Herbalists in Wonderland

Thursday, January 19, 2012

I apologize if I’m going a little overboard on this herb kick, but every week the power of these plants continue to amaze. After spending an entire week battling a cold with a thyme tincture three times a day, nettle/echinacea/ginger tea twice a day, and eucalyptus aroma therapy everytime I took a shower, I’m now feeling great. I won’t say that herbs cured me, but I will say that they eased the effects of the cold and allowed my body to naturally fight off the germs. And after a week of strict regiments of herbal therapy, I treated myself to a healthy herbal indulgence. No, not that conventional indulgence you may be thinking of. It was this indulgence you can see in the picture below.

What’s brewing in the tea kettle is kava infusion. Not the kind of kava that you buy in a Yogi Tea box. This kava is the actual root, chopped up and properly prepared with a warm water steep to fully get the effects. Kava is a very sacred and ceremonial drink popular among Polynesian and Micronesian peoples. The tea has a calming quality, almost like alcohol, but without the complete loss of those ever important motor skills that help with your coordination and good decision making. The scene that you see was set up by our local herb club which we call The Collecting Collective. Sorry about how dark the picture is, but that was the mood of the night. With the hanging tapestries and red lighting the scene was reminiscent of an arabic lounge. After taking my tea upstairs, the scene took on more of a Hong Kong opium den. Spread out over the entire floor were people sprawled out on pillows, sedately sipping their kava tea and puffing on spliffs rolled with an assortment of herbs (sorry marijuana was not present). My favorite was the calendula, mugwort, mullein blend. Not only did the mugwort give me some intensely vivid dreams, but the mullein actually soother my throat. It may seem counter intuitive to smoke something when you have a sore throat, but the native americans have been doing this for generations to cure bronchial problems.

Aside from the very relaxed scene and the euphoric effects of the tea, I think my favorite part was breaking away from the confines of alcohol and tobacco that people predominantly imbibe to unwind. As it goes with many things, you run into nothing but trouble when you take too much of one thing. By exploring herbs and integrating them into different aspects of my life, whether medicinal or recreational, it makes me feel good to know that there are hundreds of options out there to heal and to imbibe. So do some research and give it a try. And next time you need to calm down with a smoke, try an herbal cigarette, and next time you need a drink, find something a little more creative than alcohol.