I'm now blogging about my art (usually jewelry) at The Creative Commons, a blog created by a friend of mine as a place for people to post about their creative works and to hopefully get some inspiration and motivation. Check it out. My friends are fantastically talented artists, and I think the site it pretty awesome.

Raspberry Leaf Tea

I'm not a fan of pills. I think that they have their place, but people have a tendency to over-rely on them without thinking about the consequences of over use are. It's well-known that acetaminophen, for example, is absolutely brutal on the liver. For quite a while, I've been only using medicine when I absolutely needed it (e.g. pain that was so bad I could barely function). Last week in class, my professor had us do an energy exercise using western medicines, and it was staggering. We held a pill (any allopathic pill) in our hands, and felt its energy. I tried it with Tylenol, and it was staggering. Its energy was heavy, damp, and gross. I felt sluggish, and after about a minute of focusing on it, I started to feel sick to my stomach. My classmates had equally unpleasant experiences with the various pills they were working with. The other students who were doing the exercise with analgesics (aspirin, advil, and tylenol), felt the same things I did. We then did the same exercise using a medicinal herb, and it couldn't have been more different. The energy of the herb, astragalus, was clean, warming, and cleansing

Needless to say, after that, I haven't been too excited about taking medicine at all, and I'm on the lookout for alternative cures. My new favorite is raspberry leaf tea. It takes care of menstrual cramps like nothing I've ever tried before. It's not the most delicious tea ever - it tastes a little like artichoke, but its healing properties more than make up for the unexciting flavor.

In Which I Gush About My Education

I got my class schedule for summer quarter, and I'm insanely excited! The course load over the summer is very light, so I'm taking a couple of electives. One is Whole Foods Cooking, which is exactly what it sounds like - cooking with whole foods. The other elective I'm taking is a week long trip to a farm in eastern Washington. This is the course description:

This course is a one-week, on-site course at the Quillisascut Farm near Colville, WA. Students will experience the farm-to-table connection first hand. During the weeklong retreat, participants will milk goats, make cheese, help care for farm animals, transplant vegetables, and harvest produce from the gardens. Visits to neighboring organic farms and presentations about honeybees, grass-finished meats, composting, organic labeling standards, genetically modified foods and globalization round out the experience as students gain an understanding of the implications of buying local and with the seasons. Each day, students will work with a chef to prepare lunch and dinner using only ingredients from the garden and products from local farms. Dinner is a culmination of the day's work - a time to feast on the bounty of the farm, reflect on the discussions of the day, and build community around the table. Retreat participants will stay in the new farm school, with bunkhouse-style lodging, shared bathrooms and a professional kitchen.

I was worried that I wouldn't get to take the class because there is a cap of 13 people, but fortunately, I got in. It will be like summer camp for grownups!

My school isn't easy, and it isn't cheap, but because it's a school with many different degree programs (nautropathic medicine, nutrition, health psychology, herbalism, etc.), it's the only school in the world where I can get a degree in acupuncture, and where I can also take advantage of educational opportunities like this. Yes, I'll be in a world of debt in 3 years, but it will be worth it.

How to Fight a Cold Naturally

For a week and a half now, I've been dealing with a URI (upper respiratory infection, or in lay terms, a cold). The particular virus I have is a lingering one, and the cough could potentially last for weeks. Oy. So I've been doing my very best to deal with my symptoms. The more I learn about health and pathology, the more I realize that unless they become life threatining, the awful symptoms are the best way for our bodies to fight diseases. As unpleasant and irritating as they are, phlegm and mucous have their place, as do fevers. So what's a girl to do when she feels disgusting and wants relief but still wants to let her body do what it needs to do?

I don't have a great answer, but I have managed to get through this cold with minimal OTC medications. For the first time in my life, I managed without decongestant or analgesics. I found that using a neti pot twice a day with a solution of salt water kept my nasal passages unblocked, and sinus pressure to a minimum, which is nothing short of a miracle - especially since I'm prone to sinus infections. Unfortunately, my cough wasn't as easy to take care of. It had been waking me up every night, so I tried both an over the counter cough medicine (a drastic measure, as far as I'm concerned), which has worked very well for me in the past, and an herbal cough remedy perscribed to me by a naturopath. Neither of them seemed to have any effect, and I still wasn't sleeping through the night. The one thing I found that helped the most was a steam inhalation with a blend of eucaliptis, peppermint, and juniper essential oils (which also happens to be wonderful for the skin), and I'll be using that remedy any time I get sick in the future - it helps with the sinuses as well as the lungs. In addition, I took an herbal formula meant to boost the immune system, which may or may not have helped, but I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt. I'm still not feeling perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the results of my natural remedies.