Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner
This guy is so interesting!
(He's also a psychotherapist, evidently.)
I wish he lived close by so he could teach me how to harvest my stash of medicinal plants I have on our land. That would be so much fun and what a learning experience it would be! (Remember my Walk In The Field series summer of 2009.)
Buhner's book, The Fasting Path, has been on my to-read list for quite some time.
I hadn't realized that he had written so many books or that he had so much info at his website.
Anyway, he has some good articles and some links to podcast interviews.
A few of note:
The Health Benefits of Water Fasting
and
Depth Diagnosis in the Practice of Sacred Plant Medicine
I was especially impressed with this article because he described so well something that is hard to put into words. It moved me.
LATER NOTE: I applied the article to myself—digging around in my own stuff. I think this would be incredibly draining on self to practice this on others unless you had very good boundaries and/or knew how to take care of yourself in it. END NOTE
"...you must be able to come, eventually, to love whatever you have focused your attention upon. All of nature responds to this primary act of caring, diseased organ systems or ill people not the least. So, loving is critically important but it is often difficult because disease can be so tremendously frightening...
...nothing will give up its secrets without being loved..."
(In reference to a George Washington Carver quote perhaps?)
The only recorded interview I listened to so far was
Herbs and Foods that Heal
at
herbmentor.com
Stephen Buhner Interview
publication date: Feb 16, 2008
Here's my notes containing Stephen's ginger drink recipe he gave in the recording:
(The numbers indicate approximate recording location if you want to find it yourself.)
15:40
fresh ginger root
juice it (because like everyone from the sixties I have a champion juicer ha ha)
juice 2-3 pieces about the size of my thumb
(1/2 to 1 oz ginger juice at 17:55)
then add hot water (10 oz 17:55), squeeze of lime, and honey, cayenne (1/16 tsp 17:55)
for cold/flu
more effective than other tincture combinations
moved me more into kind of a kitchen herbalism dynamic
16:40
especially for people who have gone thru middle age
ginger and cayenne stimulate blood circulation
something about ginger as a antiviral, antibacterial, immune stimulant
it does all those things incredibly well
become my primary herb for considerable number of things
24:15
disease to me is not a bad thing
we're all biodegrading and we're meant to biodegrade
his great grandfather understood that he wasn't here to cure disease, he was here to alleviate suffering.
everyone is going to die sooner or later, his job was to help them, not to defeat death
my family is filled with physicians and other than my great grandfather not a one of them knows anything about facilitating the movement into death. Weren't trained in it.
I downloaded everything I could get for recordings.
I know one recording had the wrong link info and would not load.
The website link is:
here (scroll down)
and the Buhner interview is dated 12/17/06.
Here's the direct link to a downloadable copy (Real Player format)
rm format file
(Their directory is open. Don't know if that is intended or not.)
And last link:
Buhner Books List
NOTE: Pic of Buhner from innertraditions.com
LATER NOTE:
Buhner is on sabbatical till fall 2010.
He is working on a new book due out late summer 2010.
(It's on the topic of writing and can download a sample pdf at the link.)
No comments:
Post a Comment