Tag: Tea

The Herban Corner – For Your Health

The Herban Corner – For Your Health

 
Insomnia – Chamomile is a very soothing tea to put you to sleep if you’re having trouble in that area. And a magickal remedy is to take garden violet, put it in a silver bag under your pillow, and then lay back and wait for the desired effect: sleep. Dill and dandelion also work on insomnia. Orange and passion flower are other plants that take away the sleeplessness you experience. Primrose and rosemary also may be used in a tea to take away your insomnia but I prefer that you put shavings from a white birch into a white muslin bag and wear it around your neck, or place it under your pilow. You should doze off almost immediately. Wild morjoram and sweet marjoram may be made into teas, too, and you may wish to make a poultice of lettuce and hops and mother of thyme to cover your eyes. Sleep should be induced soon after applying it.
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Relieving Facial Tension – Every night before you go to sleep, sit in your bed and start making faces — just as small children enjoy doing, make all kinds of faces, good, bad, ugly, beautiful, so the whole face and the musculature start moving. Make sounds — nonsense sounds will do — and sway, just for ten to fifteen minutes and then go to sleep.
 
In the morning, before you take your bath, again stand before the mirror and for ten minutes make faces. Standing before the mirror will help: you will be able to see and you will be able to respond
 
Excerpted From Elizabeth Pepper, The Witches’ Almanac, Ltd.

Herb of the Day for June 9th is Mints

Herb of the Day

Mints

Mints especially spearmint, are drunk as a tea to comfort the nerves. Mint boiled in milk is a remedy for lactose intolerance. Leaves are bruised and applied with salt to dog bites. As a culinary herb, it is boiled with fish or dried and added with pennyroyal to puddings and green peas.,

Herb of the Day for April 24 is Red Root

Herb of the Day

 

Red Root

Botanical: Ceanothus Americanus (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Rhamnaceae

—Synonyms—New Jersey Tea. Wild Snowball.
—Parts Used—Root or bark of the root.
—Habitat—North America.

—History—This is a half-hardy shrub growing to 4 or 5 feet high. It has downy leaves and stems and small ornamental white flowers in great numbers, coming into bloom June or July, followed by bluntly triangular seedvessels. It is usually called ‘New Jersey Tea’ in America because its leaves were used as a substitute for tea during the War of Independence. In Canada it is used to dye wool a cinnamon colour. It takes its name from its large red roots. Its wood is tough, pale brown red, with fine rays – taste bitter and astringent with no odour. Fracture hard, tough, splintering. Its bark is brittle, dark-coloured and thin.

—Constituents—The leaves are said to contain tannin, a soft resin and bitter extract, a green colouring matter similar to green tea in colour and taste, gum a volatile substance, lignin, and a principle called Ceanothine.

—Medicinal Action and Uses—Astringent, antispasmodic, anti-syphilitic expectorant and sedative, used in asthma, chronic bronchitis, whooping-cough, consumption, and dysentery; also as a mouth-wash and gargle, and as an injection in gonorrhoea, gleet and leucorrhoea.

—Dosages—Of the decoction, 1/2 OZ. Fluid extract, 1 to 30 drops.

—Other Species—Mexican Ceanothus azurea (Desf.), a powerful febrifuge.

Mild Energy Tonic for Fatigue

This is an excellent tonic for travelers or those recuperating from chronic illness or surgery.

1   tablespoon Siberian ginseng root

1   tablespoon ho shou wu (foti)

1   codonopsis dang shen root

2   slices (or 2 tablespoons ground root) astragalus yellow vetch

1   tablespoon suma root (optional)

Simmer all in 2 cups of water, covered, for 1 1/2 hours, or tincture in brandy to cover for 1 month. Drink 1/2 cup of tea daily or dilute a teaspoon of tincture in boiled water. It is safe for elderly folks and children in half doses. For elderly folks, drink 1/4 cup of tea twice daily. Children over 10 years old may drink 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of diluted tea daily for 1 to 2 weeks of the month. If suma and Siberian ginseng are not available as roots, use a tablespoon of dried herbs or buy a tincture (an alcoholic tincture of these roots is often available in health food stores) and add a few drops to your tea.

Today’s Goddess: Kwan Yin

 

By Patricia Telesco ~ From “365 Goddess” and GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast

Today’s Goddess:  Kwan Yin

Festival of the Goddess of Mercy (China/Japan)
  
Themes:  Children; Kindness; Magic; Health; Fertility
Symbols:  Lotus; Black Tea; Rice; Rainbow
  
About Kwan Yin:  Kwan Yin is the most beloved of all Eastern goddess figures, giving freely of her unending sympathy, fertility, health, and magical insight to all who ask.  It is her sacred duty to relieve suffering and encourage enlightenment among humans.  In Eastern mythology, a rainbow bore Kwan Yin to heaven in human form.  Her name means “regarder of sounds,”  meaning she hears the cries and prayers of the world.
 
To Do Today:  If you hope to have children or wish to invoke Kwan Yin’s blessing and protection on the young ones in your life, you can follow Eastern custom and leave an offering for Kwan Yin of sweet cakes, lotus incense, fresh fruit, and/or flowers.  If you can’t find lotus incense, look for lotus-shaped soaps at novelty or import shops.
 
For literal or figurative fertility, try making this Kwan Yin talisman:  During a waxing-to-full moon, take a pinch of Black Tea and a pinch of rice and put them in a yellow cloth, saying,
 
As a little tea makes a full cup, so may my life be full.
As the rice expands in warm water, so may my heart expand with love and warmth.
The fertility of Kwan Yin, wrapped neatly within.
 
Tie this up and keep it in a spot that corresponds to the type of fertility you want (such as the bedroom for physical fertility).

 

Herb of the Day for 3/29 is Rosemary

Herb of the Day

Rosemary

The remedy for quickening the senses and increasing memory. The leaves and branches were burned in house to clean the air. Rosemary tea was a remedy for gallstones and jaundice and was often cooked with meats to make them more digestible. Rosemary leaves were used in preserving meats as an antioxidant preservative. The flower water was sprinkled on the head “to cool the brain” and relieve headaches.