Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living (34 page)

The following year we went to Yaremcha, a small town in the Carpathian Mountains. On a sunny winter day we took our skis into a forest that shone with radiant downy snow and smelled deliciously of powerful pines and beeches. Fresh air flowed into our lungs and filled us with joy. The forest was quiet. The snow looked like beautiful lace tatting of diamond stars and sunbeams. The trees were dressed in the snow’s bright, white diaphanous coat, and the silver-green pines had faded into the milky atmosphere.

“Are we in a fairy tale kingdom, Mama?” my son asked me.

“Yes, we are,” I whispered. “Do you remember when I read you a poem written by Alexander Pushkin about the forest in winter and your favorite pines?”

“Yes, I remember,” Yuri said with great inspiration. “I’ll begin, but you continue, because I am not sure I know all of it.” He turned towards the pines and began:

Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 237

There is a forest in front of us.

I remember the pines

And their divine beauty.

All of their branches are hidden

By the sheds of snow to the tops

Of the asps, birches and naked lindens.

It shines a ray of the night luminaries.

There is no road; the shrubs, the rapids,

All snow-bound by a snow storm,

Deeply in the snow tucked in.

We spent three hours in the forest on the mountain. Afterwards we rushed off to the Russian steaming
banya
(sauna).
The banya
was built of logs that absorbed the fragrances of various aromatic and resinous matters and phytoncides. We could chose from among besoms of oak, linden, birch, eucalyptus, silver fir, nettle, and pine. The besoms clean the air in the banya and act as an antibacterial agent, helping our skin and lungs stay healthy. The fresh fragrance of a forest permeated this woody steaming chamber when we used silver fir besom, rich in resins, essential oil, phytoncides, and vitamin C. The aroma of pine or silver fir needles in a besom for the sauna contain bactericidal phytoncides. It is considered to be an excellent remedy for treating lethargy, catarrh, bronchitis, laryngitis, and pharyngytis. After steaming with pine besoms, our skin had a sweet, fresh smell and a healthy glow for a long time. Essential oils act as a bactericidal on the skin. If you take a smear from any external part of your body for microscopic examination after steaming with these besoms, you will not find even one microbe on your skin. We felt refreshed and had tons of energy. The explanation is simple: This method of cleaning opened the pores of our skin, and toxins were expelled. Toxins are hidden enemies and poison the blood. When we remove them on a regular basis, we can keep ourselves well. After you steam in a sauna, it is beneficial to drink one of the following four vitamin teas:

r 2. Mix one tablespoon each of rose hips berries and black currants. 238 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

r3. Mix one tablespoon cranberries and three tablespoons each of rose hips and nettle leaves.

r 4. Mix one tablespoon each of plantain leaves and mountain ash berries.

r 5. Mix one tablespoon wild marjoram (Mountain Mint), three tablespoons rose hips berries, and two tablespoons nettle leaves. Put two tablespoons of the mixture in a glass jar. Add 16 ounces of boiling water and let steep for one hour. Strain and drink ½

glass three to four times a day after a sauna.

We took two branches of a one-year-old pine back to our hotel room. One branch we put in a vase with water to refresh the air. The second, we used to make a special vitamin drink.

r 6. Preparation of this drink is simple and quick, but only the needles of a one-year-old pine should be used. Wash two ounces of pine needles and grind them in a porcelain mortar. Then add two to three glasses of boiling water and let steep in a cool, dark place for two hours. Add honey and lemon, according to taste. Strain and drink immediately. If the drink is stored, it wil lose vitamins.

One glass of pine drink contains the same amount of vitamin C as a glass of tomato juice. It outranks lemon juice, promoted by sailors and travelers from around the world, in that pine drink has five times more vitamin C than lemon juice.

The branches of the trees in the forest played a nice melody as they swished under the light wind of a frosty winter night. My little son was in bed and I told him a story about my pine.

I was 10 years old, and for the first time in my life, I had climbed up to the top of the pine growing near our house. I imagined that I was atop the mast of a flagship. The wind was shaking the tree. My pine vessel was rocking in unison with all other trees around. The rustle of the leaves resembled the Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 239

sound of broiling ocean waves before a storm. From atop the tree I saw how the forest opened its boundless space to many other green trees. The spacious green distance, gold light and shadow, and a caressing play of the brightest greens and sunbeams mixed with the solemn tranquility of Nature. I knocked three times on the trunk of the pine. “Do you hear me, my friend? Please take away forever any il nesses and misfortunes from my family!”

My grandma believed that if you knock on a tree, no one can bewitch you with the “evil eye.” She was sure that if you pass a tree and touch a branch of it, any harmful aspects of your life are sifted through the tree’s chlorophyll and the tree then gives off a fresh flow of energy that transforms any negative energy affecting your life into positive energy.

One day when I was a child, our next-door neighbor came to our house to consult with Mama. While she was waiting, she spoke with me about my crafts. Suddenly Grandma came into the house and right away took this woman from me, asking how she could help her. When our neighbor left, Grandma said, “Go outside and knock on the tree!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“This lady has ‘bad eyes,’” Grandma answered. “Do you understand me?”

I went outside to our pine and knocked on it three times. My grandma trusted in the power of thought. She believed that if you feel that you can do something to prevent harmful things in your life from happening; you just might be able to do it.

Grandma felt closely tied to the trees, and the same day she explained to me what she meant when she said the woman had “bad” eyes. She felt that some people are born with the ability to bewitch others by looking at them and thereby passing on to them negative, destructive energy, which at some time could adversely affect their life. She believed passionately that trees can save us from it and she could tell many stories to prove her theory. I began to observe people’s eyes in a different way. I look at the expression in their eyes. Are they cool or warm, kind or wild, caressing or loving, romantic, thoughtful, smart, or foggy? Are these eyes strong, powerful, or quickly running from one subject to another, like checking everybody and everything?

Are they slow moving and pensive?

“People’s eyes are the mirror of their soul,” Grandma liked to say. She was absolutely right. I have noticed that when people are happy, their eyes shine. 240 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

If they are unhappy, their eyes have no light within. I

adopted Grandma’s practice of knocking on a tree to

drive away the evil eye. And again and again I have

noticed that trees seem to come to the rescue. When

I asked Grandma when she started to believe that

trees could rid us of troubles, she told me that she

had read about this centuries-old tradition in old

books, inherited from
her
grandma. She trusted this simple human wisdom and experienced the healing

energy from trees that she touched in her own life.

She became confident that it worked for her.

Grandma told me that in ancient times soldiers would search for a tree to touch to draw from its energy source for faster recovery from battle

wounds. The Druids, the wise priests of the forests

in Great Britain, were some of the first to believe this. Pine and oak were considered the most effective

in “green therapy.” Ancient soldiers tried to “drink” a

tree’s energy before they took part in fighting on the battlefields of bloody wars. Trees helped them because they are sacred creatures—Nature’s messengers.

I was so inspired by the soldiers’ story that I painted a picture in watercolors of how I believed that scene might have looked. I never was a great artist, but Grandma loved it and hung in our house. She was proud that teaching me about the world of Nature often brought positive results. I tried to show her how grateful I was.

Grandma often talked to her plants. She told me she always knew what kind of mood they were in. I watched her sometimes. She would speak to her plants as if they were human.

“Why do you speak with flowers, Grandma?” I asked her one day. I was careful not to be unkind to her. I didn’t want to say, “Hey, Grandma, that looks and sounds crazy!”

Grandma answered, “It is difficult to explain, but I tamed (domesticated) them and they always remind me to be cheerful.”

Then Grandma broke into a story, which she called “Three Daughters, Three Trees.”

Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 241

A “fisherman lived with his wife on the seashore, nine miles from the small town of Alushta in Crimea,” Grandma began. “They were kind, honest, and hard-working people and always ready to give

shelter to occasional travelers and share their last piece of bread with people less fortunate.

“It is said that the locals highly respected the fisherman and his wife. But the people’s good opinions were countered by the bad opinions of the couple harbored by their own children, their three daughters.

“The oldest daughter, Poplar, was unattractive, short and clumsy, and hostile in nature. To disparage her parents, she would listen in on their private conversations and repeat what they had said to everyone in the seaside village.

“The second daughter, Pomegranate, was obsessed with the color pink. She criticized her parents because she was not beautiful with rosy cheeks. She imagined that if she became a rose, passersby would stop and look at her with admiration.

“The youngest daughter, Cypress, was beautiful and possessed a merry personality. But under the influence of her older sisters she also thought negatively about her father and mother. She was unhappy that her parents gave birth to her at night instead of day, which explained why she was so quick and easily amused.

“It was hard for the parents to be ridiculed by their children, but what could be done? Their love was blind and helpless. They tolerated their children’s taunts and rude behavior. To avoid attention, they often traveled to the mountains and lived there for days at a time.

“One day while the parents were at home, all three daughters, angered by an event outside, broke into the cabin and attacked their mother and father.

“‘Oh, skies!’ the parents prayed. ‘Is there any power that can defend us from our children?’

“Before they could finish their prayers, a voice sounded, ‘Poplar!

You forsake your parents because you are a dwarf, so become a towering 242 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

tree with no fruits or flowers. Not one bird, except the crow, will nest in you.’

“‘Pomegranate! Your wish will also come true. You’ll become a tree with pink flowers, and everyone will stop and look at them in admiration, but no one will lean over to smell these beautiful flowers because they won’t have a scent. Your fruits, bright red in the middle, will not satiate anyone’s hunger or quench anyone’s thirst because they will not ripen.’

“‘Cypress! The fate of your sisters will also be yours. You complained about your merry personality. You will become a beautiful but sad tree.’

“Startled, the girls fled from the cabin. Their parents ran after them, but their children were nowhere to be seen. Three mysterious trees stood in the yard. One raised its branches high as if it wanted to become taller. The second was covered with pink flowers. The third was frozen in sad silence.

“The trees were then named after the three daughters, Poplar, Pomegranate, and Cypress.”

“You see,” said Grandma, “three daughters of a fisherman, Poplar, Pomegranate, and Cypress, demanded too much from their parents and treated them badly until they got what they wished for. Trees are like people.”

Grandma shared with me an interesting old book on natural healing that described a rowan tree. This tree has plenty of unusual features. The rowan tree is said to bring luck and happiness to a house. I have seen how young rowans were planted near houses in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in Karelia (northwestern Russia). In Russia there are 34 kinds of fruit and decorative trees. Rowan or Mountain Cranberry tree contains sugar, organic acids, vitamins A and C, and tanning matters.

People planted these trees near their windows and believed that no wicked person would dare pass the threshold of their house. People believed and created a lovely ritual of placing a branch of rowan tree in the shoes of a future Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 243

bride and groom before their marriage ceremony to wish them happiness from the bottom of the heart and to prevent any misfortune in their future life “for better or worse.”

The national emblems of some countries feature images of flowers or leaves. Such countries as France, Canada, Haiti, Cyprus, and Lebanon use the lily, a maple leaf, palm, or olive branch.

I have seen photographs of famous yoga instructors sitting under a sacred tree. Yoga schools identify human beings with trees and the human body with a temple.40 A trunk of a tree is a brain; the branches are 72,000 nerves; seven flowers on a tree are seven centers of the astral body; the leaves are lungs. This is not only an analogy or a supposition, but scientists in Russia have discovered that trees vibrate and have negative or positive moods and operate with a nervous system much like that of a human.