Faith, Folklore, and Friends

We have taken some odd things on trips.      Sometimes, we don't take enough; sometimes, we take way too much.   We have taken food and water, apparently thinking that wherever we were going didn't have such things.   We used to take a bag full of books; now we take a loaded Kindle and a bag of books in case we forget to charge the Kindle's battery.   Hub does most of the driving, so I usually take something to do with my hands, like knitting or sewing. I hand-quilted a full-sized quilt once on a trip to Sisters, Oregon, to a quilt show.  We have taken loaded weapons through states where it may or may not have been legal.  We have taken framed photos of our granddaughters to decorate our hotel room.  We have taken our own pillows, then left them in hotels in North Carolina and Oklahoma. We have bought plants when we were far away, then struggled to get them home alive.  Yep, we have packed some crazy and totally unnecessar...

Anything posted here is for education and entertainment. I am not a doctor, just someone who loves folklore and learning about how people coped before modern medicine. You are entirely on your own if you want to experiment. Those of you who have studied folk medicine will have heard about the Doctrine of Signatures. It is a philosophy that says the shape and colors of some plants look like the body parts that their medicinal properties could treat or cure. For example, liverwort has liver-shaped leaves and is used for liver ailments. Bloodroot, a beautiful green plant with white blossoms, has red roots that look like blood. Native Americans used the roots for blood related maladies, but internal use is discouraged now; it appears to be highly toxic. Lungwort is so named because its spotted, oval leaves resemble diseased or ulcerated lungs. The list goes on and on. One of the oldest known herbalists, Galen of Pergamun, used this philosophy during the 2nd and 3rd century. ...