Herbal classes

So I have taken my first three weeks of botany class and learned about Kingdom, class, monocots and dicots, and how to begin to identify plants by the flowers- regular or irregular- looking at petal number, color, shape of the leaf, and how the veins run. I've made nettle infusions to drink every day. I've washed my hair with nettle infusion. I've dunked my nails in horsetail infusion every other day and warm olive oil between. I've bought kilograms of Nettle, Dandelion, Oatstraw, and Echinacea. I've collected dandelion leaves and made my first medicinal vinegar which, as Susun Weed says, has to be topped off the first few days because the fairies come along and try it. I've made egg shell vinegar for the calcium and watched the vinegar foam. I've had the beginnings of impatience and the beginnings of understanding. I have been reading my books and studying my first three herbs- Horsetail, Nettle, and Dandelion. Check out this website to see amazing paintings from 1885 of plants of Germany and Switzerland by Otto Wilhelm Thomee. The Nettle below is from his collection. I have learned some and forgotten some. I have had amazing soul dreams and have heard my body tell me exactly what it wants to eat or drink- for example, buckwheat, fresh orange juice, parsley, rye bread. And today I signed up for the ABC's of Herbalism with Susun Weed. They'll send me my books and then I can begin.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am finally doing what I have been wanting to do since I was a child and been afraid to do. I am not really sure why I have been afraid, but I was. So I never really talked about it and never took seriously the idea of studying herbs, but now it seems all very normal and about time and I can go into the apothecary here and just buy an herb. Or int he spice shop. Or in the tea shop. Or in my little health food store that i work in. Please check out the Berglandkraueter folks. They have the most beautiful herbs. And they are not too far from here in north Hessen. Hooray!

My uncle, who is my benefactor for this course, has given me the chance to realize this life long yearning. It is quite a thing to be able to do something that one has been secretly longing for since one's childhood. I would play dress up with my friends and then part of whatever adventure we were on thereafter always involved someone becoming ill, or enchanted and needing a magic potion of some sort to be cured. We would gather things in the garden and then troop up to my mother's medicine cabinet in her bathroom and use all sorts of lotions to make it gooey and wet. For some reason, this was a very important part of it. And we always traveled to our magical land on the swing hanging from the maple tree in the back yard. One had to stand up on the swing, however, and go two at a time on it. When I was playing alone, then I made someone up to be with me.

So that is my update on herbal learning and medicine making.