spicy berries that are hidden below the leaves. It flowers late May. The leaves will continue to grow in size, becoming a more dense green vibrant green, loosing their intense wet moist sheen. In the fall winter visiting Aralia patches after frost, you’ll find the leaves have changed to brown and in some stands a deep red. It all starts over again in spring and the circle continues.The rhizomes, berries and stems have a spikenard root beer distinctive aromatic, spicy warm, sweet taste and aroma. The flower is a round umbel, on a separate stalk towards the base of the plant, radial symmetric, the umbel flower is towards the base of the plant and will droop down later in summer. The individual flowers are greenish white with five petals, the aroma is sweet, fruity and spicy. The matured fruits off the umbel flower are deep purple berries. They are not immediately evident when entering an aralia patch, hidden by the larger mid summer leaves.
              

     Aralia prefers deep shade, stream side gurgling water nearby, putting out trailing rhizomes in loose duff and uncompacted soil. 

     Aralia n. is often described as a northeast forest plant growing from New England into Appalachia, which is true and not true. It’s range is extensive in north America, from the deep south into New England and Canada and heading west, then into the rockies starting in Colorado north and west into eastern Cascadia. 

     The plant has a long history of use and was in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1820-1880. In a US Department of Agriculture Bulletin 102 published in 1907, Aralia nudicaulis is listed as Wild Sarsaparilla and as an eastern woodland plant, after describing the plant it says, “Rabbits are said to be fond of it, whence one of the common names, ‘rabbit root’… it’s use is that of an alterative, stimulant, and diaphoretic, and in this it resembles the official sarsaparilla obtained from tropical America.” The 1830 US Pharmacopeia describes it’s properties as Odour strong and fragrant, taste warm and aromatic. It’s operation as stimulating and diaphretic. 

    Eastern native Americans are supportive of ecletic uses, the Abnaki and Chippewa used it to strengthen the blood, Algonquin for kidney issues, the Cree used it for lung issues, coughs, respiratory colds, Menominee similarly for skin issues, a blood purifier and tonic, and generalized weakness.

Taste: sweet, pungent, aromatic

Energetics: Cool, moist, oily

Actions: tonic, alterative, antisyphilitic, diaphoretic.

      It’s called wild Sarsaparilla although unrelated to true sarsaparilla, Smilex spp growing in the tropics. About the name, sarsaparilla, it’s often pronounced sas-pa-RILLA, combining sassafras and sarsaparilla into one word, from it’s use in root beer tonic herbal drinks, old fashioned home made root beer. Where both roots were used as ingredients when mixing local roots, birch tree syrup, sugar and yeast into a fermented beer. Remembering sassafras, and making gathering it as a child it does awake the fragrance sensory memory pathway, with fragrant scent of dogwood, lilac flowers and carefree summer days hiking the woods with my dog rebel. Rebel an appropriate name as I lived on the Mason Dixon line and it was never a long ways to old Appalachian coal mining towns, the southern drawl and the old battlefields and dreams of a separate autonomous bioregion far from yankee noise. Yet I was a yankee, rebel though my dog, a collie, smelling the fragrant lilacs blooming outside just now, brought to my mind riding in the back of uncle John’s pickup listening to the country music station. Plants do that, they bring us back to our feet on the ground in the precise bioregional moment we need to be.

     

   Before going into aralia, let’s look at aralia’s namesake sarsaparilla, both as an illustrative concept for the term alterative and in terms of the substitutional herb in early 19^thcentury eclectic medicine tradition. The eclectics living at the active interface of the eastern American frontier in an earlier time where communication and transport of herbs from the tropics was an issue and often an impossibility, sought out rough equivalents for their materia medica. The information base for their substitutions were based on plants native to their bioregion, the eastern United states and specifically where they were most active, Ohio, New York, Appalachia and the eastern Midwest which at that time were places like Indiana.  Very little of their material medica was taken from the southwest or much further west of Missouri and the Mississippi river. 

    One plant from the tropics they sought to approximate with a possible native local substitute was Smilax spp. or sarsaprilla. They would seek out herbs with similar therapeutic application and herbal energetics from their eastern hardwood forest bioregion. Often their search was a unique combination of botanical insight from European and British herbalism, and the unique interface of the frontier and the preserved folk knowledge of pioneers many who had lived for upwards of 200 years on the frontier, and living native American traditions of herbal use. Let’s look at what they came up with as a local herb to substitute and approximate Smilax spp.
     

    Sarsaparilla in the family Smilacaceae, genus Smilax is a brambled woody tropical vine. It’s name zarzaparilla means, zarza- bramble or bush, parra- vine and illa small. The analogous feature in aralia is the long subsurface trailing rhizome root growing under the moist red cedar duff.Smilax grows in Mexico the Honduras and the West indies. It was used for sexual impotence, rheumatism, skin ailments and a general tonic for weakness. It was brought back to Europe by new world traders in the late 1400’s. It was introduced to European herbal medicine in the 1500’s as a remedy for syphilis, gonorrhea, arthritis, fever cough, psoriasis and skin disorders and as a general blood tonic purifier. More recently a 2001 U.S. patent was filed on Smilax for psorisis and respiratory disease. It is used today often with other herbs as a tonic, detoxifying, blood purifying and libido enhancement whole plant herbal medicine.

     As understood by the mid-19^thcentury eclectics as a substitute or replacement for Smilax spp., many of the understanding and uses for sarsaprilla and aralia mix and mingle, and co-exist. The other native aralia’s I have been called to visit such as sonoran spikenard, western mountain spikenard, California spikenard and Oplopanax are also understood to have distinctive respiratory uses along with tonic, alterative and blood purifying qualities. As it was taught to me, western herbalists in the southwest tend to understand spikenard and it’s cousin aralia, as a respiratory herb that tends to nourish the lungs in chronic conditions like asthma, COPD and emphysema. Or as part of a respiratory formula with other respiratory herbs and servant herbs, part of an expectorant formula, or as part of an alterative syrup or formula with tonifying herbs- all these uses are legitimate and should be investigated further. They also describe it as stimulating and nourishing to the uterus in the last trimester used together with raspberry and aralia leaf as a tea, or a stronger tincture of Aralia racemosa, and other birth herbs or birthworts as their called during the last stage of delivery after water has broke. So many of us today are creating an us through the green noise we are infusing in our lives. Yet it also has unique properties that the eclectics called alterative.

     

     I’d like to focus on the term alterative, which is the word that the eclectic physicians used who lived and operated in what was the interface of the American frontier on the east coast until the 1920’s when a fundamental shift occurred in the consciousness of America. It can be fairly problematic to grasp on a visceral gut heart level, the commonplace antecedent terms from pre WW1 medico-botanical texts not because the green noise of the plants in our bodies as remedios has changed but because an archetypal block has been inserted in the group think of the hybrid technology-bio person to prevent the archetype from activating publicly. We see more and more of this when people gather together these blocking points, or taboo moments that monkey wrench communication.  While it would be true to say medicine changed from botanical wild plant derived medicine to drugs and chemical based medicine, synthetic compounds. It’s not that simple. While it's true the people changed, it's also more true, truest to say, the people were changed. It's often approached in dominant culture books that people changed as if going on a voluntary journey in a specific direction, while what happened was the people were abducted, thrown into train cars and when days later they arrived, they were thrown off the train. They found they were in the Siberian gulag. When they turned around, the train was gone. Change? Like called a Uber, getting in the prius and find out you've been kidnapped by the driver, slammed with a mix of MDMA, meth and heroin, thrown out of the Uber, robbed, raped and left for dead in the middle of the dregs of 2020, bruised, beaten, bloody, violated and humiliated. Yes people changed, that change an enormous transformation in the material culture that was propelled by technology and a post WW1 globalism that before was a question, afterwards it became the choiceless choice in the transformation from states and regions to an universal economic zone. 

    What changed was the culture and gestalt of the American people as the automobile, radio, and mass industrialization became a tidal wave post 1913 and spread like terminal cancer culminating in the 1918-1919 spanish flu epidemic which sealed the fate of America. These changes in technology had unimagined consequences, transformed the thinking and beingness of the American people, doctors and physicians included. America went from a rural placed based nation towards an urban, concentrated population in many ways separated from the immediate environment and bioregion. People forget what a transformation in consciousness is the automobile. Just to step into an automobile and travel at superhuman speeds transforms the consciousness. Likewise radio which also emerged as a transformative technology in the 1920’s meant that a person could hear without being physically present in proximity to the speaker. One is no more wrapped in a specific place of watersheds, with family, kith and kin, herbal medicines, creeks, rivers, mountains and a specific bioregional ecology. One is forced to become spaceless, timeless, and distanceless. It's the final shock of knowing that you've been domesticated. That while your grandfather had a wife, a family, you sleep with a current baby mama, little different than your dog who has no free agency or autonomy. Your baby mama's kids are less your children than property of the state. It's their final victory, they've broken you by taking from you the one thing that your resilient ancestral spirit can absolutely not live without, your children on blood and soil. What can a warrior fight for when there is nothing left? Is a question that is set in your mind day and night, that as long as you breath you must answer. Every step you make is to answer that question because if you quit not only do those who came before you die, but those around you too disappear, and those who come after, will come no more. So you answer the question for them before, for those now, and for those to come. You vow never to give in. Never give up. To move ahead joining with whoever will make the the same vow, to live.

     As these technologies morphed from silent movies into talking movies, television and the virtual worlds of the intranets, and portable cellular cordless telephone computers, the immediate place of a person became less and less apparent to where one was located. One became rootless, lost in an indefinite space defined by others. In that sense referring to who you are becomes an exercise in quoting cinema, mass media officially sanctioned mass statism info-stuff gunk. Where and who you are transitions from a descriptive sensorial actualness of being in a particular time and space into a prescriptive techno-constructed vicarious imposed here-and-now. Experience transitions to essentially a non-experience. Experience rather than doing, is done to, for and against you in a micro-agression of violence from without. Reality becomes a political reality of official think and to resist the official political reality is to be shunned for blaspheming the party line. Reality is transitioning more and more into an officially sanctioned experience imposed from without vs a place based sensorial direct experience experienced from within.
     

     The results are ongoing in this complex social-technological mish mash stunt but one thing is clear, the initial optimism for being nowhere has dwindled as people become both nostalgic and spiritually deprived from a sense of place bound by watersheds, mountains and rivers. 

     Into this dilemma the plants, herbalism and most importantly the language and concepts that informed herbalism, are more and more difficult to grasp given the profound disconnect that defines the person embedded in modernism. The new hybrid techno-bio person whose thought process is controlled by continuous propaganda noise has emerged to populate a vast consumer theater bizarre of cheap foreign throwaway junk. It is precisely this person who needs the alterative medicinal herbs and remedios but is least able to grasp what they are because the capacity for language has been withdrawn from the milieu.

     I can remember studying modern art in art school, how the instructors were forging an independent linear history interspersed with a value based justification for morality, behavior and gestalt. Later I understood that much of this art history cast as a linear teleological approach was a strange jump off into defending the tyranny of a techno-hybrid imposed view of the world. Beginning with the human figure in impressionism, it slowly distorts from a living, breathing person rooted in place to a non-person, rootless and invisible, timeless universal globules of light. Visual art becomes the mind slogans for the deconstruction of the human person. From discipline and technical excellence and skill in drawing and composition to an orgasmic emotional spastic jerking of the paints as abstract expressionism. Likewise music becomes deprived of melody or harmony, tensed into a seizure like industrial artificial soundscape of repetitive rhythmic figures. Modern music is not so much strings, horns or instruments that mimic and call to mind the human voice or the songs of birds, but coarse repetitive electro beats that are computer driven and resemble the sounds of engines, and industrial factories.  The message of art school was always, you can never go back to form, we are being forged ahead, a process has been imposed on us from which we can only choose to not choose, a modern art as a cultural islam, submission the only option. The plants of herbal medicine demand we go back and respect our nature which is alive and based in space and time, the bioregion, the place.
         

     At the time I was impressed by this argument of deconstruction of the person for inescapable cultural liberation. Now I look at it not as art history but cultural brainwashing for the purpose of creating the cultural milieu for the rootless, non-person. I see the so called art history more as describing the stupidity of Europe at the time morphing into the 30 years brothers war 1915-1945 with the goal of cultural destruction to fuel the universal economic zone of commerce. 

     I mention this because when understanding traditional medicinal plants we need a language. That language is many way lost to modernism.  We need to re-open the language to communicate with each other about the human body, the ecosystem, the bioregion, the herbal remedies as they operate within the human body.    
      I can remember countless classes in herbal medicine where the talk and questions of the students inevitably veered into a medico-mumbo-jumbo, where everyone is some kind of expert doctor quoting lab results, blood work and a literal wall of noise referring to intricate diagnosis and various pharmaceuticals. It was ironic as my paid gig was within the pharmaceutical medico-police state enforcement squad. I had no respect for drugs, diagnosis or lab results. I was disgusted and loathed them. Yet in the face to face classes the talk always got bogged down into inane pharma-medico jibberish. One herbalist I studied with for a year would go up to the point of saying, “Shut up, enough.” It was like students were rehearsing intricate gotcha-questions that they already knew the answers to. Waiting to be recognized for their profound herbal-medico knowledge which was mainly second hand regurgitated emesis hijacked from some herbal internet medico-illuminati-porn site. So enough said, it’s important to re-own and rediscover the words from these eclectic texts while at the same time letting go of a substance based approach. Herbalism, specifically alteratives are about process.
      

     Getting back to the term alterative, which is how the eclectics understood both Smilax and Aralia nudicaulis. What is an alterative? What does it mean to say a crude whole plant herbal remedio is an alterative? In our western herbalism we use the whole plant, not a partial plant derivative standardized for a specific chemical component. This can be confusing for a layperson as scientific research is funded towards standardized herbal formulations. All the sanctioned communication highways funnel into this box canyon of drugs, pseudo-drugs, or herbs functioning within a dominant culture diagnosis paradigm of drug substance medicine. When people talk or write about herbs it’s often these standardized formulations they are referring to. I often feel that if you want drugs, are into drugs, buy into the pharma-medico-police-surviellence state? Then go to your friendly nurse practictioner, you can even do an online tele-med fiasco scenario, get your prescription, go to the pharmacy, and take your neon orange, glow in the dark blue pills.  For instance Hypericum perforatum, st johns wort, is often promoted as an herbal extract of the plant standardized for 300mg hypericin. This is both confusing and obfuscates conversation, because the whole plant above ground flowering plant, st johns wort is not the same as a standardized product containing 300mg hypericin. So you’ll get all these people talking herbs and really all I hear is dominant culture politics. 

     Probably the person who did more to keep the ecletics and herbal medicine alive was renaissance man herbalist and musical composer, Michael Moore. Through his many years of face to face plant oral tradition teaching at the Southwest Botanical School of Herbal Medicine, herbal manuals and books, videos, keeping an actual herb store going, networking and interacting, he kept alive the tradition of western herbalism into the 2000’s. Sadly he died in 2009 at the age of 68. Yet the legacy of Michael Moore lives on and continues to thrive and grow just as many of the herbal plants as plant-teachers do so in the wild. Many of Michael Moore’s students continue to teach run herb stores and face to face oral tradition schools and continue in both the oral and eclectic tradition. His knowledge was vast and was both about the herbs and plants botanically, historically and deep within the herbal eclectic tradition. 
     

    Let’s examine how several western herbalists who studied and interacted with Michael Moore and in many ways keep this tradition alive today, understand and define alterative before we go into the alterative nature of Aralia nudicaulis. 

     Michael Moore described alterative in this way, “ A term applied in naturopathic, eclectic and Thomsonian medicines to those plants that stimulate changes of a defensive nature to metabolism and tissue function in the presence of chronic or acute disease. The whole concept of alteratives is based on the premise that disease symptoms in an otherwise healthy individual are actually the external signs of activated internal defenses and, as such should be stimulated and not suppressed.”

   Michael Cottingham stated in field notes regarding this concept, “Most of the time as herbalists we are not curing illness. We are creating movement, change. The eclectics used herbs to create change in a specific direction…with these herbs in some sense we are putting green noise into peoples lives…Plants create a language in the body which is informational and stimulates the body’s internal knowledge of homeostasis.”                                                                                                

     Charles W. Kane, writing in Medicinal Plants of the American Southwest, “Pertaining to the quality or a substance, usually an herbal medicine, that positively alters organs or functions of elimination, detoxification or immunity.” Herbalist Jim McDonald is more specific, “Promote a healthy balanced state of functioning by supporting the liver, kidneys, lymphatic, immune system and adrenals.” Herbalist Rosalee de la Foret, active in herbalism in Cascadia, writes in Herbal Actions and Energetics, “Alterative herbs support specific elimination pathways of the body. Depending on their specific action they may clear a congested liver, encourage urination, support the lungs for increased breath and release of CO2, open the pores in the skin, move the lymphand move the bowels. By creating a clear running river of elimination in our bodies we avoid becoming a stagnant mucky pond. Alterative herbs are often used for damp heat problems such as constipation, eczema, acne, boils, etc…”

     John Slattery from Field notes 2015 while speaking of another plant, referring to alteratives, “It’s a steering guiding force to show you(the body systems) which way to go even if you don’t know where to go.” 

Donna Chesner reiterated this concept in a different context, “Trust your body, trust the plant medicine.”

.     There is common ground in all these definitions of alterative. As we reown the cultural narrative it’s imperative we come to grips with the underlying understanding that informs western herbalism in relation to disease and illness from the mid 19^thcentury ecletics through to the present. I would say the basic concept to understand can be reduced to substance vs process. The state of health within the body is a dynamic fluid process of intelligent homeostasis inherent in the person as a continuum between life and death, health and sickness. Herbs are interjection points along that continuum process that potentiate movement, change. The key to understanding and using alteratives is not that there are alterative herbs per se as substance, but that when using herbs skillfully they facilitate alterative restorative processes in the body.  

     The alterative nature of Aralia nudicaulis as a cornerstone alterative is going to be slightly different for each person using it depending on the present moment constitutional needs of the person. Yet it is fair to generalize the actions of aralia for a kind of alterative cultural framework.
        

     The nature and presentation of aralia nudicaulis as a wild plant within the ecosystem environment gives a lot of clues as to how it works. It’s roots are fundamentally different that Araila racemosa, spikenard. Spikenard has what I would call stationary static monolithic roots that are large and bulbous. The roots of spikenard don’t walk. If you dig up a single spikenard root it can weigh 4 or more pounds. Aralia n. has what herbalist's call, in technical terms, walking roots. Aralia's walking roots move throughout the unique shady red cedar stream side, gathering and sharing information similar to mercury or hermes in astrology, a communicator and facilitator , like a gate-keeper among all the plant persons in the community. This mercurian quality as a green noise in the body communicates with various body organs and systems to develop a consensus of homeostasis with different competing body systems.  Aralia nudicaulis roots remind me of aspen, on a much smaller scale where the upright tree aspen Populus tremuloides sprouts into a tree based on a interconnected clonal root system, each tree expression although looking like an individual is genetically identical. While living in southern Utah, on the Arizona strip we would go up to Navajo lake to fish for trout. The forest there presents on a black jagged lava bed stretching for 30-40 miles. Sitting in the aspen groves with their disappearing creeks and lava tubes, and visiting the lower edge ponderosa pine remnant islands with sweet yellow roses, always felt like you were visiting a place from times long gone. It also felt like the pine forests and aspen stands were hanging on thread due the deepening, long term, generational, ongoing drought. In this environment on the Fishlake forest, in the ancient lava fields is the Pando clone, it is a clonal colony of an individual male quaking aspen, a single organism stretching over a hundred acres weighing 14 million pounds, aged at over 80,000 years old. After visiting many aspen groves you can trace the clonal body boundary especially in the spring or fall, by the timing of when the leaves emerge in spring and the subtle color differences in the fall. 

      The same holds true for Aralia nudicaulis stands, both in how the spring leaves emerge, their coloring and pattern of compound leaves and how different stands appear in the fall, how they change color, whether it’s a maple leaf red or a yellow red brown. The roots of Aralia are like pathways in the lymph or circulatory system, the thin long pencil thin, flexible roots can be 10 or 15 feet long and are illustrative of a collaborative consensus approach between bodily systems. 

    The Aralia tribe of plants is in the ginseng family and contain ginsenosides, panaxosides, and similar compounds. They facilitate the functioning of the emotional centers of the person as the limbic system that decides how one feels. Often feeling is approached solely as a perception of outside conditions when it is also the conditioned repetitive habitual response to minute moment to moment states in the body.  Feeling can often thus get bogged down into the patterned, locked reaction to stressors rather perceiving the actual stressor. Avoidance becomes an internal self defense policy. Both perceived social micro-aggressions and dumps by significant others in a relationship, and stress from low level bacterial, or microbial infections can place one in an overcompensating mode of sympathetic dominant stress mode that when prolonged can drain the adrenal system resulting in cortisol and stress induced hormonal imbalance for both male and females. Often this sludging of feeling transforms into bodily states that manifest as chronic conditions with a distinctive feeling tone. 
      

      The hypothalamus of the limbic system controls the pituitary access which like muscle memory in the muscular skeletal system can creep into habitual patterns of response, so that adequate rest and restoration is not achieved. Similar to another plant growing nearby in the same family, Oplopanax combined with Aralia can further deepen the alterative restorative action creating a reserve in the adrenals that are frequently depleted in extended states of sympathetic dominance brought on by unresolved low volume background noise and chronic low level fear. 
     I consider one of the building blocks of stress to be fear, uncertainty of where one is in space, exacerbated by the technology of modern life which effectively removes consciousness from the body. The idea of spending a universal dollar bill any where the space machine auto-car may travel is an interesting concept, based on conquered spaceless terrain which can produce a low level micro-aggression of anxiety. Human beings need to be in place informed by the watersheds, mountains and specificness of a particular fundamentally limited, defined place to experience the relaxation response. The human body is defined by the in and out breath of relaxation and excitement, loosening and tightening. Stress is the fixed tightening guarded habitual response of being on guard against the fundamentally unfamiliar that defines the terrarium living environment of modern living. Alterative Aralia is a starting point of departure with its tendril invisible roots transversing the terrain, as such a gathering herbal plant medicine energy transferable to the body as intrinsic information of balance and harmony to the adrenals, the lungs, the blood sugar metabolic system of the pancreas as an alterative tonic.

     The aralias make a good point of departure for developing an alterative formula that in time can become your own and one you can share with others in their journey towards dynamic balance. and as always..people...

     

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