Fun Facts Friday: Wintergreen
Fun Facts Friday: Wintergreen
Many of us have grown up taught to avoid the plants, mushrooms and berries we see in the forest. We are told they are poisonous and we should never touch them. However, while there is the odd plant or fungi that can cause health problems, most are actually not just safe, but actually medicinal in nature and can offer us many health benefits.
Did you know that the wintergreen plant offers many of these health benefits? In fact, bot the berries and the leaves are edible. Wintergreen was chewed by Native Americans to increase lung capacity. The early settlers chewed it to prevent tooth decay. The leaves can be used to make tea, which actually has pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties, as the plant contains compounds from the Aspirin family of salicylate. Various forms of the plant can be used both internally and topically to naturally aid fevers, muscle aches, inflammation, joint pain and more!
We have lost much of our harmony with Nature and today see her gifts more as a threat, then a help. May we open our hearts and minds to reconnect to all that she offers us, and make the most of the natural gifts, rather than getting lost in our synthetic world.
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One Comment to “Fun Facts Friday: Wintergreen”
We have about 5 or 6 plants around here in the wintergreen family…..especially the pyrola’s and something called princes pine. They are evergreens and I often will pick a leaf to distill its essence within me.
On my southwest trip, sacred datura kept on coming onto my radar screen. A guy even chatted with me and began telling me that he takes it regularly. But he was a pretty trippy dude and lived somewhere other than the norm. Claimed to visit inter-dimensional aliens a lot.
I read in a book down there that in a pinch, someone could eat a small leaf portion if they were having an asthma attack where the chemicals in the plant will open up the constricting capillaries so more oxygen can flow again. But just about any other book will say that it is poisonous. So I decided to move past my slight apprehensions and take a nibble upon the plant…..just a tiny piece of the leaf to see where it took me. Its supposed to be a purgative too, but that didn’t happen. A few waves of energy hit me down the line from its ingestion which shifted my footing and stance making me want to momentarily lose my feet. So to me this is good because it brought me to a higher orbit where I got my new footing which is then also in relationship to moving past my fears or concerns of the plant, thereby reclaiming some of my lost energy…. bringing me to a lighter place of knowing and acceptance. But it was also my intention for the plant to bring me to a place of learning and reintegration. If I had focused on a poisonous outcome, guess what I would have received.
We can indeed make friends and come to peace with all the members of our greater environments.