Healing with Common Herbs (3)

Red Shiso

We have now understood that

a herb garden is actually a "medicine box".

Here, we discuss how should we "design"

this "medicine box"

ie. what herbs are essentials in our garden?

As most herbs that we grow in the garden

have relatively short life span,

the functions of these herbs 

are mostly likely inclined towards detoxification.

It's not a bad idea to design

a medicine box which 

mainly do detoxification.

This is because in traditional healing,

detoxification often is a pre-requisite for most prescriptions.   

In holistic healing,

there are two important systems that need to be detoxified:

Intestine and Liver  

To address the above requirements,

there are 3 families of herbs

that we should grow in our gardens:

(A) Mint family

E.g. Peppermint, Shiso, Rosemary, Thai Basil, Tulasi, Cat Whiskers (leaf, stem & flower)

This family of herbs help to cleanse the Large Intestines, and help purgation.

Due to some established TCM concepts, 

Large Intestine and Lung systems are directly associated,

mint family will naturally detoxes the lung system too

(B) Hibiscus family

E.g. Red hibiscus (flower), White hibiscus (flower&leaf), Lady Finger(fruit), Roselle(fruit), 

This family of herbs are known to be slightly laxative,

therefore, they help in small and large intestinal health.

Very often a choked up digestive system, 

bring about fever, dirty blood and bad skins,

Hisbiscus family is hence good in bringing down fever, 

and improving skin quality.

(C) Chrysanthemum family

E.g. Chrysanthemum (flower), chamomile (flower), ulam raja/cosmos (flower and leaf), mugwort (leaf), TongHao (leaf),

This family of herbs are good at detoxifiying the liver,

and therefore can mitigate high blood pressure, sore throat, 

infections, inflammation and eye problems.

The above 3 families of detoxing herbs usually can be grown with ease.

When our gardening skills mature, 

we could also try growing  

(D) Ginger family

E.g. Ginger (root), Galangal (root), Turmeric(root), 

to perfect the "collection".

This family of herbs will take 9-11months to grow,

and require soil which is rich and fertile.

-- 3 characters are hinted, root, age and minerals.

Hence we know these herbs are good for building life force!

Whenever we feel any form of disorder just start sets in,

ginger or tumeric roots are always a good remedy!

Ginger family goes very well any of the above detoxing family

to balance the Yin and Yang, or 

to mitigate any overpowering detoxifying effects.

The numbers of herbs we "should" grow in our garden

is basically endless.

But with the blessings of only 4 types of herbs above,

a lot of common sicknesses could be quickly attended to.0

Next, we will study a little deeper, 

how a lot of modern ailments can be creatively remediated

using the 4 family of herbs from our garden. Stay tuned :)

 

Best wishes,

Kee Yew

#healingherbs

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}